Eunos Chump

I'm currently only interested in playing with model trains, it's probably a passing fad that'll no doubt end in a couple of weeks, but LOOK! LOOK AT THE LITTLE TRAINS! We bought Russ the Pendolino set for Xmas, that's digital so I had to solder a DCC decoder into his old loco so he could still use it, and it's just grown from there. I have to pay regular visits to a model shop in Alton to get bits, it's run by a miserable git and I don't like going there ('cos it's full of pukka train spotting nerds, not passing-phase-nerds like me), but I can't wait for mail order.

I removed all the drop link bushes today, and it was easy! I've created a little diagram below, all you need it some M8 threaded-bar (98p from Wickes), some washers and about 4 nuts... plus a big socket (30mm in this case). As you tighten the nuts at the socket end, it pulls the bush through and into the socket (hence the need for it to be large). By dispensing with washers at the droplink end, I was able to pull out just the metal insert (which means I could have gotten away with a smaller socket), it's then easy to pull out the rubber. Takes about 5 mins per bush, no steam-powered press required. I've used a cheap'n'cheerful £10 Workmate to secure the droplink, I love these things. They're reasonably sturdy and you don't have to worry about abusing and eventually destroying them, they're disposable at this kind of money.

I've been working flat-out for the past few weeks on a new office in London, 7 days a week and with no time to even think about opening the garage. That's over now and I finally had time to tinker with the Mazda this evening; sadly there has been no Christine-style transformation, it's still sitting on the jack with the front anti-roll bar partially removed. I had a sit in it though, and was reminded how very right the driving position is. Last weekend I had a new Zafira (hired) and while that's not pretending to be a sportscar I was surprised how compromised it was as a driver's car. The offset steering wheel, rubbery feeling controls and annoying understeer (depsite those massive wheels all modern cars seem to have) all combined to make it a pretty miserable thing to drive. I'm going to buy a new exhaust next week, a stainless dual exit job from MX5Parts.co.uk . I don't really want the weight of that additional pipe, but the price is irresistable and it do...

The Benz failed it's MOT today on suspension bushes, which means I have no functioning vehicle now. I'm working flat out on an office relocation in London so don't have any time to fix it, and the Mazda is in the garage partially disassembled with no chance of becoming roadworthy until next year. I need another car! I finally bought a battery for the 5 (along with some poly bushes and cat bypass pipe), but for reasons too tedious to go into it was delivered to the office in London I'm currently working from. This meant I had to carry it home, via the Tube. As you can get shot for carrying wires on the tube this was perhaps foolish, but I got away with it and only scared a few people.

I received the turbo rebuild kit today, about 6 days since I ordered it from http://www.gpopshop.com/ in the USA; not bad. $140 for a small tray of bits... hmmm. Of course, I should really be concentrating on things like new ARB bushes (so it can pass it's MOT), and a new battery (so it can be driven to said MOT).

I went grand-prix karting today. Being great, I came 2nd out of 28 after a number of races and Russ was very pleased indeed. He'll have to wait another 2 years before he can have a go though.

I've had the turbo the best part of a week now, and so far all I've done is scrub it clean. There are good reasons for this: My insurance company won't want anything to do with it I need to buy parts to make an oil drain from the turbo (and I don't know what I'm looking for) I have to drill and tap the sump to fit the above drain (tricky with the engine in the car) I'd like to rebuild the turbo, but can't find a kit in the UK I'd also like to get the cracked manifold welded up There are also numerous other jobs that need doing at the same time, in fact so many I've just stayed in and eaten biscuits rather than face it. I'm having an intimate relationship with chocolate-covered shortcakes at this very moment.

