kevin s's blog

[kstrutt1]

Not so much work on the cars at the moment, been fitting a new front door to the house as the old one warped with all this damp weather. I did manage some work on the minor before though, both front chassis legs, the tie plates, and rh inner wing have been replaced, all the panels being fabricated as I go along.

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The plan next is to get the other items underneath done so I can get it off the ramp and get the TR out, this means the rear spring hanger and paint for most of the right hand underside and rear.

The landy is still bouncing along ok, I have added a further refinement to the heater in the form of a pipe ducting air to the drivers feet and I even used the lotus for work today, I forgot how great it was to drive!

Other news, we might be getting classic number 5 & car number 6, my wife has decided she would like an early mx5, I am looking at one tomorrow, it seems there are a lot of rotten ones out there and we have decided to pay a bit more and get a good one from a dealer, so watch this space, only problem is parking, one of them will have to be parked in the road(not to bad as it is a quiet cul de sac).

[kstrutt1]

I have done a little more on the minor, this time the rear spring hanger, cut the old one away and repaired the lower edge of the inner sill.

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Then welded the panel on from underneath, still a little to finish on the patch inboard of the repair section.

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Also a major problem on the landie, the 40 odd year old speakers for the radio packed up! I found some old sony surround sound ones which seem to work fine though, only cobbled in place at the moment I will tidy the up later in the week when I have more time.

Finally we did buy classic no 5, a 1994 eunos (mx5), a very tidy example in black, we will be collecting it in a couple of weeks, Its a bit sophisticated for me, air con, catalyst, fuel injection etc, lets hope it lives up to their reputation for reliability! first thing for it will be a liberal dose of rust protection.

Kevin

[rich.]

pics of the mazda please!!

[kevin]

I have a lovely imported eunos in 1992 1.6 flavour. Wifey loves it and its great for a blast around the welsh hills.
May be obvious to you but get the gear change turret oil changed with some redline oil and it transforms the gear selection.

Kev

[kstrutt1]

We don't pick it up until the 15th, I will post some photos then.

Thanks for the tip about the gearchange, I will add it to the to do list.

Any tips on the best place for insurance?

[kstrutt1]

Checked up on the details of the Eunos today, it's actually a 96 car, no real problem until i came to insure it, most of the cheaper classic policies start at 20 years old!!!

In the end I managed to get a quote of around £250 which is about £100 worse than I was expecting but not as painful as the first quote of £350.

Oh well it is only for a couple of years.

[kstrutt1]

Didn't do anything on the cars today, got the outboard I have been messing around with (mariner 40hp 2 stroke) Running,instead ,the squeezy hand primer in the fuel hose fell to pieces but we managed to rig up a gravity feed and Spun it over with the plugs out, put the plugs in and it fired up second pull, clouds of smoke, which cleared after a few seconds and it seems to run fine, water pump works so all seems well, we will only know for sure when we run it under load, but the signs are promissing, there are still a few cosmetic items for dad to tidy up and the main power cables need replacing , it is round his now so I also have a little more room in the garage as well.

The tr and landie mots are due around the end of march so I want to a few more bits of welding done on the minor paint the underside and get it out of the way, the lighter evenings should give me some time during the week to speed things up.

[kstrutt1]

We finaly picked up the mx5 on saturday, drove it 400 miles back with no problems, generally very happy with it, the interior needs a bit of a clean, and the leather treating .
After a good look over I can only find one small area of corrosion on the rh inner wing, it looks like part of the inner wing has been replaced after accident damage many years ago and corrosion has got into the seam weld, will be easy enough to fix, a tiny amount of welding (patch about 50p piece size) and the rest cleaning up and painting.

Some pictures below. The last one shows the rusty area.

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[TerryG]

I've never seen an MX5 with leather before.
Which engine is it? Regardless, it is a nice summer toy

[kstrutt1]

On the minor front all of the rusted areas have been primed and the engine, gearbox and most of the suspension removed ready to stone chip the areas which wont be accessable when it is back in it's corner of the garage.

Plan is to get this done and it back on it's wheels by easter.