Midget shell differences, 1500 vs SWA

[Meldonte]

Can anyone highlight the differences between a 1500 shell and a SWA '71 shell?

I'm aware of the curved cross member at the front and presumably engine mounts are subtlely different between a and b series but not sure of any others, not been able to find much on the net.

I'm doing a resto on a 71 and have given up on the current shell as it's in a right state thinking most economical option is going to be to buy a 1500 rubber bumper that needs a little bit of work and do a reshell job - bmh shell is way out of budget here. Is there anything that would preclude this?

It's for a road rally car so it doesn't need to be concours job.

Any advice? If any one knows for solid mkiii shells for sub 2k I'd be interested in this route too.

[Geordie MGmike]

What! Apart from the obvious ones of the extra steel in the chassis to support the heavy rubber bumpers?

This can all be cut out but it's a fair bit of work to get the rear panel smooth again. The front valence has slots in it, the sills have two jacking points on each side and the wings are different but the front are bolt on and the rears can be modified.

Also re-shelling with a used shell is against the DVLA's rules...

Rebuild the original is my advice.

Best of...
MGmike

Edited by Geordie MGmike on Sunday 22 December 09:23

Edited by Geordie MGmike on Sunday 22 December 09:23

[Meldonte]

Extra steel where though? That's kind of what I'm getting at. I know the dvla's rules but wasn't planning on sending them a memo. I would ideally save this shell but it's not really an option. It's been badly repaired (over sills and patches over holes without removing previous rot) in a past life and there is nothing solid left to start with really. I've tried welding to it but when you clean back the primer (dome after sand blasting) it's so pitted that can't strike a stable arc from it.

To give you an idea:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70441006@N08/11499445...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70441006@N08/11499464...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70441006@N08/11499370...

The other option is a used mkiii or sprite shell.

Edited by Meldonte on Sunday 22 December 18:05

[wildoliver]

I've done this several times using heritage 1500 shells from abandoned restorations. I will emphasise using a heritage shell is the only legal way you can take the V5 from your car and plonk it on another shell. It's highly unlikely you will ever get found out, but if you do you will get the car put on a Q plate instantly rendering it valueless.

At the rear end, suspension mountings/fuel tank etc. All identical, I'm trying to remember what I did with the fuel pump mounting last time, I seem to recall there is a stud under there you can use for the fuel pump bracket.
What isn't identical is inside the boot there are 2 thick chassis rails running above the boot floor that aren't there on a CB car, they can be removed but I wouldn't bother, the chrome bumpers will mount with them in place. You do need to make a cone for under the rear lights as it's cut off on the 1500.

Centre of the car is broadly similar, the transmission tunnel has a hole in the centre of the floor to allow a bolt on prop to be used, 1275 or 1500 engine and gearbox will bolt in to either car, as will a 1275 engine with a 1500 gearbox connected by a marina bellhousing, with very little work a spitfire overdrive box bolts in. The 1500 box is superior to the 1275 in strength and is more civilised, but it is heavier. I prefer the 1500, a good 1500 is a gem, a bad one is a nightmare, they have a tendency to wear thrust bearings badly and if they have been abused can warp blocks, a warped 1500 should be scrapped and start again, you would never get it back. But get a good one and it is a far superior engine with bags of torque and smooth and free revving with it, it's just a bit more hit and miss than an A series which could have been abused since day one but is just a simple rebuild away from being as good as new. There are 2 jacking points per side instead of one.

Front end is much the same also, engine mounting points (you must use the 1500 engine mounts with a 1500 engine and a series mounts with a series engines, the mounts are the conversion piece for the engine not the shell) are the same, rad mounts up fine, suspension all mounts up, there is a pair of chassis extensions going in to the front panel in the grill aperture, you can leave these in place and the grill will mount to them but will now be flush with the front of the car, or chop them off (big job as they are welded to the front panel), the front panel is different containing cooling slots in the valance but the holes are present to mount the bumper brackets as are the mounts on the front legs. The header tank needs to be moved as the 1275 metalwork at the front doesn't fit in to place easily, but it will move to the standard 1500 location easily and not look out of place. The air trunk needs deleting or a bit of ingenuity to fit and the hole on the other side fixing.

Doors, boot, bonnet, hood, windscreen frame, seats, carpet set, trim panel set, steering wheel, wheels, suspension (except springs) all pretty much exactly the same as the outgoing 1275, very very few trim changes, later 1500s had hazard lights as standard so the dash was slightly different, most 1500s used triumph type gauges (totally interchangeable with earlier cars, there are 2 types of speedo to suit a push on or screw on speedo cable) with square needles.

To be honest though, given your budget of circa 2k for a shell, plus the work and hassle of modifying it, plus your looking for a used shell so it will need some work no matter how good it is, then it will need painting, you will end up buying new bits for the car as you go along no matter how good yours is, you would be daft to do anything other than sell yours as a project on ebay and buy a running working rot free car that someone else has done the hard work on and spend circa 3-4k on it. You should get at least £500 for your old car, if you can afford to buy the new car outright it will even allow you to swap any great bits off yours and on to the new car.

