What have you done to your MX5 today/yesterday?

[blackyb]

If you didn't live so dammed far away!

[Mazda Mender]

Nice drive home this evening.....

[blackyb]

Lucky you.

Ours is still parked up next to the bike and the VW.

Loved but so far unused this year

[Ricolas]

This time of late has given me a chance to catch up with a number of jobs, and I am very nearly there I think.

Brief catch up - last April like a bell-end I drove into someone. Not very fast, but enough to knock the suspension all to a knot. Last thing I needed. Fortunately a low loader was passing who had just dropped off a finished car, so for £30 he dropped my car back home. Convinced the insurer not to write it off, but give me Cash In Lieu.

Rebuilding the suspension was actually really interesting, and didn't hurt as much as I thought, well, certainly once I have bought some mechanics gloves with protected knuckles etc. I love them deeply. Having no skin on my fingers and knuckles was annoying.

Autolink rode to the parts rescue, with both wishbones, hub&carrier, new nuts (!) and ball-joints etc. Drop-links replaced and alignment hauled into place roughly, and taken to the alignment place to get it more accurate. They were a bit crap to be honest, saying that they could not move some of the suspension adjusters, which given that I had freed them off for them...

Knocked the bodywork out into place, and used a hairdryer to soften the nose-cone to pop it back into shape. But there was slight damage to the inner wing at the very front. So to MX5Restorer for body work. Nose-cone resprayed, new wing, inner wing repaired. So far so good, but sill was (ONCE AGAIN ) rotten. So got that done too.

Then my catalytic converter was nicked. 2019 was not a good mx5 year for my little car. Worst in the 22 years I've owned it.

So - this week! Finally got round to taking off the entire exhaust system and putting it back on with new hangers and exhaust paste to seal it *properly* this time (couldn't believe it worked!) yesterday.
Replaced the gearbox oil (& turret), differential oil last week. That's a fun job. <cough> And boy, does old gear oil smell. Ugh.

Today was final bits and pieces. Engine oil, oil filter, fuel filter. Dropped coolant and flushed. Coolant did not look too bad, but there was a lot of sludge knocked out by the flushing.

THANK YOU to all who have posted "how to's" and so forth, I have used a lot of information from the message board over the last year. I am sorry that I did not take more pics of my work as I went, but I was rather learning on the job. Photos of my incompetence might not be helpful to others!

Oh, and the car feels awesome now. Happy to have it back as it should be!

[Mazda Mender]

Pics are needed buddy.
M-m

[seagryhill]

Fixed an annoying fast -ticking LH indicator system - eventually.

1. Swapped all the bulbs over, RH to LH. No change, LH side still fast clicking and only rear bulb flashing, RH side all good.
2. Got a new flasher relay from Autolink and swapped over the leads (cos removing the old relay is a real contortion job). No change, still fast clicking on LH indicators. Put plug back on original relay. Good news, I now have a spare flasher relay.
3. Squirted contact cleaner in all the bulb sockets and connectors. No change.
4. Had a cup of tea.
5. Checked all the earth leads and found 4ohm resistance between LH front indicator black wire and the main earth strap. Figured that was roughly 5 times the value of a normal flasher bulb and was not a good thing.
6. Cut into the earth wire near the front bulb holder and ran a new earth to the headlight earth making sure to include the original cable into the branch. It worked!!
7. Decided not to try and find where the bad earth actually was as it is somewhere in the loom between the front and rear. Interesting that it didn't seem to be earthed with all the other headlight bulbs.
8. Had another cup of tea and felt smug. Happy days. Now if only I had an excuse for some essential travel...

[Ricolas]

Good work, Sherlock!

[Mazda Mender]

Fixed an annoying fast -ticking LH indicator system - eventually.

1. Swapped all the bulbs over, RH to LH. No change, LH side still fast clicking and only rear bulb flashing, RH side all good.
2. Got a new flasher relay from Auto link and swapped over the leads (cos removing the old relay is a real contortion job). No change, still fast clicking on LH indicators. Put plug back on original relay. Good news, I now have a spare flasher relay.
3. Squirted contact cleaner in all the bulb sockets and connectors. No change.
4. Had a cup of tea.
5. Checked all the earth leads and found 4ohm resistance between LH front indicator black wire and the main earth strap. Figured that was roughly 5 times the value of a normal flasher bulb and was not a good thing.
6. Cut into the earth wire near the front bulb holder and ran a new earth to the headlight earth making sure to include the original cable into the branch. It worked!!
7. Decided not to try and find where the bad earth actually was as it is somewhere in the loom between the front and rear. Interesting that it didn't seem to be earthed with all the other headlight bulbs.
8. Had another cup of tea and felt smug. Happy days. Now if only I had an excuse for some essential travel...

