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Last night I cut a seized-on metal dustcap off the front wheel. Had tried in vain with WD40 and 2 pliers previously. First I used a small hacksaw, then when I couldn't pry the pieces off, a dremel. Should have gone straight for the dremel as using the hacksaw method let me slice the threaded valve sleeve quite badly. Seems to be OK for now though.     Plastic all round now and I can finally get the pressures checked/sorted |
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This week I received my wind deflector, fan relay and a bunch of other goodies. Yesterday I went and bought a 25mm blanking grommet for my aerial hole from Halfords. Carefully tore off the duct tape I'd had over it, and half the paint came off with it.  Yay. So glad I bought that single can of Silver Stone. Fitted the wind deflector with the hardtop on, because apparently I like to make things harder for myself. Didn't realise the weird little nipples came off. They're for a tonneau cover I don't have, and make great fittings with their wide washers.  Looks nicely subtle. Fitted the relay, took the top off and went for a drive. Warmed her up gently, then had a blast when up to temp. Turned the heater on full blast and left her sat with the engine on, trying to coax the fans on. Nothing. So not the relay then! Wish I'd been less impulsive before sincilite posted his guide, but that's racing I suppose. Tried the AC button for amusement, but blow me down with something light, it worked! For a given value of worked anyway. The revs rose and both fans came on. Switched to cold but never got cold. Still, I was amazed it did anything. So that's a workaround for the time being, not that it seems to need a fan most drives. Obligatory arty tunnel shot:  I like this location. It's 5 minutes local and varies nicely with time of day. I have one of the zed here, and plan to shoot demister's MR2 and the MX5 here too - with a proper camera and a bit of light painting to bring out the sides |
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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From the factory these MX-5s came with a sealed Panasonic battery; The true replacements for these are the original Panasonic battery or the Westco Gel battery.
However, they are not cheap; Around £80-120. As a result many people put in a 063. But they are heavier than the stock items, leak if the tubes are not fitted and lead to aforementioned rust issues. MX-5 Parts do sell a battery tray so as to correctly install an 063 battery.
I do miss mine at times!
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Jul 13, 2018 12:48:58 GMT
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Thanks for the battery info ChasR. If the fitted battery dies in my ownership I may get a proper sealed one. Otherwise I intend to try and make my own with drainage for the hoses. This (inc cleaning up the battery area) is vying for next job after cooling fan is sorted. I assume it's the "big" battery tray kit on MX-5 parts - this one? |
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Jul 13, 2018 22:21:31 GMT
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I nearly took the numberplate surround off last week. Well I did take it off, but then I put it back on again. The plate just didn't look like it was going to sit well without the holder. Maybe I need some chunky rubber washers behind it or something. Will have to look at other examples again. For now I don't care too much. Took the chrome part off though. One of the screwheads was just a solid lump of rust that disintegrated as I used pliers to turn it. But then I didn't have another, so it went back on again!    Does anyone have any tips for going without the surround? I don't really like the stick-on vinyl ones or the JDM-trendy offset holders either. |
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g40jon
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,569
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Jul 13, 2018 22:54:34 GMT
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I relocated my plate to the bottom of the bumper (below the grill opening), but I also have the oem bottom lip spoiler on mine. Been that way for 8 years and hasn't been smashed to bits yet!  |
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Jul 17, 2018 22:43:42 GMT
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Drill the head and then grab the remains once the head has been drilled off.
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Drill the head and then grab the remains once the head has been drilled off. Ah it's OK I used pliers in the end. Actually reused it too because I haven't got rid of the surround yet |
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Jul 23, 2018 12:04:07 GMT
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Putting off sorting the rust under the battery (and all the other big important jobs), I got the high-level brake light wired up and working. The high-level brake light wiring had been unconnected when I bought the car, and it had been pointed out to me that the wiring had been cut off and later re-extended with wires out of a household plug. I've come to the realisation that the bootlid is off another car, as it has a "Mazda MX 5" badge on it. It also has no clear over the paint and 4 holes from a previous BGW. It's on the cards to redo, at which point I'll remove the extra badging too. Starting point:  I started by pulling off a fair bit of electrical tape and winding some paperclips round the copper bits so I could try jamming the ends into existing connectors. Discovered that the connector circled in green corresponds with the now defunct 2nd foglight switch on the dash. My intention is to repurpose this as a heated rear window switch in any case. The connector circled in pinky red does nothing currently. I'm guessing that that might actually be for the heated rear window, but there's no switch on the dash. These flailings proved the bulb worked at least.  Then I took the back off the left hand light cluster and started jamming the paperclip ends in there.  I was fairly unscientific and not having a lot of luck until my neighbour came out and made me do it properly with a multimeter. We eventually established that I could earth off anywhere and which wire was the one I wanted to splice into. He then gave me some perfect-for-the-job splicing connectors he had lying around! Top man. Not sure what I would have used otherwise... Now I knew it was going to work I set about improving the plugwire joins. They'd been bodged in the tried and tested way of twisting together and covering with electrical tape. I stripped this back and redid with connectors left over from the Volvo sub install, then covered these with electrical tape. I don't (yet) own a soldering iron by the way.  Earthed it to the same point on the boot floor as the (working) foglight, added my fancy new splicing connector to the brakelight wire (this was a little fiddly), closed the boot and tested. As I was alone, all testing was done by propping my phone up and taking a video of me pressing the brake pedal. I now have 20 videos of only 2 brakelights and 2 videos of pure giddy excitement.  I still need to tidy the wires a little. Will do this same time as putting the boot carpet back in, i.e. after I sort the battery rust. Still, I'm now 50% safer |
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Last Edit: Jul 23, 2018 12:55:57 GMT by celshady
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How much grief do you think the police would give me for this style of "numberplate"?  |
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jamesd1972
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,921 
Club RR Member Number: 40
Member is Online
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Some people used the high level brake light as a fog light on eunos imports to save drilling the bumper. Might explain why the wiring was weird !
