Lachstock and Four Turbo Charged Cylinders ['04 NB SE]

[ManiacLachy]

I’m interested in the steering wheel... not as tall as you , but I’ll be looking into that as well as what you done with the Shorty console mate!

The gap between the legs and the wheel is more to do with thick legs than it is height, IMO. I was amazed at the room a friend had in my car, but his legs are a lot thinner than mine. Even though I can't squat right now, my legs are still moderately large. So I can believe you'd have the same problem. Give the shim mod a go if you only need a touch more space. A smaller diameter steering wheel will be the best thing though.

The shorty console is good, but not cheap. Happy to chat about it next time I see you (won't be this weekend unfortunately).

[Daffy]

I’m interested in the steering wheel... not as tall as you , but I’ll be looking into that as well as what you done with the Shorty console mate!

The gap between the legs and the wheel is more to do with thick legs than it is height, IMO. I was amazed at the room a friend had in my car, but his legs are a lot thinner than mine. Even though I can't squat right now, my legs are still moderately large. So I can believe you'd have the same problem. Give the shim mod a go if you only need a touch more space. A smaller diameter steering wheel will be the best thing though.

The shorty console is good, but not cheap. Happy to chat about it next time I see you (won't be this weekend unfortunately).

Will talk soon

[speed]

Some nice fixes there!

I'd like to lift my wheel up as much as possible, so I can see the top of the guages better. That combined with a much lower seat.

NA drivers like me don't even know what a fuel light is... such luxuries




Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[ManiacLachy]

I got the car back from the folks at Auto+ yesterday afternoon. The verdict was that the housing on the back of the block which seats the RMS had cracked. Doesn't seem like this is a common issue, Dann had never heard of it before.

Luckily a shop like Auto+ has lots of spares around so they replaced the housing, the "half moon seal" (I think that's a sump seal?) and the rear main seal while they were in there. Hopefully that will be the end of my oil leak issues.


Back of the block - note the housing appears to have some tooling marks on the left, but the crack was at the bottom

Oh, and here's a shot of my cup holder to go along with my shorty console. It's easily reachable from the drivers seat, and doesn't interfere much with the passenger's leg room. It's easy enough to remove if need be, it's just a slip fit, but I plan to better secure it with some velcro.


Form and function! (I should better tuck those wires up out of sight)

[KevGoat]

...will you and Lokiel PLEASE!! stop posting images of the KGWorks fascia panel .........

[ManiacLachy]

You know you need it. Your car isn't complete without it. You know what you must do!

[KevGoat]

You know you need it. Your car isn't complete without it. You know what you must do!

AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!! .... stop it !!!!!!!

... have been perusing the various sites with the panel still available for the past few weeks trying to decide to buy one or not ... that said, I'm actually really happy with how mine looks "OEM" but different ....

Oh dear ...

[Lokiel]

Don't kid yourself KevGoat, we all know how this is going to end

[KevGoat]

It's a conspiracy ....

Are there any differences on this panel in the text for the warning lights for Aus to US??

[ManiacLachy]

Hi all!

I've just returned from a little holiday to Europe for 10 days, and though it pails in comparison to Daffy's here's some highlights.

We went to Bruges, Belgium (maybe you saw the movie In Bruges?), Cologne, Germany and Amsterdam, Netherlands with a few days in each spot. We didn't go on a tour, just a little jaunt by ourselves.


In Bruges - starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason, a good dark comedy if that's your thing

My partner was already in Amsterdam having been over for a week or so already with Surf Lifesaving Australia as a team manager, and I flew up the day that trip was heading home so we could have our little holiday. We rented a car and drove south to a little area between the Hague and Amsterdam, only a half hour drive but I didn't feel like going much further after a solid 24 hours of flying. We got a little Renault Clio, shifting right handed was a little odd, but all in all it wasn't too bad.

I have to say, the highways there are pretty good! Mostly only 2 lanes, they all interconnect without needing to get off one to get on another, everyone keeps in the slow lane unless passing, well signed, no speed cameras but no body acting the fool. But soooo many trucks everywhere, just in big convoys, I was amazed at how many trucks are on the roads there.

