An mx-5 for the missus.

[Dez]

We were discussing replacing the 'Tother halfs lupo, as its getting to the point where it needs to come off the road for a bit to sort everything it needs. It's her daily but needs at least a clutch, cambelt, the shifter cables are playing up, suspension and bushes need a dose of looking at and it could do with some a paint as well.
At a bit of a loss what to buy other than another lupo tdi sport, I was after putting her in something RWD as she's only ever had fwd hot hatches before.

Her criteria-
Small
Fast
No sh1t colours Like yellow or red
No a 'posey' car like a convertable or something.
Curvy/roundy, not a boxy car.
Needs to work and be reliable.

So what did I do? I bought this!





A non-running not particularly fast red convertable that's been abandoned in a hedge for about 7 years. Ain't I good to her! At least it's small and roundy I guess....

[Dez]

I bought it off a mate of mine who had paid pretty much nothing for it and was going to break it. I gave him a profit, but I still bought it for way less than I could pick up a comparable one for. It was £275. The wheels are more or less new 16" BBS-ish cheapies with new tyres, and tbh are worth a good chunk of the purchase price, so I was happy.

It's actually a eunos, 1990, and is more or less standard. Only bits of note are it has PAS, air con, a momo steering wheel, and factory yellow projector front fogs.
The surprising thing about it is it's totally rust free. All the usual problem areas seem very good. The paint is curse word (it's had a BAD repaint at some point, and there's some filler in the pass. Rear 1/4 where it looks like it's had a bash.

I chucked a battery on it and it fired straight up and runs good. The thermostat housing is leaking from the little metal pipe, the fog light is hanging off, the mirrors have been smashed off and most of the locks are damaged. The handbrake is sticking and needs freeing off. But other than that, it seems ok. Roof is in ok knick as is the interior, and everything else works on it. So, it should be a fairly easy fixer-upper.

[strikey]

I bet she'll love the artwork om the boot too...I didn't notice , was "a massive cock" on her list of requirements? good find though.

[daslandroverman]

Will need to be careful buffing that off... hehehe

[Dez]

That's what happens when you buy a car off a mate who's just discover the bottle of t-cut left in the boot!

[craig1010cc]

Sills and arches don't look like they're hanging off, so that's a good start. Being a G plate there is a good chance of it being a short nose crank, so could be an issue after changing the cambelt, and the leak by the stat sounds like the small pipe might have rotted and that needs a new stat housing (not expensive) but does need the cambelt to come off.

And if you have the other parts of the door mirrors, it's a £3 kit to repair them.

[Dez]

Nov 20, 2016 18:06:02 GMT craig1010cc said:

Sills and arches don't look like they're hanging off, so that's a good start. Being a G plate there is a good chance of it being a short nose crank, so could be an issue after changing the cambelt, and the leak by the stat sounds like the small pipe might have rotted and that needs a new stat housing (not expensive) but does need the cambelt to come off.

And if you have the other parts of the door mirrors, it's a £3 kit to repair them.

Yep, I have a reasonable amount of experience with '5s so know what to look for.
In my experience the worst rust spots are the very bottom the the chassis rails just behind where the front crossmember bolts on, the lap joint where the sill joins the rear 1/4, the bottom of the quarter itself, the triangular vertical section of the inner sill right at the back end, the rear arch lips and the rear tow eye/bumper mount things. From a quick feel around they all seem good in this.

The thermostat leak is exactly what you say, corroded
Pipe.

No other mirror parts are there unfortunately, I'll just buy a pair of chromed for about 50 quid so I don't have to worry about painting them.

[eskimogod]

i have a good stat housing somewhere i should think yours if i can find it..

[ChasR]

That looks like quite a good buy and reminds me of mine in many ways .

Regarding the cambelt I seem to recall you have around 3 choices:

-Do the belts, but only take the large pulley off and not the cambelt pulley, thus leaving the bolt undisturbed. Quite a few people seem to do this.

-Remove the bolt and remove the cambelt pulley. Fit a new woodruff key and retighten the bolt (preferably new) to the correct torque. Mazda listed two torque figures for the 1.6 depending on the crank and it seem overtightening can make things worse.

-Do the Loctite mod. This is not the cheapest thing to do and in the eyes of some a bodge. But it does seem to work...

Either way, it will be nice to see what you have planned for the car.

