Bringing my brother's '92 mk1 SE back to life

[SafetyThird]

Hi all, I figured that as this is going to be a long project, I might as well start a project page to detail the process along the way. Don’t expect it to be fast paced, I can see this taking quite a while given some of the things needed.

A bit of background if you’ve not seen my intro post. I’ve recently found myself the owner of a sort of barn find 1992 SE version mk1. It’s sort of a barn find because it’s been in my barn for 7 years as it belonged to my little brother who had to park it off road as it needed the sills doing and he planned to do some upgrades at the same time.

As projects often do, it slipped when he had kids and it just sat there for years. Very sadly, during the first lockdown last year, my little brother took his own life. It’s taken a year for me to get round to the Mazda and I’d like to bring it back to life as something to hold on to that was his as I have lovely memories of driving places in it with him.

As you can imagine after 7 years in a barn, it’s going to need a fair bit of work. Most immediately, I’ve found that mice have eaten into the wiring so most of the wires under the bonnet are damaged. I need to pick up a loom and try to replace all the various bits under there, hoping it will mostly be a case of unplugging and replugging the various sections. At the same time, I want to remove the alarm/immobiliser because the fob no longer works and I hate alarms anyway. He had a new set of shocks waiting to go on along with a full set of poly bushes.

If I can get the car running by sorting the wiring loom, then it would probably be a case of pulling off the shocks, brakes, wishbones and subframes. Blast and paint the frames and wishbones, replace all the bushes, fit new shocks and then refurb the callipers and might as well fit 1.8 size new discs and pads. Oh and new tyres because they’ve perished.

Cosmetically the car is in reasonable shape, the interior, despite a bit of surface mould on the seat should come up with a decent scrub some leather treatment and the hood needs a new zip out window section.

I’m expecting this to be a long process and, while it’s not ‘money no object’, I’m not trying to make a profit because I plan to keep it long term and just get it to a point where I can enjoy driving it on nice days and perhaps the odd track day and keep it going in my brother’s memory because he loved it.

I also know that I’m bound to uncover more things that need doing once I get started. I’m sure I’ll be in need to lots of advice along the way.

[TOGs_driver]

Hi and good luck with your project.
If ever there was a suitable reason to tackle a project like this then yours has to be at the top of the list.
It will be lovely to get the car up and running to evoke those happy memories.
Good luck again and I look forward to seeing how you progress.

[glassyben]

Best of luck with the project. A great way to honour his memory

[SafetyThird]

Ok, so I seem to officially have a project. Today I went out with the shop vac and removed years of mouse nests, dust, cobwebs, nuts and straw from the engine bay and gave it a good brush over. I can now see just how much of the loom has been nibbled away.

Last time my brother came down, he found the mice had eaten the HT leads so bought some more and those were stored on the shelf. Unfortunately, he didn’t stuff anything into the plug wells and they were full of solid corrosion. Took me two hours with a screwdriver steadily chipping away at it then blowing the bits out with the compressor and vaccuuming them away before I could get a socket on it and gradually get them all loose. I’ve left them in for now and have shoved shop towel into the wells to keep them clean. Also had to take the air filter and shroud off to get to worst of the mouse debris so shoved some shop towel into the air intake so stop anything getting in there too.

Once that was done I cleared out the boot, took out the carpet and gave that a good brush and vacuum. Theres a bit of light rust where the battery goes and where the jack is stored but it’s fairly surface and I’ll add that to the list of work as it’ll need wire brushing, treatment and then some sort of paint or sealant before the carpet goes back.

A quick vacuum through the inside and that was the car done for today so I put some spare shelves in the barn behind the car so I can start storing bits for it until they’re needed. I have another set of shelves to bring in from the other barn which has all the spares he’d bought on them so they can all come to one place.

The next job would seem to be trying to find a replacement engine bay loom for a '92 1.6 SE with anti lock brakes. I called Autolink and they said that looms are so different from model to model you really need to find exactly the same model to get a loom from which sounds like it could be a tough call. Anyone have thoughts on whether that’s true or would most mk1 looks be fairly similar?

As always, pictures:

[TOGs_driver]

You’re underway

I’m eager to see how she looks after a thorough wash, clean and polish as I think that will improve things substantially.

Cheers.

[rhino666]

Hello from a fellow Devon person.

Very sorry to hear about your brother.
Just looked at the MOT history for the car; MOT expired 4/8/14. The weird thing is that MOTs go from 22/1/2007(87,315) to 5/8/2011(111,948) . Thats more than 3.5 years and quite a lot of miles without an MOT… Doubt this was in your brother ownership. MOT history looks very good. Obviously some critters in the barn nesting under the bonnet; perhaps that what was in the plug wells?
Normally I would suggest that any early MK1 1.6 loom would do but suspect that the ABS side of things may be a fly in the ointment. We have a 1991 Eunos without ABS. If you can tell me where the loom connections are for the ABS I will check to see if the wiring/connectors are present on our loom.

[CeramicMX5ND2]

Very sorry to hear of you losing your brother… But I can’t think of honouring his memory in any better way than restoring his '5… Start with a good clean up and take it from there. and you’ll get plenty of friendly tips and advise here as you move forward with it…

Rob

[SafetyThird]

@rhino666 where are you in Devon, I’m up near Barnstaple.

The MOT issue is probably because my brother grew up in Northern Ireland. He bought the car in the UK and took it back over there, not sure if NI mot’s record on the same computer. He then moved to Sheffield for work and the car went with him.

