Its been a very busy few days
The first job was to remove the front bumper to remove the original oblong number plate plinth. Once the bumper was cleaned up and the uncovered area coated with polish and wax to match the rest of the bumper, it was time to fit the OEM import plinth supplied by Autolink
It left some holes but these will get filled and smoothed when the bumper gets resprayed
I also removed the front fog lights to spray the chrome, but it turns out the chrome was a stuck on trim
The rear number plate left a hole either side, I've tried to hide one with a Pistonheads sticker
When I was cleaning the engine bay last week I noticed the strut brace was starting to loose bad. I cleaned it up with a wire brush and gave it a coat of etch primer and gloss black. The corrosion has pitted the surface so ideally it needs blasting and powder coating in the future
I also took the chance to change some of the hardware to stainless including the top of the bumper, coolant expansion tank, windscreen washer bottle, ABS pump bracket, fuse box, brake pipe bracket and some bolts along the bulk head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-2PmDi48BoOne of the first things I do when I purchase a replacement car is to paint the calipers. I've done red,black,blue and yellow so thinking of a different colour to go with the grey was abit tricky. In the end I went for orange (a bonus being the dash illumination is orange so it saves having to replace all of those bulbs lol)
Every car has its minor issues and we all know these cars suffer from corrosion. One area is the bootlid where the number plate lights are. Softtop models have an aluminium bootlid where as the power folding hard top has a steel one.
Mine looked pretty bad but it was easy enough to sort
It seems most Galaxy Grey owners struggle with a paint colour match. I know the previous owners of the car have because of the various touch up repairs over the body work. Working in the automotive industry I have access to paint mixing at work. I mixed up an aerosol to use, turns out its wrong too :( Luckily its on the inside so you won't see it
While the bootlid was drying I made a start on ANOTHER common issue. The passenger footwell builds up with water due to a grommet under the wiper cowl. MX5Parts sell a replacement grommets including new caps. I smeared some silicone sealant around the new grommet just as an extra safety measure, that way it's leak free for many many years
While the wiper arms were off, they too received a coat of paint to tidy them up
The last job was to spray the chrome roll bar hoops. Luckily it was the same outcome as the foglights where it's just a stick on trim. With the OEM silver trims keyed up it was ready to spray them Galaxy Grey. These are lacquered and are currently drying
A very productive few days off work. There's still plenty to do :)
/>
/> 
/> 