M-m

[seagryhill]

Soft top refurbish and refit. (2000 MK2)

Before the winter I removed the soft top and frame off the car with the intention of refurbishment. The hardtop off my dead G-Ltd was a close enough colour match - and it kept me dry over the winter.

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The soft top had mould around the beltline that just couldn't be dealt with on the car and so it had to come off. Finally got around to dealing with it over the weekend.
Here the top has already been cleaned a couple of times but is still showing signs of wear and discolouration.

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It's a dark blue mohair top and so I'm using the Renovo system: cleaner, dye and re-proofer. After cleaning it was two coats of the dark blue and two coats of re-proofer...

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Not quite new again but much better (so the wife tells me!) It's just about possible to get away with the 500ml bottles from Renovo for two coats of each. If you buy the kit you get a good brush, sponge etc so it's probably the way to go.

Next to get it back on the car. First off take the chance to clean out the drains.

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Not perfect but much better. I have an old one-piece aerial that I use to push down the drains to make sure they're not blocked.

The rain rail was the original and I decided to mortgage the house and buy the Mazda version (based on reviews of the alternatives) from MX5Parts. It's a one-piece moulding and has foam pads on the inside at each bolt location. It also has the rivet holes as per the original but most new tops only have the bolt attachments. Here's the old and new. The top rail is the old one and has some discolouration and was quite brittle.

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Here you can see the foam pads on the inside of the new rail.

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For extra dryness I placed some nylon washers on the studs and then installed the rail on the studs. The spare rivet holes were sealed on both sides with T-REX tape that is supposedly 'ferociously sticky' and waterproof. Time will tell. Make sure that the rear flap on the beltline is inside the rail and that the rail is properly located into the drains.

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The top (with the help of a friend or even 'er-indoors) can be put on the car. Once the frame is located on the two studs on either side by the seat belt pillar (they look like bolts but aren't) then the main bolts all line up and can be secured. I didn't fully tighten these up until the whole installation was finished - but do remember to check.

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With the top semi-folded back gave enough slack to enable the top to go into the rain rail and over the studs. I put the nuts on a turn or two just to hold everything in place. Next it was a case of fitting the 3 metal frames. Having removed the seats made this much much 'easier' (top tip). I found I had to put the main centre frame on first as this needed to be quite snug to pull it into the shape of the body. Doing it the other way around (sides first) didn't work. Remember to put the two straps on the top behind the rearmost studs on the side frames (I didn't at first and so did it all over twice). Reattach the HRW cables, replace carpet and seats, feel smug.

Really that's about it. Tighten the nuts all down in the proper sequence (search online it's there) and you're good to go.

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Overall quite pleased with the Renovo stuff. It seems to have sorted out most of the wear and tear and mould lines. Time will tell if the reproofer is as good as it's supposed to be.
Now for some non-essential travel with the top down!

[John&Luke]

Good write up thank you. Top looks very smart.

[blackyb]

Taxed it, driven it. Filled up with nice new fuel. Washed it. Polished it. Put her back in the garage.

And all in between showers.

Now where is the sun.

[Zed.]

dummy assembled an empty cylinderblock & head to start designing the drysump pump mount & how much the exhaust manifold needs adjusting (it was made for a Vauxhall engine)

obviously it would have been rude to not fit the gsxr1300 hayabusa itb's:thumbs:


Rich.

[Zed.]

brake servo / booster delete time:thumbs:
gone for a twin-circuit / bias adjustable setup that took some though with design

nearly done now

Rich.

[Zed.]

last photo of the 5's for 2020...


compared to the Ninety they are small!

Rich.

[blackyb]

Voltage check and amp check on the battery today as the cars being struggling to start.

And its foooooo#.

Drops to less than 9volts on cranking so new battery is required.

Surprisingly I have discovered that the one fitted is a Eurocar parts, Drive Master sealed battery and its lasted over 10yrs.

Good news is no rot or any signs of corrosion under the battery.

However a OEM Panasonic will be going in.

Just hope Santa can call in on his way back if not then it's the Easter Bunny.