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I grew up in minnesota where winter is 6 months long! I traded that for earthquakes and sunami’s! On these beautiful spring dats it all seems worth it. i have had more furn with my migi than any other car i’ve ever owned (over 100). I sold my MGB after it just sat in my garage for a year. I don’t even own a top for MiGi, just the tonneau.
Have fun guys!
chuck
I’m with ed on the ride height. It’s gotta be close to level and we’re pretty much stuck with the rear height. I get the smell of “burnin rubba”
on hard right turns, so the narrower front beam would be great!
Are there any wheels avail with more offset to bring the tires in a bit more?
chuckThe dual carbs on my 1600 DP fit in my MIGI OK. I have the aluminum manifolds which seem to go almost straight up and not curve out like yours. I’ll take some photos if you like?
chuck
There is a company in San Diego advertizing body parts ,interiors and all the stuff that MGMagic used to carry. I sent them an e-mail and will let you know when they will be cranked up and really selling parts.
chuck
I had almost the same scenario with my MiGi (no name yet, except Chitty Bang Bang from my housemate).
Car bottomed out the shocks
I got shorter shocks
100% improvement in ride
now had tie rods hitting underside of body
Flipped the tie rod ends
Now have ferder/tire interference
Looking for bottoming out snubbers to go on the shocks and shock extensions to center the suspension travel within the limits of the shocks. The snubbers will limit the upward travel of the suspension which should stop that “smell of burning rubba” when I go over speed bumps!
I also found that my rear-end was bottoming out and put on gas shocks which gave me an inch of lift which is better than bottoming out on the factory snubbers. It’s pretty good now and I don’t scrape my tail pipe as often. I violated the “No gas shocks on V/W’s rule” and I’m glad I did it!
chuck
I had muffler heat problems melting the fiberglass panel that sits right above it so I lined that panel with an aluminum sheet and ran the sheet all the way up to the V/W sheet metal. I agree with the idea that the fan should not be sucking in all that hot air.
My al sheet solved the melting problem, anyway!
I bought one for my MiGi from mgmagic and it is really nice. The quality is better than I could ever have done. I fit it really tight to the existing snap locations and it looks great. Next time I would leave it a little looser! Easier on-off.
What a great job of documenting this job!
My young friend did it on his first car and commented that it was a PITA and there was LOTS of grease!
I was going to raise my front end an inch or 2, but after seeing what you went through I’ll be happy with the way it is.
I reversed or “flipped” my tie rod ends to improve the geometry and give me more upward travel without the tie rods hitting the body and that helped a lot.
I also put gas shocks on the rear (a great big no-no) and got an inch more travel. The rear was bottoming out a lot giving a rough ride. It’s much better now.
Thanks for all the info!
chuck
I just flipped my tie rods over to be below the arms. Cip1 has the little sleave you need. This corrects the geometry and keeps the tie rods from hitting the body. Also prevents “bump steer” on lowered cars.
Mycar came with the fender mounted mirrors and a round Harley mirror on the dash. I could see a spot right behind me but nothing to either side so I put a TD style mirror on the dash and that works great. I bought a left side mirror from Mg Magic that clamps onto the windshield and it works great! I had to insert a chunk of aluminum into the grove to clamp it onto. I find the fender mounted mirrors are only for looks so they are still there!
Chuck
The boat repair/repainter I bought my MiGi from sugested painting with a high quality and durable paint called Imron (by DuPont, I believe). He even offered to paint it for me if I did the prep work. I would probably not paint a fiberglass car black because it shows all the little imperfections that are inherant to fiberglass. Did you ever notice that most or all the ’53 corvettes were white?
I have found auto motive paints that match my original Tan/brown car and work well for an everyday car, but not a show car.
