Rolley - It's A Boy! (NA6)

[Rolley]

Sure as hell beats getting up and down a million times to complete a job.

That one only cost him $450 and a couple of cartons to get it wired in (already had 3phase) As always it's not what you know but who...
It's on my "One Day" list, right after the house is paid off. Then it's time to go balls out crazy on a shed!

[bruce]

It's outside? How does it handle the weather?

[Rolley]

Hey Bruce, that's where it spent the first 15years of its life, out the back of a servo with no roof over it.
I said the exact same thing when I showed up after he had it installed but I'm impressed with how well it's handled the weather.
It's serviced every 12months and all the cables, joints and slides are well greased. Locks have never failed to engage when I've used it either.

[speed]

Only 450!!! I was prepared to pay 2.5k.
Clutch must feel a whole lot better now.. that you actually have one

[StanTheMan]

Love your work Rolley,

I'd love a Hoist......

[Rolley]

Speed, clutch feels a million bucks the two times I've dríven it. with the storms up here and the parking arrangements around work its been a bit of a garage queen lately. The xtrail doesn't know what to do with all the extra attention...

As for the hoist, I think I'd even get back into weekend servicing if I had one on my driveway, at least until the work had paid it off. It just makes life so much easier.

[Rolley]

Strap your selves in boys and girls it’s update time.
The new Clutch sort of over shadowed a lot of little jobs that have been done over the last months of the year. So I’m going to catch myself up in what I’m sure is the completely wrong order.


I jacked up the steering spacer from 30mm to 50mm in my elusive search for that perfect seating position. I was getting closer, the spacer let me get another 2 clicks of rake on the seat back and let me bring the base a little further forward. Better.
A friend who is a fitter and turner for a water company made it up for me from a lump of stainless, massive overkill but it was what was lying around in the shop.


This was nice, it got me closer to where I wanted to be but in reality I would be changing seats… I bought a cheap Sparco sprint V. With it sitting on the floor, no Rails I could get it spot on. I liked it.
A lot of clearance from the roof, seat back is a lot taller so my head didn’t stick out above the seat anymore, I could get the rake I wanted and had the pedal and wheel distance bang on! I bolted it onto stock rails and that destroyed everything… I found it too upright and too high, bugger.
So I started playing around with the idea of side mounting stock rails and fabbing up a bracket. I looked into the PCI fixed and fully adjustable plate mounts and then a mate made me a great offer on the Sparco and it was gone again…


A pair of NB8B seats became available so I lept on those. I’d read they got you about the same height as a foam hacked NA6 seat with the added bonus of having a taller back rest so my head wouldn’t be standing as clear of the seat anymore. All of that turned out to be true. They are a much nicer seat, they bolt straight in. Great, close enough job done!


Well… not quite.
That Damned Sparco. I got a call, he upgraded to an ND the lucky bastard so the Sparco was for sale again, only this time it came with one hell of a sweetener. So here we go again.
I got bugger all photos of this going in. Let’s just say it is a royal pain in the arse to tighten it all down.
I had to loosely mount the front of the seat to the bracket, put it in the car and hand tighten the front plate bolts. Hinge the seat forward onto the steering wheel and fit and tension the rear plate bolts. Lower the seat to where I thought was the right height and loosely fit the rear outer seat bolt. Break two of my fingers so I could fit them and the bolt down between the seat and tunnel and then after an hour and a lot of swearing get that bolt started in the thread.
Jump in test position then rinse and repeat 3 more times until I was 100% happy I had it right. I also grabbed a couple of lumps of wood and the jack out of the boot, and used them as a spreader to take the side supports out wider to accommodate my ample posterior… Just a bit of fiddling with Lumbar and clutch pedal height to go for now.
It has been a lot of messing around though definitely Worth it to feel comfy in the car. It’s been Blue plated and I can move on to the next challenge now.

[Rolley]

While the seats were out I went back in to have a look at what I thought was a small problem I discovered not long after getting the car. There were signs of rust in the drivers foot well under where my right heel sits. Somewhere back there, a previous owner saw fit to silicone a piece of plastic over the rust hole and re deaden the underside of the floor. After removing what was left of a folded up lump of decaying house carpet I hit the floor with a wire brush and vacuumed out the aftermath. Truth is I could have just swept it out of the hole… Due to the layer of deadening this was pretty much invisible from under the car until I started tearing away at it.


I shoved a sheet of PVC under the carpet and put everything back together while I thought about my options. The rust has only eaten the floor pan and not the chassis rail so far, I’m happy about that.
I mentioned Industrial adhesives back a couple of pages, My mate Wayne with the hoist is an ex panel beater and now is a rep for a paint and panel supply company. He will be helping me put it all back together.
My initial plan was to cut a good floor section out of a shell I helped dispose of. I had a good look at it the other day and it has the beginnings of a hole in the same spot so back to the drawing board.

Wayne and I are going to bend up a new section from sheet steel and it industrially glue in place. I was a bit sceptical that it would do the job but after Wayne showed me some of the 3M demo videos of 0.8mm sheet tearing before the adhesive bond broke I decided to it might be worth considering. Further research and seeing just how much structural work is held together on newer cars using this adhesive made my mind up.
Having the whole drivers side floor from that wreck will still pay dividends I can use it as a buck to shape the new panel on without having to pull my carpet up all the time to check for fit.

[Rolley]

Next on the list was a bit of fun while the wife and kids were out one arvo.
The home theatre died. Blew a capacitor on the powerboard and it was so blood integrated I knew I'd destroy it further if I tried to replace it. So it went in the bin and my Ghetto Heardrest Speakers were born! For what they are I am very impressed. They are held together on a bracket bolted down by the tonneau bolt.


