The story so far of my MX5. I'm Matt and back towards the end of last summer I started getting the urge for another car to play around with and fix up. Just a month earlier I had got married and a month before that sold my last project to free up a few penny's for the honeymoon.
I wanted to get something cheap, fun and rwd which left only one option really. I set out with my budget of about £350 and after several offers from people on MX5NUTZ of suitable cars around the right money i made the decision to go and view on in Nottingham up for £290, partly broke up for parts after being in a rear end shunt and being CAT C'd. this meant no wheels with the car, bonnet removed, seats removed, no battery, hood fastenings removed, no door cards,no HT leads, bent bumper, smashed number plate panel and no door handles or locks. Wish I took a pic of it in the state i first saw it. should have known better but you know what its like when you get an idea in your head.
I managed to bag myself a set of original daisy alloys and road legal rubber for £70 up in barnsley so I put my plan into action.
I told my new wife I was off out for the day to go and look and talk cars with other like minded blokes but would not be buying anything (little white lie). Set off early from Sheffield with a short trip up to Barnsley for the wheels, job done I headed to Nottingham to take a look at the CAT C MX5.
After the initial shock of the state of the car with everything removed I said if it ran I would make an offer. After a few minutes running jump leads directly from the lads other MX5 directly to the leads in the CAT C and fitting a spare set of HT leads it fired up straight away and sounded sweet.
Stuck a cheeky offer of £200 in and the Lad bit, nice one. Think he'd been told by his mum to get if off the drive before he went away to uni in a few days.
So I had myself a 1989 1.6 115BHP UK MX5 with 60k on the clock a months tax and 7 months MOT.
Just the small issue of getting it home to sheffield so I rang a transport guy I had on standby and he said he would be there in an hour! So spent that time rushing around fitting the tyres, bonnet seats and getting all the other bits boxed up and the car out on the road ready to be picked up.
On the way back to Sheffield
Back on my mates drive as I only have onstreet parking and he doesn't drive
You can see the parcel tape door security, so i set about sticking it up on stands and removing the rear wheels to stop it going walkies, fitting the roof catches, bolting the interior in and fitting all the lights I had, still needed a drivers side light which i picked up later that day.
All tucked up
I managed to source insurance for £300 fully comp on the street in Sheffield 6000 miles a year, pretty chuffed with that and I took it out for its first blast. I covered 50 miles on the first day, still without door locks but I had sourced some latches so the doors weren't flapping about. although this did mean I had to remove the wheels everytime I parked up at night lol.
Finally got some locks of ebay for £20 and got them fitted so decided to treat it to a wash, which is very rare for me.
Doesn't look half bad for less than £300 does it. The only thing letting the side down was the rear bumper from where the PO got run into.
I soon sourced a rear bumper locally for £15 but this was green and i didn't fancy respraying it myself so on a trip to the inlaws over in Norfolk I arranged to pick up a silver front and back bumper and UK number plate panel for £50. So on the way home a slight detour and we loaded my Megane up with this lot. (my wife obviously now knew I had bought a car haha. Told her on the day I got it. at first she was a bit annoyed but than when I told her the price she was happy so that was another small result.
Got the bits back and fitted with a new plate off ebay only had a couple of rusted bolts to get off.
Much better, after this I just set about enjoying the car as much as possible. as you can see in the photos above I replaced the standard exhaust for one slightly larger in diameter and also fitted an unsilenced de-cat, this made the car feel even more egar to rev and sounds great.
Back in October I attended a MX5Nutz meet at the cat and fiddle awful day weather wise but the car performed flawlessly. By this time I was using the car every chance I got and even to work one day a week instead of my company Megane.
