Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

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Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

Postby Rich » Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:44 pm

If you look towards the bottom of this section you’ll find me rebuilding my Gold Convertible the first time around in 2009.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=324

Once it was up and running I ran the car pretty much as my daily driver for a number of years, went to a few of the shows, improved it, spent money on it and every time it saw the sun, had to compound the gel coat as the deep red turned to swirly pink. While it was up and running I converted it to springs all round with Protech shocks, the distributor was replaced with a self soldered Megajolt unit and through this forum I found a full set of under trays. I also skipped the metro master cylinder and servo after a series of failures and welded up an unassisted balance bar arrangement, which whilst effective is a bit hair raising after driving an assisted car.

I got bored of keeping Farleca in business by 2012, bought a temporary garage to stick on the drive and took it apart to paint. Life happened a bit at this point, my Mum had been diagnosed with terminal cancer a couple of years before and she spent most of the back end of 2012 and then 2013 in the local Hospice where she died in the August. I also got a new job that kept me busy, then it rained a bit. You’ll remember Somerset being under water and the levels disappearing under the water? Not the best time to be painting a car... outside.

I did bits with it, it was primed in epoxy and then roller painted in rustoleum, which everyone seemed to be doing at the time. I sort of lost heart with it, and things in general and it stayed in the garage tent on the drive annoying my neighbours until last weekend when the tent finally cried enough. In the meantime I have still been on with kit cars, I’ve had a GTM K3 and now have a GTM Libra with a full fat 160VVC in the back. Given the Midas was a GTM produced version, I’m now on my third GTM!

So this last weekend it has been unearthed, it had been up on stands for the last seven years with the handbrake off and remarkably all the wheels still turn. I hooked up a battery and everything lights up and the engine turns over, so it is now back on its wheels and push able. I haven’t even thought about starting it, as I have to find where I stored the NOS fuel tank I bought for it and lovingly epoxied inside and out before tucking it away somewhere ‘safe’.

I have now got a willing helper though, last year my long term relationship (16 yrs) ended and I haven’t really been in the house that much. My youngest however has moved in with his family towards the end of his furlough period and just before he was laid off. He’s always liked the Midas having been part of the road trip that brought it down from Cumbria, it’s typical that the one time I start a car restoration with a coded welder living under the same roof, It’s on a plastic car.

If anyone knows of a firm looking for a decent welder/fabricator with a particular bent for ferrous MiG, TiG and MMA in the East/Mid Devon/Somerset/Dorset area please drop me a line.....

So where are we now? It’s rolling and more or less the same colour, I need to replace the fuel lines with something that the new high ethanol fuel won’t eat, particularly as the main line runs through the inside of the car... The fuel tank needs to go in and I’ll probably replace the noisy pipercross that has disintegrated with the original MG air box. I’m going to rebuild the calipers with new pistons and seals and will see what the discs look like after some time in the electrolysis tank. I’ll also be converting them to single line as the front will be getting re-plumbed anyway for a double ended servo to boost those wooden brakes.

The rest should (how utterly naive) be a case of finding and refitting bits in between repeated bouts of humanity vs covid-19 which is what my job mainly consists of these days.
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Re: Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

Postby Geoff Butcher » Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:32 pm

Good to see you back, Rich!
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Re: Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

Postby Rich » Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:39 pm

Thanks Geoff!
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Re: Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

Postby Hans Efde » Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:17 pm

Darn what a rollercoaster story. I hope all goes well now and you find internal tranquility to focus on the rebuild. It was a beautiful car when you had finished it the first time. Concerning unassisted brakes, I removed the servo as well but kept the Metro master cylinder. It works fantastic, good feel and stops on a dime. Probably you messed with the ratios because it should not feel "wooden". I have the ventilated discs, maybe you have the single plates.
As a sidenote if you want to find focus, try cold water swimming. Yes that means jumping into a lake in wintertime in your shorts. Once you know how to concentrate on your breathing when you jump in, it's awesome. I like swimming in the summer too, but can't wait for the water temperature to drop.
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Re: Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

Postby Rich » Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:43 pm

Thanks Hans, that was very much the abridged version! Still a poor excuse for leaving that much fun parked on the drive for all those years. I’ve just read back through the original thread that I linked to, I’d forgotten that one of the rear coil overs had sprung a ‘leak’. On closer inspection it was fuel leaking from the tank and washing grime of the body of the shock that made it look like oil.

The tank had been modified to fit with the original hydrolastic set up, ie smacked with a lump hammer. One of the folds created by this subtle modification had split, probably when aggravated by the blocked breather making the tank try to suck itself inside out. With the subframe now cut to remove all the bits that stick out and interfere with the undertray a standard shape tank would fit in, so ratchet than repair an already compromised tank I found a NOS Mk1 metro tank on eBay.

This was coated internally with Frost tank seal and then externally in Jotun epoxy primer, covered with a high zinc content paint. I will probably add a coating of underbody wax before it gets fitted up.

I’ve just got to find the ruddy thing now..

As for the swimming, I suspect I’d focus just before drowning!
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Re: Gold convertible rebuild Mk2

Postby Rich » Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:50 pm

I should have said, it is running vents and I suspect you are absolutely right that I got the ratio wrong. I should have tested it before welding it in with the MiG set to max.

The new pistons and seals are on their way so it makes sense to start with the front brakes as a couple of the pistons were always a bit sticky when the car was up and running.
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