Well, here goes...two stories:
1) I picked up a '73 Midget from the original owner. Car had been a street
car, then a racer, and then taken apart.
What is now sitting in the barn is a great mostly rust-free Midget on Comsics
with nice wide fender flares, with
the 'glass bonnet, boot lid, and front fenders up in the garage rafters.
Engine is in many pieces, with some
really nice .060 competition pistons and all... Car came with all sorts of TRS.
2) A couple of summers ago I traded two VW engines for a pair of Spitfires.
One, a '67, was a race car back
in the day, had a plexiglass windscreen, tiny seat, "Y" style 2" harness, all
sorts of old skool stuff. After researching
a bit I found that the road racers stay(ed?) away from the 1500s due to their
love of barfing out con rods....BUT
the Spitfire autocrossers prefer the 1500 for torque...
And I thought "hmmm, I like torque... and I've got a rubber bumper Midg with
rotted floors and decent running
engine...", and it seems to be a lot easier these days to find 1500s for
cores/parts than 1275s (maybe I'm
not looking in the right places?). First off I just want to get an engine in
the thing to I can play with and move
it around easier. You know how it is, it is so much easier to put effort in to
a car that can start and move
than just a shell. The long term thought is if I can make the 1500 strong
enough, maybe it is the way to go.
-Keith Wheeler
Team Sanctuary
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dodd, Kelvin" <doddk@mossmotors.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 11:06 am
Subject: RE: Midget 1275 to 1500?
> Keith:
>
> Which way are you going??
>
> Back in my scrapyard days, we had a perfect body rubber bumper MG
> Midgetcome in with a trashed engine and gearbox. Since these bits
> were in
> high demand, we ended up stuffing a 1275 backed up with a Datsun B210
> box into it. The conversion was pretty straight forward and the car
> looked totally stock. It made a very drivable, enjoyable car and
> it was
> sold without much problem. I often wonder what happened to that car,
> and how many problems the future owner had getting parts like oil
> filters for it.
>
>
>
>
> Kelvin Dodd
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