Need advice in
restoring your MG Midget or Sprite?
Have you undertaken the restoration of an MG Midget or Sprite? Or
are you just trying to get the darn thing to go (or stop)? Do you
think that it's "all up to you" and your pile of manuals to get the job
done? You would be very wrong! Your car may be ancient, but
fortunately YOU live in the 21st century. There are literally
thousands of Midget and Sprite owners out there that you can pose any
question to RIGHT NOW. There are several forums where you can put
a question in front of many hundreds of Midget / Sprite owners all at
once. You can be sure to get knowledgeable advice from one or
more people no matter what your spridget-related issue.
Where are all these people hiding, you may ask? There are several
forums you can turn to. Let me mention here that they all all
free and there is no commercial interest involved in any of this.
First, there are a couple of email-based groups that you can sign up
with. There is one at yahoo groups, with over 1,300 members at
this
writing. Go to their
webpage to sign up. The way the yahoo group and other email
based groups works is as follows: To "post" a message to the
group, you send an email to the group email address. The email
server sends a copy of your email to every member of the group,
including yourself. Anyone who replies to your email will have
their reply distributed in the same fashion. In this way,
everybody reads everything, and everyone learns. In the interest
of your own email organization, I recommend that you set up a separate
inbox in your email reader for mail from the group. There will be
5-20 emails a day, and you don't need all that mixed up with your
regular email! You may want to keep all these emails for future
reference, and it is handy to have them all in one place.
By the way, they are text-only, so they don't take long to download.
The second Midget and Sprite email based group is at team.net. Go to the
spridget group
webpage to sign up. The
same rules apply as to the yahoo group above. The team.net group
has a very nice archive of the many thousands of emails that have gone
by in the past. You can search the archive with keywords
and
access the accumulated wisdom of the group! Go to the archives page
and give it a try. If you don't find an answer to your
specific question, by all means, ask the group! By the way, the
yahoo group has an archive as well - you can find it on their webpage.
There is a web-based Midget bulletin board at the U.K. based "MG Cars
Enthusiasts Club". Go to
their bulletin board page and read through the two "Midget
and Sprite" bulletin boards. You can post a question there
without signing up, but
there are features that only work if you do so. You can also add
your comments to any of the ongoing discussions.
OK THEN, now you know that you don't have to do this on your own.
Try out all of the resources above. I guarantee that it will
transform your restoration experience.