Midas near Cissbury?

[Maphet]

I'm not sure if it was anyone on here, but, to my astonishment, I bumped into another Midas yesterday. Unfortunately, I had just promised my beloved that I would be back home in quarter of an hour without fail and the doghouse beckoned if I had stopped to chat. So If you drive an all black Midas MkIII coupe, and were waved at wildly by a receding yellow MkIII convertible in the vicinity of Cissbury Ring then I'm really sorry that I was in such a rush and couldn't stop. However, if you are local then I'd love to meet up for a chat some time.

Everyone else, I'm sorry I haven't posted much after my initial rush, but I will return when all the rest of life becomes less exciting...

[tommy]

Hi Maphet,
That Midas was me, I've just bought the car from John Mellors, it's the Gold with a single cam K-series, a lot of fun, still geting used to it.
Anyway, saw your post & though I'd better join the forum so I could reply!
I was driving home (I live in Findon) when I saw your yellow convertable parked up in the village, so quickly turned round for a closer look/chat, but by the time I was pointing in the right direction you were off into the distance, as you say "waving wildly".
Anyhow, if you're passing though again, then take a drive down the High Street (south of the cross roads) & if you see my black Gold parked outside No.27 then I'm likely to be in as I'm using it all the time at the moment.
Cheers, Andy

[lankyjames]

And a friendship was born.

[Maphet]

Hi Andy,
Sorry to be so slow to respond, but I'll certainly do that at some point in the near future. I'm in Horsham so I don't get there very often, but I had taken my sixteen month old daughter down to listen to the larks on top of Cissbury (she likes birds slightly obsessively).

I'm really glad that I have managed to make contact as I felt I was a bit rude in sprinting off like that.

Matt

[tommy]

Hi Matt,
That's fine, I hardly ever get time on the PC myself as the kids are always hogging it, anyway I've heard from Alistair Courtney of Alternative Cars that you've some experience in updating dashboards? looks like that'll be one of my first projects on mine as the current Rover Metro dash grafted on top of the original Austin metro moulding has room for improvement shall we say. Anyway I'm keen to have a shot at adapting the later Rover 200/25/MGZR version as it should be compatible with my engine/wiring, & looks far better than any of the Metro Rover 100 offerings.
Andy

[Maphet]

Sorry for the gap...

He's quite right that at some point in the future I will have that experience... At the moment I have a great deal of experience in finding the right parts and discovering the hurdles to be overcome (but I'm still cheerfully hiding a complete mess under a beer mat held on with blutac). I'm afraid that the bad news is that the later Rover instruments are not compatible as they use an electronic speedo sender (among other things) The first thing you need to be looking for (and you will need to start early) is a MKI (that is pre '89) instrument pack. You will also need a moulding - which Alistair should be able to supply. However, this is where it all gets a bit complicated. First, my dash was designed to have the Roler 200 instruments but was bodged back to Metro ones. This involved a fair bit of fibreglass and, when I remove it, will probably be a right pain. I'm not sure, but I suspect that yours wasn't designed for the 200 instruments and so may need some surgery. Second, the two looms do not simply match up and so there are around twenty wires that need to be matched up, which promises to be fun.

In short, while it all looks quite possible, I have a list of jobs that are either more important or more fun that have got in the way. Currently it comes somewhere between the new steering rack, and finally adding Rich's dampers in my list of larger jobs to do.

When I finally drop down to say hallo, I'll bring my pile of goodies with me and you can get an idea of how easy the job might look to you.

[tommy]

Well I've taken the plunge on the dashboard, bought a Rover 200 (the bubble version) instrument cluster, remembering that my engine is a K-series, all appears to be pretty compatible with most of the wiring (even most of the wires share the same colours!), the two things that don't yet work are the fuel gauge & speedo, I've a Rov 200 speed sensor that should go straight onto my gearbox with a fair wind, fuel gauge needs some intervention.
Hopefully I'll be able to get a new dashboard moulding, & meld the bubble cluster seamlessly to it..... we'll see how that goes.