Mk 1 Project Zippy. Looking Like a Car.

If you're taking on the task of rebuilding the whole Midas, please put the project in here.

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Re: Mk 1 Project (Gonna Take A While!)

Postby mikeeskriett » Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:28 am

Hi,

Also dont forget to make sure that the slot in the crank/flywheel is horizontal. This ensures that the the C clip that retains the Primary gear doesn't drop out, particularly on a vetro clutch if it drops down it can prevent the flywheel coming off and then you're into a world of pain.

Cheers,

Mike
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Re: Mk 1 Project (Gonna Take A While!)

Postby MrBounce » Sun Jun 26, 2011 4:03 pm

Well the gearbox is now off the block and has been put to one side for Shaun to take away. It was a bit reluctant to come apart at first. I thought this was a bit strange as the last 3 times I'd split an engine and box it had been easy. It was then I realised this was because I'd had an engine hoist to help... So rather than drive 15 miles to my friend's house I laid the engine on its side and beat the hell out of the join with a rubber mallet until it started to come apart. Gravity then took control and helped the box off :D

The crank and pistons turned nicely in their bores so at least it's not seized. It's now on Ebay if anyone on here fancies rebuilding it ? :?: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Small-Bore-Classi ... 45fb77363d

So here it is, upturned on the sackbarrow ready to be taken to its new owner once the auction's over.

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Close-up of the crank :)

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Gearbox showing a rather alarming amount of sludge in the bottom... :shock:

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Once the engine and box go I'll have a bit more room in the garage so may be able to get started properly! :lol:
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby MrBounce » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:12 pm

Well the gearbox is still here but pushing it under the rear of the car gave me a bit of room to wander round. Thought I had better clear out all the stuff that was in the boot (bags of spares such as a complete set of new brake pipes ready for bending, poly bushes for the tie-bars and engine steady, a top arm, two front hubs, a couple of lights, springs, an LCB, a gear selector and some small fibreglass panels). These have all been carefully stored away so Mr Clumsy here doesn't break them.

Someone had put an aerial on the roof at some point. I will need to replace it as the whole thing is a rotten mess. Lovely.

I then turned my attention to the interior. Oh dear. It is not pretty. The boot area appears to have lots of paint peelings in it but from what I am not sure. The front carpets are hideously damp and one of the mats in the car has what appears to be a new species of plant growing on it. All the seals are perished and need replacing - the sunroof being a case in point!! The dashboard is something I am really unsure about: as it's an early Midas I kind of want to keep it, but I don't really like it that much. Am tempted to modify it or make my own. The steering wheel is truly hideous and will have to go. As for those seats, they do tilt forward. I've never seen ones like them before and I do not know what they're out of - possibly an unusual 2+2 late 70's coupe. Mazda RX3? 260Z? Maybe even something like a Renault 17? Whatever, they're hideous and need to die. :twisted:

Underbonnet is not so bad. The radiator is supposedly from an Allegro according to the previous owner but I'm not so sure. It looks like it's had a leak at some point so it'll come out and I'll hopefully get something newer from the scrappy which is about the same size but more efficient. Fusebox looks relatively new but I'm looking to move this inside the car so will probably replace it with one that'll take blade fuses. For some reason the choke cable exits right next to the battery area. That is going to be completely re-done as it's likely to get crushed where it is. My favourite though is the washer bottle and pump. Looks like it came from an early 80's Mitsubishi - I've never seen one before but it looks like a well designed bit of kit and one of the few parts I will definitely keep!

Boot area now clear:

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It's nasty under those hideous seats :shock:

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New species of plant! :o

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Ruined sunroof seal :shock:

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What to do with that dashboard??? :?

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Rad of unknown origin

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Battery tray

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Aerial Stub :(

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Funky washer bottle! :P

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The job list is getting longer... :lol:
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby Hans Efde » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:50 pm

When you install new carpets make sure the car is weatherproof. In contrast what is believed, it IS possible to make a coupe watertight. But you have to do a few small mods. The most important ones can be found on my website www.midascars.net under the button "technical". I've tried to copy and paste the info:

qte
KEEP YOUR FEET DRY (NO MORE WET DREAMS).

