Selene - Nev's NB SE

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:45 pm

So I got bit more done on the wind blocker modifications today.

The first step was to assemble the glued portions to make sure the alignment was still ok.....

It came up so well that I was almost tempted to leave it at that!
Unfortunately there was still quite a bit of flex movement and I couldn't see it lasting very long before failing.

So I had to bite the bullet and plastic weld each section, knowing full well that the join wouldn't be anywhere near as neat.....

Now keep in mind these welds were done free-hand with an old soldering iron and the filler made up of sections melted into place from the bits I had removed.

As you can see, as a plastic welder, I make a great car enthusiast! :oops:

I wasn't too concerned with neatness, I was more trying to get a good deep, strong bond between the sections.
I figured I'd be able to tidy it up later and it was better to have too much plastic than too little.....

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 4:00 pm

Next was the tidying up phase, oh what fun!

I spent the next 2 hours working away steadily with a couple of very sharp chisels and some sand paper progressively removing the unwanted material.

In addition I also spent time carefully sizing the rear panel, trimming the back of the housing so it was flush with the panel and fitting an additional bit of plastic inside the opening so I would have something to screw the back panel into.

Finally I gathered all of the pieces that would be reassembled and gave them a thorough clean with Turps in preparation for painting....

Here they are ready to go!

Here's a couple of closeups of the plastic welds after I had done my best with them....

As you may be able to see, I decided not to 'bog' the welds but instead introduce a little imperfection in order to try and make them less visible.
The hope was that the imperfections would blend in better with the textured surface of the fitting and be a little less obvious....

Unfortunately I won't know how that worked out until after it's been painted, speaking of which!

I used VHT Vinyl dye in a satin black and the can had just enough for 3 complete coats and a 4th coat on hard wearing areas.

I'l let it all cure overnight and it should be dry enough in the morning to be handled and carefully re-assembled.
If I have the time in the morning I'll put it all back together and fit it to the car, it can finish the rest of the curing process in situ (takes 7 days apparently).

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 4:09 pm

Fantastic work on this, hope it fits and works well! Between this and your roll bar install, you're doing some great write ups at the moment.

Roadrunner · Postby **Roadrunner** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 4:44 pm

That windblocker idea is brilliant!
This is the exact rollbar I plan to go with eventually, and planned to see if it would be possible to retrofit the windblocker to the back of it. (not for the speakers, but for the foldover centre bit and factory look)
Seeing that it will be quite some time before a rollbar is added I stopped thinking about it.
Thanks for doing the leg work :lol:

Keep it up!

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 5:28 pm

Thanks guys, it's been quite a bit of fun so far, which is why I decided to tackle the project in the first place.

With multiple test fits during the process I'm confident it will fit fine and hopefully look ok and not too obviously modified.
After all it's the 'factory' look I'm trying to preserve rather than go for an easier alternative.....

These write-ups take a bit of time and effort to put together but it's what the forums are all about as far as I'm concerned.
When you do something, share your experiences so others who are thinking of doing something similar can benefit from what you've learned! :wink:

Roadrunner · Postby **Roadrunner** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 6:41 pm

When you do something, share your experiences so others who are thinking of doing something similar can benefit from what you've learned!

Love it, love every bit of it. Got to get off my butt and start my own garage thread
(Cause you know, there's no such thing as too many SE garage threads :lol:

)

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:29 pm

Roadrunner wrote:(Cause you know, there's no such thing as too many SE garage threads )

This is the only truth there is or ever will be...... :mrgreen:

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:45 pm

Now if there's one thing about me, it's that I can be an impatient bugger! :oops:

I read on the can that the items could be handled after 3 hours..... So if figured that would be near enough! :wink:

So with the items being handled, they just sort of happened to be assembled in the process, hehehehe.....

So this is what it looks like all put back together.

