RoryK's mk1 Eunos Build

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Hello, I am RoryK and this is my MK1 1994 Eunos (Five is her name, original right ?  ) I acquired this car roughly 6 month’s ago to ‘temporarily’ keep me entertained…

All I can say is I love it, I didn’t have much intention to keep it as I was going to enjoy it over the summer, give it a good service, tidy it up and then sell it on, however… I have been ‘bitten by the bug’ and I have a feeling it’s the same bug I hear so many people talk about… I don’t think I need to preach to the converted as I am sure you all already know how brilliant these cars are, the temporary has become permanent.

Needless to say I will still be sticking to the original plan and enjoying Five over the summer up until October when her MoT is up, declaring her SORN and then putting her away for a ‘nut and bolt’ restoration and turbo build. My purpose of creating this thread is to document the journey of this car with me but also for others to enjoy and maybe inspire.

I encourage feedback, negative or positive from anyone, questions are also welcome and I am happy to answer them! I am by no means a mechanic either, I am just an enthusiast with a love for cars and an ‘anything is possible’ attitude.

 

Without waffling on any longer here Five’s Journey so far,

Imported 10 years ago she has had one lady owner, I purchased the car from an elderly gentlemen who had dry stored the car in his ‘attic’ on behalf of the lady owner. The attic I found her in…

 

Obviously I knew I could be on to a winner, the elderly chap was clearly an enthusiast himself, my only criteria was to make sure the shell was not in any kind of terminal condition as I could work with everything else, I had no idea what to expect as the chap was vague on the phone, all I knew was she was ‘in good condition for its age’, has no paper work but has the log book and the last MoT slip, 1.8 with 112k km on the clock (About 64k miles) so I took the gamble and made the 250 mile  trip to take a look at her with my Dad in his MK2.

The good bits was the old chap selling her was not telling fibs, she was in good condition, no terminal rust and seemingly just looked like a car that has indeed just been standing untouched in an attic for a year, she just needed to be used really. Immediate bad points were the suspension being old and tired and needing replacing and an oil leak from the CAS sensor which appeared to of been leaking for some time… yes it was old, unused and needed love, but I was willing to take the gamble, shook the man’s hand and made 250 mile journey back home!

The day I got her with my dads mk2 at services, she did me proud considering she was a little stiff and ropey from not being used and got me home safe a sound!

 

 

 

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The second day of ownership and making my way home from work the CAS sensor oil leak reminded me it was still very much there, I knew it was dripping onto the heater matrix pipe’s but tempted fate on this one and thought it would last until the new pipes and O ring arrived which I had already ordered, but she couldn’t hold on and the pipe split causing a cloud of sweet smelling steam to pour from her wheel arch and bonnet gaps.

Nursing her off the road I sat with her until the RAC came and taped up her enough so I could get her home on the driveway.

New hoses and O’ring turned up in the post, I also got her some fresh oil, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs and rocker cover gasket and did a full service whilst I was going about replacing the O ring and hoses.

She stayed this way and served me well through the rest of winter as my daily, had some fun days in the snow and never missed a beat, running her on shells finest v power she begun to breath and free up 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Some small additions added such as LED side lights and numberplate lights, I also found a ‘lazy eye / sleepy eye’ kit on ebay which had the adjustable dial on it which I think at the time was quite hard to come by, so I snapped that up and promptly installed as well as giving her a clean whilst I was there!

With the weather warming up, and sticking to the plan of enjoying her over the summer, mixed with my cravings to tinker I ordered up a Blitz LM induction kit, it’s actually a nice bit of kit as far as induction kit’s go, sounds nice and has increased the throttle response slightly, I cannot say anything about power as I have not had her dyno tested to prove anything, just purely bolted it on because I am all about smiles per gallon

 

 

Painted the rocker cover which I think turned out pretty neat, again it is only a quick job as it’s going to be blasted and done properly during the rebuild. I though I would also add a  cheeky bonnet off picture for the ‘JDM’ look 

 

 

 

 

 

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I needed a new exhaust, the standard exhaust was knackered sadly, it was blowing in a couple of places and just needed replacing, I am still in 2 minds about exhaust’s right now, I am tempted to fabricate my own when she is rebuilt, but the brand snob in me says buy the Apexi N1 Evoloution from america, anyway either of those would lengthy and time consuming journeys and decisions when the rebuild has begun, I decided to hunt the inter webs and found an N1 style exhaust for peanuts, it’s middle silencer’s baffles were rattling around and cosmetically it looked awful, but it was cheap and being the optimistic kind I had it winged over to my place with some more servicing parts (I like to service my cars regularly)

As you can see… pretty bad  but a good de-grease, deox products, tar remover, fire and elbow grease I got her to an alright condition but didn’t want to spend too much time on it 

First pass of Deox and started looking like this … but stupidly forgot to take pictures of the end result, but turned out pretty good in the end!

