Stew's build thread
 

Hi all.

Im starting to build a Mazda MX 5 based Haynes Kit Car.

It all started yesterday, buying a 1997 Mazda MX 5 1.8iS. Its an MOT Fail and had no TAX. Its on 115K miles, has rusty arches and sills, but other than that drives well, seems to run well, and pulls like a train.



As you can see from the picture, we had our first skiff of snow last nite. :)

Plan this week is to give it a good look over, start removing the loom, and bits i wont need, while engine is still in and checking it will start and run during this process. I will get steel on saturday and start to the chassis.

One question : does the "s" model have a LSD? I havent had a chance to "find out" yet!;)

Hi Stew,

Sorry can't answer your question, but welcome to the mad house :D

We like pictures here, so keep them coming with the updates.

Good luck with your build.

Terry

Hi Stew, welcome to the forum!
Nice choice of donor :cool:

After a frustrating week of not getting anything done (ended up working late two nites! and finished off a metal folder the other 3 nights), and not having power for thursday and friday nights, i made some progress today!

Got (hopefully) all my steel for my chassis, 25x25mm RHS, and 20x20mm RHS, and bought a 8x4ft sheet of 12mm plywood, and a few lenghts of 2x3" framing wood.

I ended up getting 25x25x2mm RHS which i hope wont add too much weight compared with the 1.6mm listed in the haynes book. Should give it more strength as a positive! What did you guys/girls end up using?

A few hours later and a quick coat of white matt paint, my build platform was complete!



I did what probably most of you guys did, by framing round the outside, and then putting a cross in the middle, and decided to put 26" legs on it, to bring it up to a comfortable working height.

Ready to get started marking out and cutting and tacking up the basic frame tomorrow.

Thought id share a few pics of my garage, and a few of my "toys"!

Mirror ,mirror on the wall
 

Is the mirror for when you touch up the eye shadow between welds:D :D

looks like you've got all the good tools.

Good luck with you build.

Its handy for looking at root penetration of pipe welds! :)

Thats me story and im sticking to it!;)

I started with marking out and building the start of the chassis yesterday. Realised it takes ages to get each length exactly in the right place, and all tacked up exactly.



I also got my birthday present from the girlfriend early, its ace! Lets me cut exactly, and also very handy for cutting angles.



Im pretty pleased so far, its dead on in terms of square-ness, and exact in therms of dimensions! SO FAR!!!! ;)

A long way to go i guess...

Its taken me forever tonight to do the front frame!

Ive found it a right PITA to get all the angles dead on, and all tacked up exactly square, and thats even with using a jig.

Finally was pleased with how it turned out, so fitted it to the base of the chassis. Im still on target for being exact dimensions to the book.



I then got bored, so cut a test coupon of 25x25x2mm RHS, and welded it. It seemed to run in quite well, the weld seemed wet enough, and was hot enough.



I then sliced and polished the cross section, and it just shows that even with a decent looking weld, its still very important to check the weld has penetrated the back surface properly. This is something we do at work regularly, and keeps us all on our toes! Nothing worse than a poorly penetrated weld.





For welding up the chassis i will step-up the voltage one click and corresponding wire feed speed.

Thats all for tonight, will get the rest of the front end of the chassis base finished tomorrow, and then start on the uprights and take it from there...

Nice progress there Stew , you,ll soon have it into a 3D chassis, its a nice feeling when the chassis starts growing in height :cool:

A little tip.....watch out when positioning "U7", its easy to place it incorrectly ;) .

Enjoy your build.

cheers
Andy

Cheers Andy, will watch out for it! Not doing anything tonight as its blowing a gale outside!

Hi Stew,
Another one added to the MX5 build...:cool:
What plans are you using in conjunction with the book or are you making it up as you go along?
There are a few of us now building MX5 Roadsters so any help is just a post away.;)
Good luck with the build Johno....

hi johno, im using the SSC mx5 additions to the book. im just about finished the second stage of the chassis, will post up more pics this week. thanks for the support, cheers. :)

So, ive been pretty quiet recently, to be honest I forgot the last point I updated this thread. The past two weeks ive been off work on holiday, so before christmas the chassis progressed a fair bit.





I then got to the point that I then needed some 3mm plate to finish the rear framework. I decided that as I was almost finished the chassis, I would start welding it, but thankfully just before I did that, I realised that TR5 was not required. It seems like this may be a common thing!!!!!!

More welding pics,









I then used a 80grit flap disc on my 4 1/2" grinder, and buffed the outside welds where they needed to sit flat with pannels fitted. I then went over every face of every joint and lightly removed any balls of spatter, and generally gave the surfaces a light polish. Was a good way of checking all the welds too! Very happy with the way it has come together so far. All welds done with a Murex 191 MIG, approx 20-21volts, 380ipm WFS.

I then cut some 3mm plate for 2x CP1 and 2x CP2, and welded them on. I then cut some 2mm plate to use for the 8 blank ends for the exposed RHS ends. Thought id post up a little tip (or maybe its ovbious!) that was shown to me a good few years ago, but saves loosing the cut end piece inside the tube. Ive also done this with bolts in the past (although a bit wastefull!). Normally at work im capping 50x50x2.5mm RHS, which is easier.



Tack-weld a welding rod to the cap, and offer it up to the end of the box section.



Tack weld the capping plate to the box section.



Then snap off the welding rod, weld up the seams.



Then buff flat, and jobs a good 'un!

Nice work Stew
 

Great work there Stew :)

Looks like you are cracking on at a fair pace :cool:

Tis great to see all of these new builds in progress :)

Some great progress there Stew!
Wish my welds looked that good :D

Spent last nite making up 8x shock absorber brackets. I found them quite time consuming, but after two hours I was done!! I made use of the sheet metal folder I made at work a while back. Did the job perfect.





Excuse the mess!! lol

A few pics of our workshop at work, and the jobs im working on at the moment,





I started the rear suspension top plates tonight, but made my first big mistake of the build, and welded the nuts to the wrong side of one of the plates, so had to cut them off and weld them again. Got fed up, so decided to call it a night. Hopefully get on better tomorrow night!

Another small update:

Finally got the rear suspension top plates made up and tacked into place, also the diagonals beside them. Shouldnt take long at all now to get the rear frame finished off - seems to have dragged on a while. Next job is wishbones - dont know whether to look forward to it, or not, looks quite complicated to get them spot on!! Everything on my build so far is pretty much dead on, im trying to take as long as required to get everything spot on rather than rush anything. :)

Looks good.Took me 18 months to get to that stage :D I bought the wishbones as couldnt be arsed and Saturn had a good deal on:D