[Dez]

Nov 20, 2016 20:07:25 GMT eskimogod said:

i have a good stat housing somewhere i should think yours if i can find it..

That would be great thanks. Very generous of you, I'll give you a few quid for the post. Will PM you about it in a bit.

[Dez]

Nov 20, 2016 23:41:45 GMT ChasR said:

That looks like quite a good buy and reminds me of mine in many ways .

Regarding the cambelt I seem to recall you have around 3 choices:

-Do the belts, but only take the large pulley off and not the cambelt pulley, thus leaving the bolt undisturbed. Quite a few people seem to do this.

-Remove the bolt and remove the cambelt pulley. Fit a new woodruff key and retighten the bolt (preferably new) to the correct torque. Mazda listed two torque figures for the 1.6 depending on the crank and it seem overtightening can make things worse.

-Do the Loctite mod. This is not the cheapest thing to do and in the eyes of some a bodge. But it does seem to work...

Either way, it will be nice to see what you have planned for the car.

I double checked today and is is a shortnose, I had kinda assumed it would be given its age.
It's lasted nearly 27 years so far, so it's fair to assume whatever has been done in the past has been done right, or it's never been disturbed.
I'm going to pull the covers and see if the belt is dated so I can figure out roughly when it last had one.
I think if there's no signs of pulley wobble, I'll probably
Just leave it on when I swap it.

[düdo]

Perfect for the season. As you've got nothing else to do Dez should be finished by Christmas!

[Dez]

Nov 21, 2016 22:57:21 GMT düdo said:

Perfect for the season. As you've got nothing else to do Dez should be finished by Christmas!

That was the original plan, but the above conversation happened 2 days after I'd bought it so I ended up telling her!

[Dez]

Not done much apart from jetwash it so far, but here's so pics of it cleaned up anyway. Looks a lot better when wet, you can't see how flat the paint is. Or the massive cock.

[Dez]

So, I've been chipping away at this. Bought a lock set off eBay, wish I hadn't bothered. Key didn't operate all of them (probably because the glovebox lock was from a mk2, not a mk1) and the tab on the ign barrel that the column cowl screws to was broken off and the column clamp was missing.
I wouldn't recommend mx5 mania in Kent if you're after parts, very poor service/lack of knowledge/lack of care.

That wasted a bit of time so then I did what I should have done in the first place, and drove up to Suffolk Mazda instead. There I got a full matched lock set, a length of ign wiring to repair the butchered stuff on this, the ilusive/rare fog light switch with built-in warning light, a thermostat housing, and a dash blank to tidy that bit up. I paid £90 for the lot which I thought was fairly reasonable, and they seem pretty helpful guys up there so I was happy.

Here's the dash tidied up after I'd pryed off the glued in panels that held the flickswitches and push button start, and repaired the wiring for the front fogs which had been butchered to splice in the wires for the rear fog as well. The remaining toggle switch operates the washer jets at the mo, as I've not investigated why they don't work off the stalk yet.


So then I sorted out the under dash/ignition wiring, which started out like this-


I pulled this out to loose a load of redundant wires, I suspected it failing is why everything under here was hacked up to start with. Tbh it was well installed and hidden, took me quite a while to find it!


Then a good while with the soldering iron and heatshrink later-

All very nice again.

Then I fitted up the ign barrel and faffed around getting the cowl on and lined up for ages-


It still fits funny here though but I can't figure out why, there's no more adjustment on the ign barrel mounting and nothing is obviously bent or twisted, so I'll have to revisit that one at a later date, it works for now.


Lastly I got the boot lock on after dismantling half the back of the car to do so-


I also stripped the paint off the number plate lights then polished them, seems someone had forgot to mask them up!


It was dark by the time I was finished but that lot is now all back together and I'm onto the door locks, which are a proper pain in the , I've got the drivers done but it took a LOT of messing about to get it adjusted up
And working.

[Nath]

Looks like a good project will keep a watch on this.

[kevins]

Iv'e used suffolk mazda as well also found to be vey good service and know the cars inside out.

[Ray Singh]

Looks a great project - keep us updated.

[fpk]

I have an early eunos just like this one. Mine is totally rotten though!

[kevfromwales]

Lulz dude, must be the season for buying red mx5's! I bought billys 200k bargain off here, mine was not rot free haha

Got a breaker here too if you need owt, let me know, its a trashed green v ltd