 With the new system cleaned up and full service completed, the old system had to come out, some well rusted bolts but luckily no snaps of seizures, just some patience and firm persuasion and everything wen’t well which is a first  used to working on my 200sx where every bolt of seized and snapped 

System out you can see where it was blowing alot

And the final result, it does hang better now as I needed to modify the brackets and also the flanges on the cat were rotted which I replaced with a decat anyway, apologies for the picture though, think there was some oil on the lens of something.

 

 

 

 

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When I bought her, she didn’t seem to have much in the way of a gear knob, was just an old bodge job pushed on top with abit of black tape to hold it together which sadly, meant the thread’s were exposed resulting in my hand getting cutup during long journeys, so like all the cool kids I ordered a Zilla shifter which is a temporary fun solution for me, the skid car look is not really what I aiming for with Five in the long run, and she certainly will not be used as a skid car either.

 

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Hi Rory 

Enjoying this thread, keep it up.  That’s one hell of a gear knob, is there storage room inside it? 

Richard.

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Thanks Richard! The shifter… hmmm yep does look like you could keep a stack of £ coins in it or similar haha, I didn’t think I would get on with it but I am surprised at how I have and I actually quite like it… but I won’t keep it as the Zilla look isn’t really what I am going for, Going to try and stick to the retro JDM finish so will keep my eye out for a ‘Suichuuka’ or Flower Shifter as their called.

So had a delivery of goodies for Five…

And Domokun got put back in his rightful place… dont ask lol.

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So, being unable to leave things alone and being slightly mental, I thought it would be a shame to put ‘rusty nuts’ on Five’s new shiny coilies so I set about pulling her out of slumber, whilst I was there and before I set about taking the nuts off the top mount’s I removed the side lights and put them in the airing cupboard as they had some trapped moisture in them and easy enough to remove.

Nuts removed from the front top mounts easy enough and then moved to the boot, decided to remove the carpets to see what’s going on underneath as I never gave it the strip down inspection when I got her, sad to say no JDM goodies left behind by previous owners, but I did find a pretty tidy boot floor and no rust! well… some surface but nothing terminal  (Sorry about the purple boot lid, the lid did have some harsh corrosion where water had obviously sat for a while by the boot lid brake light, but I treated it and gave it a quick blow over with my favourite colour as a temporary fix, it will be white again when I have her resprayed)

I did find some Moisture Mould on some of the boot trim though, think ill try and clean it and if it still looks passed itself then replace it with new trim 

Fuel filler next / pipe cover removed! come out easy enough, But I did find the first patch of rust on the bracket attacked to the fuel tank, still a quick stab with a screw driver and its nothing serious, can and will be treated in a few months time.

Cover removed I unbolted the fuel filler neck and cable tidied it out the way so I could get batter access to the remaining strut bolts.

Annoyingly two of the cross-heads stripped in the M5 bolts that were bolting the fuel filler neck to the shell, so, being obsessive compulsive they are no longer ‘perfect’ and will be the first bolts submitted into my ‘Box-O-Bits’ from the eunos and I will replace them with new shiney bolts 

And here is a picture of my Rusty Nuts… which I am going to soak in Deox-C overnight, the Deox-C stuff by Bilthamber is brilliant incase anyone hasn’t heard of it and I high recommend it, I will be making a Deox-C bath in October to soak the larger parts like subframe, doors and wings etc, ill post a picture up tomorrow of the deox results 

 

 

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Long story short I found out my MOT is up next month and although I am sure she would get through fine, I decided it was not worth the money and effort considering I would sorn her 2 months later, so made the decision to begin the rebuild early

 

So here is the beginning of my MX5 Restoration…

So today I have been busy, breaking down the car, Backend is pretty much stripped down, Just need to label up the plugs on the loom for when I put them back and obviously left the fuel filler neck in place as there is no need to remove that until I drop the fuel tank. Found some rust around the rear bulb holder seals, but luckily nothing too serious and can be treated / blasted.

And the first bolt to break on me, but only bolt and quite a few have been removed today!

Made a start on the front but ran out of steam, but removed the air filter and one of the light clusters.

Tomorrow I need to MOT my daily steed, but also getting some pork on the Rota’s  and once done there I will continue to break the car down, much much more to come!

 

 

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I just want to say thanks for the posts and keep them coming.

 

Cheers.

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Thanks Bud! I’ll certainly do my best to update as often as I can!

 

So, Today I was awoken early by the postman, which is a good thing because I over slept my alarm delivering a new arch roller, heat gun, timing light, and a small bag of bolts from a company called Falcon Workshop on Ebay, they are VERY good quality and not your usual cheese, so I highly recommend them! I was going to use Pro-Bolt but I could not justify the prices 

Anyway, with the daily hack needing an MoT and also the tyres needing fitting to the rota’s, My local garage was the first point of call, so the new shineys loaded up I set about the morning business!

