cobby's na6

[cobby]

Hey dudes, I'm just gonna cut and paste this from another forum if that's call. http://www.jdmstyletuning.com:

10-7-11:
Name's Nick for anyone that doesn't know me. You might have looked at my other thread in here of my Cressida, which I put into a tree, bought another shell for, then realised it was too much work for me to do while living at home still, and sold it to my mate. He then did in a day what I failed to do in like 2 or 3 months, haha (see sig for link, lots of pics and sweet f/a progress)

Anyways, I'm currently ride-less, but if you read the my last post in the other thread it'll explain how it all came about, etc. Basically I work for a Mazda dealership and the NA6 came in as a dirt cheap trade-in I couldn't pass up.

Here's hoping I can actually do SOMETHING with this car because a few things have come about which I'm pretty lucky/thankful for as well as my tax return, and all this should get me out of debt to my parents. This means money to spend on car

I don't have pics of it as of yet, but it's pretty rough. A lot less work involved in getting it on the road as opposed to the X8, which is a bonus. It also has a hardtop, which is another bonus. It's white, there's a fair bit of rust in the sill but it hasn't gone all the way though (key bashing for the win), the engine sounds like it's on it's way out. It's an '89 model done 330,000k's and the bonnet doesn't shut properly just by dropping it. I actually slammed it and one of the bonnet catch bolts was so rusted that it broke off. That's gonna be fun :\ I should be picking it up on Wednesday at the latest. I'll take it around to House of Touge and get some photos.


Vision:
Track/daily. I'm gonna try to keep this relatively legal, I already struggle with insurance as it is...

Plans/dreams:
NC 6SP box (I'll explain later)
Flyin' Miata butterfly brace
Shitloads of other braces
BC coilovers to start with (open to suggestions though)
10/8 spring rates?
Adjustable sh*t everywhere
KAAZ or Cusco LSD
Tomei Cams and valvetrain
Megasquirt PnP ECU
MX5Mania CAI
Pair of Sparco Sprint V's
Bolt-in half cage and a decent harness
Minor interior changes, just wanna clean things up a bit
Undecided on wheels yet but black 6UL's look pretty tempting, so do black RPF1's
GV F+R lips
Paint the hard top and windscreen surround black
Key!s Racing deep dish suede wheel and slim boss

I'm sure things will change/tastes will vary as the car comes along but at the moment that's what I've got in mind.

- cobby

[cobby]

13-7-11:

Okay I've taken possession of the NA6 now. I must say I don't see me getting sick of driving it any time soon haha.

I got some snaps around at House of Touge on the weekend, I can't be effed putting them up yet. I'll chuck up some iPhone snaps of the progress from tonight on the way to work tomorrow morning.

Just to make things clear, I got it for the cool price of just shy of $1300, it's got 330 000k's on it but I ran the VIN through our system at work it's an AU delivered car, not an import. It doesn't have the original engine, which is good news to me because I'm 90% sure they wouldn't have put an engine with higher k's in it than the original.

Even better news, the RWC list is short, my foreman looked over it before I took it home yesterday, and even he was impressed.

It consists of:
- Upper and lower ball join boots perished and need replacing
- Tie rod ball join boots perished and need replacing
- 1 rear tyre - my mate ben is lending me some re001s for the roadworthy, getting them onto my rims on Monday
- Distributor sensor o-ring/camshaft position sensor o-ring is pissing out oil, I've got it in my wallet ready to change over
- Tappet cover gasket - neither of those two things are actually a roadworthy issue, it's just that there's a small drip of engine oil at the bottom of the engine and the gasket and o-ring are where it's coming from, so I might just degrease the engine and do it later.
- Get rid of the rust in the sill and tidy up the surface rust on the radiator support and under the brake master cylinder.

So far I've got all the ball joints ready to be tapped out, I would've had all the ball joints out of their places and all the boots off but it got too late to use the hammer :\ they'll come out tomorrow afternoon and hopefully auto1 or carbitz or repco can match them up so I can put it back together and start on the rust.

I detailed the inside of it as well which is probably why I ran out of time on the ball joints haha. Man it was filthy. I'm pretty sure they learnt the art of hard parking, on the beach....I'm still not happy with the way it came up but it's presentable now. I'll properly detail it once it's rego'd.

Anyway, stay tuned for shitty pictures tomorrow, and dslr pics when I can be bothered. ;)

EDIT: I plan to have this rego'd for the EOMM on the 25th.

[cobby]

14-7-11

Ok here's some pics




Before:


After:
After I cleaned it...

the source of the "engine noise" or what I thought was the big ends, 2 broken welds on a heat shield

[cobby]

14-7-11

Okay so tonight I got back from the pub at about 8:45ish and pretty much got straight into hammering stuff. Got the hubs off and the ball join boots off which I'll go for a drive tomorrow and match them up at repco or something.
Please note that the ramps and the troller jack aren't supporting the car, it's on stands. My name isn't rallye so don't worry haha.