James
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Some people used the high level brake light as a fog light on eunos imports to save drilling the bumper. Might explain why the wiring was weird ! James Aha! It very well may do. Might also explain why the previous owner was perplexed as to why he failed on having no fog on the last MOT when it hadn't had one stuck on the bumper for 5 years |
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So, the sewn-in glass window in the soft top had gradually been unstitching itself, and by this weekend had reached the half-gone mark and was seriously annoying. When taking the hood down I had to hold it up with my head while unzipping with both hands.  Today I spent the afternoon removing the soft top. It was pretty tricky so I didn't take many photos. I semi-followed 2 guides - one bulleted list and one youtube video when the list confused me.      The 3-piece inner rail is very rusty and needs sanding down and repainting. Probably with hammerite, since it doesn't get seen much but needs to last well. I snapped one bolt, one holding the rain rail on next to the drain hole behind the driver. Not sure how I'll bodge this back together but that'll be a problem for later. All back together and hardtop on, the plan now is one of the following: - Uncurl the vinyl surrounding the window and restitch. Not sure how to restitch. My mum reckons it'd be too hard for a sewing machine
- Buy a new zip-in plastic window, since the hardtop means the soft-top won't see service in the winter
- Buy an entire new roof. The condition of the current one is by no means terrible, but if I see a bargain who knows
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Important weight-saving made this week:  USB/AUX only instead of CD only. Weighs about a third of the old one |
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Aug 24, 2018 10:19:47 GMT
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Finally got round to looking into why my passenger leccy window doesn't work. Took the door card off (a doddle, even easier than the 850), peeled back the weather protection, fished around and voila - the wire has snapped.   Found a guide with broken images for replacing this. Looks like a lot of work! The alternative is fitting both blue doors I bought ages ago. I do have a colour change plan in the works so this might not be so terrible |
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Sept 10, 2018 9:59:09 GMT
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This weekend - got started on prepping the roof for a rattlecan respray and found out why the squirters weren't squirting - bloody great hole in the y-pipe. New generic one on the way. The roof wasn't in the best shape. Lots and lots of little chips, some runs and peeling all across the front lip. It'll be going satin black along with the badly faded a-pillars in the first instance. And the rest of the car yellow at a later date when I've transplanted the doors. So we've chipped off the worst of the chips and started sanding back the lip area surround to blend it. Chips in harder to reach places will be filled I think.    Test area in black to see how the sanding went... needs more effort  Not a clogged tube after all! |
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Last Edit: Sept 10, 2018 13:55:28 GMT by celshady
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Sept 24, 2018 8:12:52 GMT
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Taken the passenger wiper off to tidy it up a bit. Driving round without it, seems fine. Who needs 2 wipers?
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,971
Club RR Member Number: 29
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Nice work on the window trim must do mine.
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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Last week I went a bit mad and bought 2 sets of wheels for the Mazda. The black daisies have grown on me since I got it, but I'm a bit of a wannabe wheel-whore. And at the prices you don't have to pay for 14s and 15s, it's practically a no-brainer.  First I picked up a set of 15 inch BBS-rep-maybe-but-mesh-anyways, painted baby blue in the centres. With a little time on the internet comparing patterns I thought I had identified these as a set of EXIPs, probably originally made for an E30. But then I looked at Golf Gti Mk 2 BBSs, which are very similar. I don't know. It doesn't really matter! The tyres are slightly too big for me - according to the Oponeo calculator they're a 1.4% increase in rolling radius Shortly afterwards I saw my ex-neighbour had listed his MazdaSpeed 757s. These are pretty rare and on first impression, pretty light! Although that could be because I'm used to picking up the 16s on the Volvo and previously the 18s on the Zed. I guess 14s are going to feel featherlight in comparison. Both sets need a little tidy up. Initially I was thinking of changing the baby blue to gold, but then the colour grew on me. And then I bought the MazdaSpeeds  I'd love to find some centrecaps for the MazdaSpeeds, but will probably end up making up a set as I've heard these are pretty rare. |
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Last Edit: Oct 29, 2018 9:51:52 GMT by celshady
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