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Hi, I thought I would do a garage thing for my car as well.

I bought my car on the 23rd of December 2010. Well, thats when I paid the deposit on it. I picked the car up on the 3rd of January 2011.

The car was in a used car lot ANA Cars in Bell St. Preston. It was advertised for $11,990.

Here are the pictures used to advertise it on carsales:











The 23rd of December was a half day at work and I had collected a list of around 6 MX-5s advertised on carsales that I was going to look at. I had been sending emails and speaking with a few people and doing some research for about 4 days prior. I had intially thought I would try to get an MX-5 for $6000. My wants included AC and PS and of course a great condition. I discovered over those 4 days that the great majority of NA MX-5s were sold here without AC and or PS. This was largely because the cars sold in the most numbers in the first three years and then as more equipment was added or became standard the sales dropped off as well. Part of that has to do with the recession in the early to mid 90s. The one Keating said we had to have

Anyway in those four days I had increased my price ceiling to around $8000. Even for this sum the pickings were slim. Either people were not advertising because of Christmas or there were no really good cars for under $9000.

Anyway this prompted me to try the $10,000 cars. On the spur of the moment I sent an email query to this LE in Preston that was way outside my price range.

Anyway of the six cars on my list only one had both AC and PS but the person had not called me back. All the others were with either one or the other. The first car I had a look at was a white 1990 without PS but with Air. The yard wanted $8000 and it seemed a bit scruffy. The car drove nicely enough, if a bit down on power. What put me off that car was the fact that the paint peeled off above the windscreen when the dealer pulled the sales sticker off. To me it was apparent that the car was badly repainted. Later on it transpired that poor paint adhesion was a known problem on white cars.

Anyway while I was inspecting the white car, I got a call from this dealer in Preston, the one whose car was for $11,990. He sounded very excited and convinced me to come and look at the car even though I told him that there was no way I could afford the price he was asking. He told me that the price had not much room to move but that he guaranteed I would fall in love with the car.

Preston was on the way to red 1989 car selling for $9500 in Bayswater. At the very least looking at the car would tell me what a top end car felt and looked like which would help me in my search.

Anyway the showroom was full of some nice cars and this great 1997 British Racing Green (officially Neo Green) LE was one of them. The dealer looked like the stereotypical used car salesman with slicked back hair a crisp white shirt, extra white teeth, a tan and sunglasses. Looking at him made my antennae stand up. Then I looked at the car. It looked almost like new, except for a few tiny cracks in the driver's seat leather and an opaque and cracked plastic window the car could have been new and also the dipstick handle had broken off. Later on I discovered a few minor dings here and there but at that point the car looked a million dollars. I felt a bit frustrated. I knew that was the car I wanted but it was outside my price range.

Anyway the dealer, a guy by the name of Ahmed, came over. We got to talking and I discovered that the car had a full Mazda service history. I rang Mazda and confirmed it. I had to take the car for a test drive.

The car started well enough and drove really really great except for a bit of misfiring, which turned out to be water in the spark plug wires from when they had washed the engine. After drying it out the misfire had gone.

The car had passed test number two. If only I could bring the price down. At that point we were $4000 apart in price.

We began by negotiating. I used the kilometers and the cracked rear screen as bargaining tools and told them I was not interested in the extended warranty, which is not worth the paper it is printed on but apparently costs dealers several hundred dollars. At a point in the negotiations Ahmed asked me why I had actually contacted him when my price range was limited to $8000. Anyway finally I called their bluff. I showed them the other five cars on car sales I was going to look at. I told them that once I walked out of the door I was never coming back, even though I liked the car. Ahmed kept umming and ahhing and finally called the owner of the yard.

Suffice to say I won out. The price was knocked down to $8000 without warranty and me fixing the rear window.

Later on Ahmed who turned out to be quite a nice guy under his salesman's veneer. He confided in me that the owner's had not sold a single car the whole week and needed to pay their staff. I was the only way they were assured some cash flow over the Christmas period.


Here is the video of the car at the dealer if you are interested
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyBPtlDWAzA

Here are a few pics I took of the car to keep me happy over the Christmas break.





