The end of the beginning

This is the final push to get all the rest of the parts off the MX-5 that I need for the Zero. This includes freeing the rear right hub, taking out the wiring loom, and seeing what other bits I can salvage and maybe list on a popular web based auction site. This whole project is still very exciting although I am getting a bit bored of working on the Mazda.

Right, time to free that rear hub from the axle. When I last worked on the car a few days ago (I am a little late in writing this) I had hit the CV joint protruding through the hub bearing with all the hammers in the workshop, and only succeeded in flattening off the end of the shaft. I clearly wasn’t going to have any more success today so I collared friendly mechanic Mick, who had arrived to take my father’s car or van for an MOT test or something less important than my hub predicament, and informed him that the hub was properly stuck and even he wouldn’t be able to shift it. This did the trick and, with the use of a 1/2 inch socket extension (many thanks to my father for this noble sacrifice) and a lump hammer, hit the shaft three times – that is THREE TIMES and only three times – and the end of the CV joint started moving out of the bearing. I could hardly believe it. I spent almost a whole afternoon on that thing and it didn’t shift a bit. Mick hits it 3 times and it does as it’s told. Unbelievable, he must think I’m useless. Anyway, it’s free now. After a consolatory “I know what you’ve been through” speech, Mick left to get on with what he was expecting to do that day.

Onwards, and with the arrival of more help in the shape of my brother – very experienced in taking cars apart and as a bonus putting them together again – we took out the dashboard and carpets to expose the wiring, and removed the loom in 3 sections from the car. The whole thing has taken up an entire storage box.

The ECU and ABS controller were neatly hidden under a metal plate in the passenger foot well which was the only thing to be held on with sheered bolts. No problem for the crowbar and I now have a full wiring loom with ECU all intact ready to be re-purposed in the Zero. In terms of electrics and particularly the ECU in the new car I think the ABS shouldn’t be a problem as the ECU will just light the fault light on the dashboard if it can’t see the ABS controller, and I don’t plan to have a ABS light on my dashboard, but there might need to be some attention given to the power steering as the ECU will increase the idle speed of the engine when the car is not moving to keep the pressure up in the system that will not be fitted on the Zero.

We also fully removed the rear right hub and freed the drive axle half shafts from the differential casing. Lastly the hood and handbrake attachments came off with little drama.

With everything required, and quite a lot not, all removed from the MX-5 it presented a sorry sight sitting on stands with no wheels or bonnet and the seats and doors dumped inside. That car had been someone’s pride and joy blah blah blah… anyway it’s just scrap now, and it's in the way of everything else so it has to go. I managed to fill the back of my small estate car with the remains of carpets, trim, dashboard, random bits of metal, and take it to the local tip – sorry – recycling centre. I was a little unsure if they would take it as there are procedures for scrapping cars involving filling in the V5 etc. which I can’t do yet as I am not getting rid of the chassis yet, but the guys at the tip didn’t seem to mind. One of them saw the cigarette lighter in the dashboard and asked if he could have it as his had broken. Fine by me, he even took all the stuff out of the car and distributed it in to the various recycling skips for me, good deal.

I’ve now moved all the parts to my tiny garage under my flat in Hampshire and from now until the kit arrives it’s a matter of cleaning and refurbishing the parts and painting them so they will last and of course look good in the kit. The differential housing, half of it being cast iron, is particularly rusty. Flakes of it just coming off whenever it’s touched. I could take it for shot blasting but this would mean stripping it down to remove all the bearings so they don’t get full of the aluminium oxide used in shot blasting essentially meaning a full rebuild of a fully working differential, so I have decided to take the manual approach and try to take the rust off with the aid of a wire brush and elbow grease. That and some wire wheel drill bits and some very nasty rust-remover chemicals. Next I will get to work on cleaning the gearbox – no rust just surface aluminium corrosion – and then the hubs – much rust.

Differential housing after only a light wire-brushing.

Whilst I have the engine and gearbox apart it makes sense to change the clutch. I am told I need a new clutch plate, thrust bearing, spigot bearing, and something else. All these I shall get and replace when I put the engine and gearbox back together.

So I have plenty to do and it’s all shaping up quite nicely as an exciting project. I hope the ebay community need some Mazda bits.