As a side note if you do take that advice go and look at a nice 1500, I'd prefer a really great 1500 to an average 1275 and the bumpers do grow on you, they make a classic car in to a usable car, no chrome to go rusty unless it's polished constantly and great for car parks.

[wildoliver]

Just to add to that, I had a look through your pictures on your album, hope you don't mind (nice Carlsson btw, we had a 9000 Carlsson which I really miss, those 90's sports saloons were fantastic I've had a variety of them from Audis to Saabs).

The pictures of this shell are bad, it is repairable but not the way your trying to repair it, don't mess around trying to patch it, brace the shell up and cut the floors, rear bulkhead out and start again, then do the boot floor complete. Same on the front end. Cut right back to clean metal and replace.

Or there is a 1500 (shell at least) rally car in your pics which I assume you like the look of as you kept the picture, you can see the flush fit grill.

[Geordie MGmike]

Extra steel in the boot from the chassis to the back panel to bolt the bumpers to. Back panel is a slightly different shape where the bumper bolts on and needs to be modified. At he front the chassis legs are extended through the area used for the grill in earlier cars. This will need removing or at least cutting back to fit a grill. Check out the pictures of the panels here:-
http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/Shop/ViewProducts.asp...
and check against what you haven't got...

I know repairing a shell is time consuming and expensive but it's also very satisfying when it's finished. Having paid to get the shell blasted I'd still be inclined to repair it with new panels as required. Just about everything is available and if you work on one area at a time you'll soon have a solid shell. just remember to cross brace with angle/box tube to prevent the shell warping whilst you hack it about

Best of......
MGmike

wildoliver beat me to it...

Edited by Geordie MGmike on Monday 23 December 07:59

[Meldonte]

Thanks for that both of you, immensely helpful!

There's a build thread somewhere in readers cars explaining the background but essentially this car is a 'gift' from my godparents after being left In a barn for 28 years. Hence the sentimental value and why I can't just shift this one on and move to a 1500. (I get that reshelling kinda makes it a different car in reality but if I can keep the plate it feels like it is the same car I was given even if in reality there's not much left, I'm saving everything I can)

I think you are right about being more aggressive with the welding rather than just patching new parts In, the car is on a spit we made and I've braced with box section between the door tops and between the b posts. Truth is I'm in way over my head at this point having only dabbled in TIG previously, I find MIG in comparison to be like trying to thread a needle with boxing gloves on. The thought of chopping out the boot floor, rear bulkhead and passenger floor in one go is positively terrifying even though I know I can get the bits. I wouldn't know where to make my cuts to leave enough to lap to, plus the sills and firewall are gone so they'll have to go too and your left with not much. I've been through every panel needs welding which is why I got onto the reshell idea. I have scary visions of a midget crabbing down a road looking like a cut and shut job.

Budget for the whole car is higher than 2k obviously but it needs all new running gear, electrics and power train ( although diff, prop shaft and maybe gbox have survived). The idea was to end up with a road rally toy to muck about with and enjoy, not a concourse show queen.

I will see this through I just need to make sure I consider all the angles before I choose which route to go down.

P.s. No probs looking at the flickr and thanks for the comments, as you can see the Carly has had its own welding but isn't quite as bad as the poor midget. Got it to a reasonable state now

[wildoliver]

Want a word of advice?

Go and buy a heritage shell, don't mess around it's going to end up costing you more and causing years of hassle, either hunt for an abandoned project on a heritage shell (or bare minimum a fully and well restored original shell) plus your going to get the benefit of a bucketful of spares which will cut your build cost down and you can sell the excess parts, or go and buy a new shell. Stick the shell straight in to paint then axle stand it up and build on to it, it turns a horrible miserable depressing job in to a real pleasure.

Be aware though that at the level your talking which basically sounds to be renewing everything even if you go with the cheap option of using a decent used shell (circa £500) doing a few repairs to it then getting it painted you will be looking at a big big bill, by the time you sit down and add up all the £20 here £50 there, £500 there, £5 here bills taking the shell out of the equation but having it painted by someone else you could sensibly be looking at spending 4k plus. Hence my comment of buying another car. Your car will no more be the one gifted to you than going out and buying a fully restored car and swapping the number and chassis plates across.

If you do end up spending this much and use a 1500 shell as the basis making the car a bitsa it will have very little residual value. If you do it as a fast road/competition car it will have very little residual value. Both these options will cost you the same to restore to as to a semi concourse car, by which I mean a car as it left the factory, maybe with a few improvements to usability but essentially a pretty and original looking car in good condition.

It's ultimately your choice and money, but an awful lot of projects get started with good intentions and end up abandoned due to lack of money or skills or just running out of momentum, I've even bought an abandoned project with a heritage shell, all the underside painted, literally just needed the top side painting and fitting out, most of the bits in boxes new, literally a weekends paintwork followed by a weekend fitting it out and the car would have been 90% finished, and worth 3-4k versus the £800 I paid, there comes a tipping point in restorations value wise.

A restoration Midget project, irrespective of condition provided it's complete, shows a little promise and if the engine turns over or even better starts is always going to be worth £500.

