Welcome to Midget Madness blog

Firstly welcome to my blog! I've created this website to document the restoration/butchering of my 1973 MG Midget. The plan is to fit a 1.8 VVC K-series engine from a Rover 200Vi and improve the suspension and brakes. The car has already been fitted with 4pot calipers and larger discs on the front to improve stopping power. There's no point in doing all these upgrades to a rusty shell so I intend to be doing as much as the prep work as I can myself.

My MG Midget

I'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading.

Blog Entries

Stripping the Midget Part1

I’ve finally started work on the Midget after what seems like ages! I started by removing the bonnet followed by the headlights and surrounding chrome so I can remove the wings. I’ve also removed some of the inner panels and found that the inner wings have a replacement panel on there which doesn’t look too [...]

Posted at Jul 31st | no comments | Filed Under: Build Progress read more

‘Taking The Fifth’ Type 9 Article

Here’s a brilliant Type 9 article that I found a couple of years ago, I can’t seem to find the original link so I hope its OK to put this on here. It looks like the article is originally from Retro Cars Magazine and it covers the Ford Type 9 gearbox in detail from identifying [...]

Posted at Jul 11th | no comments | Filed Under: Articles & Reference, Gearbox read more

Kseries Useful Manuals

Here’s a few useful manuals that I’ve come across during my K midget research. The first is a Rover manual for overhauling the K-series which also includes the VVC engine and could prove to be very useful. The second is a manual for the Rover 200 Cooling System which covers the 8v and 16v Kseries [...]

Posted at Jul 9th | no comments | Filed Under: Articles & Reference read more

PPC May 2005: Modified Midgets

I thought I’d post these scans from Practical Performance Car, May 2005 edition. The article is called ‘Modified Midgets: Faster than an Evo 0-60 in 4.6 sec’ and covers the K conversion in detail. It also has information on tuning the rest of the car to match its new found power. Click the images below [...]

Posted at Jul 9th | 1 comment | Filed Under: Articles & Reference read more

Donor Car

I thought I’d post a bit about the donor car we’re using, its a 98 Rover 200 Vi. It has the 1.8 litre VVC engine that produces 143bhp as standard. At some point the bonnet had flipped up, dented the roof and smashed the windscreen! We drove it back like this from Oxford and it [...]

Posted at Feb 24th | no comments | Filed Under: Parts read more

Ford Type 9 V6 Gearbox

We’re at the stage of gathering parts, ready for the rebuild in the summer. So far we have a Rover 200 Vi (more info to follow) and this lovely Ford type 9 gearbox. Its a recon box from a 2.8 V6 Capri, we’re unsure of the mileage but it looks to be in good condition. [...]

Posted at Feb 14th | no comments | Filed Under: Gearbox, Parts read more