Re: kevin s's blog
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 1:01 pm
Spent all day sunday on the MX 5 and only got half the jobs planned done so not a good day.
Plan was to fit the 4 mk2 springs / dampers I had bought , fit the new gearshift gaiters and fix the fog lights prior to the MOT which is due on the 9th.
for the fog lights the switch , a cheap aftermarket one has failed so I bought a proper Mazda one but then I realized there would not be a tell tale as I have the Eunos cluster, I have come up with a solution though, the switch is backlit with a green LED, the plan is to put an additional bright orange LED inside so when the lights are on the fog light picture glows orange, when it is off the green backlight will still be visible. This though means I can't fix this until the LED I have ordered arrives though.
Next up the dampers, I started on the front, at first it went well the bolts al came undone and out easily with no internal corrosion, I think it has always been a summer car. After this though things went south a lot of fiddling around messing around with spring compressors etc. and I concluded you can't get the front ones out without dismantling the suspension, frustratingly in the end it was quite easy to undo the large inner pivot for the top arm and slide the bolt out, the damper then it then came out easily, If I had done this in the first place I would have saved an hour of messing around.
I then made the mistake of prodding at a dodgy looking area of underseal and light surface rust, I suspected loose filler over an accident repair as on the other side where underneath was a nice clean weld which just needed cleaning and painting. On this side though the repair section had obviously been a bit short so they had left the crumpled remains of the old chassis leg in place and tacked a piece of steel over the top to bridge the gap then covered it with 10mm of filler. I concluded the only way to do this properly was to cut this mess out and replace it. Fortunately the inside face which would have meant removing half the contents of the engine compartment for access was neatly repaired so it was the top bottom and outer side which needed repairing once the outer face was cut out the top had minimal damage and could be straightened out, the bottom was worse so I cut out the twisted area out and replaced this all working from the inside it was then pretty easy to add a plate over the wheel side , finally it all needed priming, sealing and painting with black stone chip (a very good match for the original matt finish paint in the engine compartment as well).
The above excecise led to more problems though, to gain access I needed to remove the undertray, when I did this half the M6 bolts holding it on sheared off, so these all had to be drilled out and replaced with self tapping bolts.
By comparison the other side was a breeze, after all the lessons learnt from the LH side and with the under-tray already off it only took half an hour.
By now though it was getting on for six so the rear still has the original Bilsteins on the rear, they look a lot easier to change (don’t pass through the top arm) and I have checked the bolts undo already so hopefully I will be able to do these one evening. The gearshift gaiters are also a pretty quick job so could be done in an evening as well.
And to think we bought this as an low maintenance modern, I have spent more time on this than the lotus and TR put together this year! Hopefully things will settle down now all the niggles have been sorted out.
As for the others, no progress on the minor lately, the Lotus is still fine, there are few bits of trim which could do with tidying up but nothing to worry about, the landie is not making any new noises and seems OK it will just need a service before the winter, the TR on the other hand has started making some ominous gearbox noises, sounds like the layshaft bearings are going, I have a known good spare box so I guess will be changing that soon, the leak from the crank oil seal can also be fixed at the same time, with the 4 post ramp changing the box is pretty straightforward so it’s not the end of the world.
Plan was to fit the 4 mk2 springs / dampers I had bought , fit the new gearshift gaiters and fix the fog lights prior to the MOT which is due on the 9th.
for the fog lights the switch , a cheap aftermarket one has failed so I bought a proper Mazda one but then I realized there would not be a tell tale as I have the Eunos cluster, I have come up with a solution though, the switch is backlit with a green LED, the plan is to put an additional bright orange LED inside so when the lights are on the fog light picture glows orange, when it is off the green backlight will still be visible. This though means I can't fix this until the LED I have ordered arrives though.
Next up the dampers, I started on the front, at first it went well the bolts al came undone and out easily with no internal corrosion, I think it has always been a summer car. After this though things went south a lot of fiddling around messing around with spring compressors etc. and I concluded you can't get the front ones out without dismantling the suspension, frustratingly in the end it was quite easy to undo the large inner pivot for the top arm and slide the bolt out, the damper then it then came out easily, If I had done this in the first place I would have saved an hour of messing around.
I then made the mistake of prodding at a dodgy looking area of underseal and light surface rust, I suspected loose filler over an accident repair as on the other side where underneath was a nice clean weld which just needed cleaning and painting. On this side though the repair section had obviously been a bit short so they had left the crumpled remains of the old chassis leg in place and tacked a piece of steel over the top to bridge the gap then covered it with 10mm of filler. I concluded the only way to do this properly was to cut this mess out and replace it. Fortunately the inside face which would have meant removing half the contents of the engine compartment for access was neatly repaired so it was the top bottom and outer side which needed repairing once the outer face was cut out the top had minimal damage and could be straightened out, the bottom was worse so I cut out the twisted area out and replaced this all working from the inside it was then pretty easy to add a plate over the wheel side , finally it all needed priming, sealing and painting with black stone chip (a very good match for the original matt finish paint in the engine compartment as well).
The above excecise led to more problems though, to gain access I needed to remove the undertray, when I did this half the M6 bolts holding it on sheared off, so these all had to be drilled out and replaced with self tapping bolts.
By comparison the other side was a breeze, after all the lessons learnt from the LH side and with the under-tray already off it only took half an hour.
By now though it was getting on for six so the rear still has the original Bilsteins on the rear, they look a lot easier to change (don’t pass through the top arm) and I have checked the bolts undo already so hopefully I will be able to do these one evening. The gearshift gaiters are also a pretty quick job so could be done in an evening as well.
And to think we bought this as an low maintenance modern, I have spent more time on this than the lotus and TR put together this year! Hopefully things will settle down now all the niggles have been sorted out.
As for the others, no progress on the minor lately, the Lotus is still fine, there are few bits of trim which could do with tidying up but nothing to worry about, the landie is not making any new noises and seems OK it will just need a service before the winter, the TR on the other hand has started making some ominous gearbox noises, sounds like the layshaft bearings are going, I have a known good spare box so I guess will be changing that soon, the leak from the crank oil seal can also be fixed at the same time, with the 4 post ramp changing the box is pretty straightforward so it’s not the end of the world.
