RS LTD Rebuild

[Connahriley]

So hi everyone. I normally don't do forum posts or any documentation at all for my cars but Wayne encouraged me to do so.

For who reads/cares enough youll be getting the full story from how i acquired another car I really didn't need to it being put back on the road....eventually. You'll need a bit of context first because this is long winded and incredibly stupid on my part. This funnily enough starts with my 1992 SE. I did have a set of RS ltd skirts that were originally planned to go on that car but they unfortunately got sold. Enter this one pictured Facebook advert of a crashed mx5 with a set of RS LTD skirts that i could put on my SE. Deal was done, deposit was paid and planned to pick them up the following Sunday morning. Nope. I get a phone call saying deals off the cars actually and RS LTD and he'll be selling it whole. I ask how much. He gives me a price and immediately bite his arm off. I pick it up the following morning.

Car on truck 2

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Car on truck 1

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Notice how it doesn't look that bad bar the damage...yeah youre wrong. In polite terms, she's a bit buggered. Thought the arches wouldn't be too bad going from the condition of the spot welds as I'd got extra pictures from the seller. You'll see that later.

Spot welds

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Spot welds

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I'm not new to mx5s by any means but I knew under the skirts wouldn't be great. In an honest statement if I knew the extent. I wouldn't have bothered doing this car.

So conveniently enough I did have some parts from my SE that I was collecting for when that got worked on. This being a brand new of wings (genuine) and a drivers side rear quarter panel (genuine).
Even more conveniently enough my SE was booked in for a whole heap of work at a friend's workshop. This friend being Kelvin who agreed to swap the SE for the RS. This was a mistake. I'd ordered new sills and a quarter repair panel for the passenger side before the car got dropped off. Got the damaged arms swapped over so the car could be rolling again and got it dropped off.

Bent arms

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Yes the subframe is still bent but I didn't and couldn't get hold of another in time for the car being dropped off. Main thing was that it now moves.

Car was dropped off on a Friday and immediately got to stripping it down. Removing the roof, rear lights ect ect just to give us a heads start for the following Monday. With kelvin running a business and helping me do this we didn't get onto much Monday so I removed the wings got the doors stripped and more removed. Under the sideskirts..wasn't so healthy. Glad I had ordered the sill let's put it that way.

Drivers side rot

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Pass side rot

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Unfortunately what I didn't order was the inner arch repair panel and upon some prodding with a screw driver. Both rotten. Fortunately I got some next day. Anyway we got the drivers side quarter panel removed.

Quarter removed

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Inner sill cut out and replaced.

Inner sill 1

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Inner sill 2

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Inner sill 3

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Inner sill 4

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Kelvin got that welded in. Now onto the rear inner arch. He got that cut out and behind that. Rotten.

Inner rear arch drivers

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Now unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of this but Kelvin did cut out and replace that section.
Inner section of the wheel arch was replaced and again I unfortunately didn't any pictures get but Kelvin got it all sorted.

We are doing are best to prevent the issue of rot again so we epoxy primed the inside of the quarter and copper Weld through primed where it was getting welded. Got a paint matched rattle can just to get some coverage on the inside of the quarter so it would cover easier when the car gets painted.

Quarter 1

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Quarter 2

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Quarter 3

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Quarter 4

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Quarter 5

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Quarter 6

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Even better Kelvin decided to replace the lip of the arch too as it was heavily pitted in areas.

Arch 1

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Part 2 of where I'm at when I get chance to write it up. There may be some parts where you can see work already done but It would have been where I didn't manage to get photos already.

[Mazda Mender]

Evening Conner, keep them coming buddy , we are a spanner group so no bull sh*t on here buddy, just honest helpful owners that are grazy ...sorry enthusiasts
Welcome in bud .
M-m

[blackyb]

Keep it coming, like reading rebuilds and seeing how Menders attack problems along the way.

Just hope I never have to do the same to our little basic 1.6 1991 Eunos.