It's amazing how the little things make day to day life easier. The passengers side latch spring rusted through and snapped at some point. I had not realised how much those little springs do until I replaced them both. The clasp that latches into the cowl flicks back clear and out of the way so much easier now. I just picked up two of these from Bunnings. Gave them a trim as they were the closest but still 5mm longer the ones they replaced and a squirt of black and job done. Longest part was waiting for the paint to dry. Number two likes to turn everything on while I work...


I also had a bunch of printing to do. Stuff for my girls and a couple of friends for Christmas. One of the jobs was shirts for a mates 42' Jailbar Ford build. Which got me wanting a new Mazda shirt. So that's what I did.


Also checked off the list was the power mirror install. Finally the harness got finished and I set about tucking it up out of the way under the dash. To route it neatly on the passengers side I pulled out the interior fan assembly and bypass duct. The screws on the Fresh/Recirc vent had long ago decided to fall out and the flap was only held on the shaft (stop it...) buy luck and years of grime and decomposing foam.
Perfect time to overhaul it. I got some foam backed tape and a couple of new screws from bunnings and had at it. Removed a lot of the local flora from the fan as well.


I'm guessing the heater case won't be in a much better state but that is another job for another day...
So with the wiring all tucked up nice and neat under the dash, the mirrors plugged in and the fan case back in position it was time to power them up.
Rather than hack into the back of the fuse box or pick up 12v from another circuit I decided to do a bit of tidying up. I mounted a new fuse box in the boot and I'm using it to power all of my add on circuits. The Power mirrors, Window Timer and my boot light all get power from this fuse box now. If I ever strip this car down I will move it all into the main box under though for now this is a neat solution.


I'm pretty happy with where the car is at right now. There is still a list on the workshop wall but they are all "Nice to have's" not "Must have's" for a change.

[smy0003]

Never nice to find nasty surprises like rust when you're supposed to be doing something else. Look forward to hearing about the gluing process, though.

That Mazda shirt is awesome BTW, so many cheesy car themed clothes around, but you've nailed that shirt.

[Rolley]

smy0003 I'm just glad we don't have snow and salted roads here... Things can always be worse!

Over the weekend with the help of ljs18 we dropped a fresher engine into Rolley.
So the original 310k workhorse with the weepy head gasket is gone and in its place, a 170k Jap import motor with good compression and dry and dusty exterior. It is a short nose but everything is clean tight and in good order. ljs18 had been running it for the last couple of years without a blip.

So four and a bit hours later it was in. We started it up first turn of the key and besides a few small cooling system leaks that needed tightening It was away!



The first drive was interesting, there were noticeable flat spots in power delivery with a massive dead spot just before 4k/rpm when it opened up and roared.
So I checked all the basics. Timing, plug gap, wrapped the leads to ensure they weren't arcing. Nothing changed. I swapped in a different coil pack and set of leads, no change. Tried a known good AFM, no change.


Ljs18 and I chatted back and fourth about what it could be and decided to try swapping the ECU's as there wasn't much left it could be but we had both read they were basically identical and interchangeable. The JDM ECU fixed it immediately. Power was smooth and it pulled hard. Weird.
We tried a spare ADM ECM as well in case it was my original that had failed. Same problem returned.
So from our basic research on the early 1.6l there is differences between either ADM/JDM computers OR Short nose / Big nose computers.
Maybe it's the injectors, if we had just swapped long blocks the ECU's could have stayed as all electronic components would then of stayed with the original cars but as I ended up with the JDM injectors and inlet It was simpler to leave my ECU behind and go with the JDM one.

I'll give it a couple of weeks to make sure everything is doing what it's supposed to and then I'll throw my tappet cover on and swap in the last couple of cooling system hoses. I will also to grab the numbers off the ECU's and add them in here just for future reference...

[Rolley]

Also the other afternoon I decided to tidy up the garage a bit.
I've thrown some planks up in the ceiling and moved a ton of sh*t I'm hoarding up into the roof to free up some space for more sh*t...

As a result I finally cracked open the diff I blew to pieces days after getting the car. Remember it had no oil in it when I pulled it out but no signs of leaks either...
Most of the failed 1.6 diffs I've seen have cracked a bearing carrier and the gears have walked themselves apart. Mine on the other hand spat pinion teeth. There was only a couple of chipped teeth on the ring gear but the carrier was in perfect condition.
It went in the wheelie bin the rear housing got stashed in the roof. What use I'll ever have for it, I don't know.

[Jelzahar]

Awesome stuff Luke, can't wait to see Roley next time

[Rolley]

Was thinking about Swapping over my red wrinkle coat cam cover on to the new motor today.
But I wanted a change. So I dusted some blue over the red.
Then the wind got up and blew it down from my handy painting tree and I now need to get another can of blue to touch up the spots that came off...

[Lokiel]

Whoah, talk about coincidences, I posted this on MT.net earlier today about a guy's 10AE editon with a really beat-up engine bay:

"Wrinkle Black will do wonders for the rusty intercooler plumbing and rocker cover - if you can get Wrinkle Blue to match the car colour that'd be even "purdier" for the rocker cover." (see 2nd post http://www.miataturbo.net/meet-greet-40/uk-mazda-10th-edition-turbocharged-owner-87591/)

I thought it would look great and it does!

You've got paint in the oil cap thread though, might want to clean that out to prevent it flaking when you screw in the oil cap (or am I being too paranoid?).