Got my donor, next steps?

[Not Anumber]

My MX5 donor arrived the other day and i want to plan the next steps forward.

The question is do i start dismantling the donor now (taking pictures and labelling as i go) or do I wait until i have the chassis ready and only take bits off the donor when i'm ready to use them ?

What are people's expereinces with this ?

[vmax1974]

I guess its all down to your preference

Do you have space to store parts or does the wife mind you having a half stripped car in the drive

I will be going strip as you go route as I dont have a lot of space

[TSM Locost]

My personal method would be whilst in one piece would to if possible steam clean the whole car with the engine running as this will save a lot of time later, then spray wd40 or whatever you have, even diesel would do on every nut and bolt that you are going to undo.
Take off only what you need when you need to save time and reduce the chance of loosing something. The rest on ebay or offer on one of the MX5 forums and get some cash back.

Good luck with your build and enjoy. :D

[robo]

My advice would be to tear it apart of every thing thats needed or that can be sold and get whats left over scrapped while prices are so high..

Bob

[Not Anumber]

Do you know if theres a list somewhere of all the bits that need to be kept ?

I'm a bit worried about flogging the remainder of the shell for scrap only to find i'd missed some useable parts.

[robo]

PM spud he would let you know whats what.

Bob

[spud69]

TSM is the best method if you have the space, especially every nut and bolt as none are metric and hard to replace - all jap funny threads. If you dont have the space:

Wheels
front and rear uprights
front and rear callipers, brake master cylinder
differential, drive shafts and prop shaft
gearbox, engine inc exhaust manifold + cat and Lambda, engine carbs and inlet upto air flow meter
dashboard and full loom carefully labelled (loom is quite straight forward to reconnect)
handbrake and balance bar / cable
front lower ball joints (new preferred)
engine mounts
keys (which i lost, £50 for a new barrel)
Steering wheel and column (Thanks John, thought i'd miss something)

Sell the rest on E-Bay, if the wings are in good condition these fetch a good price.

AndyH

[skov]

Don't forget steering wheel and column!

[Talonmotorsport]

Fuel tank sender unit
wheel nuts
VIN and number plates
clocks and surround
hand brake and gear stick gaitors
Keep the old disks and pads as these are already beded in and might help with the brake test at IVA.
seats can be made to fit with effort

[spud69]

You're right cheers Phil. Heads in a different place at the moment.....:o

AndyH

[Not Anumber]

Thanks guys.

[robo]

TSM is the best method if you have the space, especially every nut and bolt as none are metric and hard to replace - all jap funny threads.

AndyH

We thought that on a jap 4x4 we have , thought that they were unf threads as they looked that way but turned out to be all metric fine. Decent bolt supplier should have them, our local guy seems to have a good range of them.

Bob

[mark]

We thought that on a jap 4x4 we have , thought that they were unf threads as they looked that way but turned out to be all metric fine. Decent bolt supplier should have them, our local guy seems to have a good range of them.

Bob

Yeah thats my experience of them too, ive had half a dozen jap imports over the years and they were all metric

[Not Anumber]

Whats the thinking on the best MX5 stripdown procedure- is it best to go with lifting the body off the front and rear subframes as shown in the Exocet bloke's blog
( bloghere http://mevexocet.wordpress.com/category/mx5-stripping/ )

or would it be better to go for the traditional way of pulling the engine and gearbox out from the top, the suspension from the sides and then roll the body over to remove the rear axle components ?

Are any parts of the MX5 subframe acually used in the Haynes or does seperating the subframes from the body really just create another seperate pile of scrap metal ?

[chrisponter]

I had axle stands holding the body up, then pulled the engine/gearbox out of the top and undid the two subframes from the bottom, just leaving the body on the stands for a scrappy to take away.

Taking the engine out makes it alot easier as you don't have to lift the body anywhere near as high, not practical your average garage.

As far as I know the subframes aren't used at all, they're quite big once you get them out, but removing them does make it easier to take off the differential and propshaft. plus you might want to sell some of the suspension on eBay.