The next day we continued on to Bruges, but first we stopped at the Louwman Car museum (https://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/). My god, this is an excellent museum! I was expecting a few cars in a shed, this place was massive and really well done. Cars from the dawn of motoring through to the 60s/70s, all with a little story and many are un-restored with original paint and leather, and more than a few are last known examples!


This little gem didn't even make the cut, it was stuck down in the basement along with a Delorean


Only the best!


MX-5 drivers can relate! Some artwork on the wall

Bruges was nice, it's a small village known to be the best preserved medieval village still standing. We did a tour of a brewery (with free samples), went up the clock tower and just generally wandered around enjoying the sights.


The belltower


The view from the belltower


The view of the belltower from the brewery

Then on to Cologne, for no real reason other than it was close, only a 3 hour drive, and why not? Cologne sits on the Rhine river and has a massive Gothic cathedral. We went to the Christmas markets, had some beers and spiced wine, enjoyed some good German food.


Cologne from across the river - The cathedral spires are on the right

We caught the train back to Amsterdam, and just as well because it started snowing quite heavily and I didn't want to be in that little Clio in icy conditions! Amsterdam was great, we had an apartment in the east of the city in a fairly hipster neighbourhood. Public transport was great. We went to a few museums, more good food and beer. Didn't go to the Red Light district, or sample their "coffee bars". Beautiful city and probably my favourite of the trip. It really snowed hard while we were there, which was great for my partner because she'd never experienced real snow before.


Windmill near our hotel, with some ugly ginger beard in the way!


Pretty shot at dawn (8am) while on the hunt for coffee


Amsterdam canals - it's just a pretty city I'm telling you!

And now I'm home! Got a few updates to give on the car in the coming days, but that'll do for now.

[Daffy]

Some great pictures mate! From those you can really see the difference from summer to winter in Amsterdam- looks amazing in the snow. We didn’t get to the Louwman car museum, but it looks like a must do next time. We didn’t get to see much of Belgium apart from riding through it on the train into France! Cologne reminded me of Milan, everyone well dressed very cosmopolitan! How good is that part of the world

[ManiacLachy]

Time for a slightly overdue update on the car.

She's been fighting back lately. So in the last car related update Auto+ fixed the housing and crescent seal on the engine, but then a few days later when I went to adjust my door (more below)...


She's wet the bed!

Argh, so back to Auto+, Jeff took a look determined something wasn't fitted correctly, tested it, all looked good. But by now I was developing trust issues with the car and a day or two later oil was everywhere again! This time it was the day before I was set to go on my holiday. So I dropped it back to Auto+ on Saturday morning and asked them to look at it while I was away.

When I got back Jeff explained there was a tiny nick in the crank shaft that the RMS was sitting over, and once the crank was spinning for a while it would shred the seal and vital oil would go everywhere. They've pushed the seal slightly further in and so far no more leaks!

So the gear box has been out 4 times in 3 months! But Jeff and Auto+ have been very good about it and these things can happen, this isn't a Camry and I haven't exactly left it as Mazda designed it.

The next day the battery was dead (well, flat - a jump quickly revived it)


Clear!

For a long time my driver's side door has sat a little low, and the rear lower corner has stuck out a little bit. Most people wouldn't notice it, but it's been driving me nuts for about 2 years! I finally decided to do something about it, what I thought would be a 5 minute job adjusting the catch ended up taking most of the day and required a fender removal!


More work than I was planning, but it got the job done!

I had to access the hinge bolts. There are 4 bolts to each hinge, two bolts you can access with the door open where they bolt to the door by loosening these you could adjust the door in and out from the car. The other two are behind the front fender, and these allow you to adjust the door up and down along the length of the car. I needed to tilt the door up at the rear which meant I needed the bolts behind the fender.

I didn't take too many photos here, but basically I removed the fender. I read a comment from Lokiel somewhere that you need to remove the bumper, but while there are some hard to reach bolts, but with the right tools and a little dexterity you can get them all and leave the bumper in place. The worst is those stupid trim clips in the wheel well! Also, so much dirt and crap is in the lower part of the fender near the pinch weld! I ended up cleaning out the passenger side as well after seeing the compost heap that fell out of the driver's side!

