1979 MG Midget


My dad found this car in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. The engine had been removed by the previous owner three years before. And then he got a divorce, she musta got the car, and it was at his garage. He wanted it GONE, and she didn’t want to deal with him. So here comes my dad looking at it. He talked them down to way below what the ad was asking.... But the deal was we had to get it out of there the next day. When we got it, we rented a u-haul car hauler and borrowed my friend Macklin’s dad’s truck. Well we loaded it up and got the hell out of there before they could stop us.


When we got it home, I started to find out what I had to do to get it back together. It didn’t need much. We decided to freshen up the engine and trans while it was out. I rebuilt the engine and transmission, and did a bunch of little things, and had it back together in three and a half weeks. It took more time waiting for parts than anything else. Not too shabby for my first LBC!(that’s Little British Car for those of you not ‘in the know’) I will get more pictures up as soon as I get them.


Here is a picture of the MG on the trailer when we first got it home. Look how short it is compared to the trailer. It almost didn’t fit on account of it being so skinny. The tires were about an inch and a half away from the center hole in the trailer. We had to tie the hood down with a tow strap because there was no hood catch. We got it home with no problems, other than the loose tonneau cover.

Here is the engine half assembled on the stand, and the intake and carb behind it to the right. On the other side, you can see the box of parts that came with the car. I still don’t know where a few parts go. I painted all the sheet metal on the engine with the “dark ford blue” engine paint that I had around. It is closer to the oil filter color than it looks in the picture. You can see how clean I don’t keep my shop.


In this shot, you can see the engine just after I put it in the car. Dad helped a lot with this. The trans had to slide about 10 inches in above a crossmember. It might have been a better idea to put them in separate, but I got it in with out too much trouble. It took about 30 minutes to get the engine from the stand into the engine bay. Everything hooked back up pretty easily. When I as slapping it all back together, I ran into a few problems. We had to have the radiator re-cored, and the radiator guy put one of the end caps on backward, so I had to take it back. I also didn’t have a few fasteners I needed, so this burned another few hours. I got the radiator back from the shop, and then it went together just fine. I had a frustrating time with getting the engine running right. It ran but not very well, and it sounded like a tractor. I sat out in the barn until 1:30 AM staring at the carb, engine, and everything else for that matter, until I finally figured out what the problem was. When I disassembled the carb to inspect and clean it, I put the slide in backwards(it was my first side-draft carb experience), so it mixed the fuel right, but didn’t shoot it into the engine, it all kept coming out of the air cleaner. I spun the thing around, and the engine roared to life and sounded great. I was so excited, I ran into the house and woke my mom up to tell her I got it running. Let me tell you, she was thrilled. Anyway, so after I told her, I ran back out there and fiddled with things a little bit, then cleaned up and called it a night.


This picture is the day after I got the thing running pretty well. I just had to drive it, so I took it for a few laps around the yard, to “test drive” it. I drove it less the bonnet for a few days, while I was working all the bugs out. I think one of these would look pretty good just like this, after the engine bay was tidied up a little more. Everyone I take for rides thinks that it having three wiper blades is the coolest thing.