Jet washed the underneath. I spend more time on the car’s undersides than I do with the bodywork. Last year I wire brushed the suspension, painted aquasteel on exposed metal and coated the subframe with Comma underseal spray. All box sections flooded with Dinitrol ML. All seemed ok but parts of the original Mazda underseal had fallen off leaving small areas of rust which I treated. Exhaust hanger brackets from chassis had aslo got rusty. That concludes my undercarriage cleaning for another year.
You can get the coolant tank (and the coolant itself) from mx5parts.co.uk
FL22 coolant was used by Mazda through most of the Mk3, Mk3.5 and Mk3.75 production. It was Mazda’s take on the emerging tendency for long-life coolant to be used in car engines. Non-FL22 coolant is supposed to be renewed every 4 years/62k miles, whereas the FL22 coolant only needs to be renewed every 11 years/125k miles.
Further to my post #7246 about the lower, driver’s side cam-belt cover fixing screw, which snapped during my attempts to remove it. The new cover (from MX-5 Parts) wasn’t going to stay in place without the screw. It only has three screws and with only two in place it curved forwards into the line of the crank pulley. I had to devise a way to remove the chewed up remains of the shank of the old screw.
I managed to recut a few threads using an M6 die I had which has a hexagonal outer rim (most are circular). This allowed me to fit it in a socket and use an extension bar and a T handle to turn it to cut the thread. I fitted a spacer (an inch of rubber tubing) below the die to keep it near the front face of the socket. I then fitted an M6 nut and using my MIG welder I tack welded it to the shank. The remains then unwound using a 10mm spanner.
A new M6 screw and washer are now fitted - result! All the screws were coated with Waxoyl before fitting so will not rust in future.
Today I took the rather corroded and grimey cam cover to a place in Chesterfield to get it aqua-blasted. It’s come up like new and the next job is to protect the surface with some engine paint. Hopefully the car will be up and running again in the next few days.
Trouble is, now the throttle body plenum will look very grimey in comparison…
The NC felt a bit not quite normal on Sunday, so yesterday afternoon I checked the tyre pressures, all 27, having been set to 29 in the middle of January. Both times measured at normal garage temp of about 15C. Strange how every time I feel the need to check them it is down to 27. At least they are always the same as each other.
Being in the mood with the tools in hand, I did the Mazda3 immediately afterwards (outside and a bit cooler) All four tyres down to 33 instead of the normal 36 (also done in January), and the TPMS had not noticed. Back up to 36 and the magic button pressed to reset the TPMS.
So just how far out can the tyres go before the TPMS begins to complain? The Mazda3 had been to Wales and back a week ago without flagging the light.
‘So just how far out can the tyres go before the TPMS begins to complain? The Mazda3 had been to Wales and back a week ago without flagging the light.’
I think it only recognises a ‘difference’ so if they were all set to 15psi it would be happy.
That was my worry. I guess remembering and measuring an absolute value is too much to expect.
My old Vextra B could distinguish between tyres with different rolling resistance, even when at the same pressure and having the same (to a mm) circumference. At speed it quickly flagged up the usual warning light.
Some TPM systems do indeed monitor pressures (and report accordingly). Some though just use the ABS wheel speed sensors to look for continuous over-rotation of individual wheels. The former type require pressure sensors in the tyres (and the hardware to communicate with them) while the latter type are really just a software enhancement to the existing ABS.
New numberplates fitted front and rear as the existing front one had been cracked by impact with a stone or similar. I decided to go with “EU” style plates (even though they will cease to have any validity when travelling abroad post-Brexit) simply because I prefer the look of them.
Fitted the new ‘low rise’ instrument cowl / hood to my NC. Simple pull off the old one clip in the new. Just need to relocate the Bluetooth microphone.
These were only ever fitted to UK Sport Graphite and Recaro special editions. So pretty rare.
New drop links and bushes on rear. Only had to drill out all 4 of the droplink bolts and only 1 of the bush mountings snapped so had to drill that too. I’m gonna need some new drill bits and my dremel got a workout. Going to do the fronts next week
New to me cobalt exhaust box on the back now with new hanging rubbers, fruity.
Also did the oil and filter plus GL4 spec syntrans oil in the gearbox