Que the first breakdown, I had noticed a high pitched scream/whistle every now and then under load, i couldn't trace it until on my way home from work one evening a stopped in the middle lane of a big roundabout on the A61 and the car died. I managed to push it to the side of the road in rush hour traffic with no help (glad its such a light car) and got the RAC out. problem quickly identified as a worn alternator belt (that will be the squeal then) tightened up I was on my way. next evening a got a new belt for £4.49 and 30 Mins later i had my car back in rude health ;D
I fitted a voltage gage to keep an eye on things for a while another ebay special of a couple of quid.
Second breakdown of sorts. I carried on using the car for a while and then as I pulled up at home one afternoon, suddenly no clutch, ! that won't be good news quick check in the engine bay and look at the clutch master cylinder, isn't there meant to be fluid in there?
Quick top up got me moving again, but where was it going. I had heard rumours about the slave cylinder being a known weak spot so checked and sure enough. new one ordered for £15 and 20 mins to change job done working car again.
After this I got rid of the voltage gauge and installed a cheap CD player for some tunes and also installed some door cards and a smaller steering wheel so I can just get my knees in as i'm 6'4", the steering wheel didn't look blue on ebay but for only £12 can't argue really.
Since I chaged the bumper for the new one I lost the rear fog light, as its needed for MOT I set about relocating it to the offside reversing light housing with the aid of a red permo marker
This pretty much brings us up to present, I took the car off the road 4 weeks back in March as the MOT was running out and I knew a pass was way off the cards with the amount of rust on the sills etc. I had bought a little clarke mig back in October knowing this would be inevitable and finally got a big bottle of gas and an auto darkening helmet.
With the kind offer of my parents tight garage (dad can't get his Mondeo in there anymore as I helped him fit a new work bench at the back and side oooppps haha). I slid the MX5 in not much room to spare.
Attacked the O/S rear sill first nice and rustly
Cut out
Cut out more and patched
Not great but solid and will be covered by the outer sill on thursday. Inside the arch again not great but will be covered i a thick layer of undereal so should be ok at least its solid eh.
I hope to get this side finished off tomorrow evening all being well.
Thanks for looking thats if you still are and i haven't managed to bore you all to death by know. more updates in the coming days hopefully, need it back in the road for summer if we ever get one.
Cheers
Matt
I wanted to get something cheap, fun and rwd which left only one option really. I set out with my budget of about £350 and after several offers from people on MX5NUTZ of suitable cars around the right money i made the decision to go and view on in Nottingham up for £290, partly broke up for parts after being in a rear end shunt and being CAT C'd. this meant no wheels with the car, bonnet removed, seats removed, no battery, hood fastenings removed, no door cards,no HT leads, bent bumper, smashed number plate panel and no door handles or locks. Wish I took a pic of it in the state i first saw it. should have known better but you know what its like when you get an idea in your head.
I managed to bag myself a set of original daisy alloys and road legal rubber for £70 up in barnsley so I put my plan into action.
I told my new wife I was off out for the day to go and look and talk cars with other like minded blokes but would not be buying anything (little white lie). Set off early from Sheffield with a short trip up to Barnsley for the wheels, job done I headed to Nottingham to take a look at the CAT C MX5.
After the initial shock of the state of the car with everything removed I said if it ran I would make an offer. After a few minutes running jump leads directly from the lads other MX5 directly to the leads in the CAT C and fitting a spare set of HT leads it fired up straight away and sounded sweet.
Stuck a cheeky offer of £200 in and the Lad bit, nice one. Think he'd been told by his mum to get if off the drive before he went away to uni in a few days.
So I had myself a 1989 1.6 115BHP UK MX5 with 60k on the clock a months tax and 7 months MOT.
Just the small issue of getting it home to sheffield so I rang a transport guy I had on standby and he said he would be there in an hour! So spent that time rushing around fitting the tyres, bonnet seats and getting all the other bits boxed up and the car out on the road ready to be picked up.
On the way back to Sheffield
Back on my mates drive as I only have onstreet parking and he doesn't drive
You can see the parcel tape door security, so i set about sticking it up on stands and removing the rear wheels to stop it going walkies, fitting the roof catches, bolting the interior in and fitting all the lights I had, still needed a drivers side light which i picked up later that day.