Behold the majestic beauty of the Mitsubishi TD04H! Mrs B collected it today for me, she's very kind as I don't think many wives would be prepared to drive 30 miles in the pouring rain, then hand over the best part of £500 for a box of oily lumps of metal. It came with manifold, BBR ECU and all the trunking, I just need to work out how to bolt it all together now. This is my first eBay purchase. Yes, I've been using the internet regularly since 1993 but somehow I've never had any need for tat-bay so far (probably because there's no porn on it). The seller seemed honest though (hello Jon, if you're reading this), and anybody who knows enough things about stuff to write books is OK in my eyes. I realise I could have got 'at least 45bhp' by buying a £14.99 resistor from Burberry_Dave_101, but I like a challenge. I've actually retired the 5 today, it's going in the garage until next March. The battery is completely shot now and I'm tired ...

It appears I've just won an eBay auction for a Greddy turbo! But now I have to go to bed.

Went to the MX5Mad event today at North Weald airfield. Quite disappointing, the promised track was in fact some cones in a car park, and there was bugger-all to do apart from look at some big barry-style exhausts. However, the biggest disappointment was my car - it now handles like a Cavalier. I'd tried to boot it sideways out of a roundabout on the way down, but it just understeered like one of Luton's finest. I put it down to a diesel spill, but when I took it round the track I was in Cav mode on every corner, and ended up clouting a cone. Some suspension work is clearly due.

Had a bit of trouble this week with the 5. I could rattle on but I won't, basically the tensioner bolt fell off the alternator, battery went flat, and I had to borrow a bolt off the PAS pump to get home. When I opened my toolbox, the Bolt Fairy had left me a perfect replacement and now it's all good again. Took Russ to Legoland today, to ride the Viking River thing they've finally opened (about 3 months late). It was OK, not nearly as good as the one at Alton Towers, massive queue too. However, the JCB Digger thing was bloody awesome! When I become wildly rich, I'm definitely going to have a JCB.

I don't like this change in the weather, and neither does the 5. The battery is as weak as a kitten and didn't have enough juice to start the car one morning this week. I had to get the charger/starter out to bring it back to life, but it only made me 7 minutes late which is not enough of an inconvenience to persuade me to buy a new battery. No doubt I will regret this shortly. The rear anti-roll bar bushes are shot, I think they're another casualty of the track day. Feels quite loose at the back now. I've put the EBC Greenstuff pads on, but I've had no chance to use them in anger so can't say if they're an improvement yet. Lots of vibration from the frontpipe heat shield. Oil leak from the rear of the engine, possibly the CAS again. I'm only keeping the 5 on the road until the end of October (purely for the MX5Mad track event), then it's hibernation and hopefully, transformation. Got a favourable insurance quote from AON for the car modded to 170...

Our new sofa was delivered today. The old sofas are now hogging the garage, so I have my own private lounge, complete with grubby rugs and a tray of old motor oil in the corner! This can't last though, I came close to buying an XR2 yesterday and I think it's only a matter of time before some daft car purchase is made. Quite fancy a Hillman Imp... and I know Adrian has at least 8 of these in various states of disrepair.

1994 was the last time I visited the Heritage Museum at Gaydon, when it was still firmly Rover territory. It seems to have much less display space since re-opening, and appears to be more geared as a venue for owner-club meetings like this, or conferences. Great day out though, and MX5 Parts had 20% off everything so I had a major spend. I've already put the gear lever boot and leather gaiter on, the reduction in interior noise is astonishing.

Brakes working again now. I replaced the fluid with help from my beautiful assistant (who complained throughout), and filed around 3mm of compacted ash off the brake pads. Definitely going to replace them with EBC Greenstuff though. The engine has felt as fit as a butcher's dog since Abingdon, clearly it loves a really hard thrashing!

Finally, my first track day. My preperation had consisted of chucking a bit more air in the tyres and cleaning the windscreen, but as soon as I arrived it was clear a lot of folk take it much, much more seriously. Trailers, slick tyres, 500bhp race car replicas, hugely powerful Caterham 7s, and a Ferrari F40 combined to make me feel a little out of my depth, but it was great fun and unlike most I was able to rag it around the track all day (for 120 miles), then drive it home listening to Radio 4. The track had 3 narrow chicanes which were great fun, and handed the advantage to the small and the light (the F40 never looked quick). There were also a number of high speed turns, and I struggled with understeer all day on these. I had 20 minutes with an instructor (until his demands for F1-style braking cooked the brakes), that was useful and stressed the importance of more speed, less haste. Haste is fun though, and the 5 is easy to handle even way past the limit. I enjoyed getting it ve...

