The day after the Gaydon rally I visited the offices of Practical Classic magazine. I’d donated a vintage trolley jack and had arranged to drop it off.
Didn’t expect them to want to take some photos of the car.
Please keep this thread going…lovely to see so much going into it…I don’t have your skills and plan to keep mine “as was from the factory”…but yours is going to be 1 of a kind" a keeper!
I’d recently noticed what felt like worn engine mounts, there seemed a slackness in the drivetrain when going on and off power.
I decided to go for uprated engine mounts from MX5 Parts rather than the genuine Mazda items. They fitted fine once I’d managed to get the old ones out.
Definitely not a 5 minute job, awkward is one way to describe how easy the job was. But it was worth it, drivetrain feels a lot tighter.
Only downside is a slight vibration at certain rpm, just above idle when warming up and at about 2500 rpm.
I think it’s safe to say the upper one (right hand on the car) is knackered.
Also replaced the old broken plastic undertray I had with a brand new one I got at a reduced price recently.
I’d repaired part of the old one using a soldering iron to plastic weld a crack, but I couldn’t do anything about the piece missing.
New one looks a lot better!!
Although I was happy with the interior door handles I had there was a really nice set that I would’ve preferred if I could get a set.
The set I had were chrome plated plastic, possibly K G Works, and they looked far better than the standard Mazda items.
However, a company in Japan called Nakamae make a set of handles from billet aluminium. For about £320 before shipping and import duty. I’d never seen a secondhand set come up for sale though…
Until a few weeks ago!!
They needed a bit of a clean up but after being dismantled, marks sanded out then polished, they looked fantastic.
One of my favourite threads. Keep it up. Beautiful car, Look forward to seeing it again at the next rally.
Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve done anything to the car, I’ve been busy with other jobs or projects. However, a week ago I managed to find a really good carpet from a MX-5 a friend was breaking that was the same year as mine (thanks Fast Eddy!!). Even better, my wonderful wife said she’d pay for it and I could have it as part of my Christmas present.
Before fitting, I gave it a good clean with a Vax upholstery cleaner, it’s amazing the muck that comes out of the interior of a car. It was then hung in the house for several days to dry off. Until today.
Out with the old.
In with the new.
It looks a treat in the car. To be honest, the old one had a few worn marks but wasn’t too bad. The main reason I wanted to replace it was that when I first bought the car nearly 3 years ago the carpet was knackered and the only half decent one I could find locally was from a Mk2 car and I’d had to add a section where the centre console fitted, I could see to join when I looked. Hence I jumped on this Mk1 carpet as soon as I saw it.
The only things I had to make were a couple of blanking covers as the seatbelt mounting bolts on the transmission tunnel aren’t used (the mounts are on the seat runners, like a Mk2). I had planned on using a large washer but then realised the bolt wasn’t central to the hole in the carpet. I ended up using a large stainless washer with the hole filed offset with a round piece of the old carpet glued to it.
When I bought the car nearly 3 years ago, the rear fog light was an ugly rectangular unit that had been fitted to the rear bumper. I hated it.
One of the first parts I bought was a secondhand replacement rear bumper without a hole. Once it had been resprayed it looked loads better.
The right hand reversing light was wired up as the fog light instead, really easy job to do, but I was never too impressed with the “pink” glow that a standard red coloured bulb gave out.
For the mot I used to put a bulb I’d painted with a dark red paint, not ideal but it looked the correct colour for the test!!
Anyway, I thought I’d try a red multi led bulb to see if that was any better, £3.80 for 2 from Ebay.
It worked brilliantly, same colour red as the tail light. Wish I’d bought some of these years ago!!
I finally got round to replacing the radiator as the plastic header tanks can split as they age.
I’d already had the fan housing and a spare anti-roll bar powder coated gloss black (along with some other parts that will be fitted over the next week or so).
The fan motors had been cleaned up and given a coat or two of smoothrite and the fan blades cleaned, never realised they were that colour!
Old radiator and old anti-roll bar.
Radiator removed and shiny anti-roll bar fitted.
Looking good mate
Looks great!!
Well, it’s been a busy month, finally fitted the last of the under bonnet parts that had been powdercoated.
When I replaced the radiator the nice, shiny black fan surround and anti-roll bar were fitted but there were a few brackets to be refitted like the one for the fuse box.
The wiper motor bracket was particularly grotty.
I had it done with a coating that’s almost like a chrome paint.
The plastic scuttle trim was damaged in a couple of places so I bit the bullet and bought a new one. It also gave me a chance to check underneath.
I was pleasantly surprised with the state of things, nothing too much to worry about under there, apart from a nice pile of old leaves and debris by the heater intake.
Nearly back together. I did end up replacing part of the windscreen wiper linkage as I managed to break part of it when dismantling for cleaning. The wiper spindles were cleaned and re-greased without drama though.
Nice, I wish I had that amount of patience! I’ve got a bag of pistons for you in my garage btw.
It was only after I’d fitted the new scuttle trim that I noticed the seam sealer at the base of the A-pillar was starting to lift allowing a little surface corrosion to begin. Nothing for it, both front wings had to come off for access.