The next problem was how to secure it.
Fortunately MX5+ supplied some helpful, pre-drilled holes just perfect for the purpose that lined up nicely with the central flat section!
They were even the perfect diameter for the Mazda supplied surplus screws from other (redundant) bits of the wind blocker... Nice to keep things OEM!

Now for the first (and thankfully only) nasty surprise of the install process....

Because the wind blocker was now relocated further towards the rear of the vehicle the cable connection for the speakers wasn't actually long enough to reach inside the housing!

Fortunately a little trimming of the bottom edge of the housing allowed enough cable reach to position the connector properly inside the housing and allow the proper attachment of the backing plate.

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:51 pm

So with everything else in place and secured I screwed in the backing plate and tested the action of the roof mechanism for clearance......
It didn't touch even once! YEAH!! :mrgreen:

So I suppose it's now complete, done and dusted (well not dusted yet, seriously need to do some errrr.... serious cleaning!)

Here's how it all looks in poor light conditions.

Now it actually looks a lot better than this in real life and the join is a lot less visible (unless you're specifically looking for it that is).
I'll try and get it outside tomorrow morning for some better shots, will have to see if time permits.....

The only real 'catch' I've found so far is that you can't raise or lower the roof unless the wind blocker is in the upright or raised position.
Otherwise it seems to function as the factory one does, I even checked to see if those mighty 25W speakers were working!

So for the total output of;
- 2 days of my 'tinker' time
- some electrons to run the lights and tools
- a bit of glue
- some scrap spare light weight steel angle
- one can of VHT Vinyl dye @ ~$17

I now have a folding wind blocker integrated with a MX5+ twin hoop roll-bar that looks like (if you squint a bit and have poor eyesight) it came straight from the factory!

Gotta be happy with that! :mrgreen:

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:00 am

Just enough time this morning to sneak the car out of the garage for a couple of daylight shots.....

I'm very happy with the overall result, despite the join in the flipper panel being more visible than I had hoped.
It has actually fixed the only real problem I had with chroming my rollbar..... the visibilty of the big chrome block of the torque box from the rear.
It's now nicely tucked away so the chrome enhances rather than dominates when looking inside!

So the only limitations I've found with this mod are;
- you need to have the wind blocker raised to raise or lower the roof.
- with the wind blocker raised, you need to get up to raise the roof, you can't just reach over from the seated position.

I think I can live with these compromises! :wink:

So onto the pictures.....

Hmmm....... so which bit of the collection I have lying around to install next?

Got a couple of days to think about it.... might even do something a bit different and actually take the car for a drive for a change!

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:54 am

Once again, great job on this! Looks fantastic, and I completely agree that with the torque box hidden away, the chrome hoops look very classy. Shame you can't raise/lower the roof from seated anymore, but that's such a little thing in the scheme of it. Can you drop the blocker again once the roof is up? I'd think that might hinder visibility otherwise.

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:23 am

Yep, the blocker can be dropped back down when the roof's up but it isn't visible in the rear-view mirror when up anyway (nice thing about OEM :wink:

) so not really an issue.

dave2221 · Postby **dave2221** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:49 am

will the roof operate with the wind blocker halfway down?

I find (on the stock ones) that with the windblocker halfway down (to get at the handle) i can put the roof up, and the window will flick the windblocker back into the upright position (which is a bonus)

Just a thought........

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:38 pm

dave2221 wrote:will the roof operate with the wind blocker halfway down?

I find (on the stock ones) that with the windblocker halfway down (to get at the handle) i can put the roof up, and the window will flick the windblocker back into the upright position (which is a bonus)

Just a thought........

It won't work going down but might on the way up, I'll give it a try.... :wink:

dave2221 · Postby **dave2221** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:53 pm

down isnt so bad, as i usually half close the windblocker with my forearm when lowering the roof (and flick it back up when i am done)

up, i again, half close the windblocker when reaching for the roof.... .and as it comes up, the window flicks the windblocker closed.....