hoodedreeper's MX5 NC1 Sport

[hoodedreeper]

I recently sold the Colt CZT and I'm back as an MX5 owner, some may remember my previous NA build







The car is a 2006 Sport model which includes 17" alloys,LSD diff, Bilstein suspension, 6 speed gearbox, heated leather seats and rear parking sensors.





Overall the car is in fairly good condition considering its 16 years old.



The biggest thing that lets it down is the paint damage on the front bumper





There's abit of oxidation on the headlights which seems to be common the earlier NC models







The dull overcast UK weather wasn't helping with the photos, but in direct sunlight the Galaxy Grey paint really shines well and has a gorgeous gold pearl



The roof is in great condition, no visible tears or damage. Luckily it hasn't started to bubble along the front edge like some do.



The interior is in decent condition, it could do with a good clean though







57k miles on the clock (almost 92k km) was another thing that drew to purchasing the car







Not much to say about the engine bay, except it needs a good clean too

[hoodedreeper]

Viewing the car on a drive way is more trickier, some owners are happy to get it on a ramp or even jack the car up. But I didn't want to be a nuisance or be cheeky so I did the best I could.

The inner sills looked in good condition from what I could see. Obviously I couldn't remove the side skirts to inspect it properly.















There's a few areas that look bad 'should' just be surface corrosion.

Talking of surface corrosion....





It looks much worse than it is (I hope!) Luckily this can all be removed and either cleaned up & painted or replaced for new.

I've always gone head first into builds and getting stuck in straight away, but unfortunately my bank account needs some time to breathe from all of the spending as of late. Plus life has changed quite alot since the purple NA as I now have 2 daughters. So the updates may be abit slower than normal.

With the last project I decided to restart my Youtube channel and documented everything as a guide/how to (its abit of a neiche car,so guides were limited). I plan on doing the same but perhaps more of a blog rather than guides.

I'd really appreciate it if you could head over and gave the channel a subscribe www.youtube.com/c/hoodedreeper/featured

I look forward to making a start

[qwerty]

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this!

Tom

[ChrisT]

^^^^^^Exactly the same as I was thinking.

This shape MX5 is growing on me, looks like you've got a good example.

[qwerty]

Aug 26, 2022 5:18:57 GMT ChrisT said:

^^^^^^Exactly the same as I was thinking.

This shape MX5 is growing on me, looks like you've got a good example.

The more they come down in price the more they grow on me 😂

[kevins]

It's like Mazda didn't bother painting the suspension parts, most of them seem to look the same, the body looks good which is the main thing.

[Davey]

Watching this with interest!

[stealthstylz]

Keep a close eye on the oil level, the engines are an annoying mix of brilliant and fatally flawed.

[hoodedreeper]

I'm happy to be able to finally piece together the first update, unfortunately it's not too exciting.

I wanted to give the car a good clean inside and out, mainly because its cheap to do and I can't do much else at the moment *cries*

I started with the engine bay and a dry clean with a vacuum. I then started a wet clean using a diluted citrus pre-wash, detailing brush,some mircofibres and finishing with a plastic trim dressing.













Next was to tackle the interior. I used the same steps as the engine bay starting with a dry clean with a vacuum followed by an interior cleaner and detailing brush. The plastics received a coat of the same trim dressing.

The leather seats and door card inserts were cleaned with some Dr Leather wipes and sealed with GTechniq L1 Leather Guard

[hoodedreeper]

I held off washing the exterior till this week (mainly because I'm on annual leave). With the british skies filling with dark clouds, I could only hope it stayed dry long enough for me to complete this extensive job.

The last time I had polished a car was 2014,not long after my purple MX5 got resprayed. Apart from that I very rarely do more than a routine 2 bucket wash and dress the tyres/trim.

So please forgive any incorrect information or techniques, this is still new to me. I have a range of products I've collected over the years and it was great to finally put some to good use.

I go into more detail in the Youtube video



The only photo I have during the process was of the clay barring. Before I started this stage the paint looked fine, it's not until I saw the 50/50 I realised how contaminated the paint is (or should I say, was)

[hoodedreeper]

Its been a very busy few days

The first job was to remove the front bumper to remove the original oblong number plate plinth. Once the bumper was cleaned up and the uncovered area coated with polish and wax to match the rest of the bumper, it was time to fit the OEM import plinth supplied by Autolink



It left some holes but these will get filled and smoothed when the bumper gets resprayed



I also removed the front fog lights to spray the chrome, but it turns out the chrome was a stuck on trim





The rear number plate left a hole either side, I've tried to hide one with a Pistonheads sticker



When I was cleaning the engine bay last week I noticed the strut brace was starting to loose bad. I cleaned it up with a wire brush and gave it a coat of etch primer and gloss black. The corrosion has pitted the surface so ideally it needs blasting and powder coating in the future



I also took the chance to change some of the hardware to stainless including the top of the bumper, coolant expansion tank, windscreen washer bottle, ABS pump bracket, fuse box, brake pipe bracket and some bolts along the bulk head.









