Mk1 MG Midget - RestoMod

[PeteMoore]

Well, as I am now balls deep in the Midget I thought I would pop a thread up on here to document it.

What we have is a 1962 Mk1 MG Midget, these are becoming increasingly hard to get due to all the good shells being used to restore the more desirable and as such more expensive Frogeye Sprite.

The wee car is being built with a few things in mind, first and foremost it must be strong. Every last part of the restoration is pre-meditated, drawn, doodled, calculated and discussed with others to ensure that what I am doing is going the achieve what I want whilst remaining aesthetically pleasing.

That leads me to my second criteria for the car. It's got to be f**kin ****!!!

So, what am I going to do with it? Well due to how I want it finished, and the finished image in my head means it will probably never leave a carpeted garage. Unfortunately my desire to compete in it is also very strong, so auto tests, hills and sprints and perhaps the lanes rallies.

Right, enough of my ****, on with the pics.......

So, this is how I received the car, fresh from being stripped to provide another car with a new heart for competing

The car was the last MG Midget to win the Circuit Retro back in 1992 in the hands of Hill Scott and navigated by Isaac Busby, you can see in the pics the hydraulic handbrake was down the right hand side of the driver, a modification that I could simply not get used to. Luckily the cable handbrake was epic so I used it instead. Again another modification was the rubber stop to prevent the lengthened handle from dropping to the standard position which can be out of immediate reach when you need to find it in a hurry.

Also the wee car ran on twin fuel pumps, switchable on the dash. This came about due to a moment in a three day rally where they were leading it, fuel pump gave up and no replacement was to be found - the rally was lost due to penalties acquired.

So onto a bit of progress. The wee car looked fairly sound, due to past experience I usually work to the rule of 3. For every bit of rust you find there will be three times more hidden. So first was the doors, namely the drivers door where I found 1/2" of filler spread over three layers.

 

[PeteMoore]

More digging revealed a lot more filler, and all covered by lovely tartan red paint, initially I felt kind of bad digging into such a nice paint job, but I soon got over that when I realised the countless bodge jobs that had been carried out over the years

Three blows of the hammer and the lower rear wing repairs just dropped out, nice!

Rear wing had seen countless repairs over the years, very few of which stood the test of time. It wasn't as if it was in daily use either.

My faith in bodyshops is once again confirmed - welded, then use filler to get the right shape - simply not good enough in my opinion, so once again, we have another part of the body to revisit at a later date.

The leading edge of the sills are completely rotten, even worse though was what was hidden behind it, the inner arch, toe-boards and surround metal was a goner. So it got cut, then cut some more

 

[PeteMoore]

So this leads us to the last few days work. In the last photo you can see I roughly cut out all the footwell panels. This was mainly due to rust, but the top and inside panels were brittle and had cracked where the engine steady bar had been mounted. So fresh metal was required, and we now get started on the fun parts

For final dry fit of the inner footwell panel I had to get rid of the remaining bits of panel where they had been spot welded at the factory 50 years ago.

The top of the footwells were planned on being totally smooth, going for the flushed look and simply using flat sheet was going to be nicer and cleaner than modifying replacement panels to Cary off the same look

And from the inside

And a bit closer

Tonight I also started on the 5-piece bulkhead, again continuing the smooth theme, but doing 5-piece using folded seams between the pieces will replace any rigidity lost from replacing the original panel

 

[PeteMoore]

Sorry, there are a few pics repeated, trying to do all the image posting from the iPad but not very successfully

 

[PeteMoore]

So I got started on the new bulkhead panels, then fell ill with some form of stomach bug

So this was how I went out to it today

And from the back.

Now, for some reason this all seemed like a good idea the other day, well thankfully I saw some sense, and have decided to go with a 3-piece bulkhead instead.

So after some tidying, a bit more cutting and bending and we now have the beginnings of the 3-piece bulkhead

IMO much neater, smoother and when I weld in the new scuttle panel support will be much strong than anything that was there before

And that's how I left it today

Hopefully I get a chance over the weekend to do some more providing this stomach bug doesn't come back with the force it did over the last few days.

