Andy's MX-5 SDV Westfield buildThought I would share my families self catering accommodation in South Devon if anyone was interested
http://www.longmeadowfarm.co.uk
Give it a bit of a plug to those following and who find this!
Also lovely camping holidays
8hrs + 118hrs = 126hrs
Better update the blog for last weekend and this weekend, a few little bits of progress.
So my plan changed a little after a chat with the chaps from Procomp who do the Protech shocks, given I’ve taken the decision to not go with the completion kit I’ve the benefit (?) of being able to shop around for bits, shocks and springs included. So after a bit of asking around turns out Procomp are renowned to be good.
After a chat with the chaps there I was instilled with confidence, pounds weighted for the car, dampers set up with different oil and set appropriately for the weight of the car – sounded good. In the chat length came up, and after a chat it was advised to give fitting some fixed length metal tube in place of the shocks, this would allow a ball park, and the car to be on the wheels and the ride height adjusted.
Hence the strange looking metal box section in place of shocks/springs. seems a good idea so far, be great to get it on wheels and get the right length shocks.
that was last weekend anyway…
This weekend went about fitting the diff…
first job was fitting the sleeve, the manual talks about pressing it in, but after painting the diff it wasnt quite a case of pressing, equaly I’d seen some folks ruin their sleeve with to much force. So i went with freezing the sleeze and putting the diff by the heater, still didnt go, even with copper slip…
nearly wedged…
after a little dremmeling of the diff and taking off the paint I tried again, and in it went. Excellent.
now for the bracket, this was pretty straight forward, the paint on the diff left a few drip marks that had set and were a bit in the way – out comes the dremmel again…
but on it went with a tap of rubber hammer.
bolted on, as per the book.
Then came to getting the diff in the car… the book talks about it being a heavy item, and it is. but when I lift it out the car it’s not too bad, and I’m not a burly chap.
I figured I would line up the diff in place, offering it up to the mounts on the chassis which I’d measured up against before. Lining it up and struggling it into place on my own I found it was basically where i wanted it, with the help of a trolley jack, so I fitted a few bolts to the chassis bushes.
Then came the upper diff mounts, much to my suprise they went on okay, I was very shocked to see the chassis mounts, diff mounts and diff line up, not to much wiggling either. So the diff was in, nothing torqued up, but you do need to do everything up pretty well to have it take the weight in the right place. 99% happy with it in, the LH diff mount is perfectly flush with the WF diff mount, the RH side is proably at an angle and a mm out – but only a mm, suspect with use it’s going to bed in so not too worried.
Very happy it’s in the car, first bit MX5 part in.
Laura very kindly brought me a tea, which was much appreciated, and she could see the small developnents.
next came drive shafts. After reading the excellent Rons MX5 workshop manual the drt iveshaft spring clips should be checked for defomity, mine weren’t quite round still, so warranted a call to Mazda. After eventually getting hold of someone who was vaguely useful I had two clips on the way for <£5, not too bad. Always find that dealership folks are reluctant to help, always feels they’re doing you a favor doing anything -there we are.
Fitting the clips was pretty easy, lever off. a little diff oil and wiggle new ones on – hitting hand in both instances -another black finger nail? We’ll see. Was the drive shafts last time, how odd.
diff end was covered in a little diff oil (thanks halfords, perfect viscosity as per the book) as was the diff oil seal.
Other end was wire brushed down and thencopper greased. The hub was wire brushed too, then wiped down, looked okay anyway…
Then came fitting the driveshaft – the Ron MX5 manual referrs to marking the diff and driveshaft so they can re linedup again for refit, I did mark them but in the prepping the narkings had come off pretty much, and I’d rotated the diff input, not sure if that rendered the markings useless. Looking at the driveshaft I couldnt see why tehy would need to lineup,they are slotted and then have indents presumably for oil flow or something similar.
In theory the driveshaft would push in the diff, i found it didnt exactly push, it went in so far and then rotated with the propshaft, but didnt go in further.
I could see the driveshaft hadn’t engaged up to the spring clip.
more pushing, struggling etc, nothing.
After a check on the mx5 forums it seems a little more force may be required. back to the garage..
rubbter mallet and bit of wood and the driveshaft was moving. there was not “click” as i was hoping for where the spring clip slotted into place, but the shaft was butted up to the seal nicely – excelelnt.