Anyway the road worthy was finally done on the 3rd of January 2011. Predictably the only thing wrong was the cracked backlight. I picked the car up on the 3rd of January, fixed the plastic window by removing it from the car and taking the rear piece to Downunder Tents and AutoTrimmers in 111 Elder Street, Greensborough Victoria who fixed it for only $80.

Removing the rear section of the roof took about two hours. Putting it back another two. Checking and reinforcing the rain rail with pieces of bicycle tubing took another hour.

Anyway on the 4th of January I got the Roadworthy finally signed off and the transfer papers were sent off to VicRoads.

The car was now mine.

I now had a real chance to go over the car. I managed to successfully track down the previous owner from a mobile phone number on a receipt in the glovebox. I discovered that he was the first and only owner before me.

The car was serviced for the first 2 years at Australian Motors SA in Edwardstown SA. After that at Brighton Mazda for two years and from then till now at Penfold Mazda in Burwood. The car was traded in for a 3 series BMW coupe at Doncaster BMW and that is how it came to be sold to me.

The car never had any accidents and had four brand new tyres bought the year before.

Excellent story on a great looking car.
If i hadn't scored the unicorn then i would still be zipping around in a fairly tidy clubman.
More pics please?

One of the first things I did was to wash the car and thoroughly inspect it. Over the next few weeks I drove the car around once a week. The car did everything right but there was a bit of water leaking out. More on that later.

The first thing I did was order a dipstick from Miatamecca a great ebay dealer. Then I bought a new zip puller and a radiator cap in case the missing water was making its way past the cap.

Anyway the next few weeks the car gave me lots of smiles and some great drives. The whole family loved it like it was the new pet.

It looked great standing in the driveway






My mind slowly turned to mods, even though I had been very keen on keeping it original, the way the previous owner had kept it.

The first thing I replaced was the useless (to a non smoker like me) ashtray. I bought a genuine Mazda twin cupholder, again from Miatamecca. The second mod was upgrading the audio.

The car came with a radio and a CD player as you can see in the images. The CD player did not play MP3s or even burnt CDs. There was also no way to add an Aux in. The audio system had to go.

The first thing I changed was the speakers. My speakers of choice were Alpine SPG-17CS. I decided I would also clean and grease up the window guides.

I took the door trim off in the standard way and without incident. After peeling back the weather proofing I spent the first 20 minutes spraying lithium grease on the window guides and cable as well as spraying silicon grease in the black window weatherstrip.

Then I focused my attention on the speakers. I must mention at this stage that I always wanted to keep the standard appearance and the original speaker grilles. Anyway first to come off was the old woofer. It was undamaged. I found it was round and very close in size to 6.5". My guess is that it was a 6" speaker. I worked out that the white striped wire was the positive and the green was the negative.

Then I unclipped the tweeter from the door trim, which was very easy. The stock tweeter is glued to a plastic frame that also has the clips that hold the tweeter to the door. This plastic frame is clipped with three clips to the tweeter grille, which is a plastic ring with the steel mesh moulded into it..

In trying to pry the old tweeter off it broke into pieces. I also pried off the frame from the grille. After that I realised I had the problem of getting the new tweeter in position close enough the the front of the original grille so as to make it interfere with the door and for this I had to enlarge the hole in the plastic frame so that the new tweeter could move closer to the grille.

Anyway finally I managed. I held the new tweeter in place by plastic welding the frame to the tweeter. Then I re-assembled the grille onto the frame.

After that I threaded the tweeter cable back through the door to the crossover. The crossover for these splits is simply massive and about the size of an Iphone but four times as thick. After that I connected the mid bass driver to the crossover and finally the input cable (the one that orginally went to the woofer). I had an issue with attaching the speaker cable to the mid bass driver because firstly I did not have spade connectors and even if I did I don't like that connection. I unfortunately had very little solder and it was very old. That is another thing I am going to strengthen tonight after I have bought some fresh solder.