Right to adjust the door I put a jack under the door to hold it in place, then loosed both bolts on the lower hinge and only one bolt on the top hinge, this will keep the top of the door in place, but allow the rear to swivel up and down. Then jacked the rear end of the door up a little, tightened the hinge bolts and closed the door to check the alignment. Then repeat as necessary. Once I was happy everything went back together, except for one fender bolt for which I couldn't find a home until later. The door sits much nicer now, though isn't closing quite as well as I'd like, might need to revisit it one day.

A week or so later I went for an excellent drive with some friends up Mt Mee, then over to Belmont Range and up to Malaney, really lovely day, great drive!


One of these things is not like the other

Then last weekend I got rear ended


Bump!

Only minor damage, more of an inconvenience to have to get it fixed than anything else.

And now we're up to date!

[Lokiel]

When I did my Frog Arms, I spent a LOT of time getting the doors aligned right.
I can be anal at times and knew it would "bug the shiite" out of me if I didn't get them right so I took the time to get them right.

I assume that you re-did your door bushings too?
Being delrin, they wont "mould" to the new alignment and may actually be causing the door to not look right when shut.

When I heard you got rear ended I cringed a LOT, thankfully the damage only looks superficial.
Check the bumper's molded clips though, one or more may have sheared off, preventing it from clipping in properly.

If you do need to replace it, MSM/SE bumpers can be hard to find so consider replacing it with a normal NB bumper and give it a mild bumper cut to eliminate "the parachute" effect and improve track times (you cant do that with the MSM/SE rear bumper because it has the additional moulded lip and faux diffuser (this always makes me groan, it's meant to look like a diffuser but the whole rear bumper actually catches air).
It won't look like an MSM/SE rear bumper any more but it will be better.

[Lokiel]

It's a conspiracy ....

Are there any differences on this panel in the text for the warning lights for Aus to US??

Missed this question when asked originally so answering it now:

No, the text on the panel is the same for Aus and US - hence the word "GAS" instead of "Petrol" or "Fuel".
The Warning lights are in the correct spots (ie. labels are correct).

[ManiacLachy]

When I did my Frog Arms, I spent a LOT of time getting the doors aligned right.
I can be anal at times and knew it would "bug the shiite" out of me if I didn't get them right so I took the time to get them right.

I assume that you re-did your door bushings too?
Being delrin, they wont "mould" to the new alignment and may actually be causing the door to not look right when shut.

When I heard you got rear ended I cringed a LOT, thankfully the damage only looks superficial.
Check the bumper's molded clips though, one or more may have sheared off, preventing it from clipping in properly.

If you do need to replace it, MSM/SE bumpers can be hard to find so consider replacing it with a normal NB bumper and give it a mild bumper cut to eliminate "the parachute" effect and improve track times (you cant do that with the MSM/SE rear bumper because it has the additional moulded lip and faux diffuser (this always makes me groan, it's meant to look like a diffuser but the whole rear bumper actually catches air).
It won't look like an MSM/SE rear bumper any more but it will be better.

You can be anal? Yeah, I would have like to spend a little more time getting it spot on, but the day was running out and I needed it back together the next day. I did adjust the delrin blocks, the issue is the catch ring is bumping the edge of the latch housing when the door closes. I've tried massaging things, but it still rubs and the doors simply need a little force to close them (nothing major). I'm thinking one day I'll pick up some fender braces like the Frog Arms (but something else as Boss Frog is dead), and I'll be back in there then to do the alignment.

The damage is pretty minor, some cracked paint, some paint transfer. Hopefully it'll pop back in but as it's going in I didn't want to touch it. I did however remove my "bear hook". I hope they don't attempt to replace the bumper! Though if they did I'd get the Carbon Miata Mazdaspeed rear trim and fit that to retain the look. https://www.carbonmiata.com/shop/mazda-mx-5/rear-mazdaspeed-lip/