DH2's Midget Diary

Collection Day

And so the day arrived for the plan to come together, and for me to go an collect the car. Craig arrived bright an early, left me his Passat, and I gave him my Civic to get him into work and back again later. I got packed up, sorted out the tyre pressures on the trailer (one of them was ominously low), and hitched up. The journey up to the Midlands was pretty easy, and my first towing experience was fairly similar, but then it is dual carriageway or motorway most of the way. With an empty trailer, you would barely know it is there really, apart from the trip meter telling me I wasn't getting the best fuel economy for a turbo diesel. Since I'd made good time on the trip up, I decided to get straight into getting the car started and loaded up. First task was the get the spark plugs out of the car, and give it a crank over until we could smell petrol. Then I popped the plugs (which look pretty black, due to having not been run properly for ages) back in, and with a few more cranks, it burst into life. That was easier than I had anticipated, but I should have known really! Before too long we had the car loaded and strapped down onto the trailer. I then had a quick raid on dads tools box, as it was that time for a son to inherit his dads tools... I need to learn about imperial stuff for this car.

The journey back home was pretty easy too, though the additional weight has blunted the performance of the 'rig' somewhat. I was expecting the mpg to go through the floor, but I suppose there's not much additional wind resistance with the little car, it's just on accelerating and braking really, and I just plodded along at steady pace. I made good time though, so was home in plenty of time to get the car unloaded and tucked away in its new home, and drop the trailer back round to Paul. And that's it, a mini adventure for me (I even managed to mostly successfully reverse the trailer twice too!), and a new-old car to keep me occupied for a while. Need to work out where to start now...

First sightings

I received an email today from dad, who had taken a photo of the car for me in its current state. I think they were just about to tackle digging it out of its use as a storage facility - there is plenty of 'stuff' piled up on and in it! Just think of all that lovely space you are going to have by giving me the car! ;-)

Advance Preparations

I've been doing a bit of preparation in advance of the arrival of the MG. First job, which actually occurred as soon as the Westfield had gone, was to have a damn good sort out in the garage. This resulted in some stuff getting binned (mostly boxes and the like from the Westfield build), some stuff getting sold, and the remaining stuff getting tidied.

Once this was done, or mostly done, I decided it was sensible to take advantage of the garage being empty to give the floor a re-paint. The paint has stood up fairly well to 3 years of use, but has lifted where things have impacted or run across it, and where the car used to stand on it. I got some more of the same paint, so it was pretty easy to put a fresh coat on top - though it had to be done in two parts so I could shuffle stuff off the floor. Looks good again.

Another thing which I need to do in advance of collecting the car, is to obtain a new battery for it. Despite the fact that the car has been on the battery charger every day, the battery had finally cried enough the last time I tried to start it. Dad sent me the measurements for it, and I aligned this with what the book suggested at the local motor factors, so that is now on my battery conditioner to ensure it is in peak order. I'm expecting the car to be slightly stubborn to start, as it's not run now for about 6 months, so I think extracting the spark plugs will be in order to allow some easy cranking to get the fuel up (mechanical fuel pump) to refill the float chambers on the carbs. Mental note to take jump leads...

Collection arrangements

So, I've been working behind the scenes to organise how on earth I can get the car from it's current home in the midlands, to it's new home in east anglia. Sounds simple enough, but the car has no tax, MOT, or road insurance (it is insured as laid-up). Still not major barriers, however my other car doesn't have a towbar, and only just about has enough power to drag it's own weight along, let alone an extra tonne of trailer and MG. Ideally I wanted to hire one of those car transporters which are a 'beaver-tail' based on a long wheel base van, but places renting those seem few and far between, pretty much the only option I found was in London, which makes it a bit of a round trip to do in a day.

Fortunately, I know quite a few people with trailers, which they use for transporting various kit/race cars around, and I managed to blag a loan of one for a day (thanks Paul!). That's half the problem solved. Secondly, I needed to find a towcar, and one of my friends very generously offered me the use of his towbar-equipped car for a day (and thanks Craig!). It's slightly more complicated than that, but that's the plan now. I did find one of the local car rental places who would rent me a 4x4 with a towbar for a reasonable sum for a day, but it'll be cheaper to insure a friends car, and then I can give him the balance of the cost for his trouble.

The trailer was dropped round today, and just fits into my garage... and takes up most of it. It's only for a few days though.

Introduction

Hello.

Welcome to my new 'blog' to document the story of my MG Midget. That is probably the only time you will read the word 'blog' here, as it's not necessarily a blog (oops, there it is again!), which would document all sorts of useless stuff, like what I had for breakfast this morning. I prefer to call it a diary, as it will be a series of occasional entries when I do something interesting worth recording here.

Right, that's that out of the way. On with the back-story of me and my Midget... (grab a coffee)

Firstly, me. You may be able to tell that I am affectionately known by most of my "car mates" as DH2, so I have stuck with that name here, as it is probably mostly them who might bother to read this in an idle five minutes. For the reader who doesn't already know about me, read on, otherwise, skip this bit. The keen eyed reader will have worked out my real name by now, and might have also had a sneek around the other areas of my website. If you've not done that yet, there is another fairly large diary there about my previous play car, a Westfield, which was fitted with a Honda Blackbird motorbike engine. I have recently sold that car, after 7 years of fun, fettling and learning. It was time for a change though, and I wasn't (and am still not) sure what might replace it, but in the meantime it's a Midget.

Not just any Midget. In 1985, my father had hit 40, and was working too hard, so of course decided to buy himself a little toy - enter "DJI", an MG Midget 1500 (or MkIV) in Tahiti Blue. As the nickname suggests, the car was first registered in Northern Ireland, which makes its precise history a little hazy, but it is believed to have been 1977 when it first hit the roads of the province (there is no history whatsoever from it's time in NI, the V5 doesn't even record when it was first registered). We believe the car was then repatriated back to England in 1984, where it was owned by a young lady driver for a year or so, before dad snapped it up in 1985.

As a young lad of 11 years, it was this inspired purchase by dad that really ignited my interest in cars, and moreso in getting a bit hands on with them. Whilst I had always been into cars since the first Matchbox arrived in my toy collection, this was a car where I would learn how to get oil under my finger nails on a more regular basis!

Sadly, since dad suffered a stroke and mom did her back in, the car fell out of use in 2004, save for the odd outing when I was able to get back home and drive it. However, even that fell by the wayside, as the cost of keeping on the road, for the use it was getting, didn't make alot of sense. Despite numerous threats to get the car sold (and reclaim the garage space), the car has remained stood since, although the engine has been run on a regular basis. And now I have an empty garage space, and an emotional attachment to DJI, so it will live to drive another day! It will need a bit of recomissioning first though...

(I hope to expand on some of the history when we've had chance to work some of it out, and found out all the old photos etc.)