Keepers MG Midget
Most people would be happy just to have their car back on the road after a prang, but Ken used it as an excuse to begin a full restoration
‘Ihad always wanted an MG so I searched for months after I retired until this 1275 turned up in 2007, being sold by an MG Owner’s Club member. It was a decent enough example – I did some tidying but really just polished and drove it.
‘Then in 2010 I was on a Yeovil Car Club run at the head of a queue when a modern car hit three of us, ramming the MGC behind me into my back wing. I was able to drive it home but the insurance company wrote it off – so I bought it back.
‘I replaced the nearside rear wing, bumper and taillight, repaired the dented boot floor and returned the Midget to the road. It was then that I noticed that the paint was mismatched across several panels. I also wanted to sort out a few of the rust bubbles, so in October 2015 I put it in the garage and began stripping off the original paint.
‘I then tackled some previous shoddy repairs to the driver’s sill. It had been replaced badly in the past and the driver’s side had sagged, so I jacked it up and heated the sill until it was in the correct place. That repair was completed with the offside floorpan removed, since I’d realised the floor and driver’s footwell were also well rotted. It certainly explained why the accelerator pedal used to move about so much…
‘When I scraped away some more paint I found the seatbelt mounts covered in filler, so they too had to be replaced with new metal. I made up a new offside floorpan from an old door skin, carefully hammering in the correct strengthening areas and swage lines by hand.
‘ When I stripped the engine I found it to be in very good condition. I’m sure it had been re-built in the recent past – it was clearly ported and polished – so I just gave it a good clean. I then hand-painted the engine block and bought a Ford Type 9 gearbox online. I put in a silly high bid then somehow managed to get it for just £80. It turned out that the seller lived in the next street!
‘ When it was time to paint the body, I went over the car with 320-grit sandpaper on a rubber block, then etch primered the MG one panel at a time; I didn’t have the space in the garage to do it all together. Once it was etched primed, I sprayed on four coats of Hi-Build primer and wet-sanded it with 400-grit – that made a hell of a mess, I can tell you!
‘The Midget was back on the road following an MoT in July 2017, but wasn’t properly finished until the following April after all the finetuning was done.
‘I didn’t buy many parts for the restoration – I made pieces from scratch whenever I could. That saved a bit of money along the way.
‘It took a lot of patience and I must thank my wife Chris, who let me stay in the garage seven days a week and also my son Julian for the use of his engine hoist. Having never done a complete re-build before, I was really chuffed when I finished it. I’m now considering doing another one.’