Midget as found

After finishing a TR6 restoration back in 1998, I hankered after something else and a friend who I had known on and off for a few years happened to say he was selling his old MG Midget. It was now quite tired and he needed a modern car for longer journeys.

Knowing how long he had owned the car, I went and had a look and found myself coming away with my 3rd and rather tatty MG Midget.

Good points…er, it was a clear day when I looked at it, so I can say my eyesight was not an issue. Just the resounding question of my sanity.

The body was not too rusty, but the back end was fairly religious underneath and exorcism with a suitable angle grinder was going to be required. The sills/floor had been replaced some years before so these were not too bad, requiring only remedial work.

Horrors beneath, this is the near side rear chassis leg

Inside back wing

Considerable amount of panel work had to be replaced

Mechanically it was worn out, the engine ran on three cylinders, the gearbox was a screamer, and the shocks had more bounce than Tigger on a pogo stick. Internally it required a complete re-trim and the roof had been slashed.

I took it for an MOT just to check what needed doing. The local garage gave me a few funny looks as if to say “you want us to MOT that rust bucket?”, while sharpening their best screwdriver…. I came away with a long list of failures… I’m sure that the MOT technician just ran out of room on the paperwork.

Luckily my grandmother had a nice empty double garage and there I parked it for the next five years….

I started with the body. The back end was rotten and dented. So out came the angle grinder and in went lots of new metal and rear panels. The filler on the rear panel was about 1cm think in places. I also replaced quite a bit of the underside of the boot floor in the usual Midget rust spots by making my own repair panels from scrap, which was very satisfying. I also tackled the A posts in a similar way. The old ones were bubbling rust everywhere, but luckily it was just the outer skins and lower sections that needed replacing. The floors, inner/outer front wings, doors and bonnet also required the attentions of the welder, needing minor repairs.

Next came the big strip down. Everything came off the car and it was stripped bare. It’s funny how you always find old coins and junk under seats and in places you would not expect. All the parts were duly put in boxes, but somehow you always end up with a pile of nuts and bolts without a home.

No wanting to tackle the big mechanical jobs, I sent the engine and gearbox off to local specialists to be rebuilt. I had the engine converted to run on unleaded petrol at the same time. These were duly returned, fitted with a new clutch, and put to one side after painting.

The paintwork on the car was very poor and the only way to get a good finish was to strip it all. Red appeared not to be the original colour, as I found white paint under the dashboard trim. I chose Tartan Red as the new colour. The body went to a local spray shop after having the engine bay sandblasted. I set about stripping all the panels by hand to help the body shop. Because the car was such a big job, the body shop took ages and fitted it in between other jobs. I eventually got the car back after almost 12 months and a bit of nagging.

While the car was away, I spent quite a bit of time repairing and restoring all of the other parts, too numerous to mention. I took the seats apart and rebuilt them with new material and covers, and I also took the dashboard and trim apart. I re-sprayed the dashboard with the correct wrinkle finish paint, cleaned up the instruments and re-fitted them.

Re-assembly can begin

Refitting front suspension

Professional respray

Fitting rear axle

With the car returned, the engine and gearbox were very carefully put back into the car with the help of a friend. It took a little while, but after some fiddling it all went back into place. It looked great against the shiny new engine bay. I then set about refitting all the engine bay components that I had been cleaning, repainting and repairing. A pair of newly rebuilt carbs looked great. I had to take great care not to scratch the newly painted wings, so I draped old sheets everywhere.

Attention now turned to the suspension. I cleaned, painted and replaced most parts and decided to keep it all as standard. The original springs fitted at the front were different lengths so new ones were duly bought, painted and fitted into the newly assembled front suspension.

The same thing went for the rear. The car had a slight list to the driver’s side so it was new springs and a rebuild kit.

I prefer wire wheels on old cars, and wanted them on my MG. I bought some 13” wires and front splined hubs from the local paper, but the wheels fouled the brake callipers, so I sold them on. An MG enthusiast I know through the local yacht club came up with a complete set of wires with hubs and a back axle. The wheels were sent off for blasting and came back looking great. The axle required a coat of paint before re-fitting with new suspension and the hubs needed a new set of bearings and a clean. Again, through the local paper I managed to find some interesting spinners, which set the car off a treat. They are polished brass, rather than chrome, and look great against the red paintwork and silver wheels.

Then the interior went back in with new carpets, trim, seat belts, recovered seats and a new steering wheel as the original had fallen apart.

The exterior trim and lights came next and some of the wiring was in a sorry state. The car had been fitted with an alarm and fog lights in the past, neither of which I had re-fitted to the car. This old wiring had to be separated out and binned. I did keep the front driving lights, though not the original ones. I got them from a friend and then I made some brackets for them to utilise the front bumper mounts instead of drilling holes in the chromework.

The original bumpers were quite tatty and putting them back on the car would have let it down. The rear bumpers were renewed and mounted on the original brackets, but I managed to find a good replacement front bumper and over riders on e-bay.

While talking about e-bay, it’s a good source of cheap MG parts although I do notice that some people get carried away and sometimes pay more for things than they cost new! I did buy some parts from here, including a reasonable hood already mounted on a hood frame, but most things came from recommended MG suppliers.

Engine bay

Roll bar

Original factory style hard top makes a Midget an all-weather sports car

Highly presentable interior

The finished project

It was the final pieces of the project that took the longest and which proved the most frustrating. The car sat almost finished in my grandmother’s garage for two and a half years while I took the opportunity to buy and renovate my first house, get married, and take an unscheduled six months out to travel New Zealand after being made redundant. Luckily the Mrs knows my passion for old cars, and I’m sure she will enjoy it too.

While away on the other side of the world, my grandmother moved house, so I lost the car’s storage space! On my return the work continued in my own single garage after having the car temporarily rescued and moved by the local garage on a car transporter.

I did experience a few worried moments during the re-build and I could have filled a good sized swear box. For a while I could not get the gearbox to engage reverse and I believed that the re-builders had made an error. Fortunately I removed the reversing light switch and discovered that it was screwing in just a fraction too far. This somehow stopped the gear lever selecting reverse. One thick washer later and it was fine, which was a great relief. I didn’t want to have to remove the engine and box just to find that out…

After some adjustment of the brakes and checks on lights, the car was towed to my local garage to get it running and give it an MOT. I’m not good with timing and tuning, so I leave all that to the experts. Some minor adjustments were required, it passed, and I took it for its first drive.

I could not stop grinning and I was only doing 25 MPH. The engine and gearbox are still a little tight, but are getting better with use and the straight through stainless exhaust sounds great. This is the car that I have so far owned the longest and yet have driven the least.

Three jobs, two girlfriends, one marriage, two dislocated discs, one house renovation and a six month trip around New Zealand later, it’s finished.

Now I need a house with a bigger garage, pit, spray booth and..

Nick Oliver

Nick with his fully restored MG Midget