billybunters - from a bmw z4 to a mx5 se

[Danny]

[quote="billybunter"]

...although the Datsun 2000 is a close one. a 200 kph 2 litre in 69 was faster than a 6 pot and equal to a ford V8...

I had one of those too back in the early 70's. So much fun and a wolf in sheep's clothing. One of those cars you could pick your fights with and surprise a lot of other hi-po cars.

Back then you could also get away with driving over 100mph as long as you were sensible where you did it and kept a watch out for police. I did a trip from Melbourne to Adelaide in a little over 7 hours, mostly cruising around 110mph.

The double Solex carbs and non-oem sports exhaust sounded right too. I still think the roar of double Webers or equiv. on a high revving four is one of the best motor sounds around.

[billybunter]

well I was young and foolish and only 40 I think when I had the Datsun 2000 sports -i had to stripe it I think it was about the same time or close when we converted the mustang from left to right and striped it too. we did that switch in my garage even got away on the engineer report too but it was early '90's

I have started the rub back on the car so there is absolutely no going back now - the white car is history! I have no matching paint and seeing it was a base colour with no code I tried two other base paints -same brand and no match. the front was a mismatch anyway and more so now.

sure I could have took it to a pro painter -but I didn't/won't I am not paying them regardless of how good they are. do they come and buy birds off me....NO!

anyway doesn't matter if you tune in to view or not but I know you will what I can tell you is whatever buy yourself some OOMPH from bunning to get ride of stains and gum deposits on your car and you won't go wrong.

I tried the environmentally friendly stuff - rubbish doesn't work and by the time I wait 20 years for it to do the job I will be 84 years gone and the paint would have gone up in price - thinners gone up too and even i may have gone either up or down so time is against me. but this stuff is good and I've used it many times over...........and the OOMPH is pretty good too~

[KevGoat]

So RIP white SE

[speed]

That orange mx is similar to the ford paint I mentioned.
Really like the orange and black.
Anyways, Billy what colour have you decided on?

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[billybunter]

i'd say titanium with blackout or it may even have an orange side stripe similar to the old with mazdaspeed miata turbo 265 which would indicate its top speed

how it got to titanium is twofold. first I always liked gun metal grey e type jaguars but that's out of the question and the wife saw those 3 colours I painted on the front bar and said - your not bored again are you

so I replied I was just seeing how that nice dark grey would look on the car. the colour you always liked. so she took a look and bye passed the other colours and said -I like that paint it!

afterwards she mentioned she didn't recall ever saying she liked dark grey cars. I replied that's why I put the colour on the front bar -just in case you did

[billybunter]

Friday is always a good day for a rub so today - I decided to give the car a work out instead our augh for the day.......well not really my day is always a affair

so as much as I like the white knight the time has come for the de-throwing and onto a new chapter in it's life.

I decided to start right front guard and first off I have to remove all the clear coat with 400 wet/dry sandpaper. I've mentioned it before and I will again NORTON is the best I've used or don't use any........just try your fingernails instead. at the moment I only plan to remove the very top coat of clear to the white base as there is a lot of work to do and I plan to go over it more thorough on the next run.

prior to starting I had to remove my roadster turbo emblems which were standard on the white Japanese SE and 6 years back cost me $100 a pop


even after 6 years the side stripes were still on good and hard and I had to use the wives trusty old hairdryer to warm them up a bit to get them all off. afterwards you could still see the word mazdaspeed in the white paint

got the oomph out and got rid of that pretty quick good stuff!

[billybunter]

by the end of today I had given it a pretty good work out

[billybunter]

...and how it started this morning or close to it

[Nevyn72]

This is what Lava Orange is supposed to look like.

[billybunter]

it appears my colour could be a bit out but the mixer

if you have not done it to remove the door mirrors is pretty straight forward

1. grab hold of the outside mirror and give it a brisk turn and it will lock in position and expose the two removal bolts. don't touch them yet
2, go into the cabin and pull the side trim. 2 screws on the armrest and one on the door release plus 3 holding type plastic stays then grab either side of panel pull out and up. I do this with the window positioned fully up.
3. its impossible to remove the mirror harness without lifting the panel unless you just cut the harness and forget about it ever working again. here is where the harness is attached to the door via a connector. I used a long nose pliers to grab hold and push in to release it.
4. to remove the connecter at times can be a real pita. I usually remove the door speaker pull it out through the hole and press with fingers right on the very tip of the connecter - see screwdriver location and it will release immediately. in other spots a real pita
5 back outside undo the bolts and pull the mirror off and the harness out.

that's about it and follow in reverse to install

[billybunter]

right side door clean up today so after removing a bit of the hardware I taped up the door sill holes and gave the hole area a brush with grease and wax remover then a good wipe down. followed by a 400 wet dry rub sandpaper rub.

took a fair while to do but its a bit of a tight area to work but I have no intentions of removing the doors as i'd have to put them back on again and this idea work fine the first time anyway

[billybunter]

after that it was around to the rear of the car to remove the boot lid plus the boot liner and a bit of other stuff and finally off with the rear bar

[billybunter]

if you ever have to remove the rear bar apart from the bolts underneath and inside the rear wheel liner -there is also two hidden bolts same area and right at the very top further inside the liner. one bolt per side.

plus the two which hold the number plate in position

[billybunter]

I often talk about NORTON sandpaper and why I think its the best. when working today on this rear section sanding it back with 400 wet/dry you can see all the contours I was following in the metal.

best about this paper it can handle the task well and very rarely rips or falls apart like the other stuff plus how's this after rubbing out the panel I could scrunch it up into a ball and it still kept it shape and never fell apart

[billybunter]

removed the power aerial and the chrome gas tank lid. underneath was absolutely caked in grease grime and red dirt from my previous two top end runs. plan to clean it out tomorrow.

used the hairdryer again to help get the side stripes off so I can get into rubbing back the passenger side tomorrow