Well, I've been sitting on the sidelines reading all your notes and decided it
was about time I wrote in with my story...
I have a '74 Midget that ran pretty well until last summer when I drove it down
to North Carolina from New York. I was only 20 minutes from my new home when
the clutch slave cylinder fell apart. I was able to get it off the road and my
wife came and picked me up. I found a local mechanic who specializes in MGs
(he even races a Midget) and he was able to fix it for a reasonable fee. A few
weeks later I was driving along when all of a sudden the engine started
knocking REALLY loud and the oil pressure went down to 0 - luckily I was near
home and was able to get it there. The mechanic told me at the time that if he
took the engine out to try to fix it he would probably have to rebuild the
whole thing, since the engine was already 20 years old, and it would be
expensive. He talked me out of it. I went and bought a used Japanese
econo-box to get to work in and threw a cover over the MG.
We have since bought a house and moved the MG into the garage. I bought a book
- the Jim Tyler MG Restoration book - and have begun to remove the engine on my
own. Does anyone have a suggestion as to whether or not I should take out the
transmission while I'm at it? The author recommends it but the idea of
removing the whole gearbox kind of makes me nervous.
I don't really have a coherent plan as to how this restoration should go so if
anyone has any other suggestions/words of encouragement I would appreciate all.
Steve Smith - 1974 MG Midget
smiths@encmail.encompass.com
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