From my own usability in winter I’ve found December, January and February to be the months of very little use. We all like to just get out and enjoy them of course but mine is definitely in the garage in poor weather.
December this year a trial again to see how much use it got. I’ve been out twice in it, much less than in previous months this past year. Is it worth keeping it taxed, that’s debatable I may just leave it that way or sorn.
Today I again look out of the window hoping for nice drive out, it’s gloomy, raining and the forecast is very iffy. So the daily driver takes me to Sainsbury’s instead.
I try and use it at least once a week to keep it turning over but it’s the dark and rain that ends up stopping me. I’ve learnt that a grey mx5 is pretty much invisible to other road users….
Good wash today after it actually getting dirty when visiting family on Christmas Day…!
Got it done just before the damp winter mist and rain came down again over Nottinghamshire…
Rob
Thanks for the heads up, Friday is now scheduled as a car cleaning day for me
It’ll be good to see what colour the ‘daily’ actually is and to get the MX-5 pristine, dry, sat in the garage and looking loved again.
In an attempt to find something to do today on the car (it’s stopped raining and milder) I thought I set about sealing the windscreen grommets. Popped the screw cover cap off (it broke) screw out and lifted the plastic cover, they’ve been sealed
Took off the stainless air scoop panel I fitted back in summer (ND) that has been clanging on the odd rock, scooping up horsewotsit or scraping odd cambers and tracks. It had a bit of a deformity as it had been bashed a few times due to my rural drives.
Changed my Garmin power lead on the OBD port that runs power to my cameras. It wasn’t shutting off on its timer or shutting off when the car battery was below threshold so I did a return on Amazon and bought another one.
We’ll see if that goes wrong too……
Carrying on with my winter refurb work. Started to do the wheels - one completed over a couple of days. Was looking at powder coating but decided to try repainting them myself. 3 coats of primer, 3 of silver and 3 lacquer. Thought I’d paint the centre caps black - makes a nice contrast. The Mazda emblems came off the caps without any problems so I could easily paint the cap itself. See how it goes regarding the longevity of the overall paint job but fairly happy so far. Cleaning a prepping the wheel took a while but that’s probably the most important part. Used a fan heater to try and make sure the paint cured. I’ll probably lightly machine polish the paint after a couple of weeks, by which time the paint should be hard enough, then put on a ceramic coating to protect them and make cleaning easier.
Hi Sean. No need to stick the caps or emblems. Some photos attached that may
hopefully help. Looking at the rear side, the whole cap just unclips from the wheel (using a small screwdriver to release one side then push out the cap) then you can carefully prise off the Mazda emblem. On the pic, you can see four protruding pins/legs that are part of the emblem. To remove the emblem, I just used a small screwdriver to push the pins in and down (from the outer edge). It’s all plastic so don’t be too rough but they should pop out no problem as long as you are pushing from the right direction. Note that the 5th protruding pin is just a locating pin so that the emblem goes in the correct way (though I don’t see that it would make a difference. The four locating pins hold the emblem in securely (you should hear a click as they locate when pushing them back on) but if in doubt, maybe a touch of superglue on a couple of the pins?