 

[yucholian]

This reminds me of the 67 Sprite I had.
Lots of rust and by the time I got done, it had a lot of new metal in her.

 

[Jagmandave]

I went thru a very similar discovery process on my E-Type Jag, one chunk was 3" thick on the nose where they'd simply filled in where someone had bumped something and pushed it in that far!

On the rear quarters behind the wheels it was epic thick!

I was fortunate that I could get new Martin Robey panels for everything I needed. If you want to waste 10 minutes looking, here's a quick writeup I did on it all those years ago....

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/505677/1969-jaguar-xke

Good luck on your project, but it looks to be in good hands!

BTW, I raced a MkII sprite in the SCCA, in the late 60's. My number was 13HP, which we used to say was about right! (13 horse power )

 

[wornoutoldman]

Are you certain you don't want to turn it into a sprite?

 

[geologist]

Looks like a fun project regardless of all the bog.

 

[PeteMoore]

This reminds me of the 67 Sprite I had.
Lots of rust and by the time I got done, it had a lot of new metal in her.

I had a 67 up until a month ago, it wasnt so bad, but my heart lay with the Mk1, so I sold it and brought the Mk1 back to the grarage instead. Any pics of yours?

I went thru a very similar discovery process on my E-Type Jag, one chunk was 3" thick on the nose where they'd simply filled in where someone had bumped something and pushed it in that far!

On the rear quarters behind the wheels it was epic thick!

I was fortunate that I could get new Martin Robey panels for everything I needed. If you want to waste 10 minutes looking, here's a quick writeup I did on it all those years ago....

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/505677/1969-jaguar-xke

Good luck on your project, but it looks to be in good hands!

BTW, I raced a MkII sprite in the SCCA, in the late 60's. My number was 13HP, which we used to say was about right! (13 horse power )

Dave, I would love to see the pics of your old SCCA car, I am about to start into editing a video of the weekends motorsport so I will grab hal an hour later tonight or tomorrow and have a gander through your E-Type build, god knows how much I want an E-Type to add to the collection

Are you certain you don't want to turn it into a sprite?

Most definitely not, plenty of sprites about, and the Mk1 Midget or Mk2 Sprite is now rarer than the frogeye, plus I am an MG man through and through, the only way I would have a Frogeye is in the same guise as 410EAO which was built by a friend of mine.

Looks like a fun project regardless of all the bog.

Thanks dude, its certainly interesting going through and repairing 50 years of poor workmanship and "that'll do" repairs.

 

[Jagmandave]

On top of the dodgy body repairs, I got a surprise when I finally got around to tearing the engine down (in for a penny.....) I had been driving the car for several months and it ran well, didn't seem to smoke or burn oil, had good power and didn't overheat, so I figured a quick freshen up and new seals and good to go.......Ha!

I pulled the head and found three cylinders completly beat to shite, like rings had broken and banged around in the head for a while, then they'd pulled the head, cleaned out the broken chunks, and simply bolted it back on again!

When the pistons came out there were chunks of rings missing, as well as some bits of the ring land gone too.....it was a mess!

Several thousand in machine shop fees later it was good as new again.....

I think I may have one or two pics of the old racecar, I'll have to dig around a bit to find them, but that was in the late 60's like I said, so I doubt I have more than a couple.

 

[IONH]

Great pictures, thanks for sharing.

I have a 80 B LE for 15 years now. I also have a 75 Midget which was parked since 1980 in some other guy's car and now in mine for about 3 years now... someday I'll get to it.

 

[Ric in Richmond]

I had a early 70s midget.

Built by a guy named Mountjoy in MD in the 80's. I bought it when the emissions rules in northern va killed the ability to register it.

Glass removable front flares, glass hood, glass rear flares, tube shocks, springs, panhard rod with heim joints, big sway bars with heim joints.

1275 with light flywheel, big cam, belt drive cam, big valves, weber 45dcoe, MSD, race distributor, headers and exhaust.

