1275 Work - Part 1, But Not Really

This past weekend I headed back up to Geneva to work on the original midget, ol' 72. I had pulled the engine and trans, and everything else out of the car long ago. The car is in moderate shape with a lot of rust damage on the passenger side floor from a botched repair many years ago. You can't just drop in sheet metal over rust hole and expect it to get better, especially if you use aluminum rivets on steel panels.

Due to the basket case that the car ended up being, after slightly less than a year of ownership I bought Midget #2. This was a 1976 car, in primer, not really but is suppose to be and its a long story that you will hear more of later. 76 had the benefit of coming without the original engine or trans, or much else. It was a very clean body, and the seller had been planning on swapping in a Ford 2 liter and Type 9 trans. This sounded pretty great to me so I continued with the project and took it one step further. I came to the idea of making the car a coupe, with a roof from a donor Volvo P1800. As it sounds this quickly became the project of the century, and without the necessary resources I decided to go back to original car for awhile. So now I begin again on the 72 1275.

Over the weekend I was able to tear the engine down, 40+ years of wear, use, and abuse have taken a toll somewhat on the engine, I'll have to replace a lot of stuff, a full list will make its way on here at some point. But the short version is that 3 out of 4 cylinders have broken rings, compression, so the block will get an over-bore to clean in up, I will probably go to a 4 bolt center main, its a 3 main bearing engine so the center sees a lot of stress. Also I thinking about balancing the crank and maybe having everything cleaned up. But as a must it looks like I'll need:

Pistons

Rods

 Cam - Strong street to mild race

Hardened Tappets

Valves

Springs

Retainers

Crossflow Head - Car deserves it

Different Oil Pump or Transfer pump

Electronic Ignition

New Alternator

So as you can see, its becoming a bit of a money pit, but it should be pretty neat when its functional. More to come as parts start to be ordered!