The same on the other side, a tad more force, in though… 
the hub end went on fine, a darn site easier than it came off!
5 (MB) + 113 = 118hrs
Now the diff is back it’s back up with the Westfield – I’ve seen a few people paint their diffs, some not. I liked the look of it being painted, so have done. Conscious that the diff will get hot, but hopefully not so hot that a coat of paint is going to cause issue, feeling the diff on my bmw daily driver the other day instilled me with some confidence.
So after a wire brush, drill sanding and some prep the diff was painted, Initially I wasnt sure, the hammerite certainly doesnt stick to the aluminuim bits the same as the corroded steel – but after a second coat looks pretty good, I suppose let’s not forget, noone is ever going to see the diff…
I’ve also been doing a bit of work on the diff mount, I noted when I first inspected the mount the welded on washer extension bit, the holes didnt line up perfectly, and indeed an M12 bolt doesnt fit through, I assumed a little dremeling and filing would sort this, and it did, but required a fair bit of refiling to ensure the mount lined up with the metalistic bushes in the chassis.
Fits pretty well now though, so should be okay when it’s attached to the diff and offered up.
Another thing…. The diff bracket needed a tiny bit of filing to not clash with the bit of metal holding the rear 3 way brake pipe union – only a tiny bit of trimming, chassis variation I guess.
Also worth pointing out the bit fo the diff you don’t need, near the mount.
6(MB) + 107 = 113hrs
So I was at home for easter, last weekend and spent some time doing a few more jobs on the car – the main aim was diff out, anything else ideally engine was a bonus – glad to say engine (+gearbox), diff and propshaft, and steering column all came back – excellent. As ever, some jobs go easier than you’d think
Diff removal wasn’t too bad, found that two nuts in the mounting were fine, turned great, the other two on the other side were rounded bits of metal, so quite a while was spent with them ultimately being drilled out – this is where the time goes, incase anyone wondered…. oh to work with new, clean parts…
Apart from that the diff came down pretty easily, used a trolley jack to take the weight and it sort of stepped it’s way down.
Avid readers will know the propshaft and power plant frame of the mx5 were still in situ – this was pretty straight forward too – as per the book, lower the diff, ensure you can pull it back (i.e. the axel stands arent in teh way, and teh car is high enough – obviously?) and the propshaft slid out the gearbox, the ppf came with without too much hassle.
With the whole lot off came the job of separating things. The PPF first, afer much levering and banging I was annoyed it it – in a moment of inspiration I recalled it was aluminium, so got the hacksaw out and it was off in 5 minutes – I’m sure there is a knack to removing PPFs from diffs, but all the info I read talks about sliding it off the same as you do at the gearbox end, not the case on my car, whether this changed over the years? This is fitted with some bushes. with aid of a hammer these were off anyway.
The propshaft was the only ancillaryto the diff now. this wasn’t too difficult, the propshaft bolts aren’t easy to get to, but with a bit of leverage then came off. victory, a free diff.
I did want to do some work on the rear hubs, but as ever, i didnt take soemthing down to devon – in this case the locking wheel nut adapter – damn, so no wheel removal :S
Next onto the enginer and gearbox – I was pretty confident everything was undone, a final few checks left me one clip holding a bit of wiring loom, not too much pain.
Thankfully the very helpful Jed and my cousin Adam were around, and required very little persuasion to help out. The only extra step was to undo the LH engine mount, it may have been done without, but it made life a bit easier – anything for that…
With the help of the engine hoise -another, quite dull story, but a story nonetheless, Jed and Adam we lifted, pulled and I propped the gearbox under the car, and out it came, careful of the coils at the rear of the engine, and any extra wires etc. Quite easy, I suppose getting to that stage wasnt…
Anyway, out it came, and is now sat on a pallete on the engine hoist, a lovely clean engine and gearbox – looks a raelly solid base, quite pleased…
There are a few jobs I want to do before it goes back in, namely:
cambelt – already overdue :S, oil, oil filter, thermostat, etc
also Jed and Adam think a new clutch, given the milege and how easy it should be… famous last words – but does seem a valid point.
