gm's unhealthy obsession with mx5s - squeezing in a few last drives before Exo goes into hibernation

[gm]

it’s about 140 miles and i’ve never driven with a trailer - best to leave this one to the professionals i think. 

i just remembered the local lad who brought home the mx5 i broke to build the Exo, he’s come up with a good price, just need to figure when he can do it  

[loserone]

You couldn't frame an auto anyway.  I'd offer to help but the Duster won't to that.  I need a D3 / L322 really.

[gm]

3 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

If there's one thing that I've learned when buying cars that have a running fault, it's that the fault is never what the seller thinks it is.

quite - on checking the V5 they’d only had it since the start of september, i suspect he knew it was a dud and was happy to see the back of it. 

on the bright side, the bodywork is in good condition, i think it’s worth persevering with - we’ll make it a good car yet  

[gm]

Just now, loserone said:

You couldn't frame an auto anyway.  I'd offer to help but the Duster won't to that.  I need a D3 / L322 really.

i could pull the prop shaft i suppose but there’s been enough drama already !

[Cheezey]

27 minutes ago, gm said:

i know Robin, if it was his car i’d bought i doubt there would be a hint of trouble - he really looks after his cars. he once drove topless (meaning roof down AND topless) in his mx5 from lands end to john o’ groats for charity - a really nice guy !

this one came from Carron, and is now parked abandoned just around the corner from the sellers place. i’m working on transport quotes, one things for sure it’s not going to be cheap  

 

The last time I saw Robin driving an identical car it was stickered up for something. He gifted a friend his prized Opel Monza as he wasn’t using it. 
I thought I recognised the parking area. Was there an ambulance in the same parking area? 
If there is anything I can help with let me know. I’m pretty local. 

[gm]

collection booked for saturday - hopefully will make it home safe and i can get stuck into finding out what the hell is wrong with it  

 

[gm]

and it’s finally here  

mighty mx5 meet the shitey mx5

started first time when it was loaded and unloaded 

but wouldn’t restart once warmed up. not to worry, it will be fixed  

interior is quite good if you like multiple shades of beige !

big thanks again to @Lacquer Peel for keeping it safe for me and @320touring for coming to my rescue on wednesday 

 

[barefoot]

3 minutes ago, gm said:

if you like multiple shades of beige

Beige don't age.

[Zelandeth]

Shame it's been awkward, but on the plus side it looks solid, and rust is the enemy on an MX-5, anything else can be sorted.

Refusal to start when hot, crank/cam position sensors would be my first port of call without consulting the internet for wisdom on common trouble spots on these engines.

[hairnet]

pinto swap obvs

 

[Mrcento]

5 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Shame it's been awkward, but on the plus side it looks solid, and rust is the enemy on an MX-5, anything else can be sorted.

Refusal to start when hot, crank/cam position sensors would be my first port of call without consulting the internet for wisdom on common trouble spots on these engines.

My instant thought was crank sensor as well fwiw. Had exactly that on a few cars. (2x was the crank, 1x was a cam sensor on a Punto HGT) It's always the same, cuts out after while hot, won't restart for a while, cools down, starts like nothing every happened, gets hot, cuts out again.... rinse, repeat.

[EyesWeldedShut]

12 hours ago, barefoot said:

Beige don't age.

Beige + badermatic = Gifferdom beckons?
That's a lovely wee thing tbh well worth hanging onto - good luck on swapping the sensors (sprog's car here was similar - new sensor £20, happy days)

[gm]

the same pics taken in daylight 

i’ve not had time to have a proper look at shitey yet, been busy round at me mams house clearing out the garage for exo to hibernate in.