Now I had the problem of where to position to the crossover box. This large box has some holes in the back for screwing it into sheetmetal holes but I was not prepared to drill into my door so for now I taped the box to the cable loom that comes into the door at the front. This is an area of the door that gets the least shocks because it is so close to the hinge. I will find a more permanent home for this box once I scope out the interior of the door a bit better.

Assembling the woofer to the door was the easiest bit. The three holes for the old speaker lined up with existing holes in the new one.

The other door was the same only it took half the time.

The difference in sound quality was like night and day.

A few weeks later I became even bolder. I would change the head unit. After careful consideration I decided to go for a Pioneer DEH1350. The reason for my choice was because it was almost totally black in colour which would blend in nicely. I did not feel that any ultramodern, flashy headunit would be keeping in character with the car. To paraphrase the Mcdonald ad. It was not shmancy and only a little bit fancy

Anyway the first step required me taking off the vents......

Firstly taking the vents off is a matter of faith. As I got a cord in there and wrapped around the back of the vent it sounded like something was going to break as I applied more and more force. I put all my faith in my fellow MX-5 owners and pulled and pulled until they flew out. One actually hit me on the back of the head.

Anyway I discovered something that was different from the standard instructions. My OEM units were attached to the back of the tombstone instead of the way they are on older models and they slid out forward not rearward.

Also it was quite a struggle getting the CD player harness disconnected from the main head unit because the cable looped behind a bigger harness and it was preventing both units from coming out. Anyway finally with lots of less skin on my knuckles and arms I got them out. The new unit was very very light compared to what came out.

I used an ISO harness to plug into the car harness so there was no need to cut any of the car's wires. It means the old units can go back in easily.

I also added a single DIN cubby enhanced with a nice bit of felt to prevent things rattling in it.

Before I could put everything back I had to deal with a new issue that had shown itself.

The gear lever boots had both perished and I could see the road below once the console was removed.

I bought the gear boots from a fellow forum member. Before I replaced them I cleaned out the old oil from the turret and put in a new nylon bush. New oil and new grease went in followed by the two boots. I sprayed both boots liberally with lithium greased to minimise and future abrasion and to maximise their life. Then it was time for the console to go back in.

Here are pictures of what the new audio unit and the cubby look like



Looks better than before:



and a closeup

Tezzax5 wrote:Excellent story on a great looking car.
If i hadn't scored the unicorn then i would still be zipping around in a fairly tidy clubman.
More pics please?

Thanks for the encouragement.

An artistic shot. The MX-5 enhancing the greenery..


The cat taking an academic interest in the strange animal that normally lives in the garage


Another artistic show

The Obligatory Gearknob:

By now the bug had truly bitten. The success of the audio enhancement and the general improvement in the car's useability and appearance emboldened me. I had to add a flourish to the cabin. The best thing I could think of was a gearknob.

The choice came down to heavy or light. In the heavy camp were Skunk2, TWM and Tetsuya Garage's Phallic looking gearknobs made of stainless steel. In the light camp were various Momo knobs as well as the famous Voodoo knob. After reasoning that a heavy knob could actually press on the gears because of the direct gear linkage I decided light was the way to go. Now came a choice of Voodoo knobs. Was it going to be polished or spun or powder coated.

I decided to go with a powder coated with a PRNDL pattern on it. I bought it from the Knobmeister http://www.knobmeister.com/ for $60 delivered. It came from the US in three days. Joe actually shipped it before I paid him. I was very touched by the trusting nature of that gentleman.

Anyway I used a bit of plumber's teflon tape to lock the Voodoo knob in place and it feels AWESOME. It also looks the works.





In my opinion it is the flourish I needed in the cabin.

I'll live with it a little to see if I want to add to the aluminium look by adding vent rings. The jury is still out on this one.

In case anyone wants to know about the comfort of the knob. There is nothing to it. It feels a bit cooler and a bit hotter on a cold and hot day but because of the lower thermal mass of aluminium the temperature quickly rises or drops to ambient.

Three more mods and repairs.


