MG Sports Cars

Buddy at work has an 76' MG Midget and wants to sell it for $100. I went out and look at it the other day and it is in bad shape. It is setting in an open field, no motor, top almost gone, convert top rails all rusted, paint peeling off. It looks like one of the floor pans has fell.Windshield broke, side window shot out. Body is straight has no damage, doors open and close good and it still has the trans. They body has rust where the side panels meet with the kicker where Midget loggo is. Do you think its worth restoring? My 11yr old duaghter said she would give him $20 for it.LOL I est. it might cost about $3500 to $5000 to get it back on the road. Also thinking about doing the V6 conversion.

Scott, from your description it's not even worth the time to drive out and look at it. You could easily put $10K into a car like that and still not be done. There are still a lot of pretty good Midget chassis still around, this one is gone to rust heaven I'm afraid. If you are contemplating a V6 or high performance 4 conversion you certainly want to start with a sound chassis, not one that has a lot of rust unless you are planning a tube frame car with just the outer panels hung on it.
A Midget would make an ideal car for your daughter when she's ready to drive and a good project for the two of you, but find one that's in better condition or else she'll be grown, married, and have kids of her own before you finish it. LOL

Bill Young Wrote:
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> Scott, from your description it's not even worth
> the time to drive out and look at it. You could
> easily put $10K into a car like that and still not
> be done. There are still a lot of pretty good
> Midget chassis still around, this one is gone to
> rust heaven I'm afraid. If you are contemplating a
> V6 or high performance 4 conversion you certainly
> want to start with a sound chassis, not one that
> has a lot of rust unless you are planning a tube
> frame car with just the outer panels hung on it.
> A Midget would make an ideal car for your daughter
> when she's ready to drive and a good project for
> the two of you, but find one that's in better
> condition or else she'll be grown, married, and
> have kids of her own before you finish it. LOL

That is sooo true and I don't think we would have it finish in time to make the weddingLOL. She is my grear head and likes hot rods like I do. So I'll keep on looking for a better starting point. Maybe one that actualy rolls. LOL

Parts car?

Dan B Wrote:
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> Parts car?


It would make a good parts car. Like I said the body is straight and has no damage. My biggest fear with the car is the rust under the car and behind the body panels. Stuff you can't see.I know it needs new floor pans all the way back including the seat brackets. Which would require a car craddle to turn it over to install the pans right. I don't have that means of doing that kind of work right now.

Scott from your description it sounds like you might salvage these parts from the car:
Hood, Deck lid, doors, transmission, steering rack, front spindles, rear axle, and some electrical switch etc. Worth $100, probably, some of the switches on the steering column are worth almost that much. As for the rest, only if you have a need or know of a ready buyer to make it worth the labor to strip the hulk and have the rest hauled away. The owner should have it hauled to the scrap yard and let you pick a few items such as the electrical switches for a few bucks. There's just not much market for the rest of it.

You can keep the cost down a lot if you do most of the work yourself. You can build a tube chassis for less than $1200 if you have a rearend. You can narrow a rear cheap if you do it yourself. If you can't weld, just tack everything and then have a friend come weld up the chassis and rearend. Send the axles to Moser. Prices aren't bad. Wire the car like a drag car. Put everything on good toggle switches. or buy a Painless kit for a t-bucket. (8 circuit). Run a junkyard motor until you can build one. Don't use any chrome or powdercoat. You can build this car for less than $5000 if you know how. But only if this is "the car" that you want. If not, then build a rat rod. I built my 59 F100 for less than $4000. And I drove it for 2 years. But I did everything on the truck myself. And I didn't built it to impress the judges.

Steel scrap was going for $50 per 1000 lbs a couple weeks ago. It had been as high as $100 and may be going back up some but probably not that much. Still, it's enough to pay for the trip to the scrap yard after you remove everything you want to keep.

Jim

Parts car- $100. Yes.

A rubber bumper MG Midget is the least of the least in value to begin with BUT I believe they are the best car to convert because they are worthless, the engine bay and gearbox tunnel has been modified to fit the Spitty driveline and the engine bay is strengthened for the impact zones. Using one of these and converting it back to a chrome bumper car would make a good candidate and can commonly be found for less than $1,000 in summer- then install a V6 or something fun.

-BMC.

vegte44 Wrote:
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> You can keep the cost down a lot if you do most of
> the work yourself. You can build a tube chassis
> for less than $1200 if you have a rearend. You
> can narrow a rear cheap if you do it yourself. If
> you can't weld, just tack everything and then have
> a friend come weld up the chassis and rearend.