 

[gm]

a big bill for bodywork a couple of years ago 

[gm]

i managed to get a couple of hours to work on shitey this week 

started first time from cold but sounds like a bag of shite and is more than a little bit rich. once warmed up, it stubbornly refused to restart so time to figure out what’s going on

a closer look at the back box shows comedy levels of soot - i have a spear which will be fitted once the bugger is running right.

so first off, i removed the power steering belt as the pump is rattling like the proverbial skeleton in a biskit tin

in the process, i managed to wreck the radiator fan switch, clumsy get  

i was sort of convinced i was looking for a fueling issue but swapping fuel rails and injectors is a pain in the arse so i thought i’d have a go at the ignition side of things first 

with an identical (and importantly running) engine in the exo, i started swapping over known good bits.

the ignition amplifier was an easy swap so that came first - didn’t make a sod of difference  

i pulled the plugs which were predictably black as coal and also looked ancient  i gave them a clean up with a wire brush and stuck them back in, no luck.

how about the coils and leads ? another fairly easy swap - the leads on shitey weren’t in the best condition so i was hopeful - nope. still nothing.

then i spotted a very suspicious looking ground lead which fell apart in my hands. i excitedly made up a new one  

which didn’t help either  

but it looks good !

hands up who said it would be a sensor ? 

ten points to each of you - at the back of the block, buried under the coil pack is this wee feller

who has the important job of telling the ecu how much fuel to inject. and as soon as i unplugged him, the engine sprung to life  

yay, we’re finally getting somewhere 

the Exo has a brand new shiney one as seen here 

which meant i had a spare somewhere - which might just be in working condition, all i need to do is find it.

a quick scout round the garage and amazingly i found it, got it fitted, and the bugger now starts, idles, runs, drives, doesn’t stall, and restarts hot, cold, lukewarm and anything inbetween  

a new sensor is about £20, i’ll order one up and give the car a thorough service - i reckon this will turn out to be a good ‘un 

[gm]

the V5 arrived today - i think whoever registered this may have been in a hurry - i’ve seen a few imports in my time but this is taking the piss !

i called up my insurance to swap from mighty (black 1993 imported mx5) to shitey (green 1994 imported mx5) and was told computer says no ! 

@LightBulbFun is it worth trying to resolve this or am i likely wasting my time ?

[LightBulbFun]

15 minutes ago, gm said:

the V5 arrived today - i think whoever registered this may have been in a hurry - i’ve seen a few imports in my time but this is taking the piss !

i called up my insurance to swap from mighty (black 1993 imported mx5) to shitey (green 1994 imported mx5) and was told computer says no ! 

@LightBulbFun is it worth trying to resolve this or am i likely wasting my time ?

thats fucking hilarious, i'd love to know what the story behind that is, its literally registered as "NOT KNOWN" as in thats not an auto-generated computer string, but someone actually typed in "NOT KNOWN" into the make field, (in the same way KPU147J somehow had its body type end up in the make field so its registered as an "INVALID VEHICLE")

when you have a vehicle that really has no vehicle make recorded, it shows "Not Available" instead see XFR196 for an example of that

i'd love to know how yours never got questioned 

 

that is certainly something I would chase up and get fixed, besides the fact it just *looks* dodgy as hell

getting it fixed would make your life a *lot* easier when it came to stuff like insurance etc, as its currently registered, it has no make or model codes attatched to it at all

so no automated system will be able to find it, but if you can wrangle the DVLA to correctly register it under the the right Make and Model codes then it should start to work with the automated systems

 

 

you say its a Eunos rather than an MX5, do any of these in the list below match your vehicle exactly?

 

 

[JJ0063]

6 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

getting it fixed would make your life a *lot* easier when it came to stuff like insurance etc, as its currently registered, it has no make or model codes attatched to it at all

 

Once again, won’t make any difference to insurance as a Eunos doesn’t have an ABI code.

@gm this happens more often than people would probably think, I see it surprisingly often on things like ex military land rovers and particularly quite a few jap import Alphards and Elgrands

[Schaefft]

7 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

thats fucking hilarious, i'd love to know what the story behind that is, its literally registered as "NOT KNOWN" as in thats not an auto-generated computer string, but someone actually typed in "NOT KNOWN" into the make field, (in the same way KPU147J somehow had its body type end up in the make field so its registered as an "INVALID VEHICLE")

when you have a vehicle that really has no vehicle make recorded, it shows "Not Available" instead see XFR196 for an example of that

i'd love to know how yours never got questioned 

 

that is certainly something I would chase up and get fixed, besides the fact it just *looks* dodgy as hell

getting it fixed would make your life a *lot* easier when it came to stuff like insurance etc, as its currently registered, it has no make or model codes attatched to it at all

so no automated system will be able to find it, but if you can wrangle the DVLA to correctly register it under the the right Make and Model codes then it should start to work with the automated systems

 

 

you say its a Eunos rather than an MX5, do any of these in the list below match your vehicle exactly?