So yes, the car gets lighter…
5hrs (MB) + 107 = 112hrs
Spent some time prepping and painting some of the bits I’ve got off the mx5
namely both caliper mounts, a rear hub and both driveshafts.
I started off with one caliper to see how it went, using Hammerite Satin Black, which can make any idiot with a paintbrush look quite reasonable! I am typically terrible at painting, this stuff is quite forgiving!
afer sanding down things with a wire brush and various different types of flappy wheel and wire wheel attachments I was fairly happy it was cleaned up.
What I did find was that the more I sanded there was more and more dust and crap coming off the metalwork – I guess my ideal of getting down to bare metal was a bit optomistic! It was find it seemed getting down to a good surface.
What I have found is that a couple of coats of hammerite were the way forward, one coat wasn’t quite giving good coverage.
here’s the latest.
15 (MB) + 92 = 107hrs
A couple of weeks ago i set aside a long weekend to do some work on the mx5 – the intention was to get the engine out, but upon reflection there may have been a better order to do this.
engine + gearbox, dif, propshaft driveshafts are all of course very well linked so come out in a bit of an order.
I spent the first hour removing the remaining ancillaries to get the engine ready to lift out, this was only radiator some pipework, some clutch slave cylinder work, and finally some rather annoying wiring on top of the gearbox. this was a pain because they were secured with folded over clips, but you can;t see them and can just about feel them! pointing the camera up there helped quite a lot to get an idea what they looked like!
I then set on with getting the propshaft of, WD40ing the bolts diff side, and it should simply slide out yes…
two of the prophshaft bolts were removable, the other two were not going to budge, after near rounding them and struggling to get a good grip with anything i decided maybe bringing the propshaft out and attached to the diff might be more painless.
Next I started to think diff, removing this should be fairly straight forwrd, hopefully! so getting the driveshafts off wsa the frist job.
Had a go with the PPF too, the bolts that hold this in place are very long, undid relatively easily. the issue was the PPF seems to recess into the top of the diff at that end, so doesnt simply slot off as the books indicate – thankfully this is the first instance of the book being incorrect ive found, noted it’s an older car i guess.
Also worth mentioning what the PPF actually is – powerplant frame sounds quite glamorous, referrred to a lot in the book, not once is it called out as a bit of corrigated metal that links the diff and the gearbox – that’s all it is. I’m sure it does a great job and helps drivability, but it is only a long chunk of metal that holds stuff straight.
to do that they had to be withdrawn from the hub. The book is to be believed the hub nut would be really tough, and mega tight, and everything else should just come of – as ever, this didnt happen.
The hub nut turned out to be fairly striaght forward, after sourcing a 29mm socket (nice one motormart newton abbot), then i enlisted my mother to sit in the car and press the brake pedal, with handbrake on. turned out mother was still awaiting the signal to press the brake pedal when I’d then undone the hub nuts, still, nice to have her have a sit in the car!
But yes, the hub nut came of with no complication with a decent size breaker bar – maybe 1m? no need for massive extension bars as I’d seem some have to use on the Internet. My immense strength? Hmm
Then moved to the drive side hub, caliper off, nice and straight forward. the bolts were protected behind plastic caps so were nice nice condition.
caliper off and out the way, noting how it all came off, losing some antirattle clips 
now, driveshaft removal…
with use of a rubber hammer the DS wasnt moving from the hub, tried some pry bars but nothing, a tab or two with a proper hammer and it started to move, excellent, with a bit more wiggling this then moved out the hub. then moving to the diff end after a lot of rotation and a lot of prying it came off the diff – 1.8 means it’s slotted, not bolted on.
excellent progress, driveshaft off, only too a little while.
to the other side… long story shot I spend several hours trying to get the driveshaft out the hub on the passenger side. smal hammers, big hammers, WD40, pry bars whereever they fitted, some heat from a paint stripper (it’s no blow torch!).
nothing…
several hours later and no progress I resigned to removing he drivsshaft and hub together, for separation later.
