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Post by muckingfuppet on Jan 27, 2017 20:46:10 GMT
So I thought I'd start with a short history of how I came to be here.. It was 1989, my parents were bored and got to the nasty and 9 months later my mum squeezed me out into the world on a chilly bonfire night eve. Fast forward 20 years and I had just bought my first decent car:  A 2008 Ibiza FR PD130. Remapped to about 170bhp/300lbft, AP Coilovers, bigger brake conversion up front and the Leon Cupra R chin splitter. Was a peach of a car until in summer 2013:  Driving like a bit of a twat and ran out of talent. Hit the tree doing approx 55mph under braking. If I had missed the tree however I would have plunged down a 200ft steep bank into a river, so small mercies taught me a lesson. Insurance paid out and cleared the finance with a bit of change to spare so bought myself my first MX5:  Stripped interior, perma hard top, loud af decat exhaust, 330mm dished wheel. Many sick skidz yo:  I made the mistake of selling it to buy a Polo GTi:  Absolute bag of prarrie canoe and took about 4 weeks to regret the decision. It burnt through more oil than the western hemisphere and decided to drop a spark plug through one of the pistons. That one was swiftly Canoeed off in exchange for:  I had big plans for it but she died of tinworm. I bought another MX5 the day after. I have no pictures of this one as I didn't have her for long. I split up with my girlfriend of the time and had a chunk of money extra to myself every month so I bought:  I bought Yozora as a forever car. Lowered on Tein springs, JR3 alloys and a couple of other little tweaks to make her my own. Unfortunately she had to go because of grown up stuff like mortgages  But this has lead me on to... |
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Post by muckingfuppet on Jan 27, 2017 20:46:21 GMT
'Frankie' - The Bride of Frankenstein I found Frankie on Gumtree The owner had it advertised for £1800 and lived down near Truro. On spec it had everything I would have planned to do anyway; decent coilovers, rollbar, bucket seats & harnesses etc etc:     I took the plunge, a 5 and half hour train journey to the rear canoehole of nowhere and a drive about, money was exchanged and the 3 hour drive back to Wiltshire was on. This gave me plenty of time to get to know her. The clutch needed replacement, a wheel bearing was on the way out, the engine bay was a mismatched abortion of coolant hoses and a homebrew randall intake. The idle sat high, but she ran sweet enough and tight as a drum elsewhere. The sills didn't look too bad, and a bit of bubbling on the arches wasn't a huge deterrent. The interior had been completely stripped and the radio wiring loom was a complete mess as well, but thats an easy enough fix. It was fitted with a set of Team Dynamics Monzas running Nankang NS2R all round. Made for an interesting drive back in torrential rain, but all in, not too bad.
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Post by muckingfuppet on Jan 27, 2017 20:46:31 GMT
Over the past couple of weeks a stack of packages had arrived at my girlfriends house and royally pissed off her mum (bonus, her mum's a Canoe):  Most of this was interior trim parts. Having lived with the stripped option before and now being old as Canoe I decided I wanted a bit more comfort. All in for carpets door cards and a centre console was just shy of £150. Not bad going I'd say. I had bought a load of carpet underlay for a fiver (ALWAYS go to an independent local bloke, they normally have offcuts that arent much use you can pick up for cheaps) and also some suedette fabric for retrimming the door cards. The underlay I have found in the past is really easy to work with, nice and spongey and sound-absorbant, and also due to its thickness had a nice feel with the suedette. The bonus was because I had so much underlay left over I was able to replace most of the prarrie canoety loft insulation type material on the underside of the carpet:  I threw this into the car, used a stanley blade to make the cuts down the centre to slip it in under the dash and the holes for the bucket seat mounts to sit through and hey presto, I had a fully carpetted out and slightly more comfortable place to be. My girlfriends doglet was tres impressed  |
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Post by muckingfuppet on Jan 30, 2017 21:19:25 GMT
I took the chance to tighten up the auxiliary belts as they had been squealing quite a bit.  I also found whilst taking the intake tube off that it hadn't actually been put on in the first place  15 mins with a pair of pliers and a socket set and she was cold starting without a complaint. When I bought Frankie she had been running a perma hard top. This was simply not cricket, in my mind the whole point in having a 5 is to play with the roof down. I got chatting to another member on here and he was interested in swapping my hard top for his soft top. So I set off for a short drive over to his and under cover of a Tesco covered car park and we got to spannering. Even Mrs Fuppet helped  The drive back was glorious, a lovely exhaust note splitting the peace of the quiet roads and a clear blue sky above my head. The only issue I had found was that the soft top didnt sit completely down as the glass rear window didnt quite fit with the GCFabrications roll bar. But it was almost completely down, and that is good enough. I will miss this sticker on the roof though  |
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Post by muckingfuppet on Jan 30, 2017 21:39:44 GMT
I had set about retrimming the door cards while I was in there as well, hence the underlay and the suedette. I stripped the door cards back to the backing material. They weren't in pristine nick, but they are holding up fairly well so I decided to reuse them for the time being with a view to replacing further down the line. Used the backing cards as a template to mark out on the underlay and the suedette   I had outlined on the suedette about 2" further than needed. This meant that I would have plenty to pull round to staple into place. I also used a carpet adhesive between each layer to help keep everything in place. Unfortunately I ran out of staples half way through  More to follow soon when I have tweaked and sorted a bit more... |
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Post by minty on Jan 30, 2017 21:41:44 GMT
That's a beautiful picture of Mrs Fuppet  |
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Post by wannabe on Jan 30, 2017 22:02:05 GMT
Sounds like you've had an interesting journey through your car history so far! lol To be fair I think we've almost all had that first crash or come very close to it - I wonder how I'm still here sometimes  |
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oli
Chats A Bit
Posts: 184 
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Post by oli on Jan 31, 2017 6:40:44 GMT
Nice project. I've met this car and the previous owner a few times before at a couple of track days. He used to trailer it around if I remember correctly. Looks like a good Base to start from.