I have a Midas Gold coupé mark 3 that is sitting outside whole year long. The first thing I discovered is that a Midas may not be completely waterproof. So the first years I drove around with the soundproofing replaced by towels, which I changed every now and then. But still the car would fog up quite badly during the autumn and winter period.

Now four years later I have been able to get my car waterproof for 99,9% with a number of modifications. Although several are typical for the coupé, especially the door modifications apply to the convertible as well.

DOORS.

The biggest holes in the monocoque exist because it is necessary for the owner of the car to get in and out. Unfortunately this is an easy target for rain, especially in combination with wind. There are 2 big problems with the doors. One is the sealing of the window frame to the monocoque and the other one is the rain that runs into the door via the window.

First start with the rubber seals. Modern cars have 2 seals, one on the door and one on the bodywork. The Midas has only one which is an old-fashioned seal as well. The round shape of the seal makes it quite easy for rain to follow its curve and seep through, wetting your seat. So I changed it for a sort of labyrinth type, see fig. 1. The seal has 2 extra edges. Water following the curve of the seal will stop at the first edge and follow its path linear to the seal downwards.

But this won't be 100% effective. So I bonded a T-seal on the window frame as indicated in fig. 2. When the door is closed, it fills the gap between the window frame and the bodywork. Heavy winds will now have a positive effect because this T-seal is pushed against the other bodywork seal and rain can't come in.

Still my carpets would get wet. I saw that water somehow would flow over the lower part of the bodywork seal and soak my carpets. It looked like it was pushed up by wind from below, between the door trim and the seal. But this puzzled me because quite a lot of water was coming in and via both doors, so not only the wind side.

Luckily one day I was working in my car when it started raining. I had removed the door trims and saw that rain ran between the window and the window-seal into the door. When the door trims would have been in place, the water would have dripped on and followed its curve.

Since the door trims must be placed INSIDE the bodywork seals, water will drip on the seal and run into the car. This can easily be solved by glueing a plastic sheet in the door. Make sure the lower edge of the plastic hangs in the door, see fig. 3 (check that the rain holes in the door aren't clogged). Fold the plastic upwards at the metal plate that holds the window mechanism, don’t cut the plastic. Another option is to bond a thin rubber strip on the door trim, so it can be watertight fitted to the door. Also an idea is to glue a small L-shaped strip at the lowest corner of the door trim to separate the waterflow. I haven’t tried this one.



SMALL STUFF.

When you have solved your wet door problems, the following could still spoil your good mood.

Wiper arm seals.

I found moisture behind my dashboard when I was installing a new radio. Because I didn't like fireworks inside my precious Midas, it was necessary to find the cause. I discovered that rain could get in via the holes of the wiper arm spindles. There should be a large rubber washer underneath the metal washer of each spindle. On my car these rubber washers were deteriorated, but were easily replaced by new ones, cut out of rubber sheet.

Subframe access holes.

There are 2 large holes in the foot wells which give access to the bolts of the front subframe. I am not sure if water spray could get in, but to be sure I glued a piece of glassfibre sheet on each hole.

Rear quarter windows.

The original Midas factory did not protect the bonding of the rear quarter coupé windows with paint. Therefore the sealant will be attacked by ultra violet rays, change into something brown and loosen its grip on the window. My windows almost fell off the car by itself, so it was time to reinstall them. I painted a small black stripe (special paint from Sikaflex) on the windows and bonded them in again. Unfortunately the half-S rubber seal to which the window must be bonded was not flush, so generous amounts of water streamed into my interior (again). I didn't want to seal the cavity between the window and the bodywork (which would be the solution in this case), so I replaced the glass windows with a pair of perspex windows that clip easily in place. I bonded an etylene-propylene rubber strip (a soft spongy rubber, also used for surf suits) on the perspex windows, that fills all the gaps between the bodywork seal and the window. It has a nice racy look (very light as well). In an other article I will give you details about how to make and fit these perspex windows.

Flush it!

