The Saga Begins, Part 2

By 2004, the car was getting a little bit scary to drive.  I was only driving it on surface roads as the body was beginning to flex a bit too much for my liking.  I figured the repairs my dad did back in the eighties were finally giving up the ghost, so I decided to begin a teardown and full restoration of the body shell.

Note that we had just had our daughter at the time, and I was foolish enough to think that I'd have time to do this and still have a life.  Go ahead, say it.  Duh.  That didn't happen.

I did do a bunch of teardown but barely started on the body itself.

 

 

There's some serious ugly under here; I just didn't know it yet.

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The Screen Door

My father-in-law needed a new screen door, so I thought it would be funny to bring it over in "that piece of s**t".

These pictures remind me of two things:

1. The car was still on the road after my daughter was born (though not much long thereafter);
2. I'm an idiot.

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Munchkin Loves to Drive

Here's my best little guy, Munchkin Little, all buckled up and ready for a road trip!

I never actually took him anywhere like that, never fear.

I miss my Munchie.  We lost him in 2013 at the age of 14.

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In The Interim

I got married in 1999, and Julia and I moved to Chicagoland (Schaumburg, where I was living at the time).  The Midget joined us there for the winter.  This was not a good idea, as I would find out much later.

After the coldest winter in forever, we moved to sunny Peoria, AZ.  And by sunny, I mean 120 degrees.  Wow.

The MG came along for the ride.  My father-in-law took one look at it and said, "You should get rid of that piece of s**t." (He still says that.  He's Italian.  Since it's not an Italian car, it's a piece of s**t.  Don't anyone tell him about Fiat.)

Once we settled in, I did some small stuff on the car.  I replaced the front and rear axles with a bolt on set (I still have the wire wheel axles and wheels in the attic).  Here's a couple of choice photos of that glorious time.  In the end, I think it came out pretty nice.  It made the car much more driveable as the wire wheels were getting out of true.

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The Good Old Days

Here's a pic of me and my girlfriend at the time.  I ended up marrying her.  And no, I'm not talking about the car.  But check out the hair on that guy.  Oof.

It's been 17 years since that photo.  It's been good.

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The First Time Around

When I was 17, I got the itch to get that old car in the back of the garage on the road again.  I had a cool car--a Tomato Red 1980 Renault Le Car (Note: sarcasm evident)--but that little MG just begged me to get it rolling.  It was the cylinder head that had cracked and the rest of the car was rotting away.

My dad found a used cylinder head somewhere (a 12G295 head--which I had reworked later on and still have) and I began disassembling the engine.  My dad did a lot of bodywork, buying a cheap MIG welder and floor pan repair panels, outer rocker sills, and some sheet metal, and welded and brazed the body back together so it was roadworthy.  I rebuilt the engine and front suspension.  I remember my dad hoisted the front of the car up to the rafters, with the back still on the ground--the car was at a 45 degree angle and he welded the floor pan patch that way.

My parents knew I worked hard and really wanted the Midget. They gave me a front suspension kit and the keys for my birthday.

I remember when we put everything back together under the hood.  It was late at night but I didn't want to go to bed... so we fired it up and got it running.  It was amazing to hear it run--I didn't remember what it sounded like.  I don't know if he did, either, but it was a very happy moment for us both.

My dad used to own a concrete/construction business.  He bartered with our neighbor, who happened to own a vintage auto restoration shop, and for the price of a sidewalk I got a paint job in a real paint booth.  My dad painted the car.  I remember driving the car to the shop, sloooowly, and then back, even more slowly.

We finished sometime in 1991 and I drove the Midget for another few years.  I remember working on it in the parking lot of my apartment complex, replacing a timing chain (which is no fun any time, but I don't recommend doing so in a parking lot).  I had problems with the carbs getting gunked up which I finally traced to crud in the fuel line, having neglected to clean it out back in 1990.  But hey, it was a fun ride and I rarely saw another British car on the road, other than a gorgeous XKE and once a Mini.

After a while, the engine developed a case of low oil pressure (premature bearing wear--hey, it was my first time).  We happened to have the original block as the one in the car was apparently 'extra' when my dad bought it.  So I rebuilt the original engine, paying close attention this time, and by all accounts I did good.  That motor would pull to redline in 4th gear, and if I could have hit 88 I think I would have gone back in time before it exploded.

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In the Beginning...

This is a picture of me in my dad's car, a 1965 MG Midget, in Sussex, WI sometime in 1975.  I'm 3 years old.

My dad bought this car, on a trailer and in boxes, for $300. He almost got rid of it, because Mom said "put it together or get rid of it!"

My parents drove this car to Atlanta and had to come back early because my grandpa had a stroke.  On the way back, the engine would cut out and then fire back up, over and over.  They drove for hundreds of miles that way... turns out it was a bad condenser.

My parents drove this car in good weather and bad, and at one point it was our only running vehicle.  My brother and I were stuffed in the "back seat" (parcel shelf) while my mom drove us to the grocery store and back... NO WAY would that ever happen today!

Once we moved to Wautoma, Something Bad happened and the Midget got parked in the back of the garage.  My brother and I used to pretend to drive it.  We moved it to my grandmother's garage for storage, but when she died we moved it back to our house.  I remember watching the road through what should have been the driver's floorboards on the way back home.

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