Foreword
I have a long standing thread on Pistonheads so I’ll use that as a starter for 10 and copy everything here. So forgive the initial formatting and tense errors. Future posts will be much better (probably).
The plan
It all started off with my trusty Eunos. Bought for a grand back in July 2017. It’s a 1.6 1990 import (imported in 98) with roughly 75k miles on the clock. Came with very little history and some minor mods such as a Apec air filter that was actually attached to the exhaust manifold – mmmmm heatsoak, and a Scorpion back box which sounds ok.
Couple of mates, affectionately known as Craig and Mick, and I decided to do a Land’s End to John O’Groats trip incorporating the NC500 in October 2017. Thread here – Linky with a short clip of our trip here. For this trip, I did do some minor mods such as brake pads, decat (that was the wrong size so was “fabricated” to fit), interior 12v sockets, front spots, engine bay lights, 15” wheels with Toyo T1Rs, diff oil change and kicked the tyres. That was pretty much it.
After covering 2500 miles in 5 days absolutely flawlessly, we decided we should do another road trip in September this year – to the Nurburgring for a few laps or 20. So, in the interest of not dying, but more importantly trying to achieve a respectable lap time, some more major surgery is required. Craig has also bought his ‘Ring Nail of a car and has a thread here .
On my list of things to do were:
Clean out my sorry excuse of a garage so I can walk around the car when it’s inside
Strip suspension arms, blast and powdercoat, refit with polybushes. These have been ordered.
Drop diff, black and powdercoat casing and mount, refit with polybushes. These have been ordered.
Polybush engine mounts. These have been ordered
New track rod ends
Pray upper ball joints are ok and duly ignore them if they aren’t.
4 wheel laser alignment
Fit some super-duper cheap-ass coilovers for super-duper, it’s-like-it’s-on-rails handling. These have been sourced from a mate of mine.
New discs with Yellow Stuff pads all round. Maybe only fronts if I spend money on beer instead of brakes. Man maths
Bleed brakes
Fit GCF Roll bar
Fit some form of secondhand bucket seat and harnesses
Sort out “cold” air intake so that it actually intakes cold f
king air
Refabricate previously “fabricated” decat so that it doesn’t kill me with exhaust fumes
Put the car on a diet by stripping everything apart from heaters, radio and steering wheel (oh and clocks). This will also include an AC delete.
14deg timing mod
New Thermostat, cover and temp sensor
Investigate gearbox lash and determine if I can be bothered to fix. It had a new clutch not long before I bought it so hoping a PPF alignment may fix it.
New gearbox and engine oil, with associated filters.
Obtain replacement batter as the current one is dead, too big and is held in place with mere hopes and dreams. And zip ties. And a bungee cord. But mainly hopes and dreams.
Not many pictures to add at the moment, but here’s a few of her on the last road trip and being given the kiss of live by my Ballad of a Boring Bangernomic Bora.
When I picked her up
Some extra lumens for the dark roads of the NC500
“Fabricating” the decat that was the wrong size (was for a 1.8 I think)
All sprayed up for the LEJOG trip and the new wheels on
From there, she was stowed away in the garage and I got her out yesterday for some fresh air. After a quick kiss of life from the daily, she burst into life at the first turn of the key
Thanks for reading. I’ll keep this up to date with car related posts, but we’ll also be starting another thread on or ‘Ring trip. I’ll post the link for those who are interested. Summary is, three track day virgins travel to the ‘Ring in bangers
Let the teardown begin!
Saturday morning, awoke to this massive great big orange hot thing in the sky. After squinting, quite perplexed through the window, it could only mean one thing. SUN! In APRIL! This can only mean one thing – BBQ! Oh, and car stuff too!
Firstly set about getting the roof down and some air circulating. Then, it was out with the seats and parcel shelf carpets:
Although pretty confident that the car was an import, I’d had this niggly feeling in my balls about the veracity of this attractive feature. This was soon put to rest when I lifted the parcel shelf carpets and came across a neat little mod a previous owner had performed. No doubt to try and soak up some form of water ingress? Maybe they contain secret articles of Japanese Govt espionage? Or maybe, it’s some form of lotto winning newspaper? All I know is, it’s now in the bin
Once the seats were extracted, it was out with the carpet. It wasn’t in bad condition, but I wasn’t prepared to remove most of the dash, to get the centre cage unbolted to free the carpet, so I cut around it. If I do ever turn this back into a civilised road car, I’d be replacing everything with new anyway.
Came across some more evidence that the car did, indeed, hail from Japanese shores. What should I invest my treasure find in? Oil? Gold? Penny chews? (The girly hands are that of my girly girlfriend. I have rather manly hands. Considering I’m a bit of a girl).
Once the carpets and sound deadening water retaining, car killer devices were removed, I stripped the tombstone and centre console. Not quite sure what my plans are here. I’ve removed a hefty double din head unit and have a lightweight, mechless Bluetooth unit to replace. If I run without a centre console, I may relocate my Voltmeter and additional 12v sockets and USBs to the tombstone. I’m also undecided as to whether to fit a race panel ignition. For the coolz.
Then the boot had the weight loss treatment. The spare wheel came out, along with the battery that was big enough to start a freight train and was held in position with mere hopes and dreams – and a single bungee. The panel hiding the fuel filler came out also.
Now I had some space, I could investigate a few niggles. There was no rear fog, but the loom and switch were in place. A quick snoop revealed the below. Now I don’t consider myself an accomplished auto electrician. But I think, I THINK this may be the issue (note the aforementioned manly hands).
