Less an update on what I’ve done and more what has been done for me. Had my welding requirements assessed and the verdict is £1600 worth of work–even with providing a sill, a repair panel, and chassis rails. As much as I had a reasonable budget to get this work done, that would be before I’ve put it through MOT, or taxed / insured it and, unfortunately, £2k is more than I can justify.
A moment’s silence for a fallen friend. 
In completely unrelated news, does anyone fancy an 04 SVT project car* with some repair panels handily thrown in? Asking for a friend…
*⁽ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵃˢˢᵉᵐᵇˡʸ ʳᵉᵠᵘᶦʳᵉᵈ⁾
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I fitted a pair of tiny two ways in the rear speakers on my NC. The standard ones have a capacitor in them so only the high frequencies pass through. Made a huge difference to the sound.
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Yes I do haha. Mx5parts are sending another out. Should be here quick knowing them so should good . Cheers
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Sorry to hear that. I hope things work out for you either way.
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Yeah, it makes a huge difference having a decent pair of wee speakers at the back although I did have to fiddle about with the balance settings on the stereo to mellow them out just a touch. They initially were a bit tinny but sound great now. Only thing was, they were a bit of a beggar to fit as I pretty much had to use the old speakers to craft a new pair of adapters for them to sit on. Was well worth the effort though, IMHO 
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All good. The new reversing cam kit arrived, changed just the camera section snd it worked after a hard reset.
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All good. New kit arrived from mx5parts by return and the rear section of the kit was faulty. Very fast service from mx5parts 
Finished the installation of my TR Lane roll bar! Got it quite cheap unused from eBay. Easily the biggest job I’ve attempted on a car ever, I wouldn’t like to do it again, especially solo. Now that it’s on though, really happy with the extra chassis stiffness, safety and styling.
Also installed new brake pads all round which it desperately needed and fitted a front strut brace. Car feels way better and all jobs were a ‘first’ for me. Proper mx5 weekend!
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Finally put my new belt, tensioner and idler pulleys on the NC. One idler pulley is an eye watering £88 + delivery from our favourite MX-5 parts supplier, another is £40 from some non descript eBay supplier.
Anyways Autolink supplied everything for £96 but I ordered the wrong pulley that replaces the Aircon one, mine non Aircon. Thinking it may do the job.
With a little tinkering I managed to cobble that wrong one into a correct fitting one in the by using the plate/washer from the tensioner pulley. So that pulley in the end cost under £14.
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I found that gearbox oil made my gearbox feels worse.
Had issues going in to first and sometimes 2nd, took 30+ minutes of driving to get it up to temp to the point where it’s happy.
Have you adjusted the clutch pedal???
Adjusting the biting point out of the carpet was a complete cure for my gear change problems
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I did adjust it a little bit. The biting point is still fairly instant though. Wasn’t not sure how far you could go with the adjustment.
I done all of the stuff and then did the pedal adjustment. Not sure on the oil in there previously but replacing it with the new castrol stuff made the situation worse. Duratec said that might happen and I didn’t believe them. 
Imho, the vital thing is that you retain some clearance. However, you only actually need a mm or two, as any wear will only increase clearance.
I therefore adjusted it until there was zero clearance and then backed off a little.
This worked out perfectly and the gear change was instantly transformed as I no longer had any clutch drag.
If the biting point is in the carpet, you cannot clear the clutch fully, so you will always be suffering clutch drag.
Can somebody help me with a silly question or two please?
NC 2005-2009 models in Japan - do the soft top roofs fold away electronically or manually?
NC 2005-2009 models in Japan - do the roofs on the RHT models fold away electrically or do you have to manually detach and remove them?
Thank you and sorry for my lack of knowledge. I did try to search the forum but have been unable to find the answers.
I think I’ve established the RHT is powered
All soft tops are manual worldwide…
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Finally battery back on and fired up the NC today. Been doing a little fettling under the bonnet, slight surface rust under the battery tray found when doing the belt and tensioner etc. So now the paint has dried all back together and pleased to say the creak/squeak has gone. It must have been the tensioner.
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Yesterday saw new front discs, slider pins, Budweg calipers and Roddisons pads on my NC1. A run out for about an hour last night hopefully bedded then in a little …
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This appears to be the suggested bedding in method for Roddison road pads as per Bedding in new Brake Pads | Mazda MX-5 Performance Parts | BOFI Racing
- Perform 3-4 gentle applications of the brakes to begin to heat up the pads. These braking events need not be taxing, just a slow but firm deceleration from 40-20, 60-40 etc. In general, driving to a section of road that is both safe and empty enough to complete the full bedding in process completes this sufficiently.
- From 60 – 80 MPH brake hard down to 20 MPH – DO NOT STOP. Repeat 7-10 times. You may be able to smell the brakes getting really hot during this – that is normal and an essential part of burning off the resins used in the pad construction
- Drive around for a few minutes avoiding a full stop where possible to allow the brakes to cool
- Repeat all of the above one more time
At this point your pads will be fully bedded and mated to the brake disc. It should go without saying that if doing the above on a public road, there should be no traffic around – I prefer evenings for this. This procedure works really well for quick pad changes at the track – it may even be possible to stop from a higher speed in such an environment and potentially speed up the process.
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