Matt Drayer's Journal

There are special points in a long-term project when the time comes take a breath and step back from the work. To reflect. Some people become frustrated or upset when this occurs -- they want to keep working. However, all duty cycles feature both a work interval and a rest interval. And it's a reason to celebrate: Round 1 is complete. You've reached a milestone.

For our project, the first major milestone was the inflection point between the reasonable end of the teardown and the start of the rebuild preparation. Although much of the gunk has been removed at this point, there's still a fair amount of elbow [de]grease[r] required, and some additional components to remove (cough-cough, dashboard, cough-cough). However, with 2023 here it was high time to put down the scrapers and rags for a moment, clean up our workspace, and have a good look at the car.

Our impression is that the Fall was a dirty, difficult, exhausting experience -- and we expected it to be. And our assessment is that we are in good shape now, relatively speaking. Yes, there were some dark times -- such as cleaning the transmission tunnel. But, those times are in the past and we're optimistic about putting this little machine back together.

Another milestone at this junction was the submission of our first Moss Motors order. After spending three months working on the car and assembling the parts list, it had grown to include a substantial number of items. Mostly these are wear items, such as rubber bushings, needing to be replaced, but also some parts which could not be saved. The order size was just large enough to gain entry into the Moss Motors Customer Loyalty Program, and also timed to leverage the Winter Sale 11% discount.

We've also placed several other orders from various companies and even MGExp members! Front Armstrong lever shocks from Worldwide Auto Parts of Madison. Front brake calipers from British Parts Northwest. Gear reduction starter from Classic Car Performance. A Weber DCV 32/36 from Lee Orphan. A chrome bumper from Tim Messenger. A tonneau cover from Ed Wolff. Boxes from Amazon and eBay. Bags from AutoZone, O'Reilly, Harbor Freight, and Home Depot. My wife so far isn't complaining about the tools+parts inflow (and cash outflow...) -- maybe she's happy I've decided to spend my midlife crisis this way

Finally, I think I've actually consumed every single minute of MG Midget 1500 back-content on YouTube at this point, and so I've decided that it's time to start our own channel dedicated to the project. At the time of this writing we've published six episodes, with a few more currently in production and certainly more to come. As all of the YouTubers love to say, don't forget to click "like", "subscribe", "the notification bell", and leave a comment!

https://youtube.com/@marbleheadmg