light restoration & rust proofing my MK1 MX5- with pictures!
Discussion
Thought I would post up some pictures of the light restoration of a Eunos I bought a few months ago. I had been looking for a MK1 for a long time but every one I looked at was pretty rusty. Then I came on this one, 35K miles from new and in very nice condition, bought for £1000 after a bit of haggling! I class ita s a light restoration as it was a good car to start with, but I will keep this for a few years so I wanted to make sure it was nice and tidy, and do any preventative maintenance at the start...
There was evidence the car had been serviced, but I decided to go right through it so all the service items were changed. Although the cam belt had also been done 2 years ago, I decided to do it again for the price of a belt, and also replace the water pump at the same time.
The only difficult bit of changing the belt, was holding the pully to undo the nut... I made up this simple bar to hold it still while it was undone, but as importantly to hold it when it was torqued up.
The inside of the engine was all very clean, looks like it had always been serviced!
All of the callipers were removed, stripped down, bead blasted and re-assembled. remarkably, even after all the years the pistons were in perfect condition so these were re-used
As these are quite nickable I decided to fit an alarm, but while I was on I also fitted central locking, which was easy to fit and quite cheap!
In all honesty, the sills on the car were pretty good. BUT, there were some slight rust bubbles on the underside at the bottom on both sides. I could have left it, but I was afraid of what was lurking underneath, so I cut them off! There was rust in there but I was able to clean it off and weld new sills to the outside. I ordered some sills off a supplier but when they came, the thickness and fit were appalling, so I made a former and made my own.
Apart from some slight rust at the rear of the sills, the rest of the car was remarkably rust free! I have a borescope which I bought quite cheaply off Ebay for £20 which has a 10mm diameter camera on the end and this plugs into a laptop. I was able to have a good look inside the sills before I wax injected in there. The one picture below is taken looking up inside the door, It was remarkably rust free!
So on to the all important rust proofing. The firs picture below is of my old Lancia Montecarlo. I owned the car from 1980 to 2004 and when I sold it, it was still rust free. The reason for that was that when I first had the car, I rust proofed it with Waxoyle. It was done every 5 years after the first application (I seem to remember I used about 2 gallon!) I have done quite a few cars I have owned over the years and never had a problem with rust... So I guess when it came to doing the MX5, Waxoyle was the natural choice. I know may people have their Favorited products, but for me the proof is the Lancia. We all know these were a very rust prone car and using Waxoyle kept it perfect all those years.
I am lucky enough to have a pressure pot with which I can apply the waxoyle. This can be pressurised to 120 PSI and it has both air and fluid adjustment so I can regulate the air/fluid mix so the waxoyle comes out as a mist. this is great for inside the sills and closed cavities. The first coat both inside the cavities and on the underside are with VERY thin waxoyle (thinned with white spirits) this means it gets into ALL the cavities and leaches into the seams... As I was doing it, I could see waxoyle mist coming out of all sorts of places! When I did the front screen surround, I notices a mist coming out of the interior light in the middle! Its a very messy job!
After the first application, I did another with some less thinned, but warm Waxoyle.
I know the wheels are not correct for the year of the car... but I prefer the look of the earlier wheels, so I obtained a set and had them powder coated at LAP-TAB in Birmingham who did a great job at a reasonable cost.
I have a few more jobs to do, and will post on here if people are interested to see how it progresses...
There was evidence the car had been serviced, but I decided to go right through it so all the service items were changed. Although the cam belt had also been done 2 years ago, I decided to do it again for the price of a belt, and also replace the water pump at the same time.
The only difficult bit of changing the belt, was holding the pully to undo the nut... I made up this simple bar to hold it still while it was undone, but as importantly to hold it when it was torqued up.
The inside of the engine was all very clean, looks like it had always been serviced!
All of the callipers were removed, stripped down, bead blasted and re-assembled. remarkably, even after all the years the pistons were in perfect condition so these were re-used
As these are quite nickable I decided to fit an alarm, but while I was on I also fitted central locking, which was easy to fit and quite cheap!
In all honesty, the sills on the car were pretty good. BUT, there were some slight rust bubbles on the underside at the bottom on both sides. I could have left it, but I was afraid of what was lurking underneath, so I cut them off! There was rust in there but I was able to clean it off and weld new sills to the outside. I ordered some sills off a supplier but when they came, the thickness and fit were appalling, so I made a former and made my own.
Apart from some slight rust at the rear of the sills, the rest of the car was remarkably rust free! I have a borescope which I bought quite cheaply off Ebay for £20 which has a 10mm diameter camera on the end and this plugs into a laptop. I was able to have a good look inside the sills before I wax injected in there. The one picture below is taken looking up inside the door, It was remarkably rust free!
So on to the all important rust proofing. The firs picture below is of my old Lancia Montecarlo. I owned the car from 1980 to 2004 and when I sold it, it was still rust free. The reason for that was that when I first had the car, I rust proofed it with Waxoyle. It was done every 5 years after the first application (I seem to remember I used about 2 gallon!) I have done quite a few cars I have owned over the years and never had a problem with rust... So I guess when it came to doing the MX5, Waxoyle was the natural choice. I know may people have their Favorited products, but for me the proof is the Lancia. We all know these were a very rust prone car and using Waxoyle kept it perfect all those years.
I am lucky enough to have a pressure pot with which I can apply the waxoyle. This can be pressurised to 120 PSI and it has both air and fluid adjustment so I can regulate the air/fluid mix so the waxoyle comes out as a mist. this is great for inside the sills and closed cavities. The first coat both inside the cavities and on the underside are with VERY thin waxoyle (thinned with white spirits) this means it gets into ALL the cavities and leaches into the seams... As I was doing it, I could see waxoyle mist coming out of all sorts of places! When I did the front screen surround, I notices a mist coming out of the interior light in the middle! Its a very messy job!
After the first application, I did another with some less thinned, but warm Waxoyle.
I know the wheels are not correct for the year of the car... but I prefer the look of the earlier wheels, so I obtained a set and had them powder coated at LAP-TAB in Birmingham who did a great job at a reasonable cost.
I have a few more jobs to do, and will post on here if people are interested to see how it progresses...
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