Around the rear window of the Gold coupé a rain gutter in the bodywork collects the water and drains it via a small hole onto the rear bumper. Although I cleaned the hole in the gutter, I didn't check the hole just above the rear bumper. Apparently in the past leaves had fallen in and slowly clogged the drain pipe. So during heavy rain fall the rain gutter filled with water which ran over the rear window seal and wetted my interior. The dirt was removed from the drain pipe and it hasn't occurred since. But as a precaution every now and then I hose down the car and check that the rain gutter doesn't fill with water.

Hans Efdé, march 1998

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unqte.
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby MrBounce » Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:12 pm

Very helpful Hans - thank you :)
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby Stuart » Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:24 am

My mk2 has some rather nasty looking gutters stuck on, but it is bone dry, it just never leaks any water in
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby Hans Efde » Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:32 am

Stuart wrote:My mk2 has some rather nasty looking gutters stuck on, but it is bone dry, it just never leaks any water in


My first red Gold coupe (now in Sweden) had very nice small raingutters as well made from a strip of aluminium. But my second car did not and you don't really need it if you glue a T-seal on top of the window frame. When the door is closed this falls over the O-seal and closes the gap beween the frame and the monocoque. Very simple and cheap, almost invisible and works 100%.
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby mikeeskriett » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:19 pm

For the sunroof seal my top tip is to pop the glass out and clean the rubber once it's nice and clean smear it in vaseline and leave the glass out for a week (obviously cover the car if it's outside). The vaseline will soften the rubber and it will expand back too it's proper shape to a certain degree. Also check the metal tangs at the front of the glass they may be out of shape causing the glass not to sit properly. This has made almost all the retro fit sunroofs I have tried watertight.

The seats you have are original Midas factory jobs. At least it's mostly black trim often earlier cars are bathed in a sea of brown!!

cheers,

Mike
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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby MrBounce » Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:03 pm

Ok, Mrs B has allowed me some more time to go and play in the Man Room :D

It was time to get the horrible carpets, underlay and soundproofing off the floor and see what's under there. Once I got my hands on it I reminded myself why I'd bought something made of fibreglass. That's right: if this had been metal it wouldn't have had a floor left!! On one side the seat bracket had disintegrated into the carpet. Very nasty. There's - still a bolt through the floor - I will grind it off in due course - I gently cut around the carpet rather than the bolt itself so I could lift off the carpet.

It was clear from one of the first things I found that it had not been used for a while: The tax disc...

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I also found one of these; a punch for the rollpin on the gear selector. It's a bit rusty but I have always wanted one of these and used a succession of cheap watchmaker's screwdrivers over the years instead! :lol:

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There was also a fire extinguisher fitted to the driver's side. Not sure how stable it might be I carefully pulled it off the bracket. Health and safety is paramount in the Manroom: this was the result so I think it had been wet a while... :o

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The main carpet is now out and all the crap on it has been removed and binned. Is there anywhere I can get replacements? I'm not hopeful so am more than happy to try my hand at using the old as a template. I thought I might be able to start with a Mini front carpet and go from there.

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The steering wheel was covered in black insulation tape so I took it all off and had a look underneath: it's an Astrali wheel with a wood rim (which has split). Wonder if it's worth anything to anyone?

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There was so much horrible nasty damp underlay & soundproofing, some of which simply turned to dust. This a small percentage of it...

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Still it means the interior now looks like this after being attacked with the Manroom hoover: 8-)

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Will now leave things as I'm off to watch Mr Haye vs Mr Klitschko. With Chinese food. :P

Oh yeah I've still got the seats. Apparently they're genuine Midas items. They'll need a complete rebuild and retrim. If anyone can use them PM me as they'll be free. If I haven't heard by next week they'll be binned. :lol:

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Re: Mk 1 Project Zippy (Picture Heavy!)

Postby Rich » Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:54 pm

With those carpets a power washer could be your friend, I've blasted some pretty grotty carpets back to life with one.

I don't know if the wheel is worth anything, but I'd be willing to give a restoration a go if it ends up going begging.

Rich
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