I wasn't going to remove this panel just yet, but after discovering the rust on it last week I became curious as to what was behind it. So, out came the trusty socket set and I went to work on it yesterday. It is secured with 22 No 10mm bolts and an additional pair of 10mm nuts onto threaded studs, these are a pain to get out, more on this in a minute...
This is a close up shot of the worst of the rust on the rear panel. Incidentally, this part is officially known as "Bulkhead and Weld Stud Assembly - Front Passenger" - Whilst being very descriptive, I am NOT writing this every time (it'll take ages!), hence the 'rear panel' name in the description!
Apart from the shear amount of bolts that secure this panel, some of them are more tricky to remove than others. This was a bit of a surprise to me, you see I was expecting to have trouble with the rusty bolts at the bottom, but these were fortunately not too far gone. Behind this panel is a membrane which is stuck the the car with some horrible black mastic type stuff. This is liberally applied and some of it was over the bolt holes. This meant that as the bolts were withdrawn, they collected some of this mastic on the threads which, due to the spiral motion of undoing the bolts, became wrapped in this horrible black sticky stuff - yuk!
With all the bolts and the two nuts removed, you next need to manoeuvre the panel off of the pair of threaded studs the nuts were fixed to (top left of the picture). The panel has studs welded to it (to take the carpet clips) and a pair of holes that locate onto a pair of studs welded to the car. I was able to grasp one of the panel studs and use it to pull the panel over the studs welded to the car as shown in the picture.
Once over the studs, the panel just lifts out to reveal the membrane behind it. I am thinking of buying a new membrane and using the old one on the face of the rear panel to separate it from the sound deadening material and hopefully help prevent the rust re-occurring.
The membrane just peels off and once it had been removed i got my first view of an MGF petrol tank. You can see from the picture that is is made of plastic and is a very odd shape, it is also larger than i had anticipated, especially when you consider that the opposite face is vertical, meaning that it is triangular in section. It is also IMMEDIATELY behind the membrane, which is itself immediately behind the rear panel. So, all you budding I.C.E. installers, it is NOT a good idea to drill the panel in order to mount your amps, autochangers etc.