tipo 184 build diary
Discussion
i have been looking at the tipo build you tube channel and thought i would have a go at it, looks quite easy to do (famous last words)
BACKGROUND
To start the car build i would need somewhere to do it , i don’t have access to a garage or any off road areas to do it so before i look at buying a car i would need to source a garage that’s not to far from my home.
garages are like gold dust around where i am, if you do find one then it’s quite expensive or to far from me.
In my job i do some decorating work for my local council, mainly for the childrens care department
where they give a young person who’s can’t stay in the care home as they have now turned 16-17 a one bedroom place for one year, after the first year, if they can cope they get a permanent home
9 times out of 10 they don’t cope and go off the rails and complete wreck the places, i have to then renovate them back to normal for the next youth
So i get to go to one flat thats within walking distance from my place, and it has a garage !
I asked the manager who i work with if they are giving the garage to the youth and they said they never do as they only fill it with junk or there friends use it for all sorts of activities
i offered to decorate the flat for exchange for a years use of the garage and maybe an agreement for the following year , she said yes
so garage has been secured, now to find a mazda mx5 car
BACKGROUND
To start the car build i would need somewhere to do it , i don’t have access to a garage or any off road areas to do it so before i look at buying a car i would need to source a garage that’s not to far from my home.
garages are like gold dust around where i am, if you do find one then it’s quite expensive or to far from me.
In my job i do some decorating work for my local council, mainly for the childrens care department
where they give a young person who’s can’t stay in the care home as they have now turned 16-17 a one bedroom place for one year, after the first year, if they can cope they get a permanent home
9 times out of 10 they don’t cope and go off the rails and complete wreck the places, i have to then renovate them back to normal for the next youth
So i get to go to one flat thats within walking distance from my place, and it has a garage !
I asked the manager who i work with if they are giving the garage to the youth and they said they never do as they only fill it with junk or there friends use it for all sorts of activities
i offered to decorate the flat for exchange for a years use of the garage and maybe an agreement for the following year , she said yes
so garage has been secured, now to find a mazda mx5 car
THE DONER CAR
typically when your not really looking there are loads of mazda’s about, once your ready to buy they all dry up!
the perimeters for the doner car is quite narrow , it has to be
1.8 litre MX-5 Mk2 (NB)
produced between 1998 and 2001 (without the VVT engine)
and with a 5 speed gearbox.
now there’s plenty of 1.6’s, and 1.8 vvt engines,or 6 speed ones but there not right,
My budget was around £ 1,000
going on auto trader and ebay bring up ones that are to expensive or they are mot failures
i didn’t want to buy an mot failure as i didn’t want to hire a trailer and i wanted to know iam getting a car that drives first as a good base car
Found a few but after checking the mot history’s on them, nothing but red fails repeatedly,
mainly rust but loads of other areas which would be time consuming and expensive to sort out
i wanted a strong engine and gear box first and foremost
so after two weeks looking, nothing about , i remembered gumtree,
haven’t been on gumtree for years, logged on and there was a mx5 within 5 miles from my home,
fresh mot with no advisory’s and within budget
called and arranged to see it .
turns out he was a mx5 enthusiast who had three of them,
this was his daily drive but due to ulez he has to let it go and had got the mark 3 to replace it
mot history only had a couple of failures over the years ,mainly tyres and the rear number plate light bulbs but amazingly no rust advisories !
i told him i was looking for a project car to work on with my son ( which is true, he’s 8 )
i didn’t have to heart to tell him i was going to butcher the car down to the engine and gear box only as he was really keen on telling me all the aftermarket mx5 parts i could do to it to improve it
a deal was done and i drove it home
typically when your not really looking there are loads of mazda’s about, once your ready to buy they all dry up!
the perimeters for the doner car is quite narrow , it has to be
1.8 litre MX-5 Mk2 (NB)
produced between 1998 and 2001 (without the VVT engine)
and with a 5 speed gearbox.
now there’s plenty of 1.6’s, and 1.8 vvt engines,or 6 speed ones but there not right,
My budget was around £ 1,000
going on auto trader and ebay bring up ones that are to expensive or they are mot failures
i didn’t want to buy an mot failure as i didn’t want to hire a trailer and i wanted to know iam getting a car that drives first as a good base car
Found a few but after checking the mot history’s on them, nothing but red fails repeatedly,
mainly rust but loads of other areas which would be time consuming and expensive to sort out
i wanted a strong engine and gear box first and foremost
so after two weeks looking, nothing about , i remembered gumtree,
haven’t been on gumtree for years, logged on and there was a mx5 within 5 miles from my home,
fresh mot with no advisory’s and within budget
called and arranged to see it .