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Post by muckingfuppet on Feb 2, 2017 20:22:55 GMT
So last night I popped out and got round to installing the Wipac Crystal headlights I had ordered from Flatdog. Very easy to fit, about 20 mins all in. I had sprayed the retaining screws previously with WD40 so had no issues with them shearing. The difference with the upgraded bulbs was astounding, I can now illuminate the road at night instead of relying on fireflies in jam jars. I also took the time to tighten up the soft top catches and installed a load of the carpet trim popper clips to start snugging everything up. Also put the dead pedal in, but might take this out again as I'm not sure if its actually any more comfortable. Not much, but lots of little jobs done to feel like I've accomplished something. Skuzzles tomorrow for clutch, gearbox oil and diff oil.
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Post by muckingfuppet on Feb 12, 2017 20:04:23 GMT
So a few jobs finally accomplished over the last week or so. Clutch basket, pressure plate and release bearings have all been swapped out at Skuzzles and are now feeling a lot nicer and quieter. I also managed to finish off the door cards and installed them, the difference in noise reduction is like chalk and cheese. I need to adjust the roof catches again to try to reduce the wind noise over the top a touch, but I think I'm pretty much at a place where it's as good as it's going to get. I have also after two nights dicking about with the wiring managed to install the stereo and a pair of speakers I picked up from Halfords. The wiring was a bit of a nightmare to be honest, someone previously had just gone in there with a blender so I was looking at a bunch of frayed bare wires. I used a multimeter and found the switch live and the earth, but no permanent live. This was the start of the saga, I traced this to the fuse box as having a room fuse missing, this wasn't easy as I was presented with this:  My Japanese is a little rusty, so after posting up on here and a little help from some other members I managed to figure out that a fuse was missing entirely, put in a new fuse and hey presto a permanent live. I also now had an interior light (yay) and I had an annoying seatbelt buzzer. That was dealt with quickly, and the rest of the install was finished up. I now have music to cover up the noise of a wheel bearing on the way out  |
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Post by myothercarsa2cv on Feb 13, 2017 11:48:33 GMT
Ah the 'Room' fuse. A previous owner had run a whole new 12v to my radio (unfused too  ) rather than replace this fuse... :@ |
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Post by muckingfuppet on Apr 3, 2017 3:43:43 GMT
A bit quiet on the front recently. I'm currently away with work for a few months, so the car has been left at Skuzzles with a list of jobs for when I'm back. The sills and rear arches are getting done, along with the rear wheel bearings, and resetting the height and preload on the coilovers as they are pretty out of whack. I did manage to make toggle switches up before I went away for electric mirrors. I forgot to take a pic of the front, but for reference here is a pic of the wiring at the back:  I'll add a pic of a wiring diagram when botophucket stop being a gaping urethra. The toggle switches themselves were bought from CBS, they are DPDT momentary on-off-on switches rates to 15A (the power window fuse is 30A, which says 15A per window. The wiring and spade connectors are Maplin items rates to 30A also as the positive and ground for both are on a shared loom. The plan when I'm back is to mount these on a blanking plate where the chubby hole in the dash is above the radio so I can do away with the armrest bit as I don't find this a comfortable driving position long distance, and my elbows are forever nudging the switches. Anyway that's about it for now, so as the Canadians say peace oot. |
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Post by muckingfuppet on May 15, 2017 20:31:35 GMT
So just over half way through my time over here. Got bored the other day so I ordered a pair of 4 point TRS harnesses. Also ordered some other cosmetic bits, and am waiting for autolink to email me back with a price for a load of niffnaff and trivia bits like boot carpets and stuff. 6 weeks until I'm home and can enjoy her again!!!
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Post by muckingfuppet on Jun 12, 2017 12:39:09 GMT
 Things are happening... |
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Post by muckingfuppet on Jul 5, 2017 14:44:27 GMT
So a consolidated list of stuff that happened at Nicks: New Rodders pads all round Stripped and cleaned calipers New rear wheel bearings Removed exhaust heat shield Gearbox and diff oil Engine oil and filter New wheels and tyres New clutch slave cylinder Garage Vary replica lip Metal pressed plates with offset front Feels like a new lease of life on the old girl, and she currently sits like this:  Had to roll and slightly pull the arches to squeeze the rotas underneath, but I get no rub or scrub issues.Up next is to sort out the ride height and preload on the coilovers, as I haven't had a chance to set it up since I bought her, and I need to look into a set of shorter or adjustable front droplinks. |
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But this has lead me on to...
More to follow soon when I have tweaked and sorted a bit more...
) rather than replace this fuse... :@