The good news is the the daily passed her MoT, and also got my Rota’s back wrapped in Yokohama’s  I was also Joined today by my old man, Who is like my very own personal Ed China!

Wakey Wakey Five! We have work to do! Last eye removed :(! (Head Lamp) had to remove the carbon cannister for this (Bin Fodder) and a few bits of loom for the aircon etc which I will be deleting anyway.

Next up was the front bumper (Cover) which as you can imagine… was very rusty :/, surprisingly they all come off… eventually, Two snapped, one needed chiselling loose and last of all, the bolts on the inner wing attaching the front bumper to the wing… This was worthy of a picture, an hour of wrestling with this thing with virtually no room and no electricity for power tools, we (Mostly Ed China) went at it with a junior hacksaw! Eventually it come off, but had to sacrifice the lower portion of the wing’s bracket, but not so worried about this as I’ll either weld a new bit in, or ill just leave it and bolt it back with one bolt… I’m undecided and as it is not ‘perfect’ I think it could annoy me…

And then with no warning it started to rain, so rushed about and dragged tools etc into cover and waited it out… guess what… I got a picture of some rain for you all as its just so damn interesting… like rusty bolt interesting!.. Right ?  

Rain gone I removed the first wing, expecting the worst, but surprised with what is a really clean frame 

This was all I managed today due to many many rusty bolts halting progress, I was hoping to push a little more but these things happen, the important thing is so far no ‘terminal’ rust has been found! only light surface rust and some terrible bolts that only belong in horror films and nightmares, I need to remove the front bumper/crash bar, but the remaining cheese’s holding this on are VERY melted and need to be spread on toast ideally, I am not worried so much about the cheese breaking and leaving some cheese behind as I can drill this cheese out, I also think I have gone slightly mad ? Or more mad ? Anyway, this is pretty much how she’s been left for today, tucked back up for some ZZZZ’s until the adventure carry’s on tomorrow…

I also found some time to start cleaning up and spraying some brackets etc that I removed from the boot which I had soaked in a Deox bath overnight, ill put a before and after below as you can really see how rusty it was and how well the deox has worked

Used a wire-brush and drill to remove the remaining pitted stuff and a little deox gel it come up like new apart from the pitting left behind by the rust  ! and although once put back the chances of ever seeing this bracket will be very very slim, I know it will be there! so I still went ahead and sprayed it anyway with a good anti corrosion primer, purple and then laquer 

And that’s it for today… tomorrow I will carry on removing cheese from the front of five, once done there I will remove the doors, roof and then make a start on stripping down the interior!

 

 

 

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Today I was carrying on with the front end dismantle, Jacking the car up nice and high this time, I was able to remove the under-tray and air guide which were an absolute mare, many bolts were needed to be cut, but even so I got there in the end, today was kind of slow progress as I needed to spend alot of time hammering, chiselling and cutting old bolts off.

 

With those bits out the way I was able to start working on removing the front towing eye’s, I eyed this up previously and well… I will let the pictures do the talking, but miraculously only one bolt require cutting off! I was able to hammer an imperial socket size over the rusted bolts and use a breaker bar to gently loosen them off, nothing nasty lurking underneath them too which I was surprised by as they didn’t look so great!

 

Then being bored with the front end I dropped the exhaust system off the car which was easy enough,

 

 

Back to the front end I had to remove the bumper but the bugger was not moving due to two very stubborn, rusty rounded bolts, so made the decision to cut it away with the dremel and then get a new bumper as I need a new rear bumper as well for the same reason, what was lurking under that however was not so savvy with a small hole revealing itself after a good shanking with a screw driver, marking the first bit of ‘terrible rust’ on poor old Five!  but the rest of the front of five is fine and can be sand blasted so I’m not worried about it at all, The bumper brackets also have tiny holes in them, but they can be saved and repaired so they have been popped in the deox bath for a day or so :slight_smile:

 

 

 

With the rust found I gave it a good wire brushing down and then a lick of Deox Hyndrate 80 to neutralize the rust and protect it.

 

 

 And that concludes the front end for now, next up will be an interior strip down, fluid drain, gearbox removal and then start removing things like radiator, AC etc, running gear such as subframes etc will be staying in place for now as I need to order a roll over Jig for the shell, engine crane and engine stand.

 

 

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So its been a little while since my last update, but I have been hard at work and had little time to actually update the mod thread, so here it goes from where I left off…

The front bumper brackets are worse for ware unfortunately, a good soak in the deox bath showed that they were indeed passed the point of repair as you can see in the pictures below, so in the bin they will go and more parts have been added to the list 

 

 

Carrying on, my audience for the day was… Mr Claud… my cat, who followed me round to my garage and sat in the shade watching me for the day… the sod didn’t offer any help though…

 

 

The front end and back end was stripped down (Mostly) and was time to work on the interior, glad to have the dials out, the badly stuck on MPH sticker was starting to annoy me, as it clearly reads in KMH still, I think its because the previous owner could not grasp KMH conversion so they stuck a sticker on it to make her feel less bad, she must have been a nightmare to follow! 