It looked like Mazda had put the seam sealer on before the top coat of paint. After removing the old sealer and cleaning the rusty metal underneath it was treated with a rust converter before several coats of paint. New seam sealer was applied where required and a final coat of paint over this, followed by Waxoyl on the under side of the wings and inner wings.
Should keep the tin worms at bay for a few years hopefully. I forgot to take a photo of it with the final coat of paint and you can’t see much through the small gap between A-pillar, bonnet and wing. Doh!!
What a great week!!!
Last Saturday we were at the Oulton Park Spring Rally, it always amazes me the hard work that members of this great club do to get the day ready, lads (and lasses!!), you did yourselves proud!!
We were entered into the competitions again, in the Mk1 light modified section. Amazingly we managed to do the Friday afternoon 200 mile trip to the hotel with hardly a spec of dirt on the car. Unfortunately, the sat nav took me on back roads to the rally Saturday morning, the “squelch” noise going round a corner didn’t sound good. I found out what it was when we arrived, I’d ran through a huge cow poo and it was up the offside sill and in the mudflaps. Cleaning it off was a thankless task, that was one microfibre cloth that would never be used again!!
But it was worth it, got 1st again!!
From here we spent a few days in North Wales, I’d wanted to see Portmeirion since I’d seen the TV series “The Prisoner” over 20 years ago. They say you should never meet your heroes and I was a little afraid it wouldn’t live up to our expectations. I needn’t have worried, it was fantastic.
The scenery of North Wales is truly beautiful, and the roads stunning.
We now know where god’s racetrack is!!
Since I’d fitted different wheels a couple of years ago, every now and again the car would develop a shake at motorway speed. I’d used plastic spigots to take up the difference in diameter between the hub and wheel but felt they were to blame, if it was out of balance wheels it would be there every time I was at speed and it wasn’t. So I planned on making a set of metal spigots set on the lathe, and I had some aluminium tubing that was perfect. For one reason or another they never got done.
Then I found someone who made spigots out of stainless steel, a set of 4 to your dimensions for the bargain price of £15!! Bit of a no-brainer, I ordered a set.
I was really impressed with them when the arrived. Unfortunately, I should’ve specified the width as they do them 10mm wide unless you say. I needed 7.9mm. So on the lathe they went.
And here are three of the spigots ready to fit alongside an old plastic spigot.
They fit a treat on both the hub and in the wheel.
And did it stop the shake? Luckily I live less than a mile from a dual carriageway for a good test. So far so good, no shake and the car feels more planted.
Another thing I’d been planning on doing was to remove the tax disc from the windscreen since they were made redundant last year, only thing is what do you do with the space left? I had an owners club sticker below and the Blyton record attempt one above and didn’t want a big gap in the middle.
Then I found this on Ebay.
Well it made me smile anyway. Bit tongue in cheek, and it fills the gap left by the tax disc perfectly.
It’d be nice to know what the Japanese writing is, hopefully nothing rude.
It’s funny how you start doing one job but end up doing something else along the way. That’s how it was this evening, I was trying to find a squeak that had been driving me nutty over the last few weeks, only when the car was hot and coming from the nearside rear.
I’d removed the cover in the boot that protects the fuel filler pipe so I could check the shock top mounts. While it was off I remembered I’d wanted to replace the filler pipe as there was some corrosion inside, I’d been given a decent one by a mate when he’d scrapped his Mk1 and it had lived in the spare parts box for about 6 months. Now was as good time as any to fit it.
This shows the state of the old one compared to it’s replacement. Although there was no loose rust that could fall into the tank I wanted to replace it before it got any worse.
All back together again.
Looks a lot better, ready for the next trip to the petrol station.
And hopefully I managed to find the cause of the squeak in the end, laying under the car the exhaust seemed to make a similar sound when moved side to side. As I had a set of exhaust mounts in the spares pile I fitted them. The old ones had definitely stretched and were visibly longer than the new ones. It hangs a lot better, with less movement so fingers crossed I’ve cured it!
That’s another item ticked off the “to do” list.
The NA (Mk1) MX-5 has a thin plastic rain rail at the base of the hood, it goes brittle after a few years.
When I had the hood replaced 3 years ago I was told they had done a few repairs with tape. I was on the look out for a rain rail from a later NB model as it’s made of thicker plastic and hence a lot tougher. Then a few weeks ago I managed to get a secondhand one for £25 posted.
When I removed the old one the difference between the two was obvious, the old one cracked as it was removed.
It had also separated in a couple of places as can be seen here.
I emptied a watering can of water over the hood, no leaks so far.
most enjoyable long term thread around I reckon.
it’s a bit like the complete Mk1 workshop manual but in real life, real time pictorial.
thanks for sharing, keep it up.
It’s not every day you get the chance to weigh your car. Today, at an evening track event and car meet at Snetterton race circuit I had the chance to do just that (cheers Eddy and Becky!!).
So after a very quick emptying of the crap out of the boot…
1021.5 Kg with just under half a tank of fuel.
I was happy with that for a 1.8 litre with air con, power steering, a couple of additional chassis braces and the spare wheel still in place.
Mazda say 1,000Kg dry weight for a 1.8 so well happy.