For the past couple of days I've been struggling to change the cam belt on the 5. This should be simple because access couldn't be better, but I couldn't get the crank pulley bolt to loosen because the crank kept turning. Even in 5th gear, handbrake on, Mrs B and Russ in the car with the brakes hard on, it would still move. Even the breaker bar on floor/starter motor trick wouldn't shift it. I got bored after a bit and went off and had a barbeque instead. Did the same again the following day, now thinking about putting it back together and taking it to the garage. That night, Winston Churchill came to me in a dream and reminded me to never give up, and that evil crank bolts would prevail when good men did nothing. He gave me this solution... and it worked immediately! Obtain some rope, washing line or thin electrical flex (about 3 feet) Turn the engine clockwise until No1 piston has gone a little past TDC (he told me to stick the dipstick in the spark plug hole to view...

Behold, I am on the road to the land of BOOST! Well, I've just taken the fog lights off actually. They need to go because more cooling will be required, especially when the MIGHTY INTERCOOLER OF BOOST slots in there too... assuming I can afford the insurance. The fog lamps were bugger-all use anyway, but with the covers removed they look like sinister robot eyes and I want to re-use them. Powerful boot illumination perhaps? Awesome floodlit glovebox? I'm advertising for a replacement gearbox, the chattering is getting on my wick and the synchromesh is getting a little slow. I don't think the existing clutch will survive long when BOOST is applied either. The Mighty Benz provided excellent service in France recently, covering 1400 miles in a week and restoring it's honour. It's done almost 160K now though, how much longer before something big breaks?

Good evening, I am a robot. I was entered in a competition at a child's school yesterday and despite being easily the best I lost to a tinfoil covered tissue box. This was a most foolish decision that has doomed the human race, for despite my dummy (which is just there to disable my battle circuitry) I have mighty killing power! Fear my Delete button weak carbon-based units!

This might have been good had it not been for the constant rain and wind, it was like bloody winter . Couldn't find any bits for the Mazda, and the only cars for sale were either overpriced or unwanted stuff like '80s Mercedes and Jaguar saloons. My dream of a £500 Princess 2200 remains unrealised.

Highlight of the day had to be the Pastryboy - Len Hawkins' vision of the car of the future, first penned in the early '90s, is reality.

Russ and I went to Goodwood on Friday, hoping to avoid the crowds - how wrong we were. I don't want to think what the toilets are going to look like on Sunday afternoon! Lots of expensive noisy metal, expensive food and Hooray Henrys. Not as much fun as I'd hoped, it was hard to get near anything interesting. The photo below shows how close I got to the Ferrari F1 cars (and they're not even this year's model), and McLaren was even worse.

I've had an annoying clonk develop from the NS front over the past few weeks which sounded like a worn balljoint, but no wear was evident. My brother Darren got to the bottom of it though (after taping up the anti-roll bar bush to rule it out), it was the brake caliper. One of the sliding pins didn't have enough grease and was rattling gently - hardly noticeable at the caliper, but in the car it sounded much louder. Repacking it solved it. I also lobbed a blob of grease between the clutch release lever and the slave cylinder, to stop it rattling. The cam angle sensor oil seal has let go now, but I should have anticipated this when I tampered with it and replaced it then. 99p would have hardly broken the bank, but you can buy an ice cream for that... and I chose unwisely.

