1989 Mazda MX5 1.6 - The Treatment®

hey MiataMark, of course I remember. I'm glad your car got sorted, it did need a fair chunk of welding so I don't blame you for getting a professional on it, It would have been a steep learning curve.

There do seem to be a clutch of Mx5 threads that have popped up recently, must be something in the air!

Whilst I'm not able to go for a drive yet, as I'm waiting on the replacement alignment bolt and a rear antiroll bar drop link that I felt needed replacing, I got the car back in its wheels today and I'm very pleased






Next step has to be a front lip spoiler, to bring the front bumper down to the same level as the sills, and then I think cosmetically we're getting somewhere!

This is really making me want another Mk1! Amazing what a set of coils and wheels can do to transform a car.

Thank you for the heads up ianlea73 I would recommend avoiding the fibreglass GV style lips though. They don't take well to being bashed into the floor! The poly urethane ones are much more durable (though I did manage to snap mine when using it as a snow plough, see below! )

I had a GV lip on my original Mx5, which at the time I loved.



But a few years down the line, I think this time round I want the OEM (RS Limited) style lip. It's just a bit less shouty.



You're not wrong cjl1281. My last few cars I've done all the sensible stuff first, holding off on things like lows and wheels till later, but I think I was doing it wrong as by the time I'd fixed all the boring stuff I would get jaded with the car and never get round to the cool stuff. This time I wanted to spend the money on the stuff that's gonna make me go 'thats a cool car' up front and fix the sensible stuff later. Then I might actually have enthusiasm to fix the boring stuff.

They are great cars adam73bgt. They really are like your MGB but with 90s Japanese reliability and tech. Can look at that as an advantage or disadvantage, thats up to you haha.

That sits beautifully of the 14s with chunky tyres. Excellent choice! I might have to give some 14s a go... don't suppose they fit over the NBFL big brakes?

Our latest MX5 came with the same style wheels, but 15x9 et0 with lots of lows to make them fit. I didn't expect to like it, but in the metal it actuallty looked pretty good - just couldn't be driven with any gusto!



Edit - fixed image

I can 2nd that!

Not much to report recently, it's been summer and this is an mx5, so any thoughts of working on the car went out of the window and I've mostly just been driving it.




Recently I've been extending my driveway and needed the mx5 out of the way, so it has spent several weeks living with my Mum who, by all accounts, has been having a nice time driving about it in haha. I retrieved it a couple of weeks ago, just in time for the MOT to run out... damn.

As I'd just been driving, rather than spending time lying underneath it, there's a couple of things to sort before I can put it through a test. First up was a dragging sound coming from the drivers side front brake, which I thought might mean I was out of brake pads. Upon inspection, I had plenty of brake pad left, but the calliper looked to be sticking. So I whipped it off and set about rebuilding it.



I thought I'd been smart and through ahead when I did the passengers side calliper by purchasing a seal kit for both sides. What I hadn't counted upon was the piston being rusted due to split dust boot. Thankfully new pistons are neither expensive nor hard find so in a couple of days I had that sorted and could move on to the next issue.

The next issue would be the dreaded rust... As you can see if you look at the previous pictures of this car, the drivers side rear arch looks a bit rough. After some digging about with a screw driver/scraper/flap disc, I had uncovered two areas that needed repair, all pretty localised and ultimately very minor repairs as Mk1 Mx5s go.

The front edge of the rear arch was bubbling a bit, I presumed from a previous repair, but removing the paint showed just 'natural' rust coming through on what looks like original metal.



At the back of the arch there was this section...



I started with the front edge. Cutting back the outer skin showed a bit of the inner arch lip was also in need of repair, which was simple enough.



I made up a little repair panel for the outer skin



and got that welded in



I need to grind the welds down and tidying things up a bit but that's essentially complete, total time about 90 mins! Compared to 1960s/70s British car rust I've been dealing with in the past couple of years this is very straight forward

On to the back of the arch, cutting away the outer skin once again revealed that the inner skin needed work.



I made up a little panel and got as far as tacking that in before running out of welding gas...



Always the way isn't I! Ah well, will pick up some gas tomorrow and should hopefully get a test booked for later this week and get back out on the road!