I’ll take some photos of the ABS unit and wiring, it seems to come out of the passenger side loom after it comes through into the engine bay but I’ll get photos for you. Thanks.

[ukianj]

That’s the likely reason for the missing MOTs, I have a NI car with 3 years missing in the UK DVLA record, but I have NI MOT certificates.

[rhino666]

That is interesting. I thought that NI MOTs were UK compliant and vice versa, recorded on the DVLA database along with registration details. SI registrations are not on the DVLA database and no surprise that their NCT(National Car Test), MOT equivalent is not on there either.
I thought the car may have originated near me in deepest darkest South Devon where back in the day, before Plymouth police got their act together, drink driving, MOT evasion, etc could well carry on for years without recourse:-)
Barnstaple, North Devon is a different world and some distance and more time away from me.
I would expect there to be a bespoke ABS ecu down near the engine ecu in the passenger footwell, together with associated wiring and connector plug. My advice is to isolate the loom section affected by rodent damage and simply cut it off, soldering and heat shrinking a good replacement section on in its place. Finding a complete loom with ABS functionailty will be rocking horse poo, expensive and a lot of time to fit.

[SafetyThird]

I’ll check the ECU at the weekend, currently the wires going to the ABS block are some of the worst affected, will see if I can chase them back to the ECU.

other than that, I think your plan to just replace what I can off another loom and splice in good bits where I can is probably the way to go, at least until I’ve done most things. At some point I need a vehicle electrician to remove all the dealer fitted alarm gubbins, I hate alarms and some of those wires are damaged. There’s a pile of extra wiring behind the glove box and even an extra fuse box and bus bar for it all. Best to just get rid of the damn stuff and know it won’t be an issue.

[SafetyThird]

Would I be likely to damage anything if I jet wash the engine bay? Obviously I’d cover the air intakes etc but I thought it might be good to get everything cleaner than it currently is.

[Scottishfiver]

Normally I’d say a resounding “NO”! but in this case, I don’t see much of a way around it.
It’s just too bogging to do anything with…worth while doing… in it’s current state.
However, I’d seal as far as possible using copious layers of food Cling Film things like the fuse box, Alt , coilpack…you know the score I’d wager. And, plug the plug- 'oles after removing the leads.
It’s a trade-off…I’m pretty sure something will be compromised but at least it’ll be clean to fix it.
Use a “soft” nozzle from a distance after spraying clear engine Gunk on.
The other thing…if you happen to own one of these hand steamers as I do:
It is very useful.

Beldray BEL0701TQN 10-in-1 Handheld Steam Cleaner, Perfect for Upholstery,...

That steamer, if you remove the boot bungs in due course, may prove very handy to help expose what looks to me like a lot of boot rot and what is just staining that has crept.

[SafetyThird]

oooh, I think my wife has one of those for her hat making hobby. that might just be the perfect thing instead of a jet wash, thanks very much for the idea.

I’ve also got a wallpaper stripper, I wonder if that would do the same thing or if it would need more pressure

[Scottishfiver]

Need a nozzle really for all those cheeky wee crevices.

[SafetyThird]

Realised that with the amount of cleaning I’ll have to do over the project, it would be worth buying a decent cleaner so have just ordered one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DJNGYSV/ref=pe_27063361_485629781_TE_item I’m sure I’ll get plenty of use out of it.

[leman]

You will be able to remove the alarm system yourself, the early dealer fit alarm shown in your pick is mostly plugged into the standard loom between connections.
There might be one or two wires that are connected up to the engine bay fuse box but again just plugged into spare fuse bays.
Have a go any issues pm me with a pic of what your not sure of and I can advise what goes where.

[SafetyThird]

Thanks very much, I’ll put up a bunch of photos once I’ve cleaned the engine bay.

[SafetyThird]

So it’s been a little while, I picked up the steam cleaner and gave the engine bay a once over which revealed just how badly the loom is damaged. I’ve been trying to find a replacement loom but finding one with ABS is proving to be nigh on impossible.

The lovely people at MX5Mania have been trying to source one but they’ve not been able to find anything either. So there appears to be three options really.

1. Pull the entire loom out and replace it with a standard loom from a 1.6 NA, I’d have to replumb the brakes and this option would leave me with no abs.

2. Buy a standard 1.6 loom and then splice in sections of the new loom where the damaged sections are in the old loom. 1 cable at a time, soldering and heatshrinking everything. For sections of the ABS wiring, I’d just have to make up new bits from the remaining new loom peices. Turns out NA looms are built as a single piece, there are no connectors so it’s an all or nothing change.

3. Just wait and hope for the correct loom to turn up on the used market but that might not even happen so let’s discount that.

Given I’m planning to up grade the power eventually. I’d really like to keep ABS as I think it’s one of the best safety devices on modern cars (despite learning to cadence brake many years ago) but it does sound like a really tough way of doing things and very time consuming. Plus I’d be left with a loom that’s full of repairs and solder joints so any future problems would be a nightmare to trace down I expect.

Any thoughts on those two options from the crowd?

[SafetyThird]

One thing I have bought is replacement brakes. Trying to move the car showed the brakes to be seized and I ended up having to drag the car with the tractor and a pulley system to get it back in the barn. So, for the sake of just being able to push it around within the barn it makes sense to sort the brakes out. I could refurbish all the callipers myself which is a bit of a sod of a job but I’d like to upgrade the brakes at some point anyway and MX5Mania had a very lightly used big brake kit that had just come off a car so that’s sitting here waiting to go on and I might as well fit some braided lines while I’m at it and that’s an entire new uprated braking system to be fitted with new fluid for the princely sum of around £300.