Took out the sway bar d bushes and tried to realign them but they'd been sitting in the same spot for a while so I'll get some new ones tomorrow.



One thing I found last night was the p/s washer jet was blocked so i got some random pair that the parts guy had laying around and was going to put them in, but when I took the old one out I busted the plastic 'y' section that splits the washer hose without knowing. All of a sudden the other side stopped working and I had water pissing out under the bonnet in the same spot as the left jet... Popped the bonnet and found a nasty hole that I made from removing it. So I worried for a few seconds and then remembered the Cressida bonnet i've got laying around the side. I had a look and sure enough it's the same thing. I'll change that over tomorrow night.

Here's some better pics of the car:


Also for some reason I decided to do a light check and found that not only is the rh indicator lens cracked, the lh headlight lens has a nice hole in it. I really hope a wrecker has one of them otherwise no rego for mx5 haha. Are these just a standard 7" headlight lens? Might make finding one a bit easier...

[ShadyDeals]

Get these ones http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/7-ROUND-HALO-DIAMOND-HEADLIGHTS-90-97-MAZDA-MIATA-MX5-/250853734527



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What state are you in Cobbs??

[cobby]

Get these ones http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/7-ROUND-HALO-DIAMOND-HEADLIGHTS-90-97-MAZDA-MIATA-MX5-/250853734527



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What state are you in Cobbs??

Those lights look pretty nice aye. I'm up in QLD. I'll probably just get a $20 one from down the road just to pass the roadworthy.

Congratulations.

Cheers mate

[NitroDann]

Why do you remind me of me..?

'So I remember I got a spare bonnet up the side of the shed...etc etc'

Just like my place.

Dann

[93_Clubman]

Good buy - can't go wrong for that price, & given only a few things for rego, even better!

NA6 header heatshield mounts commonly break & then vibrate, as do the securing tabs on the bullet muffler heatshield (in front of diff if still running OEM exhaust system). Usuallly heard as a zinging vibration starting around 2500 RPM.

[Jeo]

My name isn't rallye so don't worry haha.

I see what you did there

Nicely done.

[cobby]

Why do you remind me of me..?

'So I remember I got a spare bonnet up the side of the shed...etc etc'

Just like my place.

Dann

Haha yeah I've got a fair few parts laying around from when I stripped the Cressida.

Good buy - can't go wrong for that price, & given only a few things for rego, even better!

NA6 header heatshield mounts commonly break & then vibrate, as do the securing tabs on the bullet muffler heatshield (in front of diff if still running OEM exhaust system). Usuallly heard as a zinging vibration starting around 2500 RPM.

Thanks mate, I'm stoked with it.
That's pretty much exactly the noise I hear, I'll check out the other heat shield tonight when I get home. I'll put some pics up soon of the main task this weekend; the rust...

My name isn't rallye so don't worry haha.

I see what you did there

Nicely done.

I realised after I posted this that some people might not have got that reference haha, glad someone got me.

[cobby]

I got a bit more done tonight. The parts turned up so I got the indicator fitted, the new tombstone fitted, and the pedal rubbers fitted.
I got 4 of the 6 ball joint boots fitted but I'm not happy with how they fit. I'm gonna take the originals into car bits tomorrow to try and get some better fitting ones, and the bottom ball joint boots don't fit at all, even though i matched them up (the original boots are press fitted on and that's how they seal, the ones i got from repco are a spring seal and the seal sits too high to seal properly, it just keeps popping the seal off). Just waiting on the d bushes for the rear sway bar and the headlight, both should be here monday.

I'll get some bog, white paint, matte and satin black paint, etch primer and some sand paper after work tomorrow and see what I can do with this rust.

Bad news is I broke the p/s wing mirror by trying to free it up. i'll organise that monday if I can't get a hold of any local wreckers with one.

Anyway, I'll put some pics up when i go to bed, they're all on the phone and I can't be bothered at the moment haha.

[cobby]

Some photos:

New sh*t:


The new tombstone


Old vs new:



Fitted these bad boys:


Oops:


Passenger side door card...


The rust:

[A.Chen89]

wow thats weird seeing so much rust and such a dirty door card

must of been parked in a swamp! good buy though for that price

[cobby]

wow thats weird seeing so much rust and such a dirty door card

must of been parked in a swamp! good buy though for that price

Haha yeah it's pretty bad, you don't even want to know how bad it smelt when I first got it...I'm considering shares in febreez haha.

Okay update time:

Got that rust tidied up somewhat today, turns out that rust in the sill had been repair before. When I got it back to metal it looked like it had been welded. Anyway, cleaned that up and put some bog in it, I'll sand that back tomorrow and go again.
I also got the radiator support cleaned filled and sanded. It still needs a bit more sand but not a whole lot. Pics:

[93_Clubman]

Bad news is I broke the p/s wing mirror by trying to free it up. i'll organise that monday if I can't get a hold of any local wreckers with one.

Looks like it might have spent a bit of its life beach-side - might be worth checking under the rear parcel shelf carpet & sound deadening. Good progress though!