Mazda MX-5, Take 2!

So. Sold the Polo Sunday. Monday comes around, Stu finds me a few MX-5's to look at. One literally around the corner from me, rotten as anything. Quick browse finds another, just up the road in Dursley (Hi Stephlar/banjos!). Look around it, in the dark, it's clearly dirty as, but underneath it appeared to be a nice solid shell.

Bit of haggling, get it down by £250... result!

And so, the only semi-decent picture of my purchase so far (roof only up due to me going to work, every journey has been roof down!)



In the daylight, it's a bit untidy. The interior was DISGUSTING, fag ash and mould everywhere. Spent about 2 and a half hours cleaning the interior this evening - underneath the crap, it's got a Nardi wheel and (very worn) gear knob, and it's in pretty damn good condition!

Outside needs a good clean, definitely well overdue a polish and wax.... it's got a little surface rust to one of the rear arches, but no worse than my old mx. It's even got a nice big k+n style filter and front strut brace.

Tomorrow night will consist of doing a fairly hefty service, cambelt, water pump, oil/filter/sparks etc, the cambelt tensioner is making a bit of a rattle atm!

Oh and lastly... it's an Eunos. JDM yoh! Quite pleased, generally seems nicer to drive than my old one and potentially has a proper lsd too, something we need to check!

Plans? You lot should know by now... Low. Loud. Lairy.

Chris_429 wrote:

Dursley (Hi Stephlar/banjos!).

Y U no come say hi?!

I know nothing about these motor vehicles but it definitely looks better in black!

The locals started playing banjos and throwing rocks!

Cheers Steven, the black is growing on me tbh

Looks good Chris!

Buff.

Needs Lows.

Nice B4T Convertible Division

Bringing it to Taunton?

Nice going mate! Have to say l can understand why you got another

As said before love it mate.

And a steal at that price. Hopefully you will keep hold of this one for a little longer

nellers2001 wrote:

Looks good Chris!

Cheers!

Norledge wrote:

Buff.

Needs Lows.

You know they're coming. Lower this time

Rallye James wrote:

Nice B4T Convertible Division

Bringing it to Taunton?

Completely forgot about Taunton! Might well do

Adam86 wrote:

Nice going mate! Have to say l can understand why you got another

Yeah, driving them is just so nice - really have missed it. Dont stop grinning when I drive it!

Whiting wrote:

As said before love it mate.

And a steal at that price. Hopefully you will keep hold of this one for a little longer

Cheers dude! If I ever get fed up of this then I request someone gives me a slap and tells me to stop mincing.

Back to Jap... ;-) Looks tidy mate :-)

Looks nice mate not that im a convertible fan but is smart.

Lovely bit of progress today!

Firstly, managed to give her a quick once over. Desperately needs a good polish/wax, got the day off friday so weather permitting it'll be done then.

Needs the front bumper re-painting or just a new one in black, front plate holder has made the paint gash, and there's a few runs. However, got a few pics, had to bodge the plate back on without the holder, it'll probably remain bodged until I get an import plate + holder for the front.







Then, Stu and Ruan arrived with a bunch of service goodies. It was bought with a nice rattle from the engine, which was deemed to be a cambelt tensioner bearing, so we thought we'd attack it sooner rather than later. Turned out to be an interesting job, as the tensioner wasn't done up at all, had eaten into what was (luckily) the waterpump housing (also replaced), and halfway through the bolt that was barely holding it in place. Ruan got some videos of the tensioner I'll get him to stick up, worth a laugh!

So, after hunting round for a replacement bolt, getting confused with the timing marks (apparently 'E' doesn't mean exhaust and 'I' doesn't mean inlet?!), it took us a fair while to sort it all out. Also chucked some fresh oil/oil filter and sparks in for good measure, and made a quick mod to the inlet pipe in the form of cutting the resonator out.

Result? One SWEET little engine, that sounds bloody lovely.

Lol are they non interference if the belt did slip?

Yeah, they're non interference luckily. The timing was out very slightly, and it still pulled better than my old one - it pulls ridiculously well now!

Buff tings. Glad we got it all sorted.

For those of you without Facebook *cough*Adam*cough*, heres my pictures...









So yeah, fun times

Moar progress?!

First, because I'm a big tart and have been waiting months to fit it to something - sorted out the mounts for my Jap show plate



Secondly, because I'm a big tart I wanted to tidy up the interior a bit with a new gear knob and gaitor, as the existing ones were worn big time.


to


Finally, because I'm a big tart I gave it a really good polish and wax, cleans up much better than it looked before!

Looking sweet. Such a good base!!

Looks lush chris!

Awsome chris! Now get some boossst

Got my old Alpine H/U back, loving it again!

Also sorted the hood out, wasn't closing properly - checked the locating pins, they have a plastic cover on them normally, which pushes it into the right place to close.

However, on mine... non-exsistant basically...


So wanged some new ones in

Progress dried up a little bit! However, last night, I got this done...



Also going to be fitting these tonight (as a temporary measure for lows), along with devising a low profile light switch. Been looking at potential ideas for the front bumper and lights too

Like.

It's amazing what a little matt black paint can do to a car!

Looking good mate!

Looks so good with the black wheels

So, got a little bit more done Saturday. Been mincing a bit with lowering, stuff got in the way then I realised how close my MOT is... may get it done for Combe, may not, we'll see.