Strip it down like yours to restore, put time and effort in to expose the problems and start doing work on it, maybe even spend money on some panels and the value drops to £250 because now it's a pain to move and the exposed rust scares off most buyers.

Get half way through the work the value starts to climb back up the the original £500, and as the work on the shell is completed provided it is to a high standard the value of the project is circa £6-750. Now consider the time and money it took to get here!

But get the top coat on the car so it's shiny, get a few lights in the apertures and the windscreen resting in to place, and the car on it's wheels so it rolls and the value jumps to £1500 ish. It's taken you a week of work at the most to get here from the last stage, virtually no money other than paint which if doing the painting yourself costs around £100 in materials on a Midget for 2 pack primer under celly base.

Do another weeks work and the cars back in one piece with just cribbing jobs to do, cost here is whatever you want it to be, if you can reuse hood, interior etc. It's virtually free as most of the work is refurbishing which you should have been doing on down time during the shell rebuild, an interior set comprising doorcards, carpets, hood and seats is going to swallow a grand thereabouts. But now the car is worth the value of a car, so depending how good the job was it's worth the same as an equivalent Midget, generally £3500 upwards, one built on a heritage shell has a certain cachet and will bring in more money, a desirable model built properly on a heritage shell could sell for 7k without too much hard work, but a SWA chrome bumper isn't that desirable, albeit it's a nice car, I know you will probably never sell the car, but if you go in to it with an eye on purse strings then at least you shouldn't end up failing half way through and blowing a load of cash on a good intention that never happened or if after the project you drive the car and think it wasn't worth it for all the work you put in at least you can get back out of it.

Oh and we all make mistakes, I currently have 2 good intentions cars bunging up my workshop, both lovely motors when finished, one B roadster that is virtually as it left the factory panel wise, but because it's a LHD Rubber bumper car that it would be a crime to convert to RHD chrome bumper due to it's originality is never going to bring in the money it deserves, and a 1966 3 synchro BGT, one of the first off the line, featured in several books, owned by the Author, quite a special car and a lovely thing when it's finished, but I got halfway in to the project and other projects took over, it's now sat there worth less than when I started so I can't easily get back out of it and we are moving workshop to possibly a long way away next year so it's going to be a rush to get through the other cars just to get this one done and back together as it would never sell as an ongoing project which is a shame. So we all make mistakes, I should have known better but try not to make the same ones!

[nta16]

wildoliver said:

So we all make mistakes, I should have known better but try not to make the same ones!

it's a lot, lot cheaper and quicker to learn from the mistakes of others

just look at how many unfinished projects are for sale, people run out of time, money, space, inclination, patience, etc.

I'd second what WO has put, buy a car that someone else has lost all the time and money on

I think very few restorers record all the costs (not just money) or are very economical with what they admit to themselves

some of the most expensive items are those you get for free or gifted

it's a lot better to be realistic at the start than in the middle or at the end, you can very soon be throwing good money after bad - believe me I know - I did eventually learn to cut my losses and lose what I'd lost and not even more in the present or future

I'm sure there'll be plenty who'll tell you it is possible to do it for your budget but remember what I put about their possible economy on the reality of it

plus for road rally work you will want it to hold together and presumably be competitive in some way

[Meldonte]

wildoliver said:

Want a word of advice?

Lots of good stuff..

Thanks for that - I think you are right, just wait for a decent 1300 project to come along with a shell that's been properly restored / replaced.

I 100% agree with you about the valuation dropping and then coming back up exponentially vs effort put in. Therefore it makes sense to buy a project that only requires bits bolting onto it. That I can do and based on how long it took to strip the car (including all the rusty / sheared bolts) is 2 weeks work max to get to a car that needs fettleing and finishing touches. This of course assumes that all the bits to go back in are ready and waiting but I'm working on that at the moment

Thanks for the good advice here. I'm going into this with my eyes open on costsand understand that i'll never recoup the value, as I've stated before that's not why I'm doing this project, otherwise quite frankly it would be on a different marque.

[wildoliver]

It's a shame really because I've just sold a shell that would have suited you down to the ground, but I'm totally clear of Midgets and parts now, last shell I've got to clear out is a B roadster shell then I'll be much more chilled for the new year ahead!

[benters]

almost finished my re build onto a new heritage shell. . .its the way to go in my opinion.

[Eeyore48]

Hi, I might have something that will interest you...a 1972 shell which has not been used. It's complete with doors, bonnet and boot lid. Its been in a shed for years so has surface rust but absolutely no rot. I also have a 1275 engine, g'box and a Triumph overdrive box with bellhousing to mate with 1275 engine. i have the paperwork and wheels somewhere ..and an axle but the wiring and interior ain't worth having. If it is of interest - let me have your contact details and we can talk. The car is on Staffs/Cheshire border but I have car trailer so could deliver if necessary. You are welcome to come and have a look any time. Regards, Eeyore

[nta16]

benters said:

almost finished my re build onto a new heritage shell. . .its the way to go in my opinion.

that looks nice

(very early model, no exterior door handles )

and I approve of the wheels

my present Midget was build on a Heritage shell and my previous Spridget was build on one of the very early Heritage shell IIRC