 

 

Dash out which was surprisingly easy considering I was working on my ace! I also got to rip out the badly laid wire that fed the rear fog light which was liberating, I have no idea why but it really annoyed me 

 

 

Seats, roof and rear carpets removed revealing… some surface rust  but again, nothing serious! 

 

 

Mr Claud looked slightly more shocked at the rust than I was… 

 

 

 Steering column dropped as this made things alot easier when removing the heater matrix which in itself was fairly easy, I had to drain the coolant before hand but it did come out eventually…

 

 

Carpets removed and steering column temporarliy bolted back up just incase I needed to steer the shell for whatever reason and also both doors have both been removed and stacked away neatly

 

 

I did find some pretty cool Japanese coins under the carpet, just makes the import feel that bit more ‘Authentic’

 

 

 

With the interior mostly stripped, I turned back to the engine bay, cutting out the manifold heat shield as the bolts on top were all ‘cheese like’ and needed to fudge off, so the dremel come out with an inverter connected to my mighty work horse, the Nissan Micra! The dremel has been a real time saver on this project so far and has already earned its money back in time! although I was lucky and picked it up for cheap’s at B&Q  but just as useful the micra… I have no shame in owning this car… it serves its purpose well and costs me absolutely nothing and contributes massively to this restoration.

 

 

Once that was removed, the radiator, air con and power steering were bled, although the aircon was already empty due to a big piece of the pipework missing on the lower front, but its being deleted so I am not worried about this. I also started stripping back the loom and labelling up the plugs etc. The engine bay is looking alot more clear now.

 

 

And then she was tucked away, as I needed to go and collect the newer member to my fleet, a 1999 Nissan 200sx s14a, which has also changed the plans I had for Five, I was initially leaning towards the turbo build but now considering an natural aspiration build instead, but this is something I will think about more when it comes to the engine rebuild.

 

 

And that pretty much brings things up to date of the restoration on Five, way ahead of scheduled time which is brilliant!  

 

 

 

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Wow. Alot of time and effort being put in. Look forward to seeing the finished project.

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Thanks buddy! Me too!

 

This project is still very much alive and I apologize for the lack of update’s, not much progress has been achieved since the last update due to having run out of space to put things, the weather and other commitments! I am hopefully gaining another garage soon to house my 200sx and store more of Five’s parts! 

 

With the MX5 in parts and the ever lasting itch to tinker flaring up again I will be returning to garage before Christmas to hoist the engine out, tidy the garage, and hopefully sort things out and move panels etc into the new garage!

 

17

wow, a damned fine read, thanks for posting it.
looking forward to the next posts followed by the grand finale. :slight_smile:

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I’ve found these 100 yen coins in all of the import vehicles I’ve ever worked on. I think it’s a good luck thing or something…or Japanese people have really loose pockets. Answers on a postcard!

 

Really nice Eunos, keep up the good work :slight_smile:

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Thanks for all the kind words guys, They go a long way and inspire me to keep going! I guess its time for a smallish update …

 

So… the engine crane and engine stand are ordered up which will allow me to crack on with this project, as long as I can man up and get stuck in during the colder months anyway… progress might be a little slow but some progress is better than none at all I suppose 

 

Christmas and new years are now out the way which mean’s my cars go back to the top(ish) of my priority list again, and as it has been a couple of months since I had set eye’s on five, mixed with the itch to tinker I thought I would go and roll her out of her garage and see how she has fared up in the recent weather conditions!

 

Whilst I was sifting through my gear and fighting the giant spiders that had taken up residence amongst the trim and various parts, I unearthed the brand new set of Rota’s that I got for her last year… which I had forgotten about and also realised I hadn’t even tested to see what they would roughly look like… so… like an excited teenager back from a shopping trip to Halfords car accessories section I couldn’t wait! jacked her up and slapped ‘dem rimz’ on her to see if she looked … “Ream” ? …

 

I think they will look ok… they will do the job whilst I get her back on the road anyway 

 

Next ? … The garage needs clearing out and parts need organising better, then I can get to work with taking all the running gear off and lifting the engine out. I need to make a shell dolly which I have drawn some plans up for and I have already been in touch with Enviro Dip in regards to sending the shell of to be dipped and primed ready for any welding work that might / likely need doing, I also need to find a decent sand blaster / powder coating service for my sub frames and arms etc…

 

Thanks again for reading and happy new year to you all!

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

20

Great read. Look forward to seeing the fimissed article.

cheers

MF