Getting started - part 2

It’s been 2 weeks since I have been able to get on with removing the rest of the bits from the Mazda, time well spent buying more tools and setting up the garage for the impending arrival of car parts and eventually a chassis to bolt them on to. It seems every trip to my local tool shop results in the purchase of far more kit than I set out to get. I was advised that a tool chest would be an asset to the workshop so went in to buy a decent but budget setup. I left with the top of the range model at over twice the price. Having said that, it is, frankly, the business.

Back to taking the car apart. On my own this time but armed with the experience of last times stuck bolt marathon, I think I am ready for it. The plan for this weekend is to take the rest of the parts I will need for the Zero off the Mazda such as the hubs, differential, steering column, brake and clutch master cylinder. If there is time, take out the wiring harness and ECU, then remove any other parts I might be able to sell on to recoup my tool chest investment. I also need to split the engine and gearbox ready to take it back home for cleaning.

Front brakes first and surprisingly the retaining bolts graciously released without argument. I got the disks and callipers off both sides in about half an hour and set about the rear wheels. A little more resistance here due to a bit more rust and slightly restricted access, but the brakes came free eventually. Now to take the hubs off. I had been following a process for removing the brakes and hubs in a manual that had been pretty much faultless up until now.

On this occasion I had not read the instructions relating to removing the hubs before actually starting the job, so one seemingly throw-away comment rang a small alarm bell – the hub is held on by a 29mm nut, as such you need a 29mm socket to undo it. Fair enough. The manual makes reference to this by telling me that this is an unusual size of socket and unlikely to be in a standard socket set. This may go down as the understatement of the project. I have spent hundreds of pounds on tools in the last few weeks, some of which I didn’t even know existed previously, but a 29mm socket was not included in my hording. The meant another visit to my favourite tool shop.

It seems 29mm sockets are a bit of a rarity and presented the tool shop staff with something to think about. One assistant helpfully imparted “29 eh? That’s an odd number.” Our school system is clearly working then. Despite his brilliant education, the professor was unable to produce a 29mm socket but did offer me universal bearing puller. I really have no idea why. He suggested trying their competitor down the road. This I did but other than confirming that 29 was indeed an odd number, they too had nothing suitable. They suggested trying their competitor down the road - where I had just come from. I wasn’t playing that game and tried the only other place I could think of, a discount motor spares place apparently specialising in bicycles. Incredibly they had one, and only one, for which I gratefully parted with eight quid.

Having purchased the only 29mm socket in Norwich I headed back to the workshop to remove the hubs. The manual I am working to talks about having to use an extended handle on the socket wrench to get enough force on the nut to undo it. No problem as I have an old scaffold pole suited to this kind of thing, however, and I have checked this twice now, there is no prior mention to the need to leave the wheels and preferably the brakes attached in order loosen the hub nut. In fact this is only mentioned at the end of the list of steps as a side note at the end where the author admits it may have been better to leave the wheels on to get the nut loose. Of course this is clearly obvious now and had I thought about it a little more before starting, or if I’d done anything like this before, I would have loosened the hub nuts before starting anything wheel related. Lesson learned. Onwards.

All hub nuts were very tight which has to be good news, but all came off with little more resistance than would be expected. The scaffold pole proving a must have accessory.

With the hub nuts off it’s on to removing the hubs. According to the manual you just undo the nuts and “slip off the hubs”. This worked for both front hubs and the rear left, a good start but the rear right was not so accommodating. Memories of the hours spent freeing bolts during the last workshop session still in my mind, this hub was making that look easy. No matter how much levering it and whacking with all the hammers in the workshop (the end of the CV joint now has a flattened end that I don’t know what I am going to do about) that thing was ON THERE with no intention of going anywhere. It’s still there now as I write this. I hate leaving a job unfinished. I think it’s going to have to go to a garage and someone who knows what they are doing. Whilst this is simply all part of the deal when building this type of kit car, but it has taken a bit of the fun out of project so far.

Moving on I removed the steering column after, and very gingerly, taking the airbag out of the wheel. I’m pretty sure these things can’t go off without the battery connected but I’m not taking any chances. I also need the brake and clutch master cylinders which meant some uncomfortable upside down working in the driver side foot well to release the fastenings and label the wiring as I took it off the peddles. Although a little awkward to reach some of the bolts, all the parts came off with little argument and appear to be in good condition. Lastly I took out the passenger seat, I’d already removed the drivers, which will give a little more room to access the electrics in the passenger foot well.

While I have got done almost everything I wanted to do on this visit, it's taken longer than I wanted and I think any future projects will be unlikely to involve taking apart 17 year old Japanese sports cars…