Rexanne - Gold s2 restoration project

[Steve-A]

haha thanks Dave, glad its keeping you entertained!

I\'m not expecting comments to all my posts necessarily either Half of it is just me documenting it for myself, to be able to look back on in time and enjoy. I\'ve read my mx5 thread through a few times over the months, quite nice to go back and relive the ups and downs.

If I do I write up at the end of each day working on the car I just find it kinda helps me organise the days progress and thoughts about where to go next in my head.

Any conversation/banter than results from my posts is purely a bonus :P haha

[A7RXY]

Steve, can you put a link up for your MX5 rebuild please .
 
   Dibs

[CHC (RIP)]

Question for ya Steve - with the current work and previous work you have done, how do you keep your stands so clean as they\'re just like new?  

[Steve-A]

Here\'s the link to my mx5 thread http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63764. It was quite a journey!

haha Cliff, I don\'t know! The orange stands I\'m using on Rexanne were new for this project, so haven\'t seen much action yet. I\'ve certainly not cleaned them or anything!

That said you do make a good point a I\'ve been grinding and welding loads, the stands are shockingly clean compared to everything else. Maybe its some kinda of new paint technology halfords have come up with? or aliens! or ghosts!

[johnnyboy]

haha thanks Dave, glad its keeping you entertained!
 
I\'m not expecting comments to all my posts necessarily either Half of it is just me documenting it for myself, to be able to look back on in time and enjoy. I\'ve read my mx5 thread through a few times over the months, quite nice to go back and relive the ups and downs.
 
If I do I write up at the end of each day working on the car I just find it kinda helps me organise the days progress and thoughts about where to go next in my head.
 
Any conversation/banter than results from my posts is purely a bonus :P haha

 
Hi Steve.
Following on from Daves post, it has occurred to me that I should come clean and tell you that I too am hanging on your every post - I am in there with you in spirit! I am just impressed at the way you are setting about it. I have a car in the garage that would benefit from a bit of TLC but I have no useful skills in this area so I can\'t help - which is why you have not heard from me before - but your experiences are slowly winning me over into giving it a go. More power to your elbow - we are all cheering you on!
John

[Steve-A]

Thanks John I\'m always in Bromsgrove, as my girlfriend and most of my friends live up there so I\'ll keep an eye out for you on the road! If some guy in am mx5 waves madly at you in the Elford its me

After spending all of yesterday look at a years worth of receipts working out my tax I was quite ready to get out and make progress on Rexanne this morning. But my gazebo is only really shower proof and not really up to the down pours of sleet and hail we\'ve had here on an off today.

Still I made some progress. I managed to get the corner of the wheel arch and in inside edge of the sill sealed up. I thought I\'d managed to get it really neat, but in the end to get it to match up perfectly with the various different layres it was being welded to it required a good beating with the hammer. End result its perfectly functional if a little ripply!




Still need to trim the lower lefthand edge so the overhang matches up a little better with the original line.

I\'m quite pleased with hold solid the whole corner is starting to feel, and theres still the outer sill and its end plate to go in. Whether I trust it enough to use the original jacking point is yet to be decided

I think one of the reasons its starting to feel solid is because there\'s a surprising amount of metal in there. Gonna need to find a new source of steel soon, not much door left!



Dad can get me some from his work if I give him the thickness though, so its no problem, just kinda nice to recycle while I can

[CHC (RIP)]

Good work there Steve - as you say, there is a surprising amount of metal gone back into it now and when you complete it with the end plate & outer sill it\'ll be just like a \'bought one\' only stronger. :Thumbsup!  I had every confidence in you - well done.

You\'re on a roll now mate - nearside before Xmas? :Giggle

[Steve-A]

Think near side before christmas might be a bit optimistic!

Had a solid day attacking it today. First up was to make the first section of outer sill. I took quite a long time doing this as I really wanted it to be right.



After some thought I decided it was gonna be easier to do the outer sill in two pieces, so I tried to replicate the step the original had.




It welded in fairly well, but it buckled slight with the heat which was disappointing. Not big deal though as it buckled inwards so can just have a skim for filler on it. For this reason I didn\'t bother dressing the welded on the buckled section.

On to the second section of outer sill. I was very pleased with myself for the welding on this piece, and the way it lined up with the other piece and the line of the sill. In all the excitement I managed to loose track of the fact that it was meant to be curved :Grrr:Grrr Either way its strong and I think once blended in and painted up the slight missing curve wont be noticed.




As you can see I also had a minor disaster where I\'d not cut the paint back far enough from the weld line and it set fire to the paint Not the end of the world as most of the burnt area then got burnt from the other side when I did the next piece.

Then I started work on capping the end of the sill, the last piece!!! This didn\'t go too well. I made card templates and cut my shapes carefully but nothing was quite lining up and much fiddling was needed. I them found a little bit of rust I\'d missed on the arch lip, so had to cut that out, the upside of this was I had slightly better access to the end cap.

The end result is strong if a bit messy looking!



It just needs the one small section of arch lip now, then I\'ll get the seam sealer and filler out and get this side looking it best. Give me a bit of a break from the metal work!


And just got Cliff, the stands are getting dirty

[johnnyboy]

How are you getting on in the snow down there? We have got a good 8-10 inches in Tardebigge....
John

[Steve-A]

Well I\'m stuck in bromsgrove with the same 8-10 inches, so didn\'t get to work on the car today.

A very low mx5 on toyos with no weight over the rear wheels didnt get me far! Though I did feel like a d1 driver linking drifts at jogging pace as I attempted to just get out of the housing estate :p

 Girlfriends fiat punto faired much better but with the motorway at standstill we gave up. Had to walk back from wychbold though as lorries were stuck on the hill into bromsgrove. Gonna have another shot at going home tomorrow!

[Steve-A]

Well having been stuck at my girlfriends for 3 days. The mx7 was gonig nowhere.



There was little/no snow in malvern and I knew could be getting on the with Rexanne. Having commandeered Emma\'s fiat punto I made it home today. I had barely got in, then it snowed.



And with it properly snowing and cold I decided against any more work on Rexanne for a day or two.

So turned my engineering skills towards another toy!



Kept me entertained in the snow last year!



Just needed a bit of maintenance. Gonna go play in the morning.

[Steve-A]

Was well psyched to get on with work on Rexanne today after a few days off doing the family thing with christmas.

The weather wasn\'t such a fan. Whilst it wasn\'t quite as cold it was raining. The combo of rain and melted snow created lots of water, which pretty much flodded the floor of my gazebo, so didn\'t really wanna bring mains electric and my welder out to sit in a puddle!

So I made a start on one of the little things that had been bugging me about the car since I got it, the alarm. It looks to have been fitted with an alarm many many years ago, professional (or not as the case may be!) job at great expense, but had been half unplugged by a previous owner.

It took a while but I did manage to get it out, no thanks to haynes instructions of how the dash came apart. I think haynes must have been relating to S1 not S2.

Here\'s what I removed:



The alarm was installed ok, but a bit basically, what was more worrying was the radio wiring which had been hacked together with bullet connectors of skotch locks all over the place. Including nasties such as this skotch lock used to extend a 12v power wire to the radio, floating around ready to short out under the dash!



This was the mess behind the centre console.



It had gone dark but the time I finished for tonight, but I had managed to clear the alarm out, which just leaves me with the dodgy after market front fog light wiring to rip out and to sort out the radio.

The radio currently gets its permiment 12v from the clock and its switched 12v from the rear heated screen switch. This it again done with skotch locks, so I presume not the standard sources for power?

Can anyone also tell me what the bottom right switch in these 4 is for?



The teop pair being the windows and the bottom left being rear screen wash, but I don\'t know what the 4th one does.

It appears to be again a bit of a home bodge, one side of the switch is connected to ground and when I traced it back the other is connected into the loom behind the clock area to a green wire? I clicked it a few times when the car had a battery in it, but couldn\'t work out what it did?

Felt nice ot be inside the car, kinda sat in the drivers side. I know its a long way off but I\'m very excited about getting the old girl on the road!

[captainbizzaro]

Electric Aerial

[Steve-A]

Ah-ha! Thanks Tim.

Seeing as rexanne has a manual aerial fitted, that would explain why nothing happened! It being to do with the radio would also match with the standard of wiring!

[captainbizzaro]

Yeah sorry the post was a bit short but I did it off my phone and my fingers were too cold to elaborate too much.