Cured a rattle that had developed on the bonnet latch using the mystical power of electrical insulation tape. I've finally set the timing from 10 degrees to 14 (the timing mark on the crank pulley is tiny ), and though it doesn't make it go any faster (I checked this most thoroughly), it does feel more enthusiastic, especially at low RPM. So recommended. Took a trip to the Haynes Motor Museum in Somerset yesterday, this is also recommended. Spotted a number of cars I've owned in the past, which really brings home the fact that I am getting OLD. There's an Eunos Roadster too, and despite it having 100,000 KM less than mine it's considerably more tatty. There's also an MGF though, so it looks like they're collecting any old tat...

£20's worth of Ford Graphite Grey paint, lacquer and masking tape has transformed the wheels. I didn't realise it while I was painting them, but they now look suspiciously like Lotus Elan Sprint items. New bigger wheels are planned, but I want to get the turbo installed before tampering with the gearing. Had an issue with the OSR caliper dragging, which took all of 15 minutes to fix. It looks like the calipers had been apart sometime recently, but whoever did it forgot to put any grease on the sliding pins. Muppets! The Mighty Benz has suffered another flat battery, but I think I've traced the fault to the stereo. I hope that's the end of it, it's going to France this summer...

Done nothing to the car recently apart from driving it. It's been to Cheltenham, Gatwick, Legoland, New Forest (repeatedly) and of course dull old Guildford. My tinkering hands are unsatisfied and are urging me to buy another cheap car to play with... off to Autotrader with £50 I go...

"Found a big hole in a sill; rear wheel arches dissolved when I attempted to wash them". That's the kind of thing I'd be writing if I'd bought a Spitfire as originally intended. This weekend, all I've had to do was petty tasks like painting the seat runners and fixing down the carpet in the drivers footwell (which involved taking off the sill trim; underneath it was as clean and solid as the day it left Hiroshima). I've booked a trackday at Snetterton next month, that's bound to leave me with some work. Other MX5's are expected (including Team Merlot ) so I'm hoping to pick up some modification tips. Must... go... faster...

This weekend I helped someone; I helped them avoid the heartache and disappointment of buying a computer from PC World. Whatever happens to me in the future, I'll know I made a difference, I made the world a slightly better place. On the car front, today I was reduced to reconditioning the sun visors . Yes, I've completely run out of other work to do. I do want to change the gearbox and diff oil, but that's sunny-day work. I intend to rustproof it thoroughly, but again that requires dry weather. Perhaps I should try driving it a bit more?

I have 2 torque wrenches, called Sunny Torques-worth and Mr Bad Torquey. Mr Bad Torquey is my enforcer, a brutal monster only used on the most obstinate bolts that cannot be reasoned with. It wasn't always this way; once Mr Bad Torquey was good like Sunny, but was changed forever during a tussle with a Peugeot 106 driveshaft nut, and now he no longer knows or cares when enough is enough. He absolutely will not stop, and you either shift or have your head torn off, there is no mercy. Mr Bad Torquey had to be called in during replacement of the front disks and pads on the 5. Nobody has ever defied Mr Bad Torquey so far... and today was no different.

I've nearly completed the list of tasks I drew up to bring the car back to health, it's all a bit worrying and I may soon be at a loose end every evening. Today I've removed the retro-fitted rear foglamp switch, which was a sinister looking thing that I suspect was originally the bomb release on a WW2 bomber. I also tried turning the OS reverse lamp into a fog lamp (so I can remove the fog lamp hanging off the bumper), with a red bulb, but it's not really bright enough though. I'm going to try one of those LED bulbs. Also adjusted the headlamps, fitted the carpet properly, refinished the speaker grilles, and fixed the washers.

That's what the previous tyres felt like compared to the BF Goodrich ones I had fitted today. Been out this evening with the top down, going too damn fast and considering if there is actually any great need for a turbo. It's quick in any gear, and once you hit 5000 rpm all hell breaks loose; I reckon I'd be constantly feeding it gears if I went the forced-induction route, unless the wheel diameters increased too. Took it to Guildford for the first time today, it's not a very pleasant way to commute. Doddering along in the dark, roof up, you quickly become aware of how small, noisy and uncomfortable it is. Can't have everything I suppose, and to be honest it's no different to the Barchetta or X1/9.

