It’s been a journey getting my Mazda MX5 Mk2 back on the road after laying dormant for nearly a year and a half. But, with the help of a lot of amazing friends here at Bridge Classic Cars it made the whole thing actually fun. First things first, we had to wake it back up.
With the help of our marketing manager, a person I’m proud to call a friend, Rob – we grabbed a set of jumper cables and his diesel Vauxhall Astra then headed up to the top of the year to jump start the car. The last time the car moved from this point, was around a year ago when our amazing fabrication team helped do some repairs to the body and the chassis, so it would as a dead certainty that it was good to need a bit of help to start. The other thing that was playing on my mind was that it had been left with fuel in the tank, and as modern fuel will degrade over time, I was doubtful it would even fire up whilst having visions of laying on my back trying to drain a fuel tank with E5 running down my arms in the last weeks of a cold Suffolk winter. The other problem, was moisture. Being a soft-top it is breathable somewhat and the seals on the car are quite some years old, so the interior was a bit damp so whilst we worked on the car one Monday lunchtime – the roof came down to let everything breathe.
But, a few revs and a couple of minutes, it fired up and ran long enough to get it down to our new car park while it waited for the incredible talents of our technician, and another close friend, Jon.
The main mechanical issue was that the front shock absorbers were leaking pretty badly. I had ordered new ones over a year ago but I never found the time to fit them. Jon helped me get the car on the ramp one Thursday night after work and we set to work in a whirlwind of activity. Whilst Jon was soaking the bolts and nuts in WD40, I tackled getting rid of the old, shattered undertray. Then, we could dive into the suspension. The car sits around 10mm lower than standard with aftermarket springs put on by a previous owner, great for looks and handling but not when trying to get the shock absorber assembly out of the car. Undoing the upper and lower bolts, normally with some gentle persuasion the assembly will slip right out. But, the MX5 has a relatively short tower to lower arm height. Many people actually remove the upper arm to do this job, but Jon knew of a way of loosening the lower arm to let the assembly move out of the way and drop the shock absorbers out. From there, we mounted them up into the bench vice and began to strip them down for the swap over.
Everything went smooth as can be (a few choice words for the original engineers by Jon), but save for a couple of hard top reach bolts behind the airbox it was all done and dusted in a couple of hours. That includes polishing the hazy, cloudy headlight with sandpaper and cutting compound and changing some blown out bulbs. The next job, was to properly wake the car back up.
Over the course of about a week, when it wasn’t being used on one of our customers cars, we hooked up our battery charger to MX5’s battery to try and gently bring it back to life. Having been sat through 2 winters it needed some persuasion but after a few rounds of charging and running, it seems to be pretty healthy!
The other thing that the MX5 needed was a new nearside front tyre, the original had begun to perish on the outer edge and was in need of replacing, but thanks to our friends at Tyre Assist Ipswich who came out and changed it on site, it was another job off the list on the way to getting the Mazda back on the road. With the MOT then booked, it was just a matter of getting it started, some new fuel and a good run to drop it off for its MOT – which it passed yesterday with only a few small jobs to do to get it back to its former glory!
Now the car, affectionately known as Elvira, is back on the road just in time for the better weather for me and my partner to enjoy. I can’t thank my friends and everyone here at the Bridge Classic Cars Suffolk HQ for helping me on this journey of getting my car back on the road and ready to enjoy.