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In May 2019, before I got my wheels and new tires back, I also manage to do a bit more.

Firstly, took off fuel tank and filler and they’ve seen better days.
Filler neck, “nice and brown”:




Filler hose, hard and cracked:




And big boy itself – sieve/trainer tank:






“A bit” of rust, that I just shake out of the tank, without using anything added in tank:




It means, that inside was a lot worse than those “couple” holes seen from outside. Understandably this tank has served its time and I needed a new one.
As I couldn’t buy this tank locally and ordering from UK would mean paying quite a lot for transport and still hoping to finish car in summer, my friend, who has experience in motorsport and fabrication advised to fabricate tank from aluminium and he knew a guy who could do that. I took measurements, got first indication on price and ideally tank would be ready in July, then I decided to give it a go. It seamed a good idea at that time. Later, when consulting with Alistair and others, I started to think that maybe some other material would have been better choice.
About progress with tank in later posts.

Secondly, with your help I understood that seats in my Mk1 weren’t rarities, I decided to store them and get something more comfortable and in better shape. For that I took all kind of measurements from interior to start looking for new seats.
About search in later posts too.

Third thing was rear undercarriage. The other day I decided to see, what’s going on with rear beam and parts put to it. When Midas was advertised years ago, probably even some owners before me, I remember phrase, that restoration had been started with rear end and especially beam.
What I can say, beam looked really nice, although not original:


So, I turned my focus on brakes. I had noticed before, that there were no brake pipes, hoses, or even handbrake cables. When I took drums off, I finally saw, that there was nothing under them too, and even back-plates were quite old and rusty:




Most likely restoration part didn’t reach to that point. So, it was clear, that all the rear brake parts added to my shopping list.

In beginning of June, I managed to spend some time in garage.

Radiator.
As radiator is quite rusty and I have small hopes that it’ll keep coolant, I took measures of it to see, if I could find a bit modern replacement. I remember spending lots of hours in internet searching it, but nowadays it’s hard to find parts by measure, most sellers deal with marques and models or by in worst case, by car’s registration number. I remember finding something suitable and now I hope I wrote it down, or saved it some somewhere, as currently I have no clue what it was But I remeber comparing with original radiator, it was cheaper. I hope I'm not wrong, but I rmemeber price around 30 euros.

Electrics.
I cleaned as much contacts and bulb holders I could find and tried how the electrics work. Before taking front subframe and engine out, I wanted to see, does all electrics work, so there wouldn’t be any surprises when putting it back together.
At the beginning, hazard and indicators didn’t work and low and main beams had their tricks too. About them a bit later.

Testing electrics included trying to turn engine over with starter too. As there was no fuel tank and fuel pump was broken too, then first couple attempts didn’t gave much results. I even filmed those attempts, just in case. But going ahead in future, I managed to get engine running for couple of seconds in June, so this was enough for me.

Under the dashboard cover.
As I had issues with lights, I took off dashboard cover to see, what I could find under there. What I liked was not too much wiring and mostly it seemed visually pretty OK:


Even some original wiring labels:


I especially liked window heating system. You can see rectangular metal tube with lot of small holes in it, including screw holes. Through those bigger holes air was blown to front window Dashboard cover have the same holes. How they work, I still will see.


What I didn’t like, were those fresh air tubes/hoses, that were already fallen apart on their location and when I took them out, they were of course even worse:




Low and main beam.
As I remember, low beam worked, but turning on high beam, one light didn’t work. And trying with different bulbs gave every time different result, including one working and another glowing. That was a no-go in every meaning. I also found that last bulbs in those rusted headlights were 100/80 W. As reflectors were rusty, then most likely more powerful bulbs gave more light.

A bit fast forward to future I found that light switch and connector had some better days, as one pin have had pretty much heat:




Could have been because of those 100/80 W bulbs.

