Fresh Dutch Midas owner

[Hans Efde]

Yes, I am contagious.

[astonmartine]

The end is near!
But then in a good way

Last Monday the Midas returned from the handyman. This weekend I will finish the Midas by sorting out the following:
- Make a steel bar to keep the battery in place. It's currently strapped to the plastic holder by a rope. That will never make it through the MOT.
- Make a heat shield between the exhaust and the fuel tank
- Place some missing exhaust-clamps
- Give the car a good cleaning, inside and out.

And then some time next week it's time to visit the RDW for my license plates!

Fingers crossed...

[Hans Efde]

Sounds good Martine.
You will be the only one with heatshielding on your fuel tank. Is it enough if you just glue heatshielding cloth on it? I bought it via Merlin motorsport, but any specialist in racing materials can supply it. It's a sort of glassfibre cloth with alu foil bonded on it. Works great, I have it under my bonnet for the turbo heat insulation.

A sort of battery bracket should be available on the breakers yard. It's just a L-shaped strip of steel that is secured via 2 rods. The rods have a hook on the end and on the other end they are threaded where a nut goes on. I think it's standard Metro stuff.

Good luck and don't forget to post pics.
Cheers, Hans

[Rich]

To keep some of the heat off my tank I used a carbon fibre soldering mat wrapped around the pipe and secured with jubilee clips.

[astonmartine]

Thanks for the advice on the heat shield.

I'm currently spending my days under the Midas, trying to scrape off the exessive amount of tectyl. Handyman has been a bit too enthusiastic, so he also smeared the tectyl on vital parts like the shock-adjustment screw and the brake adjustment screw.
It was nice of him to put tectyl on my rear axle, but not to apply it on top of sand and dirt...


I have to admit I'm a bit sloppy when it comes to pictures, but after all is done I will make a nice report about all the work that has been done

[astonmartine]

FInally....after a year of working on the little bugger...I got my Dutch registration.

Waiting...waiting...burocracy takes a lot of time.


"Miss, there is nu chassisnumber in to body" I know, it's a plastic body!


Normally you have to make a seperate appointment to have the chassisnumber stanced into the body, but I guess having blond hair and blue eyes has it advantage.... They had some time do arrange it for me right now.

There goes! It's stanced right under the hood now. THey smeared some yellow paint in to for visibility. It's not very deep of course, actually I think it's only stanced into the layer of paint, but as long as it's all officially approved I'm happy with it.


Driving it to the registration office was very enjoyable. The Midas seems to get even more attention than my Aston Martin!

[Midaspeter]

Congratulations!!! Good job.

Hope to see you and your car soon on an event in Holland... Perhaps: Mini Club Dag 3, Zondag 10 Oktober 2010, Utrecht?

[astonmartine]

Actually, that's not such a bad idea.
If I pass the Dutch MOT that is...The car should be all ok, except that I found out that the speedometer is not working. Probably just a disconnected wire, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that they don't find anything else wrong with it.

[astonmartine]

Photoshoot time!









All there is left to do now, is get an appointment for the Dutch MOT....

By the way, question for the Dutch people here: What's the registered weight of your Midasses? My papers say 770kg (massa ledig voertuig) and I'm under the impression that that's a bit high.

[Hans Efde]

Hi Martine,
Wow looks super. Hope to see you in Utrecht. I am driving with my brother in his Gold coupe which has been awakened after 3 years sleep (the car I mean, not the brother).
Just a question, offset of the wheels seems not quite right, aren't they chafing the bodywork? Usually they are in line with the bodywork and should not stick out.

Yes the weight is correct from the RDW point of view, but is not the real weight. In the old days they tend to add weight to the empty weight of the car for fuel, spare etc. Actual weight will be around 730 to 750 kg.
Nowadays they use a more realistic calculation or just weigh the car (as they did with my Convertible) when the data is not known.