Spoiler alert! The car went for a drive
Her natural habitat, the E85 watering holeLet's roll back a little ways. A few months ago I noticed that both front shocks were leaking again after only having just been serviced. Frustrated I swapped back to the OEM shocks and sent the offending fronts off to be repaired again. This time they had to replace the centre shaft which had been dented and was allowing oil to leak. I only had to pay for the new parts as this should have been picked up on the original service.
This dent is the result of the shock bending as it moves through its range of motion, and then as it compresses while it's bent it can dent the shaft. To prevent this happening again I picked up some Supermiata Xida Co-axial top hats. These swap out the fixed top had for one what will allow the shaft to tilt where it meets the top hat, allowing the shaft to stay straight and not bend. The downside is apparently a little more noise.
Picture dump!
The coaxial top hat components
The old parts being replaced
The underside exposed
Spring locator and conical bearing
Topside
Underside comparisonThat last photo shows the functional difference. The conical bearing allows the spring and the shaft to tilt in relation to the top hat. But it's a solid bearing mount, no rubber bushings so there could be more vibration and noise.
I also picked up some new torrington bearings as mine had rusted a bit and no longer allowed the springs to rotate as freely, just another step taken to ensure the shocks can do their job without any hindrance.
Rust old torrington's vs clean new ones. The photo doesn't really show the difference, but the old ones wouldn't glide very smoothly, the new ones are butterThe freshly rebuilt shocks had to go in while the car was up in the air for the timing belt, so after getting the car started this was the next step. I'm well practiced at the process by now so it went quite painlessly. Until I went to fit the sway bar. Then I started swearing again.
First, the 1.125" Racing Beat sway bar will no longer manoeuvre into position with the new sway bar braces in place, they just take up a little too much space to reduce the angles. I needed to remove the lower radiator hose, which was fine as I needed to drain the final flush and re-fill with a coolant mix.
Then the bolts for the sway just wouldn't quite line up nicely into the bracket. Especially that bastard right above the cold side intercooler piping. In fact, that bolt hole turned out to be slightly threaded! I had to remove the sway bar brace, and finally bit the bullet and pulled the IC piping out. Ran a tap down the brace, and die over every bolt, then refit the brace and sway bar, and finally put the IC pipe back in.
The bolt to the left is the trouble maker, the IC pipe loop is right under it and getting a socket on the bolt is impossibleAnd lastly, I can no longer then the bar on the soft setting. It looks like the geometry of the new braces are slightly different to the OEM, and the ends of the bar are now closer to the shock, and the endlinks have very very little clearance to the shocks on the soft holes. Even the sway bar ends are a little close and may need to be ground down for additional clearance.
NopeBut then all was done. Just fill the rad and burp, fit the undertray and fender liners, quick height adjustment to the Xidas. Then on Saturday I took it for a test drive to get lunch and some fresh E85. It wasn't much of a performance/handling drive, but up and down a main drag with traffic and lights etc, she behaved perfectly. Fans cycled, the engine didn't overheat, no leaks, no scary noises. And it was a lot of fun to be back in the MX-5!
Yay!
That was a relief. Looks like I didn't put the key in the wrong way, but it certainly was a problem. It had bound up on something and got fully munted! 
It was too hot, too much effort, and overall a result worth celebrating.