turns out he was a mx5 enthusiast who had three of them,
this was his daily drive but due to ulez he has to let it go and had got the mark 3 to replace it
mot history only had a couple of failures over the years ,mainly tyres and the rear number plate light bulbs but amazingly no rust advisories !
i told him i was looking for a project car to work on with my son ( which is true, he’s 8 )
i didn’t have to heart to tell him i was going to butcher the car down to the engine and gear box only as he was really keen on telling me all the aftermarket mx5 parts i could do to it to improve it
a deal was done and i drove it home
time working on the car - 2 hrs
i work 6 days a week and with family life as well i can only work on the car when i can , this isn’t going to be a quick build, sorry .
but with keen enthusiasm i managed to do two hours, would of done more but i had to pick up my boy from school and there’s no toilets near as i needed a pee
my plan was to take the easy stuff first , so bonnet, boot , etc,
i was also spraying everything with penetrating fluid in advance so it would help later on
i was also undoing any nut or bolt i could get to or see, probably stuff that didn’t need to come off , but if i could i would.
also in a single garage with not much side access you have to work smart
i work 6 days a week and with family life as well i can only work on the car when i can , this isn’t going to be a quick build, sorry .
but with keen enthusiasm i managed to do two hours, would of done more but i had to pick up my boy from school and there’s no toilets near as i needed a pee
my plan was to take the easy stuff first , so bonnet, boot , etc,
i was also spraying everything with penetrating fluid in advance so it would help later on
i was also undoing any nut or bolt i could get to or see, probably stuff that didn’t need to come off , but if i could i would.
also in a single garage with not much side access you have to work smart
doors off also , had two wires going into the doors that i couldn’t find where they went to , so i just cut them off, everything on the doors doesn’t get used so the wires weren’t needed, i’ll chase them back to the replay or loom when i do the electrics on the tipo.
stripping out electrics 3 hrs
there are so many clips and plastic fittings holding the electrics on to the car, have to take my time on this as you need the loom intact
downloaded a electrical plan of the engine bay
the best thing i bought was a label maker, so i could label every plug and connector
stripping out electrics 3 hrs
there are so many clips and plastic fittings holding the electrics on to the car, have to take my time on this as you need the loom intact
downloaded a electrical plan of the engine bay
the best thing i bought was a label maker, so i could label every plug and connector
dash removal 1hr
done this on my own but two hand would of been better
loads of hidden and fiddley bolts and clips, when you think you’ve got everything undone something is holding it on,
watched a youtube video that says dropping the steering column helps with the dash removal , so i took it all off
once the dash is out you can feed all the loom to the drivers side
big pile of electrics
[url][img]
done this on my own but two hand would of been better
loads of hidden and fiddley bolts and clips, when you think you’ve got everything undone something is holding it on,
watched a youtube video that says dropping the steering column helps with the dash removal , so i took it all off
once the dash is out you can feed all the loom to the drivers side
big pile of electrics
[url][img]Edited by tricky360 on Friday 14th October 14:50
Edited by tricky360 on Friday 14th October 14:51
3 hrs this week
got rained off from work this week so had time to do some work on the car
jacked it up and got underneath to undo all the bits that need taking off,
handbrake cables were easy but i didn’t have google’s or glasses on so got rust particles in my eye
undone the fuel pump and hoses, they are just jubilee clips so again easy to take off.
cut the brake hoses as iam getting braided new ones.
then tried to take off the big bolts that keep the body connected to the chassis
there 6 on the rear , 4 came off easy with the driver i bought from lidl, £ 45 for a drill with long sockets .the other 2 took bloody ages to do.
loads of penetrating spray , a breaker bar and two of us undoing it, it would do half a turn then bind
this took about 1 hr !
front there’s 4 bolts ,again drill got two off no problem, 2 via breaker bar with a scaffold pole on the end to get leverage,again ages and now both of us are knackered
the body is now loose , just got to undo the shocks then the body will be free.
undone the shocks but something was still holding the body on, forgot to remove the brake pipe at the rear and the anti roll bar at the front !
body now free , so jacked up the body to release the chassis but i’ll have to make something to hold it in the air while i arrange for a scrap guy to collect .
i’ll get a better picture of the rear subframe this week
got rained off from work this week so had time to do some work on the car
jacked it up and got underneath to undo all the bits that need taking off,
handbrake cables were easy but i didn’t have google’s or glasses on so got rust particles in my eye
undone the fuel pump and hoses, they are just jubilee clips so again easy to take off.
cut the brake hoses as iam getting braided new ones.
then tried to take off the big bolts that keep the body connected to the chassis
there 6 on the rear , 4 came off easy with the driver i bought from lidl, £ 45 for a drill with long sockets .the other 2 took bloody ages to do.