Chuck
I have the cut and weld lowering on my fiberfab MiGi. I’ve made some adjustments to deal with the ride height as it came to me. It looks and rides good now. But…
If I were to start from scratch I would put in adjusters, get the narrowed front beam, remove some leaves and put on dropped spindles (Might as well do disc brakes while you are at it). I believe most people want the car lowered for looks This causes all kinds of problems i.e. shocks bottoming, tires rubbing, Ball joints binding. Tie rods hitting the body etc,etc…
Our problems are no different from vw owners so you can read the long forum on lowered front ends on thesamba.com and judge for your self. My conclusion is that lowering with dropped spindles would be a good idea because it does not take away any travel from the suspension. You won’t get a real soft ride but you won’t be hitting the stops either. You can put the whole thing together and see how much lower you want that front end.
Read the samba forum on rear suspension also.
Chuck
It appears the body is in the way, even if you remove the fenders.
My carwas just a little too low for me so I put on gas charged Monroes and it raised my rear a little over an inch.
The notion that yoiu can’t use gas charged shocks on a VW is not so in my humble opinion. These shocks are also full of oil.
It would be better to do all the ride height adjustments with torsion bar settings but once the car is put together it makes it tough to get those final tweaks just the way you want them.
BTW The fiberglass hit my outer axel boot( on the right side) and tore a hole in it. Make sure to check that you have enough clearance with the suspension on the bottoming blocks. You need tie rod clearance up front too.
I agree with Ed, it’s a lot of fun and usually rewarding to start the engine up -right now!
air cooled engines are the most fun cuz you can sit in a wagon and hook up a battery and a gas line and fire-away!
They sound really powerful with no exhaust system and the torque nearly tips them over when you rev it up.
Vw engines are cheap and easy to rebuild if the y have a good crank and case. I’m looking for one now just to play with!
Have fun!
chuck
the traditional way to wire an inline ampmeter is to run a wire from the big term on the starter (which also has the batt cable on it) to term “A” of the ampmeter. Term “B” gets the wire from the alt and the main power line for the rest of the car( fuse box etc) My MiGi came to me wired wrong, with the alt feeding into term A. The harness was evidently put together wrong. There are better ways to do this if you have your batt up front and your engine in the rear.
If you have all of the air out of the system, you can pull the hand brake and adjust the front shoes very tight, then try your pedal. It should be hard and high then. I fit’s not then you still have some air in the system and you can buy a little pump and bleed from the wheels back to the masted cyl to try to get it out. I presume you were measuring the free play at pedal and not the rod to cup area?
Chuck
The previous owner of my MiGi cut a big hole in the under-butt board and put a rubber diaphram or strap across the hole to soften the seat a bit. I replaced the board with a solid piece and recovered it and thought that I had improved things until I drove it for a half hour and got a bruised butt. I also didn’t like sitting that much higher.
So… I cut a hole in the new board and attached the rubber under seat diaphram from an MGB under the hole. Feels a lot better!
I’m tall and need to hunker down a bit or the wind coming over the windscreen will blow my head off! I also have no butt padding ( I’m skinney)
I did nothing to the passengers side. as my mate is well padded and short!!! Maybe I just don’t care enough?
I liked james’ comment on non-stainless screws. My migi had no stainless screws anywhere and jus a few brass ones. Even the snaps for the tonneau were plated ferrous material. I’ve been replace-ing everything that shows with stainless. The galvanized 1/4-20 screws that hold the whole thing together don’t rust but they are not very pretty after a few years. I would advise anyone building a new car to get a whole box of stainless 1/4-20 screws with self locking nuts. I like the looks of the button head allen or torx drive better than philips, but they are hard to find at the h/w store.
There is another brad new car-in-a-box in texas for $500 its on craigslook.com (this site gives you the whole us in your searches)
Chuck
I replaced my 74 dual master cyl this w/e because it leaked down under pressure, like when you have to stop real fast! I bled it really good on the bench then plugged all the holes and just pulled one plug at a time and put in each line one at a time. I didn’t even have to bleed the system when i got it all hooked up. This is a measy job, however. I had to clean my driveway when I was finished.
The brakes work good now and I can actually lock up the rear wheels now.
Thanks for the tip on bench bleeding!
Chuck
Most solenoids/relays can be fixed by taking them apart and flipping the contact disc over and turning the bolts that are the contacts 180 degrees. I did one on my garden tractor last sunday!
Chuck
