Fitted my new wheels and tyres back on the car :-)
Fitted the old number plates and went out for a test drive with my Dad driving. Despite lots of bits missing from the car, it is drivable and legal. It went perfectly, though the handbrake warning light is staying on for some reason.
Taken on the quay next to Woodbridge Tide Mill. I've fitted the new number plate bracket and used the old plate for now but, I've ordered new plates to go on the car and a standard 'short' plate will go on the front.
Ipswich Waterfront.
Ipswich Waterfront.
Ordered some new door to window strips. With everything else looking so shiny and new the old ones would really let the car down. They are cracked and broken in places.
Visited Retro & Modern Automotive Ltd (was Suffolk Mazda) today to get some new, black interior parts for Yoko. Now have new dash parts, door cards and the speaker covers.
Also have this new instrument binnacle and a new centre console.
Phoned around to see if anyone would re-gas my air-conditioning but it is an R12 gas system and no one in the UK will touch them these days :-(
Busy day today, fitting new interior to Yoko. First job was to strip the console, to enable the new crash pads to be fitted. The hardest but is getting the air vents out but there are some good guides on Youtube. They are basically yanked out by threading a rope/cord through them, as they are held in place by two strong clips.
The new crash pads are held in with silicon sealant and clips. The old sealant all has to be removed first, then fitting the new ones is quite easy.
Fitting the "tombstone" was next. I then re-fitted the air vents. I couldn't go any further as we noticed the gear shift boots were in pieces.
Family drive up to Orford this afternoon in convoy with my Mum and sister, driving her car. My car is a lot louder :-)
Parked up on Orford Quay. My car next to my sister's.
Stopped off at Orford Castle whilst we were close by :-)
My new number plates arrived today.
The new outer and inner gear lever boots arrived from MX5 Parts today. When we took off the old centre console we discovered that both rubber boots had crumbled away. The kit also includes a new nylon cup for the gear lever. We did the trip up to Orford yesterday with the old parts missing and a lot of hot air comes into the cockpit with this missing.
The new inner gear shift/lever boot fitted. Before this went in the nylon bush was changed. There was a bit of wear/slack on the old one and replacing this has improved both the directness and feel of the gear shifts.
The outer boot was then changed. This makes the car so much quieter to drive and no more hot air blasting into the cabin :-)
The new door seal was fitted on the left hand side. This looks just so much better than the old seals that were on the car.
And a new door window seal on the right hand side.
The next job was to refit the door moisture barrier before the new door cards were fitted. 5mm dounble-sided tape was run around the edge of of the door first.
Some plastic was roughly taped in place and the hardware fed through holes made, where required.
The plastic was then stuck by slowly pulling away the tape cover and finally it was all trimmed to tidy it up.
Then we could fit the door card, speaker cover and handle :-)
Investigation into the brake warning light showed that the brake fluid level was the culprit. Despite being above the minimum mark, the sensor had triggered. Topping up the fluid level solved the issue :-)
With the brake warning light issue resolved, I could also fit the centre console.
MOT preparation and a test drive. Unbelievably, the right headlight failed on the way home :-( It was the original sealed unit. The left side is a newer sealed unit. Ordered two new headlights that use H4 bulbs from MX5 Parts.
As expected, Yoko failed her MOT today. It was only because the broken headlight though :-)
The main aim of today was to progress fitting the new soft-top as far as possible. It was the hottest day of theyear so far, so we had a tent up over the car, to protect us from the sun. Even so, it was seriously hot work!
We started by removing the old soft-top from the frame and the seals and seal channels. The frame was then cleaned up and a few bits of rust treated.
Whilst we were waiting for the soft-top frame to dry, we fitted the front lip spoiler. This is held in place with stainless-steel bolts.
We made reasonable progress on fitting the frame back to the car and starting the fitment of the new soft-top. The instructions provided were not super clear but we took loads of photos as we took the old one off, to help with fitting the new one.
At 3:30pm the new headlights turned up so I quickly replaced the broken one and we drove the car back to the MOT test centre to get the MOT retest done before the garage closed. We fitted the other new one when we got back home. These headlights are not sealed units and use an H4 bulb. They also have a much brighter and better shaped beam pattern.
Spent this morning finishing the fitting of the soft-top. Luckily we had a really hot sunny day, so we parked the rear of the car facing south and waited for the soft-top to heat up and soften. Even so, there was no way we could get it too close, it was just too tight. We undid the header rail clamps and mounted them further back using a single bolt hole, to try and bridge the gap.
Even this didn't work though :-( We simply couldn't get enough pressure on the soft top to close it. In the end we attached to luggage straps to the frame and used our feet to push it down and forward, so then we could do up the (moved) clamps. We then left it in the sun for a few hours. The roof was literally as tight as a drum!
A bit later we undid the soft-top and put the catches back properly with two bolts on each side. Using the straps again, we managed to close it properly for the first time.
Later in the afternoon we went for a test drive around Felixstowe Ferry and the seafront, to see how well the soft-top worked. We also tested it with the rear window unzipped. The drive home was done with the roof down. Once back home, we still couldn't do the soft-top up without using the straps to provide extra weight on it but it was much easier to do up the catches. The rain finally arrived in Suffolk. For the rest of the weekend the car was left with the roof up in the garage.
Completed the rest of the designs for the vinyl graphics to go on Yoko :-)