1981 Midas Coupe - Project Zippy.

Today has been a day of extreme frustration. I have a list of things that I need to do:



1. Adjust the rear brakes

2. Change the incorrectly fitted handbrake quadrant so it's the right way round.

3. Fit the rear handbrake cable and poke the front one through the hole on the floor so I can then measure up where the handbrake needs to sit.

4. Gauge where handbrake bracket needs to go.

5. Measure it again.

6. Drill holes, fit bracket, attach handbrake to bracket.

7. Measure up for exhaust mounting.

8. Drill holes, fit it.



Guess which completed point I got to today? Yup, that would be point 2. Let me explain...



Adjusting the brakes was really quite easy (so it should be as everything bar the backplates is new). I then established that the incorrectly fitted quadrant (which numpty did that?), was the one on the passenger side. (For those that don't know, the quadrants are longer on one side - if they're fitted the wrong way round it fouls and your handbrake won't work as it should). And of course, with the car being up on axle stands, I couldn't move it. And the passenger side is practically up against the wall (give or take a foot). So what I needed to do was to remove the spilt pin at the top, I couldn't reach it, so first of all, off came the wheel. Nope, still not able to easily reach it. Off came the shock as well. This gave me just enough room to get at the split pin. Now, me being me, I'd turned said split pin round on itself about as tight as I could get it. Obviously I didn't want it to come off, which Past Me had presumably done to annoy Future Me. And annoy me it did. It took me the best part of an hour to remove the pesky little blighter. Once out, I was easily able to flip the quadrant and install a new split pin in less than a minute. For the shock and the wheel it was as Mr Haynes so often dictates: "refitting is the reverse of removal".



Full of confidence, I picked up the handbrake cables, grabbed the bag with the clevis pins and once more went under the car. Only to find that the clevis pins I had carefully put in said bag were too big and clearly for something else. So I gave up, went inside and did something different. Grrr! Next time I may at least get to step 6...



This split pin gave me a world of trouble. After much fighting, swearing, and removal of various items to actually reach it, I vanquished it. The little bar steward.







My thoughts toward the wrongly sized clevis pins is best summed up by this picture:

Handbrake is now on. It did not help that last time I tried getting under and doing necessary things, I twisted the wrong way and pulled a muscle in my back, thus rendering me a bit useless for going under the car for a fair few days, then other stuff started going on, so I got a bit distracted. So it's been close to 7 weeks. Oops. Thankfully, getting the cable on was an absolute piece of cake in comparison to changing the quadrant round (or at least getting that pesky split pin removed, anyway). Aside from one small thing:



The brake pipes I'd bent to shape were bent to shape wrongly, as I had not taken into consideration the clearance for the handbrake cable. (Previous me annoying present day me again. That guy's a doughnut). They fouled. This made me a bit annoyed. So I removed them and put them on the bench with a view to looking at them later.



Once that was done and the correct clevis pins installed, I connected the handbrake, drilled appropriate holes in the tunnel and mounted it. It works! Needs a bit of adjustment but I will get on to that later.



Finally I thought I would make up some new brake pipes - turns out I am absolutely rubbish at producing the flares. I just can't seem to get it right, so after a very frustrating hour of things going very wrong and various bits of brake pipe being waster and thrown around the workshop, I logged on to Mini Spares and ordered some ones that are already flared and just need bending. They should arrive in the next few days. And because it's Mini Spares, I couldn't just order those, so I put some new seatbelts in the basket as well.



Look! It's on!







All seems nicely arranged. Sorry for the slightly rubbish photo - lying underneath the car does not enable a good shooting angle!







Handbrake in place







And brake pipes on the bench before the aborted attempt to remake them.







More soon, when I shall attempt to bend brake pipes, and sort an exhaust mounting that will almost certainly not go quite according to plan!