I’d also noticed my high (well, higher) level brake light wasn’t working. Can’t see the issue myself. Bare in mind this has never worked, and it came with a 12 month MOT
I had a snoop at the rear top mounts ready for when I want to fit some Coilovers. They didn’t seem in bad shape, but really awkward to get to. Not looking forward to that task! I may employ the services of one of my kids to contort themselves into the cavity. Interestingly, it looks as though a previous owner may have loved the car enough to perform some rust prevention. I’m not sure if that black, waxy looking seal is from factory or not?
Drivers side:
Passenger side (behind the fuel filler):
Then, finally, it was the doors up next to receive a swift blow of the weight loss axe. Not that they weigh much in the first place. The majority is taken up by the electric windows, of which I have no intention of removing. Primarily, because I cannot be arsed. Secondly, manually operating windows is, frankly, beneath me.
Door cards removed, but speakers remain. I’m not doing a 2000 mile roadtrip in a vibrating tin can, without some form of tooooons. I didn’t want to put the big, clunky, heavy (actually it’s not heavy at all but it’s awful to look at) grab handle back in. So I fashioned some up using an old red ratchet strap and a rusty imperial socket. Works a treat.
Onto the engine bay. The previous owner at some stage has already had a tinker. The carbon canister removed. Most of the standard intake is gone and replaced with some APEC thingy majig. That’ll be staying but I’ve suffered with it in terms of heat soak. Primarily because it is literally resting on the exhaust manifold. So I wanted to toy with moving it further towards the back corner of the engine bay. I think a simple 45deg silicone bend might help get it some cool air. And maybe a bonnet vent. Further research required I think.
Then Craig found a decent set of Sparco seats on good ol’ Gumtree. For the bargain sum of £80, these were relocated to my garage.
Sparco Evo (for my slim, but attractively athletic frame):
Sparco Corsa (for Craigs fat arse):
They need a good clean up but they’re in really good nick. They’re side mounted so an addition to the list is to source some decent side mounts. I know they do MX5 specific side mounts, but they’re coming in at about £60 new. Which would be more than I paid for the seat. So keeping an eye out for used items, or some universal mounts that I can fashion onto the existing rails. At a modest 5’9″, I think a floot mounted seat would be uncomfortably low.
That’s it for this episode. Tune in next time for some more bargain basement updates.
Work continues…
Minor update. Last night after I’d finally recovered from a stag do in Zante, I mustered up what remained of my soul and headed out to the garage. Before I’d left for the Stag I’d spent some time sorting the garage and making a clean space to work in, then there she sat whilst I drunk 3x my body weight of Greece’s finest Mythos beer.
Last night I got her up on stands and inspected the mammoth task that lie ahead. The livery from last year’s LEJOG & NC500 trip still standing out proud
.
The back end was filthy (oooh matron) and I struggled to locate what hardly resembled nuts and bolts. Also, whilst on our last trip, the back end was extremely bouncy and I suspected the shocks were no longer shocking. When jacked up, I could move the strut up and down by hand, so I fear my suspicions were indeed correct. I have no fear though as my super-duper cheapo Raceland coilovers will cure her of this ailment
.
It also appears that the diff seal no longer likes to seal things and is letting some fluids out:
The front end was in a much better state of affairs:
So after I did this in my dark, dingy garage whilst the sun was still blaring and a cold beer was calling me, I decided to whip the front brakes off and call it a day. Not before soaking everything in 187198712847 gallons of WD40. I am now the largest shareholder of WD40 in the history of water dispelling lubricants.
Next steps for me are to
Purchase a tanker full of WD40
Purchase many, many blowtorches
Purchase many beers
Remove all the suspension components
Press out old bushed
Press in new bushes
???
Profit.
Here’s the bushes all sorted into some form or another. No idea what goes where yet. Will cross that bridge when I’v had a beer.
An ultimatum
So, an overdue update. I’ve been working on the Ring Nail on and off for a few months now. It’s been fighting me every step of the way. Bits that I thought would be a pain (diff bolts, PPF bolts etc.) have been a doddle, whereas other bits I thought might be easy have been a right royal f
kfest of a job. 2 camber bolts snapped (which are £12 each new) along with a couple of other wishbone bolts.
I’ve gotten to this point so far and spent a lot of time with a wire brush getting tetanus in my eyes.
The drivers side rear, lower long bolt decided it DID NOT want to push. I threw all sorts at it. A lump hammer, blow torch, breaker bar (managed to get my socket stuck on the bolt), a sledge hammer, Thor’s hammer, frozen sausage hammer, am Impact Gun – everything! Short of sticking it in a car crusher, I’m a bit stuck. I could cut it off and get a new lower arm, but then that’s £££ I don’t want to spend – this is supposed to be “budget”, to a degree.
so I’d gotten to the stage where everything was off the rear end, apart from the shocks
Just the diff left
After this I’d started to remove the diff bolts and they came out surprisingly easy. The top hats, however, did NOT want to budge! At this point I knew I’d have a couple of weeks away where I wouldn’t be able to work on the car and was getting a bit wary of the impending deadline of going to the Ring. Plus, I wanted it on the road a few weeks before for a proper shakedown, alignment and general hoonage to worm out any issues.
I came back from holidays and started to rethink my approach. I tinkered with the idea of something cheap and cheerful just to take to the ‘Ring like a Puma, ST170 or a Clio 182 for example. But then I cam across another Mk1 MX5. This time a 1.8. It had MOT until February but was a non-runner due to the timing belt snapping. As these engines are non-interference, a new timing belt should see it back up and running.
So, to summarise, the Red MX5 will stay off the road and I’m collecting me new MX5 on Saturday morning. Watch this space
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