All tucked up
I managed to source insurance for £300 fully comp on the street in Sheffield 6000 miles a year, pretty chuffed with that and I took it out for its first blast. I covered 50 miles on the first day, still without door locks but I had sourced some latches so the doors weren't flapping about. although this did mean I had to remove the wheels everytime I parked up at night lol.
Finally got some locks of ebay for £20 and got them fitted so decided to treat it to a wash, which is very rare for me.
Doesn't look half bad for less than £300 does it. The only thing letting the side down was the rear bumper from where the PO got run into.
I soon sourced a rear bumper locally for £15 but this was green and i didn't fancy respraying it myself so on a trip to the inlaws over in Norfolk I arranged to pick up a silver front and back bumper and UK number plate panel for £50. So on the way home a slight detour and we loaded my Megane up with this lot. (my wife obviously now knew I had bought a car haha. Told her on the day I got it. at first she was a bit annoyed but than when I told her the price she was happy so that was another small result.
Got the bits back and fitted with a new plate off ebay only had a couple of rusted bolts to get off.
Much better, after this I just set about enjoying the car as much as possible. as you can see in the photos above I replaced the standard exhaust for one slightly larger in diameter and also fitted an unsilenced de-cat, this made the car feel even more egar to rev and sounds great.
Back in October I attended a MX5Nutz meet at the cat and fiddle awful day weather wise but the car performed flawlessly. By this time I was using the car every chance I got and even to work one day a week instead of my company Megane.
Que the first breakdown, I had noticed a high pitched scream/whistle every now and then under load, i couldn't trace it until on my way home from work one evening a stopped in the middle lane of a big roundabout on the A61 and the car died. I managed to push it to the side of the road in rush hour traffic with no help (glad its such a light car) and got the RAC out. problem quickly identified as a worn alternator belt (that will be the squeal then) tightened up I was on my way. next evening a got a new belt for £4.49 and 30 Mins later i had my car back in rude health ;D
I fitted a voltage gage to keep an eye on things for a while another ebay special of a couple of quid.
Second breakdown of sorts. I carried on using the car for a while and then as I pulled up at home one afternoon, suddenly no clutch, ! that won't be good news quick check in the engine bay and look at the clutch master cylinder, isn't there meant to be fluid in there?
Quick top up got me moving again, but where was it going. I had heard rumours about the slave cylinder being a known weak spot so checked and sure enough. new one ordered for £15 and 20 mins to change job done working car again.
After this I got rid of the voltage gauge and installed a cheap CD player for some tunes and also installed some door cards and a smaller steering wheel so I can just get my knees in as i'm 6'4", the steering wheel didn't look blue on ebay but for only £12 can't argue really.
Since I chaged the bumper for the new one I lost the rear fog light, as its needed for MOT I set about relocating it to the offside reversing light housing with the aid of a red permo marker
This pretty much brings us up to present, I took the car off the road 4 weeks back in March as the MOT was running out and I knew a pass was way off the cards with the amount of rust on the sills etc. I had bought a little clarke mig back in October knowing this would be inevitable and finally got a big bottle of gas and an auto darkening helmet.
With the kind offer of my parents tight garage (dad can't get his Mondeo in there anymore as I helped him fit a new work bench at the back and side oooppps haha). I slid the MX5 in not much room to spare.
Attacked the O/S rear sill first nice and rustly
Cut out
Cut out more and patched
Not great but solid and will be covered by the outer sill on thursday. Inside the arch again not great but will be covered i a thick layer of undereal so should be ok at least its solid eh.
I hope to get this side finished off tomorrow evening all being well.
Thanks for looking thats if you still are and i haven't managed to bore you all to death by know. more updates in the coming days hopefully, need it back in the road for summer if we ever get one.
Cheers
Matt