[Connahriley]

So a short part 2. Why I've got a few minutes. I'm lost to exactly where we are at but massive progress has been made. I've managed to get a replacement subframe (proved to be a pain to find the correct one for the car) and door from Wayne. As I was putting new oem wings on this car I put the old ones on fb. Wayne shot me a message and we traded the bits I needed for the wings. Result.

Anyway photos!

Mock fit of the quarter panel.

Mock fit of the quarter panel

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Primed under the quarter panel.

Primed under the quartee

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Painted undwr the quarter panel.

Painted under the quarter panel.

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I had to leave early one day so kelvin got on with this bit. Yes it's not original. I don't really mind as it's all more protection really and this cars not going anywhere anytime soon.

Now. The bad bit. The passenger side we thought was the good one.... I had originally ordered a repair panel for this side. Once we dug in I ended up buying yet another genuine mazda quarter panel.
So you've seen in the first post how it was behind the skirt. I'll just show how bad it was behind the sill.

Behind the sill

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And upon inspection the behind the frame of the sill it was all corroded and filled with surface rust/holes. We had to cut the frame out unfortunately so kelvin through a door brace in to keep the car rigid.

Inside the sill

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After a bit of cleaning we found this hole and guess what? Another one.

Hole 1

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Hole 2

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Ill just show the finish result.

Repair 1

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Repair 2

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Kelvin did a nice job of it. Cut the old out and replaced yet more metal. There's some rust repair I didn't get photos of simply due to forgetting and getting too stuck in at the moment in time. But you'll see the end result.

Part 3 when I get another few minutes. Still nowhere near up to date as guess what. There was f*ck loads more rust

[Mazda Mender]

M-m

[blackyb]

Well that was better than what's been on the TV today. Read the whole topic just to refresh my memory.

Bring on part 3.

[Connahriley]

Well I'm up early, part 3 it is since I somewhat know where we are at.

So to get to the section on the inside of the sill, we had to cut out a supporting bracket/part of the car. But guess what that was rotten too.

Inner repair

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Now since kelvin has talent that i dont, he got to hitting some metal with many hammers. This was to get the correct shape to make the panel look OEM underneath the quarter panel. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the end result but it was all ground down and epoxy primed.

Finally we could see how well the replacement sill fit, it wasn't too bad for a non genuine panel but the door gap underneath went from wide at the front, tight in the middle and tight at the back. So again, kelvin got a bigger hammer and a block of wood to try and get the gap consistent.

Sill test fit 1

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Sill test fit 2

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This was only the test fit so it was coming back off as we needed to refit the inner structure back to the sill. So more Weld through primer and epoxy primer time for both the structure and the sill

Epoxy inside sill

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Primed inner sill

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Primed the inside of the sill

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The inner section of the sill was welded back in, it was cleaned front and back and primed to prevent any rust coming back. I didn't get photos of it being put back in unfortunately.

Now onto the rear inner arch and lip of the arch., same story as the other side really. They was toast. Yet again I didn't get photos of the panel before hand but here it was behind it.

Behind inner wheel arch

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Here is the lip of the arch being replaced too. With a distant photos of the original inner wheel arch.

Lip of arch being replaced

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Now here is the rear inner panel welded in, you might see some other work was completed in this photo that I havnt mentioned but I'll get to it eventually.

[blackyb]

[Lumphammer]

Very nice work. I like the standard of preparation you're doing on the panels, this car will last for a long time

Thanks for documenting it, very enjoyable reading

[Connahriley]

Very nice work. I like the standard of preparation you're doing on the panels, this car will last for a long time

Thanks for documenting it, very enjoyable reading

Cheers man. I dont see the point in spending time/money and not doing it properly because you only have to do it again. I'm looking forward to see what everyone thinks of this when it's actually finished. Be a while off yet because I'm doing the underside of it too now as well.

[Connahriley]

Hello again,
This will be a very short one. Cars in epoxy primer and has been since about October last year. This means the metal work is finished!

Car masked up

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Car in primer

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Now, f*ck all has really happened since due to life/house stuff/other cars thats took priority. I just wanted to update this because I've got another week booked off in March where I'll be at kelvins doing as much as I can. Anyway here's a photo of all the metal we had to cut out of the car.