loads of penetrating spray , a breaker bar and two of us undoing it, it would do half a turn then bind
this took about 1 hr !
front there’s 4 bolts ,again drill got two off no problem, 2 via breaker bar with a scaffold pole on the end to get leverage,again ages and now both of us are knackered
the body is now loose , just got to undo the shocks then the body will be free.
undone the shocks but something was still holding the body on, forgot to remove the brake pipe at the rear and the anti roll bar at the front !
body now free , so jacked up the body to release the chassis but i’ll have to make something to hold it in the air while i arrange for a scrap guy to collect .
i’ll get a better picture of the rear subframe this week
If the body really is rust free then it's probably the only MX5 shell in the country that's not rusty.
Might be worth listing the shell on eBay.
If you want to avoid a Q plate you'll need to prove the chassis has been destroyed and have any ID/chassis plates for single donor verification.
Not sure how f the body on an MX5 is classed as a chassis or not?
Might be worth listing the shell on eBay.
If you want to avoid a Q plate you'll need to prove the chassis has been destroyed and have any ID/chassis plates for single donor verification.
Not sure how f the body on an MX5 is classed as a chassis or not?
tricky360 said:
need to make up a frame for the body to sit on so i can get on with stripping down and cleaning the subframes.
I stripped an MX5 last year for my kit and put the body on some heavy duty saw horses. I lifted it with an engine hoist bolted to the seat mounting holes with some friends to help.
3 hrs this week
made a couple of mistakes this week trying to move thing forward and left me with more work to do.
took off the shocks and springs which was easy enough, got the car up on to metal table saw horses which collapsed to one side . fortunately i had made up some wood blocks under the body so it sits on those and leans against the wall of the garage
which led me to the problem of getting the body out of the garage so the scrap man can take it .
i can’t roll the car forward as the body isn’t attached to the running gear and if i drop it down onto the body again i don’t have any room between the wheels so it won’t roll.
with the garage door open reduced the area i could get the body out so i had to cut the windscreen off.
went to the local diy shop to get a battery powered reciprocating saw ( dewalt one £179 plus the big battery that goes with it. another £ 120)
but the sales man talked me into buying a £20 angle grinding disc that he said would cut through the metal with ease
which it did !
plus it cut the car in half also!
so now it can be lifted out with two people instead of four and loaded into the truck.
i also took off the prop shaft , with 3 bolts coming off easy and one really stubborn one which was rounding off , which eventually came off but i’ll have to replace that bolt
prop shaft off
cut in half
windscreen off
body at a high point
exhaust off
front bottoming out a bit after the body off ,which stops it rolling
engine completely free of body
made a couple of mistakes this week trying to move thing forward and left me with more work to do.
took off the shocks and springs which was easy enough, got the car up on to metal table saw horses which collapsed to one side . fortunately i had made up some wood blocks under the body so it sits on those and leans against the wall of the garage
which led me to the problem of getting the body out of the garage so the scrap man can take it .
i can’t roll the car forward as the body isn’t attached to the running gear and if i drop it down onto the body again i don’t have any room between the wheels so it won’t roll.
with the garage door open reduced the area i could get the body out so i had to cut the windscreen off.
went to the local diy shop to get a battery powered reciprocating saw ( dewalt one £179 plus the big battery that goes with it. another £ 120)
but the sales man talked me into buying a £20 angle grinding disc that he said would cut through the metal with ease
which it did !
plus it cut the car in half also!
so now it can be lifted out with two people instead of four and loaded into the truck.
i also took off the prop shaft , with 3 bolts coming off easy and one really stubborn one which was rounding off , which eventually came off but i’ll have to replace that bolt
prop shaft off
cut in half
windscreen off
body at a high point
exhaust off
front bottoming out a bit after the body off ,which stops it rolling
engine completely free of body
1 hr
body gone!
got my friend who does rubbish clearing to clear his truck and 4 of us lifted the two halfs of the body on
iam going to concentrate on the rear subframe first, get that complete, then move onto the front
took off wheels and undid rear brakes and rotors
took off the suspension top arm ,which came out quite easy
next was to clean off the rust and paint off the top arm,
got the grinder on it with a corse 40 grade sanding disc
made light work of it but i run out of battery charge so will do some more this week
body gone!
got my friend who does rubbish clearing to clear his truck and 4 of us lifted the two halfs of the body on
iam going to concentrate on the rear subframe first, get that complete, then move onto the front
took off wheels and undid rear brakes and rotors
took off the suspension top arm ,which came out quite easy
next was to clean off the rust and paint off the top arm,
got the grinder on it with a corse 40 grade sanding disc
made light work of it but i run out of battery charge so will do some more this week
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