Basically a F production race car for the street.

Very fun to drive, with huge limits. Terrifying on the street as it was less visible than a motorcycle it was so low.

When I moved from the country to the city I sold it on. Very fun while it lasted!!!

 

[gtiboy66]

Nice Job, I come from a Family of Sprites and Midgets. I have a bunch of doors if you wanted to replace one. Not sure where your located though. I have a 58 Bugeye and a 72 Midget ex SCCA racer.

 

[PeteMoore]

Thanks for the words guys, would love to see pics of all these old sprites and midgets

As for updates, I'll put a seperate post for each update I had last week

The welding has started.

It basically got to the point where unless I started welding something into the car it was just going to flop apart into a bit heap on the floor.

My main concerns at the minute are the replacement of main structural items such as the crossmember and sills. The reason these are concerns are down to the fact that the cross member needs to weld to the inner sill, the inner sills need the be cut out and replaced, but these weld to the a-pillar, again, a panel and structure I wish to replace.

So what I am doing is cutting out the crossmember, welding in the new one, to the chassis legs. This should allow me to safely remove the sills and replace them, welding only to the structure at the back and to the crossmember.

Once those two are happily in place, I can then remove the a-pillar, leaving the fresh footwell panels in as strength and weld in the new pillar and the structure behind it.

I hope it's as easy as I say it is when it comes to stopping the shell from bowing. We shall see when the time comes.

Anyhow, I now have the footwells in, welded, and all the welds linished so it's all pretty again, thankfully with no warping of the panels I also have the transmission tunnel cut out. I stopped by Montgomery Motorsport to measure up my desired tunnel only to find the wide end is too wide and the shallow end isn't tall enough for the 200mm high tunnel that the Midget needs as an ****** only runs a 115mm tall tunnel. So back to the drawing board and further depletion of the sheet steel stock in the garage.

All in all, I am happy with the progress, but I now loathe spot welds!!!

 

[PeteMoore]

Photos, as promised...

New panel for the bulkhead where it meets the transmission tunnel, made more as a test piece to see how I wished to continue. This will not be welded into the car due to my new tunnel, a new panel will be made instead

Previously the car was running a Toyota T50 gearbox and as such some modification was done to the tunnel and to the crossmember underneath, none of which was pretty

So once again, we're back to the same old saying, OTF!!!

So this is what's left of the tunnel, as for the rear bit, it will be gone in good time, but I needed a reference point for the front half of the tunnel to begin

This was a bit of a ball ache, begins that there are two sharp creases to maintain rigidity which then needed to blend into a smooth round shape for the rear half of the tunnel. But it is one step towards my desired shape and size, giving plenty of room for the type 9 whilst not taking up too much cockpit space

And here is the front part just thrown in for the photo, this will then have the panel at the beginning of this post flanged to suit and they can then be welded together. This will bring back the longitudinal rigidity which is currently missing from the car. But before it goes back in, the crossmember must be replaced whist it's easily got to.

The footwell is now a permanent fixture

And this is how I left it last night before a well deserved shower then bed

Anyway, hope it's still slightly entertaining to those of you still reading.

 

[IONH]

Looks great.

Can you link pictures so that we can click them to view larger ones? Those were not very big for anyone who may want to see the detail of your work.

 

[mtkst19]

how is it no one commented on the Urq in the background?

What year is it? I have an 83 myself.

 

[PeteMoore]

IONH, I will try in the future, but everything was being uploaded from my ipad, so i didnt have much choice in the matter, only a direct link to the resized image, which i then placed into the posts.

mtkst19 - it isnt mine, it belongs to a friend who was storing the midget temporarily, I know little to nothing about it apart from knowing it is a UR.

 

[PeteMoore]

IONH, I will try in the future, but everything was being uploaded from my ipad, so i didnt have much choice in the matter, only a direct link to the resized image, which i then placed into the posts.

mtkst19 - it isnt mine, it belongs to a friend who was storing the midget temporarily, I know little to nothing about it apart from knowing it is a UR.