Cut out metal

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The plan for March is currently to get all the rear subframe refinished, the bolts plated and the underside sorted then after that as much paint prep as we can get on with really.

[blackyb]

Coming on nicely, cant wait to see the final result.

[Connahriley]

So hello again. To summarise. Its Wednesday and I'm starting to despise underseal and wirewheels. Its not new to me how God awful of a job this would be as I've done it once before but for some reason this time it seems worse. Anyways. The update.

Monday - the car looked like this.

Car outside no subframe

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The weeks prior I'd been going up getting as much removed from the rear of the car as possible. This being the entire of the rear suspension. I did this because I knew I'd have to get the rear bushes removed from the arms and the time frame didn't allow for that to be done this week so that's exactly what I did. Unfortunately no photos of this but just imagine bare mx5 rear suspension.

This meant moving the car onto the ramp was fun. After moving kelvins mk1 civic and putting mine on the ramp this is what we've got.

Underside 1

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Underside 2

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Underside 3

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Underside 5

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Underside 4

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Underside 6

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Not to bad, the chassis rails are typical mx5 and caved in but that got dealt with.

I removed the petrol tank, the fuel lines and the entire front suspension. Now the back half of the car came apart so nicely. To put it ever so elegantly. The front was a f*king nightmare. Nothing wanted to come apart. It was either seized or would round or require cutting. The drivers side front shock, the Bush was that hammered it managed to push the sleeve out and get itself wedged in the slot on the lower control arm. Nice.

By the end of Monday I had only just started wirewheeling the underseal from the car.

Tuesday - fire.

Following Mondays sh*t day. I had to get a wriggle on. So first thing I had to get the front suspension stripped to get to the powdercoaters. An angle grinder and a blow torch later this is what we have.

Suspension arms

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This was followed by wirewheeling for the rest of the day along the floor pans and the rear of the car. Now. This is where I will upset someone because "thats not the correct way to do it". Remember I will be using this car. It will not sit in the garage 365 days a year. I've not entirely gone to bare metal everywhere. If there was surface rust I've dealt with it. Where there is seam sealer and under seal. That had been removed. However where there is none of that and its just paint. I've prepped it with a red scotch pad and panel wipe. Then after that rust neutralised it to be 10000% sure there is nothing there.


Wednesday - chassis rails

In typical mx5 fashion it looks like someone has absolutely battered the rails. There is no rust. They've been wirewheel to metal.

Chassis leg

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Chassis rail dent

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Now I didn't really think there was much we could do. They're battered yeah but they're solid. Nope. Kelvin got the spot welder out and a massive slide hammer. They're much better than they where, not perfect but for an hour a side They're good enough for me.

Chassis rail 2

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Chassis rail 1

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Chassis rail 3

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You can see the state of them originally. Practically touching the floor pan of the car in places. Pictures make them look insanely rough but the marks are just from the spot welder, these where cleaned off afterwards. To get a nice shape and hide the low spots it's been given a quick fill the whole length and sanded with the DA to make it look 100% uniform.

Stripped underseal 1

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Stripped underseal 2

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Stripped underseal 3

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Stripped underseal 4

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This is the car as of 5 o'clock.

Tomorrow brings the new seam sealer, and undercoat which will be tinted the same montego blue as the car. The front arches have not been done yet as I'll be doing those at a later date. The rear subframe is back from powdercoat with all the arms. Will have to get those bushed tomorrow too.

Will have to update the rest Friday. The goal is to get the rear suspension back in the car and dolly the front back outside until I can get it back on the ramp to finish it off. A week to practically restore an mx5 underside not enough time unfortunately.

[Mazda Mender]

I take 2 weeks to strip down and underseal the whole car.
M-m

[Connahriley]

I take 2 weeks to strip down and underseal the whole car.
M-m

The bulkhead forward of the car hasn't been touched yet and fortunately enough when the rear of the car was repaired in places I'd already stripped the inner rear wheel arches both sides. They just got epoxy primed when the car was In primer. I'd just gone over the bits that I wasn't entirely happy with at that point.