This one was an unplanned mod. It was actually a repair. I discovered where the water was going. The top tank on the radiator had a crack in it. I took it to a radiator specialist who pressure checked and inspected the radiator. His advice was to replace only the top tank. He cleaned it and replaced the seals at the same time.


Another mod was sealing up the cavity between the cabin and the boot with blocks or closed cell foam and adding a bitumastic sheet to the boot floor. This made a massive difference to the quietness from the rear end.


I still have a sheet left. I'll put it in the doors the next time I take the door trims off.


Last but not least I did a wheel alignment. I got it done by Ray at Tyrepower in Thomastown. It has made a heck of a difference to the handling. The car is now even more predictable in the wet and a lot more enjoyable.

Seat Leather Restoration: If you recall I mentioned that the driver's seat had some tiny cracks in the leather.






I did some research and discovered that the very best product was Leatherique. It is used by the Rolls Royce Club and many many other enthusiasts. I did a group buy with two other colleagues at work and ordered some Rejuvenating Oil, some Prestine Clean, a crack filler, some dye. I put the car out on a hot day and applied the Rejuvenating Oil. I let it soak in for 24 hours




and then cleaned it with Prestine Clean. I repeated this twice. After that I filled in the cracks and applied the dye. The seats now look like new.

Really nice write up and beautiful car, I noticed your drivers side front tyre looks a tad low on psi in a few pics. =) Just a observation, you have probably noticed it by now anyways.

Welcome to the obsession!

To Rollbar or not to Rollbar that is the Question:


Probably the biggest mod todate has been the addition of an MX5-Plus Rollbar. After much debate in the following topic:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=45995 I decided that I probably needed a rollbar
also see here.
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=46746
and here:
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=46665

I bought the uncoated version of the MX5 Plus Twin Hoop Rollbar which cost me $735 delivered to Melbourne. The plan was to paint it and to add vinyl or leather to it to soften its hard appearance.

The rollbar arrived after just two days after they received the funds, which is pretty good going (thanks to the sales team at MX5 Plus). It came with a really good instruction manual.

I prepped the bar ready for painting and got a coat of paint on the underside. The day after I painted the the top. I used Epoxy Enamel with a 7 day cure time. To ensure I got a good even coating I used a hair dryer to keep the bar warm and kept the aerosol can in a tub of very hot water. I used the dryer in between coats that I applied every four minutes. That way I was able to get around 10 thin coats over around half an hour without any runs. Epoxy Enamel has to be painted in one go. One cannot paint and then recoat the next day.

Here is what it looks like painted.



Here is the car with the trim bits off ready for the rollbar





I covered the rectangular torque tube in vinyl that I cut carefully to fit over the tubes. The join in the vinyl is hidden by polished aluminium plates.

I'll show images when I continue ....

Great story and what looks to be a very tidy NA8, what a find! Glad it's in safe hands

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I envy the seemingly small amount of time it took to find that beautiful example you have there and for a bargain price too! It took me more than 6 months to find mine.

BTW, I noticed your youtube username. Do you play guitar? Have you tried putting on in the mx5 yet? I have, and failed miserably. I honestly thought there was more room inside them. .

Great looking car, snshami! I am envious!

wilch wrote:Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I envy the seemingly small amount of time it took to find that beautiful example you have there and for a bargain price too! It took me more than 6 months to find mine.

BTW, I noticed your youtube username. Do you play guitar? Have you tried putting on in the mx5 yet? I have, and failed miserably. I honestly thought there was more room inside them. .

Thanks for the feedback. What type of guitar doesn't fit? I'll have to try today.

snshami wrote:

wilch wrote:Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I envy the seemingly small amount of time it took to find that beautiful example you have there and for a bargain price too! It took me more than 6 months to find mine.

BTW, I noticed your youtube username. Do you play guitar? Have you tried putting on in the mx5 yet? I have, and failed miserably. I honestly thought there was more room inside them. .

Thanks for the feedback. What type of guitar doesn't fit? I'll have to try today.

Any of the full size (rectangular) style SKB road cases. It's seriously an issue with the roof up. They won't even fit in the boot. NA's are deceptively small.