Then moved onto diff removal, this should have been easy but I must fess up that i was rushing a bit at this stage, and of the 6 bolts (two big, 4 small) all came off bar the small ones on one side as i didnt allow the wd40 enough time. So they will have to be drilled out, annoying!
not a million miles from dif lowering though. the complication with this is that attached is the propshaft, attached is the PPF. so several things have to come off in one swoop.
the driveshaft is a bit of a pain, getting it off the car I’ve \tried bigger hammers still (mindful I don’t want to break it). also let it sit in wd40 to try and get it moving, also tried a gear puller, still no movemetn. crazy stuff.
I’ve now sent it over to my excellent BMW garage “Berkshire motor works” – really hoping that Steve from there can do something…
So that’s where we are, annoyingly lots of bits half off, hoping to get more separated when they get back here.
got a few bits off the car, caliper mounts etc, tried to get at these with a wire brush, but bouhgt a wire wheel for the drill to try and put more of a dent, then some wet and dry perhaps… a nice tin of hammerite to use too.
90 + 2 = 92
removing all the existing black tape from this bit of loom, and sorting and labling what I knew what it was
ensured bits didnt fall all over the place with some token green and yellow tape.
As an aside – I was trying to establish what I did and didnt need under the mazdas bonnet, there seemed a lot of peripherals.
After some reasearch it seems the Carbon canister isnt needed, lots of mx5 enthusiasts remove it.
removes the carbon canister, a few pipes and a vacuum host from the throttle body. need to keep the solenoid to save from an ECU error it seems – not a limp home error, but an error none the less – in two minds about keepingthe solenoid.
10 (MB) + 80 = 90hrs
While having a lovely time at home in Devon I found about 10 hours to do more breaking – quite how these people break an mx5 in 2 days i don’t know – kudos to you!
Taking me ages, equally I’m really enjoying learning. Great, great fun breaking the car, only the wiring loom to take back to Marlow home, but that will give me something to keep me amused.
lots of scraped knuckes and fun, after removing the roof and lots of interior trim it was onto the exhaust – to be honest that came off with relatively little protest. The only thing that was really well on was the 8 or so large bolts keeping the bracing under the car in. fiddly manifold downpipe bolts were okay, after some wd40 and goot extension bar selection.
Actually thinking about it the heated oxygen sensor in the exhaust downpipe was a git, especially due to its size, pretty large, ended up using an adjustable spanner and hitting that with a bit of wood and a hammer to shock it out.
photos speak a thousand words and all…
76 + 4 (MB) = 80hrs
More breaking of the Mazda last weekend – with it being in Devon and me being in Marlow most of the time I only get to work on the Mazda now and again. and when I am in Devon the main lovely thing to do is spend time with family.
I did get to spend about 4 hrs over two days messing around with the car – and it was nice to see that it started first time and didnt turn over slow or long – lovely.
I gave it a little drive around the farm, not far but up and around the drive way – note not on public roads!
I was fearing removing the 8 bolts that hold on the rear bumper, they were wll corroded and showed now signs of moving lsat time. After about half and hour, and having some oil on them a few weeks back they came off okay – removing the bumper was then easy
next came number plate another poignant step!
number plate panel, the plastic bit
then came off the rear light clusters, with putting some tags on the wiring looms to them
then came to start on the roof removal, got 90% of this done but came to a halt when I hit the star pointed bits, didnt have any with me turns out hex allen keys might have done the job, hey ho – a little job for next time
removing the seats was interesting, they were bolted in uber tight, especially given the short ratchet and the awkward angle – satisfying to remove them though…
next comes light removeal, roof final removal and maybe some interior stuff – ideally i want to keep the car moving under its own steam,a nd starting it and stopping it etc as long as poss
75+1 = 76
This was quite a pleasant job, the wishbones fitted pretty easily into the mounts on the chassis – with a little pushing. Then went about copper slipping the bolts (which were sent by WF as a missing bit) and tapping these through the relevant bushes.
The other day I had to reshape the bushes to get the bolt through, either the bush was crap when it went in, or it got mishaped when it was pressed into the wishbone.
At this stage I just fitted the bolts through and stored the washers on the bolts with the nuts very loosely attached.
I did consider fitting the diff mounting bracket as this would allow securing the upper wishbones bracket fully. however looking several times over the manual I think getting the diff in place would be best first.
It’s not crystal clear (see at all) where washers etc go for the upper wishbones.