Aah, brake pipes, a job everyone loves, or not! A decent flaring tool makes it a lot easier; I’ve got an old Sykes Pickavant one I bought with some other tools from a customer that was retiring. It’s saved me a lot of swearing over the cheapo one I had that I don’t think ever made a decent flare 😂

So, I have now got new rear brake pipes, but they're still on the bench. There is method to my madness - well, some anyway. I have figured out a way of sorting the middle exhaust mounting. Whether it will work in the long term remains to be seen, but it's certainly holding the exhaust up nicely, so we'll see how it goes. It's effectively an extension to a bobbin mount - I cut a section of tube which was a similar size to the bobbin (which is a heavy duty item) and then cut 2 discs out of a sheet of metal, before welding a bolt at one end, and a captive nut at the other. The caps were then welded to the ends, before tidying up and adding a coat of paint. The bobbin then screws into the extension with a toothed lock washer to keep it in place. I may still go back to welding a rod to the exhaust if this doesn't work out, but we'll see. It'll be easier when I can get the car on a ramp, that's for sure.



In other news, I pushed the car out of the garage. Why? I was SO fed up with the ridged concrete floor. We rent, so it's not something that I can change. So off to Halfrauds I went and got a bunch of their interlocking rubber floor mats. Once I'd cleared the floor (you wouldn't BELIEVE how much rubbish there was under the car...) and unblocked the garage hoover twice, down went the new tiles. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. The reason I did this tonight before the brake pipes were done is that there's rain due for the rest of the week. I still have the back bit of the garage to do, but it was time for dinner, and I was HUNGRY!



New centre mount. It might work, it might not, but it'll do for now.







Exhaust looks ok here.







He's outside!







Mmm nice butt! (Excuse the junk in the trunk!)







Clean floor...







New floor! MUCH more comfy!

I'm still here. I've just been doing some other stuff.



The dash top fitted fairly well, apart from the very front bit in front of the driver. This was VERY close to the windscreen - as it stood there would be no way to get the windscreen seal between the dash top and the bodywork - it simply would not go. I REALLY did not want to remake the whole thing - but then that's part of the fun with fibreglass - just cut off the offending part and re-do it. You're only a few pieces of chopped strand mat and some resin away from sorting it.



So out came the Dremel and after some basic measurements I simply lopped off the bit that was "in the way". It was pretty easy to re-sculpt it to give me the clearance required. Once dried, I just needed to cut some clearance for the wiper wheelbox. Once done, I filled in some of the bigger imperfections. My initial intention was to coat the dash top in the same textured paint as the door panels and dash, but it would take forever to get right, so I will get some vinyl and cover it once it's done.



Next it was time to add the windscreen demister vents. For simplicity I using standard Mini items as I happened to have the ones that came with the car. I may "adjust" these as they're shockingly put together - the 2 halves are simply stapled together, meaning that the air leaks out of the side, plus I may need to do a little bit of bending with the help of a heat gun. Anyway, 4 screw holes later, I was ready to cut. A 12mm drill bit at either end gave a nice rounded edge, then I used my newly acquired oscillating tool for the cutting. I love this thing. Why I've never had one before I have no idea- they're amazing! It's still a mock up at the moment but a bit of fettling will have it sorted.



This bit doesn't fit.







So there was a small incident involving the Dremel...







...before new fibreglass was introduced







A bit of filler and some checking for fit. Yes, I like Pepsi Max...







Initial markings before drilling and cutting started







Oscillating tools rock!







Some fettling required, but we're getting there. I now need to find some vinyl...

Nice one, Bouncy.

I can’t help thinking that you’ve aligned yourself with the wrong cola company. 😀

Good result.

Closer and closer to the wind blowing in your face.

Well the Mini-based windscreen vent system can do one. It really will not fit in my car without an awful lot of chopping, bending, and re-organising. This is something that I am not prepared to do. They fitted fine behind the dashboard, but of course I hadn't put the speedo pod in place. Likelihood of fitting with it there? 0%. The original set-up was even worse - a tube of metal with holes in it, and pipe stubs for the vent tubes to attach to. Messing around with the Mini vents, or the original system, when there's actually a much simpler way of doing things with a smaller and tidier set-up, makes no sense. I will come to this later.



