Mike in Kent Build thread

[felixflyer]

Hi all,

I thought I should create a build thread to update my progress. 

The idea of this project as well as giving me something to do and a fun car to drive/ learn to race is to also get my 9 year old son interested in cars and mechanics, hopefully he will be able to learn to race it eventually instead of playing on his x-box.

We live in Kent and I will probably be building the car in a single garage. I have my own but it is half full so I am looking at renting a workshop or garage locally. The idea is to use this to store the donor and bring sub assemblies home to my own garage for refurbishing. By the time I get round to installing the refurbish items on the frame I should be in a new house with a larger workshop.

Any way. I aquired a 1997 Eunos 1.8 mx5 for £450 which as it has the heated glass rear window and a nice stereo seemed like a good deal. I should hopefully get a chunk of the cost back in parts. The bodywork looks to be rusted but it drove the 50 miles home ok.

I decided to give it a compression test and the cylinders came out at 162, 135, 135 & 140 psi. These seem to be on the lower end of the scale so an engine rebuild might have been on the cards. 

The plan is to eventually up grade the engine and try to improve the performance. This will be after the Exocet is built and probably a winter project after I have had a summer of fun driving it. As a result I thought it would be good to get some data from a dyno, this would both give me a baseline to measure performance on and tell me more about the current state of the donor. 





The results were apparently good and although the bhp was never going to be huge the aim is to get nice steady lines on the graph. The guy doing the test said it all looked good and a rebuild is not required so I will just give it a full service and carry on driving it around until the garage becomes available.



Dyno results 

[hutchey]

Nice one Mike.
Where about are you in Kent?
I'm near Tenterden.

Doing mine with my son too and he's loving it!
We're nearing the body off time we think so should be thinking about ordering the rest of the kit soon.

Rich

[felixflyer]

Hi Rich

I'm in Ashford so not far at all.

[hutchey]

cool

[felixflyer]

Started the strip down today. Got most of the interior out and plan to lift the body tomorrow.

I loosened the hub nuts. The hardest thing was finding somewhere that sold a 29mm socket but once I had that on the big breaker bar they shifted straight away.

I have ended up with a big metal tubular structure that was sitting behind the dash. This has its own wiring loom attached to it which I have unplugged from the main loom.

Do I need to keep this loom or can it be thrown away with the steel piece?

I will get some photos tomorrow and add them.

[mawdo81]

Keep the loom for now at least. Not sure on the Mazda wiring but I needed the focus equivalent.

[felixflyer]

OK thanks.

What are people doing with the airbag? Is it a requirement to have one in the UK?

[lukiez]

Regarding the airbag, it must be removed as its not permitted under IVA rules.
Take care in removing it, I'm not 100% sure in removal process but I think disconnect the battery first wait 30 mins before unplugging so it discharges

[felixflyer]

Thanks, is there a place in the UK where you can take them?

I have the car pretty much stripped now and given the bolts a good dose of penetration fluid so hopefully next weekend will be the big lift.

[hutchey]

You sure stripped that down fast.
Hoping to do my lift next long weekend too

[felixflyer]

I had a whole weekend off so got stuck in.

I have started undoing the nuts that hold the body onto the sub frames last night. Just half undoing them along with the suspension nusts so when it goes its not going to go far. They are coming off quite easy with my 950mm breaker bar.

I have removed the steering column but there is another section that is slightly sticking through the body. It looks like I need to get this out which means getting to a quite difficult bolt. That's my next challenge.

I also just got a garage from the local council round the corner from my house so that will come in handy as I am fast running out of room.

So far I have sold the cabin brace, front splitter, soft top and radio. Everything else will probably just get scrapped.

[hutchey]

I've not got to those nuts yet - can't get underneath safely at the moment (no idea how i'll get round this)
I've sold similar bits except the radio and I think the rest will get scrapped too. Probably cut the body in half to get it on a trailer. (I think we need to hang on to the body and not scrap it until we apply for a registration but can't recall what I read.

[felixflyer]

I hope not, my neighbours wont be happy with it staying that long. I was just going to get loads of photos and cut the VIN part out of the body.

I'm also being careful with getting underneath. The jack went straight though the sill so I have the stands under the subframe. I have managed to get the nuts of like this so far using a long socket extension and my breaker bar. Im also hoping that it will raise up on the springs before I lift it which will make it easier to check for anything I have missed.

[jgilbert]

Just cut out the Vin plate on the middle of the Engine bulkhead and the small ally plate to the right of this. Copy of photos for your records. Not needed for IVA more to stop someone getting hold of your scrapped body and using the VIN.

Lots of photos will help in the future on how bits go together. Mark up every connector on your loom. Makes recommissioning more straight forward.

Good luck.

[felixflyer]

So I managed to get the body off this weekend.

The bolts underneath took a lot of effort with the breaker bar whilst laying on my back. I can hardly move this morning and feel like I had a full workout but at least its done.

I had a lifting beam with my hoist rather than a sling. I had read that I should use the front and rear seatbelt bolts of different sides to secure this but as I had an extra 2 chains I thought it would be more secure to connect one of these too. The other wouldn't reach.

One part I had trouble with was removing the steering column. I had already removed the top section but the lower half didn't want to come out. I'd removed the bolt from the clamp but it was seized in and there was nowhere to get a good grip of it. I then came up with an idea and turned the bolt around so it went through the clamp the other way. Now whilst turning it through the threads and blocking the other hole with a large washer it prized the clamp apart further as I tightened, once the clamp was wide enough apart the column pulled out easily.

I left the middle bolts on the shocks, they were loosened of but still on enough to hold when the body lifted, this mean there were no movements as I was laying underneath. The front most bolts of the front subframe were the worst. No matter how much I tried to clean the threads I could still only turn them with my long breaker which isn't a ratchet and as there was only room for a quarter turn each time it was a long process. Eventually they were off though and I could see the body was just being held on by the bolts through the shocks. It was then straightforward to just undo these and let the body pop off the top of the bolt. It was then ready to lift.

As it started to raise it came off at an angle. I assumed this was because it was caught on the wheels nearest to the crane upright but it gave me good access to remove the tank. This done I carried on jacking up the hoist until it was clear of the wheels. It was at this point that it tipped onto its side on the crane legs. I realised that by attaching the extra chain I had in fact put all the lifting force onto one side of the tunnel which caused it to tip.






After pushing out the PPF I now needed to lower the body, not an easy job as the way it was now attached meant as I lowered it just wanted to sit on its side. I was doing this on my own so was afraid it would eventually kick back towards me and the hoist if I just pushed it over. I eventually came up with a plan that involved using my jack under the bottom of the window post whilst gradually giving slack on the crane which worked and the body is now sitting on a crate waiting for the scrap man.

That was enough for me by then and it was time to clear away. I can now start stripping the frames down.