One of the first things I do when I purchase a replacement car is to paint the calipers. I've done red,black,blue and yellow so thinking of a different colour to go with the grey was abit tricky. In the end I went for orange (a bonus being the dash illumination is orange so it saves having to replace all of those bulbs lol)





Every car has its minor issues and we all know these cars suffer from corrosion. One area is the bootlid where the number plate lights are. Softtop models have an aluminium bootlid where as the power folding hard top has a steel one.

Mine looked pretty bad but it was easy enough to sort



It seems most Galaxy Grey owners struggle with a paint colour match. I know the previous owners of the car have because of the various touch up repairs over the body work. Working in the automotive industry I have access to paint mixing at work. I mixed up an aerosol to use, turns out its wrong too Luckily its on the inside so you won't see it



While the bootlid was drying I made a start on ANOTHER common issue. The passenger footwell builds up with water due to a grommet under the wiper cowl. MX5Parts sell a replacement grommets including new caps. I smeared some silicone sealant around the new grommet just as an extra safety measure, that way it's leak free for many many years



While the wiper arms were off, they too received a coat of paint to tidy them up



The last job was to spray the chrome roll bar hoops. Luckily it was the same outcome as the foglights where it's just a stick on trim. With the OEM silver trims keyed up it was ready to spray them Galaxy Grey. These are lacquered and are currently drying



A very productive few days off work. There's still plenty to do

[hoodedreeper]

Once the bootlid was repaired, one of the number plate lights broke upon fitting. I was searching for a replacement when I found Jass Performance sold LED units.

Vlad at Jass Performance helped and supported my previous Purple MX5 Project and he was excited to hear that I was back in MX5 ownership. I placed an order for some interior parts including a pair of the LED number plate units,they arrived next day.

The number plate lights are a direct fit. The only issue I found was the bulb holders turn freely rather than clicking in place like OEM



Next up were a brushed handbrake sleeve and a matching gear knob. These are available in 4 different finishes and the gear knobs have 3 variants.



The last piece to fit was a stainless gauge face. This has transformed the dull cluster and really added character. These were quite involved in fitting, luckily I found a couple of other videos to use as a guide.

Since fitting them and looking at them at night something isn't quite right. I 'think' the original gauge face needs to be removed as the illumination is restricted. I've emailed Jass Performance to get some clarification.

[hoodedreeper]

Just found the online instructions for the gauge faces, I should have removed the OEM gauge faces before installing the new one. 🤦

[hoodedreeper]

oIt wouldn't be an MX5 without a copious amount of rust repair *rolls eyes*

Unfortunately another mundane update, but I guess it's one of those job's that needs doing regardless.

So I started with removing the tail lights and bumper.



With the support/crash bar removed I was met with the corrosion that gets spoken of. It was surprising how much was behind the bar itself.



A new wire wheel drill attachement made easy work of the surface corrosion



I gave the rusty areas a coating of Hammerite Kurust, followed by etch and zinc primer.



Once that was dry and ready I applied 2 coats of Galaxy Grey and 2 coats of clear lacquer.



The support bar received the same treatment, but instead of the body colour grey I used Simoniz tough paint



It's a shame its hidden behind the bumper, but at least it's done and I shouldn't have to worry for quite some time.

[Bozwell]

I've got an NC Sport sitting in my garden unused at the moment, same colour.

had it five years and used it as a daily driver for four clocking over 40,000 miles on top of the 49,000 I bought it with.

came with a removable Hardtop from new which makes it quite a pretty looking car (much nicer than the retractable hard top) and as it's spent most of the time with the hard top on the soft top is like new still.

I fitted 215 tyres as they fit the wheels much better and don't look so lost in the arches.

Not 100% sure what i'm going to do with it yet.

[grizz]

Mundane updates are actually great as they are guides for the rest of us who may take on these jobs.


Good to catch up with this build.

[autojumbled]

are those non-OEM sized tyres? The arch gap is massive!
(unless I'm just used to seeing NCs with a little low dialled in.....)

[hoodedreeper]

Oct 7, 2022 8:56:38 GMT grizz said:

Mundane updates are actually great as they are guides for the rest of us who may take on these jobs.


Good to catch up with this build.

It's probably because I'm so used to doing the exciting mods/changes rather than these types of jobs. But given my circumstances these are better than no updates

[hoodedreeper]

Oct 7, 2022 9:27:36 GMT autojumbled said:

are those non-OEM sized tyres? The arch gap is massive!
(unless I'm just used to seeing NCs with a little low dialled in.....)

Yeah they're the correct size (205/45R17)

I'm still baffled why/how this sits so high in stock form, it's usually lowered by now haha

[hoodedreeper]

Oct 6, 2022 22:33:01 GMT Bozwell said:

I've got an NC Sport sitting in my garden unused at the moment, same colour.

had it five years and used it as a daily driver for four clocking over 40,000 miles on top of the 49,000 I bought it with.

came with a removable Hardtop from new which makes it quite a pretty looking car (much nicer than the retractable hard top) and as it's spent most of the time with the hard top on the soft top is like new still.

I fitted 215 tyres as they fit the wheels much better and don't look so lost in the arches.

Not 100% sure what i'm going to do with it yet.

They're a great car I would love to get a removable hard top but the NC versions certainly hold their value