quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
Magnolia, just barely in Montgomery County, N of Tomball.

Following us further out huh?

Not quite. That house fell through. Massively under-appraised.
We're closing on a house in Oak Ridge in 2 weeks.
6 miles away from our current house, 3rd house for us in the same zip code

Bigger lot, smaller house. Built in '73, but gutted to the studs & fully remodeled about 4 years ago.

Ah gotcha! Always fun, moving!

quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:
Ah gotcha! Always fun, moving!

Not looking forward to it, but luckily it's close.
Our last move was 2 miles, this one is 6.
Hoping a 26' UHaul will get it done in 2 trips. 1 for inside stuff & 1 for the garage.
16th move in 34 years.

Skip the Uhaul order up a POD(S), these make moving yourself a much better experience.

Load it at your leisure in your drive, it's also not elevated, so no climbing, pushing heavy stuff up a ramp or stepping up into a lower height truck.

PODS pick up and deliver it to the new home, or, if you are still in the process of closing, to their climate controlled warehouse and then deliver it as you call.



If you need more than one POD, you can schedule the deliveries as you need, one at a time empty, pull it, get another.

We did this moving the daughter 10 miles across the city, no hassle with renting a truck, no loading unloading up a ramp, no driving it through traffic. Put the small stuff, clothes etc in the cars, drove it over ourselves, then had the pod delivered to the new house.

I'll never rent a moving truck again or park things in a storage unit, the POD wins.

You beat me to it. I’m seriously thinking of building a DF Goblin kit car with the donor car being a Chevy Cobalt SS supercharged engine, 300 hp in a car that weighs 1500 lbs ought to be a hoot.

quote:

Originally posted by RaiseHal:
You beat me to it. I’m seriously thinking of building a DF Goblin kit car with the donor car being a Chevy Cobalt SS supercharged engine, 300 hp in a car that weighs 1500 lbs ought to be a hoot.

I've seen the Goblins, having a pre built kit would be nice & is under consideration for the future (buying direct from Caterham) but they're significantly more $$.
My goal was under $10k for the Locost, a basic Caterham (using UK pricing) is around $30k.

There's a dealer in Denver that brings over KDC (knocked down chassis) but I haven't looked in to the 'to your door' costs.

In the similar price bracket to the Locost, a clean/stock NB Miata can be had.

Well, pending funds, she's off to a new home.
Guy up in MN is working on shipping logistics & hopes to have it picked up this week (before we move, luckily).

Spent a couple hours yesterday getting it partially reassembled to make it easier to transport (partial roller, on 3 wheels).
Trans, diff & 3 corners of suspension reinstalled. Forgot how low it is, since it's been on jackstands or a table for a year.

Wife's already asking what the next project will be.
Thinking another bike, since I'll actually have the space for it immediately, at the new house.

Spent last night getting the rest packaged up. Shocked I was able to get it all loaded onto the chassis.

Just waiting on the buyer to provide transport info & funds.

14 months after this process started, and it's ended.
She's off to a new home in MN.


Being a 3 wheeler with no rear suspension, it was quite tricky to get it from the garage to the trailer & even more work to get it up onto the trailer.
Hindsight, I should've grabbed the furniture dollies we'd been using all week.

Had to take the couple hundred pounds of boxes out to get it light enough to lift the rear & roll it. Luckily (unlucky for him) my neighbor got home right when the transport showed up & he gave us a much needed hand. Definitely owe him a beer or 3.

Already working on acquiring a new/smaller/older project.

The saga continues.
Was bummed to let the Lotus go, but it would've just rotted away at our house, since we don't have a garage.

Posted this, and subsequently went to look at the Midget.
My wife has wanted one for years, so that was a bonus as well.
https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...935/m/7210052994/p/1

Gave it pretty thorough lookover, as good as we could without a lift. Brought my dad along, as he knows older cars a lot better than I do.
Needs some work, but the price was appealing & we made a deal.
It was on 10-12 year old tires, so we agreed it was not ideal to try to make the 65 mile drive across Houston & risk ending up on a rollback or injured.

Went back the following weekend & trailered it up to my dad's shop.
Spent a day going over it with a flashlight & Haynes manual, just getting to know what/where everything is & what's non-original.
Needs a dent fixed on the LR quarter & has a small tear in the top to repair, and a fairly poor paint job, but no significant rust, just a few spots of surface rust.







Car has all of the emissions gear removed, no cat, and has a Weber 32/36 carb on a Canon IM, and some unbranded 4-2-1 header.