I can do all the welding myself and can do all the work. So that would pretty much keep the cost down. The car doesn't have a motor and the trans is already out of the car, but comes with it. Installing new floor pans is the big problem. Trying to figure out a way to flip the car to get that done right. Without a rotisserie to flip it over would be a challenge to weld. Do equipment rental places have these to rent out?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2008 11:26AM by Dads Toy.

BMC Wrote:
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> Parts car- $100. Yes..
> Using one of these and converting it back to a
> chrome bumper car would make a good candidate and
> can commonly be found for less than $1,000 in
> summer- then install a V6 or something fun.
>
> -BMC.

I know I can get a V6 and trans with the wireing harreness + EMC from our junk yard for $800. Best price on a used MG motor is $500. So holding out for the fun part of the V6 would be worth it. Just trying to get Mom to free up the money it the hard part. But I am trying to think of this another way. Purchase the MG and sell the parts to fund the project for another car. Wounder how much you could get for parting out the MG Midget?

Scott, you have the bug bad don't you. You really want a Midget hot rod! If this is the car you think you want to start with then you need to get it out of the grass and get a good look at the rockers and chassis from underneath. That will really determine if it's worth the effort, too much rust and you'll basically have to create a new chassis from scratch. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just a real time burner so you need to have patience. My conversion took me 3 and 1/2 years to do on a budget, just couldn't rush things, had to wait for bargains to come along and save money for some of the big items. As far as a rotisserie, you can build one for yourself for less than $300, maybe less if you can get a deal on the steel. I have an article and plans in the Newsletter, just do a search there. I listed the parts earlier, you might be able to make a couple of hundered on the deal if you're real lucky and all the parts are primo. Considering the price of the car, the effort you'll go through to dig it out and transport it to your shop, disassemble it and then sell off the parts, not much return as a money making project I'd guess. Personally, from your description of the car I'd say pass on this one, just not enough there to warrant it as a basis for a project and not enough good parts to really be a money maker.
Be patient, another one will come along that will be much better for you and your daughter.

Scott,
Did you get the private message I sent you concerning an engine
for your Midget? I also answered the other message you have here
"76 midget need motor".

Tracy

Scott, the engine is only the start. You usually need a few tousand in misc. bits and pieces so dont think that $200 over the price of the driveline is going to do it.... Your still going to need LOTS of parts.

-BMC.

Scott

I am not trying to talk you into this but I will tell you this.

When my son was 14 he was into hot rods like myself and was wanting to get a car ready for himself when he got his license. I have always try to teach my children to be self sufficient and not just go spend money on everything especially money that you don"t have, that hard work is rewarding. Anyway when he was 14 he found a S-10 pickup for $50 it was out in a field buried in 2-3 ft of snow He had visions of this truck being something cool. I can tell you this it was a rust bucket not SC rust Michigan rust, the see through kind. He bought the truck and with help and a full days work to get it out of the field and home it became his project. During spring break just my son and I drove down to Florida looking for rust free parts for his project, we found wheels and a box for reasonable money so we cut the two box sides off the box and loaded them in my pickup and drug them back to Michigan. Over the next year he bought new fenders, rockers and door bottoms and learned how to cut a vehicle apart, replace panels, weld and do body work, and then eventually paint. After he turned 16 and started driving it I finally gave into the idea of putting a small block Chevy in it, so we found and old Caprice with a 350 in it and again we drug it home and he stripped the engine and trans out. We rebuilt the engine and the trans (350 Turbo) he did all the work with my help and supervision, and then he eventually got the set put in his truck. He was very proud of this truck and took care of it ( much better than the kids that got a car bought for them) because he new how much work and money (his not mine) went into it.

I cant begin to count how many quality hours that he and I spent on this project, he learned so much, from the mechanical skills to how to do research and how to save or work for something he wanted or needed and developed a true love for custom/modified automobiles,

Today he builds Diesel trucks and competes with them, he and a friend have a small business building low rider (slammed, air bagged) pickups they do all there own suspension and frame mods (four link) as well as all the body work and paint. He doesn't make a living at it yet but I believe he will. He is 21 yrs old and I believe that he is ahead of the game.

This car may not be the one but I hope you find one to build with your Daughter, It can be a great thing for both of you, my sons truck wasn't perfect, but at 16 he thought it was. Good luck.

Joe

Spridget tubs are a pretty sturdy lot IF they are not rotted in the structure floors are no big thing,like Bill said if you can get it where you can look at it underneath and in all the nooks and crannies If its not rotted to the gills $100. is a cheap start for a nice
project.That project that Joe and his son did is great ,good to hear about these things>
Dave Craddock