 

 

Woah, they have Euros 500 and 800 in their database? That means at least one of each must have existed in the UK before! Can you tell how many are still left?

Edit: At least 3 500 but no 800 according to howmanyleft. New life goal right there.

[motorpunk]

Lovely car. I really miss mine. BRG V spec for the win. Please keep it dry? These rot like bastards as you know.

[loserone]

1 hour ago, JJ0063 said:

Once again, won’t make any difference to insurance as a Eunos doesn’t have an ABI code.

Would it be possible that some are registered as Mazda MX-5s?

The Express is a pain in the arse to insure, I wouldn't be surprised if it were easier if it had been badged an Extra

[JJ0063]

16 minutes ago, loserone said:

Would it be possible that some are registered as Mazda MX-5s?

The Express is a pain in the arse to insure, I wouldn't be surprised if it were easier if it had been badged an Extra

Some yeah but you’d still have to declare as an import so makes no real odds 

[gm]

9 hours ago, gm said:

i called up my insurance to swap from mighty (black 1993 imported mx5) to shitey (green 1994 imported mx5) and was told computer says no ! 

so then why this ? she ran a quote with a different underwriter which came back at over £600, my current policy on the black one was less than £200  

i tried swapping my standard daily policy onto greeny and got another flat NO ! 

 

[LightBulbFun]

5 hours ago, JJ0063 said:

Once again, won’t make any difference to insurance as a Eunos doesn’t have an ABI code.

@gm this happens more often than people would probably think, I see it surprisingly often on things like ex military land rovers and particularly quite a few jap import Alphards and Elgrands

No I think they have ABI codes, I just pulled up an imported Eunos that was properly registered etc, and I was able to stick the reg in have it find it automatically, and get a quote on Compare the Market for it  (and that is with it declared as an import too)

but obviously @gm's one goes "nope not a clue" because as I said its not properly registered with the DVLA at all, so the automated computer systems wont have a clue how to handle it

nothing on that V5 actually tells you what the car is, apart from being a 2 Door coupe of some kind!, so its no wonder nothing wants to touch it LOL

[gm]

the vehicle smart app hasn’t a clue 

but the dvla mot checker has it as an mx5

all very strange. 

i might see about sending in photos of the vin, engine number, model badges etc and ask them to correct it 

i wonder what emission test it gets ?

[LightBulbFun]

9 minutes ago, gm said:

the vehicle smart app hasn’t a clue 

but the dvla mot checker has it as an mx5

all very strange. 

i might see about sending in photos of the vin, engine number, model badges etc and ask them to correct it 

i wonder what emission test it gets ?

the MOT check is a DVSA provided thing, not DVLA, and is a separate database from the DVLA, and anyone can enter any old information into the DVSA's database at MOT time (only the vehicle enquiry service is DVLA based)

its first used/declared manufactured 1994 so emissions will be based on that, I think there is some leeway for imports, where as domestic cars had to have a Cat from 1992 onwards, I think imports had a bit more grace period in that regard, something worth double checking on however

 

 

[gm]

i’m not sure - i have a spare manual box sitting in my garage so wouldn’t need much to make a winter project. but i’d like to use it as an auto for a while, just to see how much it changes the character of the car. 

if i can get the bugger insured that is !

[gm]

more fettling for shitey - the drivers side wiper had a bit of a floppy shaft ! causing  it to catch on the edge of bonnet 

the nut succumbed to a drop of wd and brute force but the arm was solid on the shaft

some kind of puller required then. except i’m impatient (and tight) 

time to break out the tools 

it ain’t pretty but it might just work

great success !

floppy shaft removed

and replaced with one i kept from the exo donor 

 

[gm]

as i forgot to sorn the Exo and the sun was out, it seemed rude not to go for a hoon  

i stopped at Lumley Castle for pretty pictures

then did some shopping 

 

[Tickman]

1 hour ago, gm said:

 

it ain’t pretty but it might just work

 

Excellent work