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…
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