Going even more to the future, I disconnected the burnt connector and put on another connector and switch and headlight problems were solved. Positioning lights, low and high beam worked as they should. At least when I last tried them

Hazard and indicators.
What I didn’t liked removing dashboard cover was this hazard light relay:


You may ask why, as in picture it seems in pretty good condition, although next to some rusted bolts (a hint). As I mentioned before, hazard and indicators didn’t work, so I decided to give this relay a closer look and see weren’t connectors oxidized. Pictures are taken a bit later, but result was this:




Trying to disconnect relay, it literally crumbled to pieces and dust of rust. So obviously hazards couldn’t work.

Why I was referring to this relay as hazard is, I found this label:


Around wires that were connected to this relay:


With some fast forwarding, including search in web and so on, as I didn’t find in local stores metal two pin relay, I bought plastic one:


Again fast forwarding from June I can say, that hazard lights work perfectly with this plastic relay and for now wires have proper connectors too and all is safe.
About indicators a bit later.

Heater.
With dashboard cover off, I also found quite rusty heater:




As I had couple of heaters spare, including MPi’s with two speed:




I tried to fit those under the dash and in intended space in dashboard cover. Visually it is obvious, that MPi’s is bigger, but for my surprise old and new heaters had also different front-end measurements, if I explain it correctly. I mean old heater’s toggles and switch panel is much more out, than MPi’s. It seems I unfortunately didn’t make pictures of those trial fitments.
That meant, if I want to use MPi heater, I have to either cut dashboard cover, or refabricate toggles panel, or restore original heater and try to fit two speed MPi’s motor in it…

Search for parts.
Most of the month I was busy with work and free moments not in garage I spent on search for Lucas L867 lenses, front headlights and frames, seats and other parts mentioned earlier.

[quote][/quoteI especially liked window heating system. You can see rectangular metal tube with lot of small holes in it, including screw holes. Through those bigger holes air was blown to front window Dashboard cover have the same holes. How they work, I still will see.]
Midas chassis number all the zeros also had that screen ventilation system. It was not very effective.

Thank you, benofbrum. I don’t have much hope on this window heater either But as my Mini has no heating system, then even this holy tube could be better.

I also want to thank forum member, who wrote and posted picture of his neat and tidy solution of heating controls on his Mk2 Midas. Unfortunately, he removed his post and picture and I don’t remember his name. Maybe he removed his post because Mk1 and Mk2 dashboards are different. But I still loved his solution.

Seats.
As I wrote, I spent lot of time in June to find seats for Midas. I’ve read in this forum several times and on our FB page, that Mazda Mx5 seats are most common choice, but unfortunately, I can’t walk here to salvage yard and choose what I like. I did quick search now and found one Mazda forum topic with seats on sale from 2015

So, as first choice was off the table I got carried away and even looked for some fancy heated/ventilated, massage, all ways adjustable modern seats, but luckily, they were all too pricey and most likely too big too.

Then I stumbled on add of Smart seats:


There were more pictures of them, and they seemed pretty good and with very reasonable price. Smart is a small car, so some more research in internet to find out, that those seats could be done to have more reclining, so I thought I’ll go and see them.

In real life they were even better, to look at and sit on them. So. we made a deal and they seemed small enough in my people carrier:


Getting them in Midas was already more challenging, not to scratch them, but they went in:


Although they look really nice in Midas:


Unfolding seats brought up other challenges. Such as seatbelt guides “hanging” out of window:




I was sure, I could either modify, or remove those guides, so I didn’t worry much. Another thing was, that they were too tall. Yes, small Smart seats were still too tall for Midas. I guess, that those other fancy seats I looked, wouldn’t even fit in through Midas door

Pictures of seats rubbing roof and still not in upright position.




As they didn’t recline enough, I couldn’t even try, could they be used in more stretching position.

And that’s without headliner and carpet. Not to mention, that in this position seat adjusters were scraping the floor, so at least front needed to be raised too.

But as I liked those seats, I gave a call to my friend furniture builder and we decided to lower the backs of the seats. I don’t mean just butchering them, but properly taking them apart and cutting and welding seat frame and re-form cushion. At that point I was still hopeful about finishing my Midas in summer, if not for IMM, then for Midas Factory Tour.

