New Car (Hint: Suitably Gay) - and probably ongoing tinkerings too.

Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2003
Posts
8,612
Location
Brighton/West Wicklow
Well hello.

I has a new car. One with Irish plates this time.

Main purposes/requirements of the car:

  • Be fun to drive
  • Cheap to buy
  • Good value for money
  • Easy to work on
  • Cheap parts

The idea of this car, was that it is to never see a garage in its life if at all possible. This was for a couple of reasons: to continue to develop my ventures as a bedroom mechanic and to keep maintenance costs down. No practicality or fuel economy requirements.

So the obvious choice?
gayfight.gif


A Mazda MX5

I originally was looking for a reasonably decent Mk1 or a slightly jaded Mk2 but what you have to appreciate in Ireland, is that the market is ridiculous. Look for MX5's on UK sites such as autotrader, pistonheads etc and you will find hundreds of MX5s for sale across the country - even at this time of year. Look on the various sites in Ireland and you will find about 70 in total acorss the board.

Without trying to generalise too much, the other problem here is that comparatively/generally no-one gives a **** about their cars. From what I've seen, sticking to service schedules let alone main dealer ones is rare.

Subsequently the typical car advert here would drive most of your to suicide. An example: "Classic Mazda convertible. Good condition for age. Runs well. No NCT hence price."

Anyways at risk of TLDR'ing it, there were no good examples of a Mk1 or Mk2 that I liked. Except a turbo cheap Mk1 VR-Limited I missed out on and an R-Limited which was my backup choice but was down in Cork (but had sold only to come back on the market after I'd bought this). I stumbled across a slightly out of budget but cheap JDM Mk2.5 1.8 that was just around the corner of work. Bodywork was immaculate corrosion wise and the condition was great. Later identified by Westy as a JDM RS which means (from memory) it has/should have

  • 1.8 VVT Engine (has)
  • Slightly different cams (Not sure)
  • Bilstein Suspension (has)
  • 6 Speed Gearbox (has)
  • Bose Stereo (has)
  • 16" Alloys (has)
  • LSD (How could I forget - thank you Westy ;) )
  • Larger Sports Brakes (Need to measure them, but apparently the rest of spec and presence of the larger alloys seems to corroborate)
  • Air Con

So time to shut up and post pics:

mx5_1.jpg

mx5_2.jpg

mx5_3.jpg

mx5_4.jpg


And of course the best part is a very out of date, super special JDM flare:

mx5_5.jpg


Problems:

Unfortunate it wasn't all a fairy tale, and whereas I did check as much as you can in an underground car park, the car had a leak. Just in time for an utterly shocking spell of irish weather of non stop wind and rain for 2 weeks. Cue me ripping out the interior and carpet insulation and trying to dry it all out. It's stopped now, after tightening the roof latches, unblocking the drains, and a **** load of duct tape :D

It was also due a cambelt service which I knew and am doing myself:

mx5_6.jpg


It's losing brake/clutch fluid and the slave cylinder is the suspect - will probably swap this out soon.

Done:

  • Fix leaks temporarily and dry car out
  • Remove horrible headlight covers

To do (short term):

  • Remove horrible rear cluster covers
  • Finish Cambelt Service (Oil seals done, need to fit new water pump and belts)
  • Replace insulation
  • Change Gearbox and Diff Oil
  • Fit new roof (en route)
  • Get an alarm
  • Swap out slave cylinder
  • Headlamp refurb

To do (Long term):

  • Lower the car and sort Geo
  • Change brake fluid and pads (pads are fine but want some better than OEM)
  • Buy and fit some sort of roll hoop
  • Take it around Mondello

Mentally big props to the MX5 krew past and present (Westy, Howard, DRZ, Freefaller) for their (ongoing advice).

Bitch away bitches.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
OP
Joined
18 Feb 2003
Posts
8,612
Location
Brighton/West Wicklow
Looks good if you can get it back to mint.

Whats going on with those rear lights though?

As per post. Horrible stick on covers. Only applied via an adhesive and the front ones were even worse when they were on. However, I didn't remove the rears when I removed the fronts because:

  1. My wife's hairdryer is crap
  2. I realised the horrible irony of using a hairdryer on the MX5 and what it must look like to the neighbours
  3. I got caught hairdryeriserfying by the wife for non-cosmetic purposes and got told off :D

Where are your curling tongs?

In the boot, only a total imbecile would leave their GHD's on display over here.

Don't forget the Torsen diff ;)

Right you are, don't know how I forgot that ;)
 
Associate
Joined
28 Sep 2003
Posts
1,724
Location
Leamington Spa
Ok, who on this forum *doesn't* have an MX5? :p

Guess I should post up the details of mine as I have done an *epic* amount of maintence work on it, including new complete clutch + slave change, suspension parts and coming up soon replace all the brake lines + hoses.. and this is ahead of the serious stuff I actually want to do :p
 
Back
Top Bottom