That's good news!

You'll be back on the road in no time!

Not sure about no time, spoke to Dan at Gillham the other day and he's a bit snowed under with body work orders at the moment, so might have a bit of a wait :rolleyes:
I will be getting a nice shiny new bonnet though :D

Does that mean I get a dodgy old one ;)

Yep, yours if you want it James!
I'm going to keep hold of it until I've got the new body work fitted, but you're welcome to it after that.

With my car in bits and nothing else to do I thought I may as well tackle my sticky bushes.
My suspension's been creaky and squeaky and suffered from excessive stiction since day one. Had hoped it'd bed in over time, but 2000 miles on that was starting to look unlikely!

So over the weekend I stripped all the bushes out, cleaned off the dried out copper grease (in hindsight this was probably the wrong grease to use...) and replaced it with some JCB branded lithium based grease I had lying around. Had planned to use molybdenum grease but couldn't find my tube of it :rolleyes:

Before doing that though I trimmed a mm or so off the outside face of each bush (using an angle grinder :D ).
I think the main problem was that the standard bushes were too wide and were getting crushed against the suspension bracket when the bolts were tightened. Now they've been trimmed down it's only the crush tube that's being crushed, which is probably how it should be!
The result is I've now got vastly improved, silky smooth, noise free, suspension movement, which I'm very happy about :D

A job I'll have to get too at some point.:rolleyes:

I had the same. First I assembled the bushes with the help of some silicone spray. The result was a suspension that was binding and creaking horribly. Then I greased the bushes with lithium grease (Motul TechGrease) and shaved a bit from the longer bush tubes. The creaking was gone, and the suspension got significantly softer.

Took a little longer than they promised, but I got my settlement cheque today :D
Time to start shopping!

...and that's my shopping done!

Yay! Bet you're a happy chappy:D

Moderately pleased, yes :)
Not sure I'll be quite so happy when my insurance renewal comes through though!

What ye bought?

Bonnet, nose cone, steering rack, radiator, fan, tyre, front indicators, and a pair of dominator headlights.
It was a fairly expensive lunchtime!

New bodywork?

New bonnet and nose cone. Just waiting for Dan @ Gillham to make them for me.
All the other bits have arrived now and I've made a start putting it back together.

Any old useable bits you want to sell off?

Not really, most of the broken bits were so broken they went straight into the bin!
Only possibly useable bits are the nose cone (which would need a lot of work), bonnet (which I've already promised you), and headlights (which I was going to ask you if you wanted!).

Ooh yes please to the headlights John:D

Cool, I'll keep hold of them till next time I see you then.

Thanks John, do you want anything for them?

Nah, you're alright.
Saying that, I wouldn't mind another box of those lighters if you've got any left ;)

Used them all already:eek: lol

Yeah I'm sure I can sort you another box out;)

Not quite, but we seem to be running low!

Didn't help that my son and I stuck a few in our old microwave (along with various other items) before we threw it out :D

Ha ha that sounds like good fun!

Wooooo - just had my first post-crash drive :D
Feels great to have her back on the road!
Strangely she seems to go round corners better than I recall too - bonus!

Back on the road :cool:



And off again :mad:



I swear this bl00dy car is cursed...

What a bitch ! I feel really bad for you after building the car twice. What's up with it ? Not had the best of luck hey ? 1 diff failure, 1 crash & now a breakdown. Sounds like your car is a female, always a catastrophe & costing shit loads of cash. Get divorced ! It's the future lol;)

Don't mention the d-word... the wife was not a happy bunny when I told her I'd broken down and was going to be home late :(
She's not a fan of my bit on the side at the best of times!

Hopefully not too catastrophic this time - my alternator belt snapped.

Wouldn't be too much of a problem except that it also drives the water pump on the 1.6, and I've no idea how long I'd be driving it for whilst the coolant was boiling off :(
Turns out my warning lights aren't very visible when the sun's out....

That's rubbish luck mate :(

Bummer! Note to self - "replace alternator belt!". I think I did actually when I bought the donor 3 tears ago as it was already on it's way out.

Dominator headlight look good though, hey!:D

If it's had 3 tears it probably does need replacing :D
Mine was about 3 years old and had done just over 2000 miles when it went :eek:
The previous owner snapped it just before he sold it too, which is slightly
worrying...

Thanks mate. Glad that they look good, as they serve no practical purpose - May as well have a pair of candles on the front of the car :D

Ahahahaha! Why?:D

Because they illuminate the road about as well as a pair of candles would!

Oh they are just not very bright! I see or don't see as the case maybe!:D I thought Dominators were good!

What a bummer mate. Fortunately they are really easy to replace. Hopefully there won't be any damage from the water pump

When are you going to change the steering wheel???

I got a genuine mazda one, probably no different, but even without use it managed to stretch and I had to tighten it up when I rebuilt the car.

Yeah, the belt's easy to replace. The worry is that the overheating might have fcucked up my freshly rebuilt engine :(

I'm in no rush to change the steering wheel. The one on there does the job nicely! Plus I'm pretty much skint at the moment :rolleyes:


I think mine was a Mazda one too... and I tightened it up recently as it had stretched a bit!

Spoke to a friend who works in a Mazda Dealers as a mechanic, he was showing me his new car, a runout rainbow interior red mk2 8v golf :cool: , and I asked him about mx5 belts and he said they don't last long at all.

Just got my insurance renewal. I'd been dreading this following the 'incident'.
Last year it cost £150. Renewal price £340 :eek:
Quick ring round and I got it down to £150 with a different insurer though :D

which insurer are you using? ive been phoning around and getting quoted over £250