 

[PeteMoore]

Well today I got back to work with the welder

The whole passenger footwell is now stitched in

New heater tray is cut and folded, but waiting for drivers footwell before peding in permanently

Work almost complete on the transmission tunnel

Stitch welding is visible here, along with the new tunnel being fitted up

Beginning the hydraulic handbrake ount which will sit down the passenger side of the new tunnel

And in position ready to be welded once the crossember is replaced

Dry fit almost complete, wish I had the new crossmember to allow welding to commence

Thats it for today folks

 

[PeteMoore]

Well, things took a turn for the worse, after much head scratching as to why the new crossmember wasn't fitting, even more measuring it turns out the shell was actually 23mm out of square. Not what I wanted to find!!!

Even more gutting is that all the current fabrication is now useless.

Not to be put off, I grabbed some tubing, built a jig and the plans now involve building the car from the ground up.

So here's the beginning of the jig,

And here we have the beginning of the new "square and true" Midget. At least now I don't have to worry about making a bent car straight, just got to knuckle down and get this to resemble a car at some point soon

 

[Jagmandave]

Do they make "Heritage" replacement shells for these now, like they do for Jags and Minis?

 

[PeteMoore]

Yeah they do

The problem being is that a heritage shell, although very good, isn't what I want.

Heritage only make shells to suit the Mk3 onwards, so for the Mk1 my options are either a shell built by Brian Wheeler (associate of Archers Garage I believe) for somewhere around £8k and then wait 3 or 4 years for him to do it or get a Californian shell and repair it.

Neither option is cheap, nor will it provide me with an out of the box shell ready for the competitive side of life, so my only option if I wish to remain in a Mk1 is to build it myself to my own spec and in whatever manner I see fit.

Heritage shells currently weigh in at £5500 in primer

 

[digdug18]

Funny I just gave a '65 sprite away for free last year, with all kinds of spare parts, extra 1275 engine and all. It was my fathers 1st sprite, was backed into in a gas station, just the right fender was smashed. My father ended up just buying a '67 sprite, cheaper to buy then repair.

I was thinking of keeping the '65 and dropping in a subaru awd drivetrain, had one lying around, but ended up going in a different direction.

And your right the mk1 midget and mk2 sprite cars are getting rare, but the problem still exists that they aren't worth anything, even fully restored your looking at ones for $6k. Where as the bugeye's are double that for a fully restored car.

Andrew

 

[Lippyp]

Theres a good few of these now with Rover K series engines in, a nice way to up the power but keep the same feel.

 

[PeteMoore]

Not so much an update on the car, more a refresher for my driving.

Will offered me a dual entry into last nights Police Motor Club autotest just up from Carrickfergus Castle.

Still waiting on the results to see how I did, but being in a class against the westfields and having not driven competitively for almost a year I wasn't expecting to be able to compete with them.

 

[fergus]

Nice driving!

 

[racer-john]

So this leads us to the last few days work. In the last photo you can see I roughly cut out all the footwell panels. This was mainly due to rust, but the top and inside panels were brittle and had cracked where the engine steady bar had been mounted. So fresh metal was required, and we now get started on the fun parts

For final dry fit of the inner footwell panel I had to get rid of the remaining bits of panel where they had been spot welded at the factory 50 years ago.

The top of the footwells were planned on being totally smooth, going for the flushed look and simply using flat sheet was going to be nicer and cleaner than modifying replacement panels to Cary off the same look

And from the inside

And a bit closer

Tonight I also started on the 5-piece bulkhead, again continuing the smooth theme, but doing 5-piece using folded seams between the pieces will replace any rigidity lost from replacing the original panel

no pictures. Those references did not show upin the original post :

 

[jimgood]

no pictures. Those references did not show upin the original post :

It's over 4 years old. Consider it dead.

 

[bsg]

The OP hasn't posted since January of 2015.......

Kevin

 

[racer-john]

That's a shame, it was an interesting saga.