Me and My Baby MG

Me and My Baby MG

I first saw my baby down at Rue Des Pres trading estate in Jersey parked up and looking abandoned when I was 15 years old. It was then that I realised I loved the shape and style of the MG Midget and started to pester my parents, asking questions about it, as you do at that age. I made them take me down there to see the car whenever we were passing but gradually I noticed the Midget was rotting away with water coming in through the soft top and weeds coming up through the floor. I thought this was a great waste and shame. Throughout my life I have been quite good at saving my money, having worked from the age of 14. At the age of sixteen I had enough money to buy a motorbike, so I could go to visit the Midget as often as I liked. Initially my parents were really keen for me to get this car, for a project and as a good investment since it was not going to devalue like an everyday car and as I was planning on riding motorbikes most of the year it was ideal.

In November my mum found out who owned her and managed to get in contact with him. Mum and dad came to an agreement on a price but told me he was asking too much and did not really want to sell her. They then purchased the car in December and hid it away in a friendís garage. Meanwhile my parents thought it would be funny to drive past where it had been parked up, but now had gone; at this I became really worried. They told me not to worry as there would be others. I knew though that this was my ideal car with the split rear chrome bumper and the rounded wheel arches. Come Christmas day my parents took me to this garage and asked me to give them a hand to move a chest of drawers for them. To my amazement there was the Midget, you should have seen the size of my cheesy grin! She was looking a little sorry but had been polished and there was even a little shine to her. However, there were two slight snags, the first was that my parents had paid for the car but I had to pay most of the money back to them, the second was that she did not run; so I went home without her. On New Yearís day we went down in my dadís car armed with a towing rope. Of course I did not have a licence at 16 so one of dadís friends drove her with me in the passenger seat. Apart from a clean and polish the car sat in the drive at home for the whole of the summer as dad did not have the time to help me work on her. I began to wonder when I would see her going.

Our first job was to get the engine running. When I bought the car I was told that the timing chain had slipped. With my dad we started by checking things like fuel was getting through etc, and then removed the timing chain cover there no metal filings and after consulting the Haynes manual checked it had not slipped. This in a way was bad news because we were left to find out what the problem was. After many evenings of checking things through with new points and spark plugs we managed to get her running although extremely roughly, backfiring more than firing. So we then took the engine out and started work on the rest of the car. What we found was shocking, the floor was rotten all the way through, panel work was paper thin in places, interior was finished and so on. The Midget was turning out to be a major restoration project not a simple case of fixing the engine and minor bodywork as we had at first expected.

During my summer holidays I stripped her down, every nut and bolt necessary for the work to start. When back at school, a lot of evenings were spent working on her. Come half term my dad bought a mig welder and I learnt how to weld. After taking 26 years of mud from under the car I cut the existing rotten floor out and welded in a new one along with patches throughout the car and on the rear shelf. The main chassis was strengthened where it needed to be. Next job for me was to clean and respray the engine and itís bay. The car was then sanded back to the bare metal, panel by panel and sprayed with primer as and when I had the time, after filling in any rust holes. I then had a motorbike crash and work stopped for 8 weeks or so. Now at least I am no longer riding the motorbike, so I have more time to drive my MG.

Following the accident and being old enough to drive a car and no longer wanting to ride motorbikes, I bought an everyday car with the insurance money from my bike. Anyway back to the car, Dad had a spray gun from his student days and decided to have a go at spraying. After spraying one of the doors and doing a good job of it I got him to respray the whole car for me and think he has done a really good job. There are however a couple of panels which are a bit wavy and which I scratched during re-assembly so I want to respray them. Undersealing was my next job and what a fun job that is, being covered head to toe in sticky black paint.

We then put the motor back in and tried to get it going. After many hours we found one of those horrible little blue clips that join two wires together by cutting into them was not making contact, this on the H.T. coil is not a good thing! After fixing that we had our next problem, that she would turnover without firing but then as you turned the ignition off she would fire or backfire as the case maybe. This turned out to be caused by a fault in the ignition wiring. After this we had her running for about 30 seconds when she came to a grinding halt as the gudgeon pins seized up solid inside the pistons so it was time to take the engine out again and put new pistons, rings, bearings and oil pump. While doing this we thought we might as well fit a new clutch in as well, although the old one was not too bad. At least it happened then and not when I had been using the car for a month or so.

After that we got the engine running but not smoothly at all but at least she was running and it felt so good to hea r the motor actually in operation at last. Then it was just a case of putting her back together again with new carpets, hood, seat sponges, covers, bumpers and various other items. I took her for her first drive up the road and back then our next door neighbours came round with a bottle of champagne.

I took her to a local mechanic who tuned the engine for me and told me some of the history of the car as he had worked on her 4 years previously. The Midget was apparently used for classic hill climbs in England before coming to Jersey, which is why she had a roll bar, and Koni adjustable suspension fitted when I bought her. The mechanic also pointed out how she had a gas flowed head and a straight through exhaust pipe so she is a little on the noisy side.

The Midget now lives in our garage and mumís MGF lives outside, at least we have our priorities right! Now she is finished I love driving around in her, she has a kind of sporty feel and everyone looks at you. If I park anywhere there are frequently people looking her over and who have stories to tell about dates they have had and friends who have had a Midget and what they have done with theirs. Although not fully run in yet she does feel fairly quick especially yesterday when I was nearly caught in a thunderstorm when driving her!

I have really enjoyed restoring my Midget, even if she has made me broke and used up a lot of my free time, I have learnt lots. My car is now perfect for me and I am planning on keeping her as long as I can, which will probably be if she gets kicked out of dadís garage. Until then she will be sitting out there as an investment as well as my pride and joy. Insurance is only £180 as well because she is now a classic.

Thanks go to – My mum and dad for their support, help and tools – Bill Painter (Local MG garage) for parts and advice – Sheet Metal Fabrication Ltd for their generosity of materials – Nigel Fryer (Dadís friend) for general advice – Nigel and Graham for lending us their compressor – Jonathan (my next door neighbour) for putting up with the noise and for his general help and support – Michael (good friend) for help and welding expertise.