So. Much. Rust! Look at it all! Last time we saw a sight like this, we were watching ‘Titanic’ at the cinema. Bearing in mind that we've been supplying parts for the iconic roadster for decades now and that we've encountered more than our fair share of rotten examples, this particular NB really is something - and one which has done a proven 60k miles only, don’t forget!
Brown is not generally an especially welcome colour underneath a car, least of all an MX5!
The MX-5 has always been one of those cars lauded by critics as being able to buck the trend of increasing automotive obesity by shedding pounds with each successive model year and generation. We've long wondered how on earth they managed to do that in a world where cars add kit and complexity each year and gain massive amounts of er… mass with each new release. It turns out that the way the little Roadster has kept trim all these years is apparently a total absence of ANY type of anti-corrosion treatment and an almost comical lack of any kind of panel sealers in most places. Awesome for those early car-mag reviews in the valuable few months after launch, but bad news when you fast forward down the years and have to put (well, 'sweep') one back together! Hmmm…
Rust here, rust there - rust damn near everywhere
If it hadn’t been decently cheap – and the desirable Sport VT, we might have kicked this one into touch long ago, but the wealth of parts available to us via the MX5parts store kept us motivated. If anyone was well placed to bring this especially crusty MX5 back to life, it was us.
As we touched upon in a previous blog post, we'd managed to source a full set of NNB 2.5 model subframes and suspension arms. These were subsequently sent off to be fully stripped of their similarly terrible corrosion, before having them powder coated in a rather smart – and very ‘factory’ looking satin black finish. These had come back a few weeks ago, so we wandered over to our long-suffering friend Adam at Landspeed Automotive in Nottingham to see if we could at least make a start on getting the old parts off and the new parts fitted.
A refreshed set of lower arms, braces and mounts should help make the car that bit better.
The idea was that Adam would strip all the old units off, fit the new ones, and then we’d do a deal on Landspeed keeping the old parts to repeat the process of having ‘new’, powder coated parts sitting on the shelf ready to do an exchange for the next poor unlucky soul that owned a rusty MX-5. In theory, at least, this makes this entire chassis change do-able in a relatively short space of time, rather than having to have a car sat ‘dead’ on a ramp while everything gets taken off and refurbished. Helpful stuff for both of us!
It's all in the detail when it comes to refurbished lower arms and chassis braces.
Of course, if doesn’t make much sense to get these perfectly restored parts and put manky old bushes in, does it? Scratch that, it doesn’t even make sense to put new OEM items in, either. As we were trying to make everything better than before, the obvious upgrade was a set of SuperPro bushes all round. We've used SuperPro bushes on a number of MX5parts projects in the past, and have always been impressed with their performance enhancing potential - they always make a significant difference to the precision of the drive, without ever ruining the ride quality, or inducing any harshness into the vehicle concerned.
Few names can compare to SuperPro when it comes to chassis-sharpening potential.
How they do this is pretty clever. Many bush manufacturers need to produce two kit hardnesses. One for their road car customers, and one for their race and track clientele. One works perfectly for each one, but realistically won’t suit the other. SuperPro sees it a little differently. By moulding a fiendishly clever formula of polyurethane that effectively has a ‘progressive’ property, they end up with a bush that’s happy to be reasonably compliant at low, road speeds, but has more than enough minerals for when the going gets tough on race day. Don’t believe us? Take a look in the paddocks of many Drift, Time Attack and One-make series and see how many ‘proper’ race cars are running these little blue bushes as the optimum race solution. Yet, you’ll find the very same product used by many road car tuners, too. All very clever, really.
SuperPro's specially formulated polyurethane bushes are the secret to its massive success.
We don't envision that this particular MX will be doing much motorsport, but the odd track day or three is definitely on the cards once it’s all back together, so for Adam to go through the whole chassis and upgrade like this feels like really sensible future-proofing. Once the kit’s all fitted up, we’ll rip the entire drivetrain and subframes out, clean up the floor – and put it all back together again. He’s even talking about sticking the thing on a spit to be able to get right around it! It’s all sounding a bit involved - we only wanted to stick a set of new wings and suspension on – and look where we’re at now!!
Adam takes the fight to the MX5's rotten chassis components.
While we were in the Landspeed workshop, we decided to take a front wing off and see what was lurking underneath. They’ll be going in the skip anyway, as my rather lovely OEM parts have arrived from MX5parts now! (There really is nothing nicer than working with factory quality parts!). being the skilled tech that he is, Adam soon had the bumper undone and wing off to let us see the state of play – and guess what? There’s rust in the inner wings, too! We're beginning to think that the windscreen surround is going to about the only original part of this car by the time we’ve finished!
With the front wing removed, it was easy to see what we were working with, in this case even more rot!
Anyway, full marks all round to some top companies and people for their skills and assistance. Join us back here next month, where we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be raiding the MX5parts store once again. Watch this space.
Until then!
Thanks and Contacts