Midas Cars Forum - www.midascarsforum.com

Thank you all for welcoming me to the forum.
I hope Kelvin doesn't mind me using his Moth Busting catchphrase.
I have dug out a couple of old pics from when I first bought the Midas from the factory
1 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
Shell in the back of a box van at the Corby factory.
002 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
Decathlon in all its glory, never found chance to fit those spot lights though.
I have took some up to date pics so you can see the car in its present condition.
3 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
4 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
5 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
6 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
The engine has done about 20,000 miles.
7 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
8 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
9 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
A number of parts have been removed from the car like the master cylinders, brake calipers, wheel cylinders, front lights, radiator, battery, etc as these have to be replaced as the doner vehicle was a 1976 1275GT which I had owned for a few years but the body work had become too rotten so the Midas was the perfect choice to replace it, making some of these parts about 40 years old. The dashboard has been removed as the heater matrix will also have to be replaced, the carpet and seats had been taken out some years ago and stored in the loft.
The front subframe is still as new, it was brand new when the car was built and heavily coated before being fitted. the rear subframe is not the factory original but was made by Charlie Dodd, as at the time some earlier bronzes had, had subframe failure rotting from the inside and breaking off by the welded tubes, being a bit worried about this I got Charlie to make me one for a discount price as he had my original one off me.
Ill keep you all posted on further developments.
I hope Santa is going to be generous with all the parts I need this year.

Someone mention my name?....

Wow this looks a great story to follow, perhaps you might like to send it in for the club's magazine It would make a really good series.

It's not often these days that you can get to see photos of the original kit from the factory, and to have a rebuild by the same owner several decades later is excellent. It kind of proves what I keep saying to people when I talk with them about Midas kit's. They are almost the everlasting car, particularly if you get the subframes galvanised they could well outlast their owners and some of them are hinting at this being a common feature.

Great so see your posting here and looking forward to seeing more along with it's return to the road!

Yours is quite different from mine in that it has deep door pockets and doesn't have a vent behind the bonnet

Inim666 wrote:Yours is quite different from mine in that it has deep door pockets and doesn't have a vent behind the bonnet

I believe you may have the soft trim option interior with an arm rest instead of a pocket, I wouldn't have minded the soft trim option with mine but it was outside my price budget. I do have the vent but I have took it off because it was never glued down very well from the word go and it was nearly hanging off at one stage. Its another one of the jobs I have got to do.

Just a bit of an update with the moth busting.
At the moment I'm concentrating on the electrical side of things as I have suffered a few electrical gremlins with this car in the past.
First of all when building the car a few electrical items wouldn't work mainly down to bad connections especially in the white plugs that connected to the switches on the right hand side of the dashboard, also the oil warning light would not work when the ignition was switched on. I checked the usual, bulb, connections, oil pressure switch, break in the wire, circuit strip behind instrument pod everything was ok, with a lot of head scratching and just as a last ditch attempt I traced the wire all the way to the bulb and to my astonishment the wiring loom was wrong. The wire for the warning light had been inserted in the wrong slot in the black plug connecter, that fits in the instrument pod. I carefully prized the wire out and inserted it into what I believed the correct slot and hey presto the light came on.
The other electrical gremlin I suffered was when the car had been on the road for a while, and on this one occasion I was driving down the main Chester road luckily with no traffic behind me when I had lost all electrical power, the car was as dead as a dodo and this is what I had found.
10 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
I used an electrical connecter to get me by but now I want to repair it properly.
I believe it was another bad connection in the plug. I wondered whether other Midas owners had suffered similar problems or was I just the unlucky one.
On another destructive note I removed the old solenoid which ended up a hacksaw job.
11 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
Removed the heater unit out the car.
12 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
Needs a bit of a paint job.
13 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
Needs a bit more on the inside.
The headlight brackets need a bit of TLC too,
14 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr
15 by Roy Forrester, on Flickr

Electrical gremlins, don't you just love em?

Jin wrote:Electrical gremlins, don't you just love em?

House electrics not too bad but car electrics I hate with a passion

Ha, you've never tried to replace a ceiling pendant in my house, downstairs fuse labeled as the upstairs? Never knew I could reach such high notes

Hi fozza
I have the same issue on my Midas and have been scratching my head over it but didn't think of checking the plug could you be as kind to let me know what wires you swapped over many thanks

On another note I have been in contact with Alistair and it turns out there was only 5 decathlons ever built

Inim666 wrote:Hi fozza
I have the same issue on my Midas and have been scratching my head over it but didn't think of checking the plug could you be as kind to let me know what wires you swapped over many thanks

On another note I have been in contact with Alistair and it turns out there was only 5 decathlons ever built

Sent you a private message.