£300 brought me a 1995 Eunos S Special 1.8

[ardler_automotive]

Hi all,

Thought I’d say hi, I’ve been a lurker for a while but life has always seemed to get in the way of owning a MX5… until this week.

I’m an auto electrician by trade and when visiting one of my garages that I deal with for the last 9-12months there has been this rather sad looking MX5 parked with it’s nose in the hedge, so it’s story goes like this…

It was dropped into the garage because it was running rough, little else was said. Upon looking around the vehicle they found 2ltrs of coolant in the boot, and an empty bottle with coolant residue in it… the car had boiled at some point. A compression test revealed low compression so a new headgasket was fitted along with a new radiator (cause of the problem) and upon start up was not alot better. So off came the head again and all the valves, stem oil seals and the head was rebuilt and put back on. The car now runs spot on.

Left over the weekend, first start monday morning runs fine for 5-20 seconds then clouds of thick white smoke from the exhaust (smells of burning oil). Compression is very good, oil usage is not so good… So the lady decided she would pay what she could of the bill and write the car over to the garage, who didn’t have the time or inclination to carry out a repair.

So here I have my £300 1995 Mazda Eunos Roadster 1.8 S Special in Black.

 

So that’s the beginning of the story of M23 NEL aka “Nelly the Elephant”

 

I hope to restore the car to it’s former glory, tour in it through the summer and track it as well. It’s the beginning, but we’ve all got to start somewhere…

 

All the best,

 

Daniel

[ardler_automotive]

So today begain the initial clean up/see what we’ve got… so after a quick bucket of soapy water and a hose down we were left with what looks like could be a good car. The paint is flat and rough as a badgers arse, but when all the little repairs are done it’ll get a full detail and see if we can bring life back into the tired looking paint.

At some point the rear panel has been replaced with one from a British car, so it can have the standard size plate added. I prefer an Eunos one myself but we’ll wait for that to some along.

It has also had the drivers side outer sill panel repaired as well, it’s a neat enough repair but doesn’t include the standard swage line and I can see some surface rust creaping into the rear arch from the sill area, so I shall look into this at a later date. The n/s sill is also looking a little tired in the usual place, so I’m going to probably get it MOT’d and then see just how much needs doing to make her reasonable.

There is worryingly a little rust around the screen edges, and the n/s A pillar lower. The rust only looks superficial but I think it needs the wing off to look into it any deeper, and they we get to the n/s wing… well it’s a bit mangled. So it is going to get replaced, mainly because it’s hideous but it will also tie in nicely with any A- Pillar repair work I have to do.

Rust to bottom of A pillar

Rust to top of A pillar

The front end is ok other than that, with no damage to the panels until the drivers rear quarter which has quite a large dent. I’ll look into getting a paintless dent repair man on that one, or take it to a good local bodyshop I know.

So I thought I’d clear the bin bag of rubbish from in the car, so get to work and also removed the boot interior trim to find this…

£52 worth of pound coils in the jacks little recess, which makes my £300 car actually a £248 car… BARGAIN! I also found this, which will be kept and will be worn at least once to amuse friends/family!

The car’s door sticker reveals it as a S-Special (Limited Edition) but it’s lost it’s BBS wheels for some 15" TSW’s atm, which I’ll be looking at getting changed. The Nardi wheel is still there but looking a bit tired, and the gear knob fell off in my hand whilst manouvering round the drive so will get that replaced with a tasteful add-on. The hood doesn’t look in too bad shape but it leaks around the top of both the windows and at the n/s latch, so will have to have it apart to inspect said area. The idea for me is to make it OEM+ so will do a few minor mods tastefully to just make it a bit nicer to drive and look at. I’m going to get it up in the air at the weekend to assess the undersides and give the brakes a quick clean up, but for now I have a little list of things:

Remove interior - deep clean and refit (inc. carpet out)

Clean brakes - replace parts where needed with mx5oc recommendations

Service Transmission - New oil for diff and gearbox, new shifter oil and boots (if needed)

Sort oil consumption - Sounds like rings, but new rocker gasket on order to try before leak off test

Clean underneith - Apply Kurust, Stonechip and Waxoil where needed.

Sort leaking hood

New battery - going for a lightweight race style battery (sealed, no gas, no acid, no hassle) and a battery disconnect switch in the boot.

Service engine inc. new belts, waterpump and a good detailing.

 

Thanks for reading and any advice/thoughts would be greatly appriciated.

All the best,

Daniel

[AccHacked]

Nice one - black too, great colour!

Let us know the spec of the lightweight battery you go for - I might aswell get one, seeing as my standard battery is kept on trickle charge anyway.