Ordered some parts for it, parts are hilariously affordable & surprisingly available.
Tires, likewise, are very cheap. 5x 155-13 tires were <$400 delivered.
Front left caliper drags, tie rod ends were shot, gas cap out of round. Should be getting up there to replace those this weekend along with engine/trans/diff fluids. E-choke on the Weber is being replaced as well, when we picked it up to trailer it home, we had a lot of trouble getting it started & the choke was wide open. The thermal spring wasn't connected to the choke pivot.
We put it back together properly and it fired up on the first turn, but the choke wasn't opening, so a new thermal spring was ordered to see if that alleviates the issue. Worst case, could convert to manual choke.

Bodge job on the exhaust. IIRC from 2 weeks ago, the header is a 2in and the exhaust is a hair bigger than 1.5in. Rather than done properly, one of the prior owners just plugged the gap with a slug of weld. That'll get cut off & a matching 2in exhaust run to the rear from the header.

Rear axle limit straps, rear wheel cylinders, clutch & brake MCs are all new. Fuse box replaced as well.
Thrust washers seem to be in good shape, from the visible checks I've found on the MG forum.
Everything, electrically, but the reverse lights works. Radio turns on, but just static, could be that it's in a metal bldg with poor reception. Plan down the road is to replace it with one of the vintage audio units with Bluetooth.

A few shots from some shop time 2 weekends ago





Rubber bumpers gotta go



Tiny pedal box area, but not too bad as long as you're wearing relatively narrow shoes



Still undecided on paint color, but have plenty of time to figure that out.

I’m looking at the brakes and they are small. The rear drum caught my eye first. It’s a third the size of the parking brake on my truck. And then front rotor! That’s one way to solve wheel clearance issues, isn’t it?

That’s so cool.

Is that dryer ducting for the intake,

I've seen where people remove the clutch pedal, then heat and bend it to move it out some for better clearance...

Nice project, quite a bit better than the old one...

Excellent for 'heel&toe' gear changes. Rubber bumpers are the devil, chrome FTW. Color? Only choice is BRG!

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Is that dryer ducting for the intake,

I've seen where people remove the clutch pedal, then heat and bend it to move it out some for better clearance...

Nice project, quite a bit better than the old one...

Yes, metal dryer ducting.
Seems a common replacement, also seen ribbed outdoor drain pipe.
Excited to get her roadworthy, hopefully take it for a short spin after doing some work on it this weekend.

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
Excellent for 'heel&toe' gear changes. Rubber bumpers are the devil, chrome FTW. Color? Only choice is BRG!

My wife found a 'Mini Cobra' midget in Dallas in dark gray that she loves.
I've found a couple in a lighter gray that I like.
The Lotus was going to be orange, but I haven't found any photos of a Midget in orange that I liked.

Top choices right now are gray or dark blue.

These 2 are my favorites so far



Any this one is my wife's favorite

Looks like a lot of fun! My last 4-wheel Limey adventure was shoehorning a 302 Ford into a 1955 Healey 100-4 BN-1. The driveshaft was really short!!

Nice toy, man!
Mighty cool.

Novelty gift from my dad, installed on the tool shed

I LOVE that gray. DO IT!

The bottom gray one is a Ford 302 swapped, and significantly reinforced chassis, Midgit

Got a fair bit done on the old girl Saturday, but not enough to get her on the road.
Spent the first hour or two stitching the tear in the top & put a couple layers of barge cement over the top, still need to put a layer on the inside. Not very pretty, but if it holds & keeps the weather out, I'll be happy with it for now.

Installed new tie rod ends. Had to do it twice, since I didn't realize they're shipped with a cover over the boot.

New front calipers, made a mess & drained a fair bit of brake fluid, and had to relieve one of the ribs in the LF hub, as it was interfering with the caliper & stopping rotation. Just a light hit with the grinder & she spins free.

New e-choke thermal spring on the Weber. Opens & closes well, but think I may need a new coil, seems like it's getting weak spark. My adviser[Dad] thinks it could also be old fuel in the tank. Luckily it only has about 1/8 tank left.
Looked on Moss & see the 1500 coil there, but not the ballast.

Changed the oil & filter, drain plug was installed by the Hulk on its last oil change. Limited space to get enough torque to break it loose. No leaks after the oil was topped back up.

Went to do the diff, but didn't have the right size square bit for the plugs. 3/8" driver too small 1/2" too big.

Next trip I'll fill/bleed the brakes, fluid change on the trans & diff, and put another coat of barge on the top. Probably hit the underside with some superclean & tidy it up, help see of there are any current leaks to address, or if it's all residual buildup from X years of use.

Should be able to get her out for a spin after that.

Top repair, not pretty but it'll work to keep the weather out when it's parked with the top up



New calipers & rod ends