Midas Cars Forum - www.midascarsforum.com

Today I am going to hopefully change my radiator as there's barely any fins on the matrix left (certainly in the portion of the radiator where there's a clear airflow)

I managed to find a usable MGf radiator in a local scrap yard which was really really easy to remove from the car. I got it with fan attached and some handy bushed bracketry for the top along with a rear view mirror for my Picasso (don't ask) for £15

Any tips regards fitting to a Midas Gold?

I hope to have it fitted this weekend as there's quite a few events next week I'm intending to go to starting on Monday in Bournemouth and then Poole with hundreds of Minis on the quayside and finally up to Enstone for the annual Midas Open Day and club BBQ

Yes, mount the radiator with rubber bushes in the lower beam (that's standard), but make brackets for the upper mountings and fasten the brackets in the corners of the rain gutter. You just need 2 strips of steel of about 5cm. There is a thread somewhere on this forum. I think Stuart or Alan made fancy swing brackets. Advantage is that you can install the radiator via the engine bay and don't need to remove the bumper.

I saw the same damage on Ed's radiator which made me wonder. Perhaps I just mount a louvred plate in front of the rad. The air gets through but stones and debris bounce of. In fact what any other car has protecting the radiator.

Well that wasn't very successful...

While the MGf radiator can fit in the nose of the Gold, it's a nightmare to manage to slot it in without taking the engine out or from underneath by dropping the subframe. I managed to get it in after removing the Distributor cap, the coil, the alternator and unplug a lot of the loom to get the electricals out of the way to slide the radiator through the bonnet opening. I say slide but it was more of a jiggle and a tilt, twist and rotate. Of course once it was in I then found I needed to cut a few holes here and there which meant taking the radiator out again and there in lay the problem... It wouldn't come out and was jammed.

Soooo. I had to hand a K series radiator which is the same size as the radiator I took out the only trouble is that the water pipes are a different diameter on the A series to the K series. The MGf on the other hand has the same size diameter pipes as the A series....

So I'll try and figure out what I can do but I may have to forego my Monday evening trip out in the Midas

I'm doing a bit of a bodge on this car as I just want to get something that is a Midas on the road while I'm rebuilding my Mk2. When I've done that one I'll rip this one apart and do something special with this car too. It does however reinforce my belief that the best thing to do with an old kit is to rip it apart and restore it properly, bodging things is just wasting money in the long run. It's also made me all the more certain that I'm doing the right things with the mods on my Mk2 and it will be so much better for them. It is of course also one of the beauties of kit cars in that you can make your own modifications and build a car the way you think a car should be built rather than the way Mr Volks or Mr Citroen does them to keep their profits nice for their share holders. and sod their owners. Just compare the K series Metro with the A series for an example in the engine bay.

When I replaced my Metro rad I fitted a Pacet fan which takes up much less space and makes fitting much easier. And my old one had lost all the fins behind the air intake - never known metal to blow away in the breeze before...

Well I've managed to cobble together a collection of parts and make them fit. ('Cobbled' and 'make' being the operative words here) There was the small matter of a leak in the radiator I used to replace the non leaking but non cooling one. But copious amounts of Radweld will have dealt with that. I've taken it for a spin around the lanes locally, it seems OK. I did have to wire up a manual switch for the radiator fan as lucky old me got a radiator with a buggered up temperature switch in it that's been glued in with copious araldite and a spot of melted plastic.

There's a local gathering of supercars this evening so I'm going to trot down there and try the old TopGear bargain basement banger entry trick and see what golden envelope with a challenge I get given. Who knows maybe I'll get to tow a caravan round Matchams banger racing track?

Wish me luck I'm using this as a test to see if it'll manage a trip to Enstone for the Open Day and Club BBQ on Sunday.

No worries

And here's a few photo just to show that I did get there ....











And lil' ol' me hiding in the corner with the bonnet firmly shut

Yuk. Rad weld....a heater matrix nightmare. you might need to replace that shortly.

David, I hate bodging things and avoid radweld too but it was a case of needs must. I'm hoping to pick up a new radiator this weekend at the Midas Workshop Open Day and I'm hoping to be driving the Midas to it. the excursions I've got this week are a test to check things by gradually increasing the distances.

The heater by the way doesn't seem to work anyway. This car is just a runaround for the moment and will be completely apart and rebuilt with something completely different powering it, hence why I'm not spending much money on it at the moment (Well that's the theory anyway)

Sent from my Nexus 7 Using ForumTouch for Android

I'm same..and did exactly the same hence I know what damage it does to the matrix and water galleries in the block. I need to get mine back on road enjoying this fab weather we've had...just too many conflicting priorities at the moment.

Just got back from another outing in my Midas, this was another local jaunt to Poole Quay for Minis On The Quay



Really enjoyed the evening not least because of the drive back. I am really really pleased with how much fun these cars are to drive. I had a rather spirited journey back as the sun was beginning to set and thoroughly enjoyed throwing the car into the Dorset twists and turns along the minor A and B roads once again. If you're not out there driving your Midas you really ought to be. I'm so glad I got this car to drive and can't wait to finish my other Midas now to find out how that one handles. I'm loving this little car!