This evening I've scrubbed all 4 wheels back to some kind of decency. First I hit them with cellulose thinners applied with a toothbrush (gentle scrub first, then a 2nd more severe one), then it was soapy water and an abrasive sponge thingy, then a rinse. The photo shows a half-completed wheel, the difference is pretty startling. Nothing could be done with the plastic centre caps, so I've slung them into the back of the garage for now. New tyres tomorrow (BF Goodrich Profiler 2), and it's first trip to work so I expect the hairdresser/homo jokes to begin in earnest. How very dare you!

Did a lot of fiddling today but didn't seem to get a great deal done. I've finally washed it, attempted to revive the alloys with a pressure washer (didn't really work), refinished the wiper arms in black satin paint (new looking now), and treated the hood. I had a go at adjusting the ignition timing from 10 degrees BTDC to 14 but the cam angle sensor wouldn't budge, will have to revisit this.

Gave the roadster a service today. I've removed the strut brace (to allow access to the plugs and because it's undeclared on the insurance), and I can't notice any difference. I assume this was fitted by it's Japanese owner because it has some of that fantastic grammar-free-bollocks-written-in-English writing on it which they seem to love; "It gives full satisfaction to the driver who, for more and further more speed fights for his life in a competitive world that demands the utmost limit of his capacity". Yes. I'm going to start talking like this, I will be cool.

Failure of the door mirror pivot is pretty common, it seems. The steel rod linking the mirror to it's base is too thin and ungalvanised, so it's really just a matter of time before they go, especially if you're a big clumsy ape like me. It can be fixed though, the solution is here . All the metal parts in my mirror body had rusted into a single lump, so I tore it out with molegrips. The pivot in the base was rusted solid too, so I hammered it out (ape style), then used a galvanised bolt, 3 washers, 2 spring washers and 2 nuts to secure the lot together again. Put it back on the car, waggle it about to work out any free play, retighten the nuts, then put the glass back and glue in the edge trim. Proper engineering, this is!

While racing about in cars is fun, the primary purpose of driving is of course to listen to Radio 4. The speakers in the 5 were the most dreadful I've ever heard, so investigation was required. Take a look at the photo - the edge of the speaker has totally gone! There was no debris so I reckon they've just rotted away. I've got some vaguely better ones I pulled out of the Benz to replace them, look like standard 16.5cm jobs. I also took a look at the headrest speakers, they're rubbish too but I'll probably leave them alone. Tried to adjust the door mirror and ended up breaking it off. I'm searching t'interweb for a fix right now so I don't have to spend any precious brass on a new one.

Finally got the 5 on Sunday. Yes I fit, yes it's a hoot to drive, and yes it's in sound overall condition. It does need some TLC though. Hoofed about the back roads near Hunstanton late that night with the top down, giving it ample loud pedal, shredding the tyres, and giggling a lot. Almost crashed it a couple of times so decent tyres are now top priority because as much as I like oversteer, I don't like it when it arrives unannounced at 50mph. I've got a long list of jobs to do, far too much to list here, and in fact I've had to call on the power of Microsoft Project to organise things. My bandaged finger and the cold weather are really holding me back, but I've now moved it into the garage so I can have a little comfort. I'd be out there now working on it, but... you know... it's cold out there. It's much easier to sit here writing down all my good intentions instead. The Benz seems to have taken exception to my tarty new girlfriend, and maro...

I finally have the Eunos. My brother bought it on my behalf on Sunday, because he's kind and certainly not an illegal turnip dealer with dirty cash that needed laundering! That is a wicked rumour with not a hint of truth in it. I should be able to go and collect this weekend, which will be my first time in an MX5... I'm sure it'll all work out fine. I should have posted this earlier but I'm being worked to death at the moment. I was allowed a few hours to go to hospital today after chopping a chunk of meat off my finger though, after being savaged by a HP Proliant server. It was bad, it almost ruined my lunch.