Distraction.
Then came somthing I wasn't expecting and distract my attention from Mk1 restauration. I found an add of this Cortez:


Long story short and for another topic – as I was in search for Cortez for years and missing one in literally in minutes, then I didn’t waste much time and contacted seller, a really nice guy and it ended up me flying to IMM and buying this Cortez. Having great time in UK, lovely road-trip home and being enjoying it since. So, funds I’ve collected to finish Mk1 went into buying Cortez and lot of parts for Mk1 in IMM and form Alistair.

Continuing with seats. Fast forwarding from July and especially as I realized that with buying Cortez I would no way finish Mk1 for Factory Tour, I received lowered seat backs late in autumn. With garage build I put them a side, till I could modify seats to recline more. This chance came late in January. So, seats now look like this:


My friend did a great job and difference could be seen by comparing pictures next to each other.
Although seats now fit in Mk1 and recline, I’m still not too sure about seat base height. But that is something I can deal, when start putting Midas back together. In worse case if they really don’t fit in Mk1 (read: that’s me, who doesn’t fit in Midas on this seat , then my Mk3-s need new seats too.

Lucas L867 lenses
In July I also continued search for headlights, their brackets and Lucas L867 front indicators lenses. There were a pair of lenses for sale on eBay, but I missed them very closely. But luckily got a pair in September and they are in nice condition:




Lenses that were on Mk1:


Those I bought looked even better, after I cleaned them:

Autumn and end of 2019 went on rebuilding garage and left-over spare time on Cortez. So, Mk1 was on hold.

I wanted to start 2020 with Midas and thought to take Cortez for a drive on first of January. Dead battery cancelled that trip, so instead I drove with my 107 to garage to potter with Mk1.

Headlights
I’ve had taken headlights off the car long time ago, but rusted headlight frames were still on the car because of rusted screws, that could not be get out with screwdriver.
My goal on first of January was to get them off the car. Final look on old headlights on their place:




With still unsuccessful tries with different screwdrivers and after thorough thinking I decided to try from inside. Maybe I could get enough of grip on screws and try to turn them. I managed to do that with suitable size lockable pliers and after some time I got all the screws out and rusty frames removed.




Old parts laid on the table:




As I’ve written for several times already, I’ve been searching suitable headlights and frames. Of course, I kept my eye on British markets and eBay and missed or got overbid on original frames several times. So I finally got enough of this, I couldn’t use original RHD headlights anyway.

In middle of January I took all the measurements once again from my rusted frames


and I widened my search. Although this is very common headlight size over the world, headlight frames or fixings are very different. I’m not going to waste time on here to go through all what I had found and their pluses and minuses.

As Midas body is fiberglass, I thought maybe I could find headlights with plastic frame or brackets. I found that Fiat 900 had something like that. So, some more search in web and I found a used one for reasonable price and gave it a go.

On first of February I got my hands on this Carello 409 headlight. It seemed pretty OK and plastic bracket / bowl very well made:






Side by side with original headlight:






I tried to fit it on Mk1 and it seemed it’s not totally impossible.








But for right alignment that plastic bowl needed modification.

A week later I got time for it. It took quite a lot of cutting and filing and drilling and then again and again, but finally I managed to fit this Carello headlight perfectly.






I modified plastic cup, so it fit nicely on both side and although I was very happy with result, I wasn’t happy how much I had to cut that bowl to fit in Midas. I know that alternative would have been even worse – cut Midas body. But still, those bowls were great to keep dirt away from headlights, but after so much cutting I would need to fill those holes I cut. Secondly, as much as I’ve found, those Carello 409 lights and especially bowls are quite rare. So, I decided that I’m not going to buy and butcher a pair of those Carellos and leave that pair to someone who is restoring suitable car. Instead, I kept looking.

Finally, I bought metal frames for Fiat 126 headlights and did first fitment with Carello headlight:






On those pictures I tried frame from inside of the car, but final result was from outside to keep headlights on same distance as originals were. This time I made some cardboard templates, before I cut new holes, especially for that big adjusting screw holder.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do pictures of final result, as I wanted to buy proper washers and nuts first. Around same time, I bought also pair of new Fiat LHD headlights and Philips XTremeVision H4 bulbs and now everything is waiting in the box, when it is time to put them on Midas and start using.