Anyway, following this guide, I installed this switch (excuse the chronicly filthy footwells!)



Soldered and crimped some tings, it now does this...



Then went on a bit of a painting/bodging spree. Wanted to be able to take the front plate off at shows without showing bits of paint flaking off, and showing off my gaping holes. So, bit of filler was deployed, and a bit of hammerite...



With the MOT in mind, I needed somewhere to stick my plate... still haven't got my import front plate yet so the import bracket was out of the question. Couple of rough, bodged brackets were made up and painted matt black - whilst the can was out, I gave the wipers (previously Steph spec!) and the front reflectors a sand and a quick coat...





And, bosh.



Muchhh better. Front plate comes off easy enough, front end looks a load tidier... Pretty pleased

Get it low for combe mate will look ace

Nah, been looking at my shifts etc... just not got enough time between now and then! In no major rush though, I've got some time off after - it'll just get done then

Looking good man!

Looking Good chris!

Will keep a eye on this! Same colour as mine!

Love the sleepy eyes! Any chance of a email/Pm or Fb on how you did it?

There's a link to the guide in the post above dude - just above the first pic, click on the word 'this'

Get some pics up of yours!

Ah cool! Cheers! Do you just flick the switch then press pop up?

Ok, I'll get a thread going! Not for tack tho!

Yep, flick it central, press the pop-up, then toggle the switch until you get the level you want. Follow the guide and you can't go wrong, trust me, I'm no electrician and I did that easy as...

You say that, but even low these things handle amazingly! My old one was pretty epic for that tbh. This will be lower eventually!

Chris_429 wrote:

This will be lower eventually!

Here we go again...

So... MOT failed today.

1) Headlight aim, no biggy.

2) OSF shock absorber has a fluid leak, NSR shock has negligible damping effect. Great. Would explain the handling being less than confidence-inspiring on the Wales drive though, spent most of the time absolutely cacking my pants!

3) Front ARB linakge bushes deteriorated. Again, hardly confidence-inspiring... But no problem, Flo-Flex bushes are cheap as.

4) NSF vehicle structure has corrosion... I.E a small hole in the floor. Brilliant!

However, been on a bit of anti-mince... Welding should be sorted fairly easily/quickly, coilovers have been ordered as have flo-flex bushes (coilovers aren't anything special, just the racelands again - however, they will get me through an MOT and get me low for as much as I can realistically afford ATM). Shouldn't be too long before it's back, might even treat it to some overdue brakes!

Genuinely gutted mate, but i guess it's a bit like the golf killing it's engine - just the kick up the arse you need!!

Yeah, it's exactly that tbh. Can't wait to get it low again, even found some relatively cheap spacers that I might invest in, in a couple of months.

As Stu said mate, its a shitter but atleast itll get a few things ticked off your list as theyve got to be done asap!

Chris my mates bro has some 20mm spacers, only 2 but i'll see what he wants for them. If you want.

Did you get the flo flex kit on offer? Got some for mine when they were down to £80.

Not big enough Rich! (Bet that's not the first time you've heard that haha)

Just gone for the front ARB set atm as I'm broke. It'll get sorted out in time though, there's always group buys going through, though tbf my wishbone bushes are toight like a toiger, so may settle for doing the rear ARB's too.

So, went through different options for sorting the hole in the bottom... ended up buying a new toy!



Decided to attack it straight away. Lifted all the important bits away inside...



Ground around the area to see what was good metal (this is part way through, we cut out any rust)



Marked it all out and made a template, this helped repair the sill join too, which had split a little



Welded into place, should mention this was done gasless, but will be getting the bits to enable to do gas welding soon, for visible stuff!



And painted up!



So that's sorted, headlight aim's sorted... just waiting on coilies and bushes!

fudging hell its edd off wheeler dealers!

Nice work mate

Get some gas man, makes the world of difference! Good job though, i know who to call on when i gotta bodge something, or ruan does for that matter

Bet you can respect the kinda workmaship Tim can do on my downpipe and your backbox now lol

Yeah, gas stuff is being bought asap, we just thought we'd give it a try as it's hidden - luckily this welder just has bolt-on bits for gas, also has capability for stainless and aluminium just from changing the gas/wire, pretty cool!

But yeah, you know if you need anything bodging, give me a shout!

Definitely can, did anyway, but even more so now lol!

Yeah man all you need is the different wire and your away! Good little piece of kit to have.

Nice one man, ill bear that in mind lol.

Coilovers fitted, bodging ebay coils with other ebay coils ftw... red springs were the originals, blue's are the ones from the coil kit I bought before... Also with FloFlex ARB and droplink bushes...





Set at MOT test height lol. Completely transformed the handling though...

Why have you changed the coils? And what coilies are you running?

You can see the length of the other springs, they're massive, and have the helpers built in, which would make it handle a bit crap and not go quite low enough. The rears would have clipped the locking collars on the driveshafts too. These springs are a lot harder and won't need to be wound anywhere near as low for a proper height reduction.

They're only TA Technix things... Drives a million times better now though!

Hmm.......

I was looking at the rokkor ones with NB top mounts. Might look into this if its cheaper!

Going mk2 mounts rich isnt as cheap. better to fork out a touch more for mk1 coilies.

I can't seem to bloody find any within my budget! Thats the only reason!