[Harriers9]

 I’m made up when I find 10p under the seats of any new car I buy

[muppet]

Good buy!!!

[Malcolm_Foxwist]

 Looks like you have your work cut out for you, but when you have only paid £300 and then get £52 off you have even more of a bargain. When I bought my MX5 I found a pen under the passenger seat; I have used it every day at work since and I thought that was a good find; nothing compared to yours. Keep us up to date with the renovation as it progresses.

Malcolm

[Elvie]

Welcome to the madhouse. Always interesting to see barn finds et al and how they develop

[Once]

 I’m going to enjoy reading this one as your project unfolds. Best of luck!

[mal_jones]

 What a find. Oh and welcome to the Eunos clan. My Eunos was in a bit of a mess body wise with loads of dents and scratches.  She is now a lot better.   Hope Nellie will soon be back to her former self.

[ady]

Reckon that’s going to turn into a cracking car !!

Very much looking forward to watching the progress of this car. 

[TheCaptain]

Nice one mate.

[Tomsk]

What a great find! I’m sure this will turn out to be a stunning project, cant wait to see how you get on!

[teaser56]

Car looks brilliant -great buy, I wish I had the space and the luck to find a similar NA…The Helmet looks like a Davida - not sure whether they are UK legal??-that wont matter in the 5.

I have seen many worse examples selling for big money- good luck with the build and mods…Cheers

[ardler_automotive]

well in a hope that it might free a stuck ring and it wasn’t going to hurt any more I put a little combustion chamber cleaner down each bore late last night. Today on start up she smoked as expected and then kept smoking… So it looks like a new engine or a rebuild. To rebuild relys on the fact that the garage who previously did the headwork did the headwork correctly… so I think I’m just going to get an engine from a breaker. There are a few about, and with a new waterpump, cambelt and tensioner set fitted to it and a lick of paint I can’t see it going wrong.

Then it’s bodywork.

I’m going to remove the front wings, bonnet and windscreen to inspect the rust around the A pillars. I can then clean it all up and repair whats left, althought with a bit of a poking about I suspect that it’s just going to be a little bit of surface rust for the most part which is nice, I can flap wheel it back rust convert and filler over the top. If holed I’ll just fire up the MIG.

The local windscreen place have quoted £40 cash to fit the screen with new rubber edging etc, which is nice… I just have to get it out in one piece! Should be fine, if not I’ve only been quote £128 for a new one.

The dent mans seeing a guy over the road saturday morning so will have him take a look at the o/s/r quarter panel dent and see what can be acheived… All in all still quite happy with my buy, it’s a shame about the engine but at the end of the day I’ll then have a spare to rebuild to whatever specification I like…

O and seats are out in the shed now for cleaning to begin at the weekend.

 

I’m beginning to cost things up and I think by the time I’ve got the sills re-plated, bodywork done, engine in, drivetrain serviced, new battery and underneith smartened up etc I’ll be in for about £1000 realistically. She’ll be belted, waterpump and restproofed. Perfect for the summer to come and I plan to keep momentum going to get it done for Easter.

Keep reading people, things are going to get interesting!

[taff_eunos]

Bargain!!! Welcome to Eunosworld

I scrapped an RS Limited reg no. M1** NEL  last year sadly it had it had terminal tin worm still made nearly 2k for the bits on ebay even though I kept the engine and diff (did have a nice cage, hard-top and 15" BBS though) 

Dr. Eunos

 

[taff_eunos]

Bargain!!! Welcome to Eunosworld

I scrapped an RS Limited reg no. M1** NEL  last year sadly it had it had terminal tin worm still made nearly 2k for the bits on ebay even though I kept the engine and diff (did have a nice cage, hard-top and 15" BBS though) 

Dr. Eunos

 

[Once]

I’ve been trying to work out why the previous owner would leave more than £50 in coins in the boot. A few quid for parking and tolls I could understand.

So far the only theories I can come up with are … the previous owner was a minor league drug dealer, the car had been used as a getaway vehicle from a post office robbery, or it was owned by a forgetful shopowner cashing up at the bank.

Mind you, I did find four golf balls in my MX-5. Two in the armrest and two in the boot. Took me ages to realise what was making such a racket every time I braked … trundle-bump, trundle-bump.

Even without the cash in the attic it sounds like you’ve got the bargain of the year there.

[Rael]

What an awesome find in the boot!!! Mine just had a pen and lots of sweet rappers.

Good luck with the restoration, looks like it could be a challenge, but very rewarding. Black ones can look properly stunning.

[Charles]

 Thats a cheap Mx5!