So I unscrewed the Mini vents and put them into the naughty corner for being the wrong shape for what I wanted. I of course had some holes in the dash top, so out came the Jaffa Cake boxes, and the parcel tape. I cut them to shape, covered them with tape and used masking tape to secure them over the holes. I then mixed up the last of my resin, and fille din the holes with that and some chopped strand mat. Oh, and the lolly stick which I had used to mix the resin with the hardener, which just happened to be exactly the right size to plug the hole. Once dry, I cracked out the last of my filler to sort out the numerous lumps and bumps. The dash top will be covered with vinyl, but I would like to ensure it has a semblance of smoothness underneath, otherwise it will show through.



My solution to the vent issue is a simple round directional vent, which can be connected directly to some convoluted tubing, as the Mini (and most other cars) would have. I've got some new stuff in stock so once the vents arrive, I will do some measuring and get the hole saws out.



Mini Vents: Not much use if I want instruments.







New fibreglass in place of holes.







Dash top has a few holes and imperfections







Filled in and ready for sanding (re-done after first pass, which is never right!!)







And my solution to the vent issue is a pair of these directional vents - small, tidy and dead easy to fit. Hose attaches directly to the bottom of the vent.

I am still here - there are just some things going on which have meant that the garage project has not been a priority. My best mate suffered quite a serious heart attack a few weeks ago - he has just had a triple bypass and is recovering in Papworth. He's now back on the recovery ward so hopefully will be home after a few more days of bed rest.



Back to the Midas then: I had the great idea of connecting the pipes directly to the new vents. I found however, that this was not possible, at least not without a huge amount of work. The vents themselves are only about 3/8" deep (the thickness of the dash top is more than that), plus the pipe I have does not fit the vents anyway. So I decided to steal an idea that Jin of the Midas Forum had for his Cortez - have a plenum box under the vent with a pipe in it to connect the tubing. I had a good look around the garage for a small-ish box but could not find anything suitable. Instead, I picked up a cork sanding block which was almost exactly the right size. I covered it in tape and used it as a buck to make the little boxes out of fibreglass.



After a bit of messy work with chopped stand mat and resin, I had 2 fairly rough boxes. They're not the prettiest, but as they'll be buried deep in the dash, they can't be seen unless the area needs to be ripped apart. "Functional" is probably the best way to describe them! However, they're extremely strong, and being made of fibreglass, they can easily be glassed into the dash top permanently. I WILL be checking clearance beforehand! I had also found some 1 1/4" steel pipe in the garage, so cut a couple of bits to size before priming and painting them.



It was then time to do a trial run by fixing them on to the dash top with masking tape - it all looks very promising, as they're designed to fit in the cavity between the dash top and the top of the instruments. However, I will do the final check with the pipes in place to ensure that it clears the speedo pod. All I needed to do the was to drill some holes in the dash top for the vents - the holesaw I had for this was exactly the same size as the vents, so they wouldn't fit. A tickle with my old friend the Dremel made sure all fitted perfectly. The final job for this evening's work was to drill a diagonal hole in each box for the stub of pipe to fit in. These went in almost as an interference fit. However, to avoid any air bleeding out, I have used fibrgelass resin to seal them up. Once I have done the dummy run to make sure EVERYTHING fits in place correctly, I will measure up the length of new tubing I can use for the heater. I have got some old Mini heater vent pipes, but they're old and brittle, so a quick trip to ebay saw 2 metres of new pipe sitting in the garage. More soon!



A sanding block became the buck for the plenums.







Small 1 1/4" pipe stubs to go into the plenums.







Two plenum boxes. A bit scruffy, and not identical, but no-one will see them!







Test fit of the plenums.







Vents in for a test fit







Plenum with stub of pipe







Mocked up for where they'll go







Sealing up the stubs







And new vent piping ready to be cut to size