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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Repairs to Hardtop

Hi. I am new to this forum so I hope I have posted this in the correct section. My son has recently bought a mk4 Sprite and hardtop. The hardtop has damage to the surface. Can anyone give us advise how best to repair the area.
Thanks for any help.
Brian

Brian Paddon

Hi Brian

Depending on how bad the damage is, you may need to repair with fibreglass mat, or tissue, with resin, or it may just need some body filler.

It might be worth having a look at youtube to see if there are any helpful videos.

Alternatively, are there any boat repairers in your part of Devon, who may be able to advise?
Dave O'Neill 2

Have a look at Econobox garage on You Tube there is a guy who has been restoring his Frogeye fibreglass top .
Mike Fairclough

welcome here Brian,
You have a photo of the whole hartop just to see what model top it is?
A de Best

x 2 for looking at You Tube for some 'how to' videos.

When ordering materials I'd recommend not skimping on consumables such as brushes, mixing pots and so on. Having spares will come in handy.
Karl Thompson

Don't order to much resin as it doesn't keep as it self polymerises over time, keeping it cool will help extend the usable life but SWMBO may not like it in the fridge/freezer.

The catalysed resin cure is exothermic so if you have enough left over it can spontaneously ignite so leave it somewhere safe until it has fully cured and cooled down.
David Billington

Hi Brian

Welcome to the forum - it is helpful, informative (including the searchable archive threads) and often fun.

The way to do this is to get an 80 grit abrasive paper disc on a rubber wheel on your able grinder - making sure you have a good dust mats, gloves and eye protection - and carefully do a very shallow angle feather of the edge into good grp and then laminate 2 or 3 layers of chopped strand mat (CSM) fibreglass that you have cut to size with each later wetted through with polyester resin (wearing gloves), finishing off with a layer of Glassfibre tissue - wait for these grp laminated repairs to fully cure and then a small amount of ordinary body filler and then paint. I’ll post some articles on how to do this from grp guru Mike Wilkins.

Do you have any pictures and info on spec of the car for interest please?

Cheers
Mike

M Wood

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies. My son is away at present so I will get him to update the forum when he returns.
Brian
Brian Paddon

This thread was discussed between 27/02/2026 and 04/03/2026

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