From Mexie ... to MXSE ...

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 11:12 pm

So as mentioned by Nevyn and shown in my photos, the HVAC will not match the rest of the instruments once these are changed to blue lighting. Sitting in the car at night, it's not that bad with the HVAC in red and the rest blue. There are red lights and gauge needles around the dash that actually balance it a bit. But there's this mod bug that just niggles away that this is not good enough ... so onto the internet ...

Nev had already shown his IL dials, but I wanted to remain with the black dials and they don't have these with blue masks. After a couple of nights on the laptop, I found these from RS Products in Japan ...

.. and importantly these also come with full JDM Certification :lol:

...

I also picked up another HVAC fascia from Ray (hillsarecalling) who generously gave me one so that I could change the dials over without messing my own panel up, just in case I needed to refit it if I completely flucked this up :roll:

Fitting the new dials wasn't too difficult, just carefully pushed out the originals ...

then with a small amount of adhesive carefully placed the new ones in position ...

Allowed them to set overnight, then next day changed the panels over in the car and also replaced the two clear bulbs with blue T5 LED's ...

and lights, camera, action ......

Pretty pleased with the result ....

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 10:31 am

Nice work mate! :mrgreen:

The IL one better suited my purposes as all my gauges had the silver faces to match the instrument cluster.....

The RS ones have the advantage that the colour is determined by the globe behind, the IL ones are colour specific with a white backlight, so less flexible.

There is one other advantage of the IL ones though, they have much cooler graphics! :wink:

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:24 pm

Those are excellent Kev, very nice :beer:

smy0003 · Postby **smy0003** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 2:52 pm

Those are fantastic!
You wouldn't even know if you weren't an mx5 nut.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:09 pm

Thanks guys.

Still a bit of a work in progress and I'll just drop this here for now ...

It's all Nevyn and Lokiel's fault ... :mrgreen:

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 9:15 pm

Yep, those chrome rims really do finish it off nicely don't they...... :wink:

Lokiel · Postby **Lokiel** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 10:35 pm

KevGoat wrote:Thanks guys.

Still a bit of a work in progress and I'll just drop this here for now ...

It's all Nevyn and Lokiel's fault ...

Old-school/retro class - love it (doesn't matter how much it costs when it looks this good).

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:53 pm

Horrible weather outside so time to update ...

As shown in my earlier post, I decided to pick up some chrome HVAC and Vintage Style Instrument Rings from MX5Parts (UK) during their discount weekend. As usual, the snowball keeps rolling ...

The description for the Vintage Style Rings is for MK2 and doesn't mention MK2.5. This turned out to be accurate :roll:

When I took the two factory silver rings from the SE front panel, there's an extra plastic ring molded in that has clip holes around it and this stops the new chrome rings fitting. I even found the smaller dial rings would not fit in place properly. So after trying a few ideas, I went to eBay and searched out a cheap(ish) NB8A instrument panel and purchased that. Once that arrived, all the rings fitted easily on this fascia. I used some Permatex Black Silicone to hold all the rings in place rather than glue, this way I can cleanly remove them should I wish to. Put the two panels aside overnight to allow good drying, then next day set about changing the HVAC and Instrument fascia's. That part at least was straight forward :lol:

So photos ...

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:58 pm

... and when these showed up in a Supercheap email I just had to grab one ...

bruce · Postby **bruce** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 4:02 pm

The crotcheted blanket in the background says it all ! Grandad!

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 4:54 pm

Yup

... as of last January when our oldest son got married, am now a proud step Grandad :wink:

Now I've typed enough ... need to go have a Grandpa Nap ......

Lokiel · Postby **Lokiel** » Sun Oct 02, 2016 1:00 pm

Now you NEED these: http://www.topmiata.com/shop/needle-caps/

Mmmmm, billet aluminium (NOT chromed plastic)

Go on, you know you want to, it'll just keep gnawing at the back of your mind until you do.

KevGoat · Postby **KevGoat** » Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:48 pm

Umm yeah thanks Lokiel

... anyways ... read on Sir ...

... went for a drive with the wife in the SE today and this was the first time she'd seen the changes to the dash - and she liked it! So a win there

We stop off for some lunch at one of our favourite cafes and while there I get the notification on my phone of Lokiel's post ... and my wife asks what I'm smiling at and I explain it to her ... She laughs and asks what are needle caps and I explain and she answers "Oh ok, yeah, they'd really finish it off nicely, you should get them" :shock:

Have I mentioned how much I love my wife ... :mrgreen: