What have you done today/recently to your 5?

Rolley · Postby **Rolley** » Tue May 30, 2017 10:35 pm

Picked up a Ctek MXS 5.0 maintenance charger and comfort connect charge indicator.
My shifts have changed at work and I don't get to drive him as often as I used to because of crappy parking. The last stint as garage furniture was three weeks and the alarm had drained the battery so when I did finally get a chance to take him for a drive it took another half an hour to jump start off the daily...

This little charger is the ducks nuts though. It's bought the battery back to life and I can either leave it plugged in all the time or the comfort connect has battery condition lights on it so I can keep an eye on it and just top up / condition it as nesissary. Both options are simple enough with it hard wired to the battery and the quick connect.

Postby **Okibi** » Wed May 31, 2017 2:37 am

I have this and it's fantastic, I grabbed a few extra quick connects for different cars.

3gress · Postby **3gress** » Thu Jun 01, 2017 4:05 am

Depowered, painted and reassembled my later model steering rack with new miataroadster delrin bushes and depowered rack plug kit, also new bearings and O-ring seals where able.

Quite happy with the result, the rack now operates smoothly through it's range of motion.
I considered having the pinion welded but figured i could live with the small amount of play after running a similar depowered rack in my previous mazda build.

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Thu Jun 01, 2017 7:58 am

3gress wrote:Depowered, painted and reassembled my later model steering rack with new miataroadster delrin bushes and depowered rack plug kit, also new bearings and O-ring seals where able.

Very nice. This is on my one-day list of things to do. Can you elaborate on the the differences between the welded pinion and unwelded? You say it gives a little more play, do you mean a little dead spot in the steering?

3gress · Postby **3gress** » Thu Jun 01, 2017 8:44 am

There is a barely noticable flex in the steering as you turn in. I found it reduces fatigue in the hands and arms over rough surfaces reducing the shock being transmitted through the steering gear up into the wheel without losing feedback or control. After using manual racks and powered racks in different mazdas i now find power steering too twitchy, with it far too easy to have the rear end step out if being overzealous flinging the wheel about when trying to conrol oversteer, or controlling rear end wiggle under braking.
Non powered racks on the other hand have you twisting your arms in knots due to the rack and pinion ratio. Carpark navigation requires slightly more effort but we don't own these cars to swat around those type of places do we!?

3gress · Postby **3gress** » Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:58 pm

Addendum to above, i had a mate spend ages trying to weld a pinion for me to a standard he was prepared to hand over for fitting to my car. The first pinion warped ever so slightly causing it to bind enough to relegate it to the bin. The second pinion took ages to source with spline count and pitch variations being discovered even within the same ratio steering rack type. He found that slowly heating the pinion up in a kiln then welding short beads on opposite sides helped avoid warping and then slowly bringing the heat down over several hours worked. This saved the heat treated pinion from losing it's temper apparently. I don't know anything about pro welding practises but my mate ( an extensively qualified superintendent working on mine sites) was satisfied it was not going to catastrophically fail.
Even at mates rates it wasn't cheap and ultimately i could barely notice the difference between the welded and non welded versions.
I guess if you're running spherical bearing suspension and looking for absolute track warrior anologue feedback it may be worth pursuing but for my street car I'm content with the minute amount of play.

ManiacLachy · Postby **ManiacLachy** » Thu Jun 01, 2017 3:28 pm

Thanks for the information, very interesting! I'm a ways off doing this yet, but like I say it's on my one-day list and I'll keep all of this in mind.

dielle · Postby **dielle** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:44 pm

Added red pinstripes all round :mrgreen:

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lucmor444 · Postby **lucmor444** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 6:10 pm

Fitted Mitsubishi Eclipse air vents. I will be installing my AFR gauge into the left hand centre vent.

right vent.JPG

centre vents.JPG

Postby **Okibi** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 9:21 pm

Looks good, is the chrome bit something you've added ?

lucmor444 · Postby **lucmor444** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 10:11 pm

Okibi wrote:Looks good, is the chrome bit something you've added ?

They are the brushed s/s vent rings from Jass Performance. Not quite up to Revlimiter's Sharka's vent rings but I am happy with them.

lucmor444 · Postby **lucmor444** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 5:03 pm

Swapped over my glove box as the original had a hole drilled through on the top left hand side. Lined it with velvet for the heck of it.

glovebox.JPG

Postby **Okibi** » Tue Jun 13, 2017 1:57 am

I put adhesive foam on the inside of most of my glove boxes and console pockets, it protects them and reduces rattles.

LiteIsRite · Postby **LiteIsRite** » Sat Jun 17, 2017 7:55 pm

Replaced both seat belt stalks, the clutch & brake pedal rubbers, and windscreen washer tubing. On that last one, here's a hot tip - don't waste your time trying to get the tubing from Autocheap / Superbarn. Look for air line tubing in the aquarium section of your local pet store.