Building a supercharged Exocet

wesimmo said:
I've got a mate helping who works on hydraulics for plant machinery and did 10 years as a mechanic so he's got a pretty good selection of tools on his van, hopefully we'll get it apart somehow.

As I say though, even if I have to angle grind some bits off, I haven't got the chassis yet so I will probably end up dismantling the skate and get all the bits blasted, coated and rebushed so buying a few bolts here and there, even if they're half decent second hand ones to refurb won't kill me.
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If you get stuck with anything feel free to give me a shout. I now know these stupid cars like the back of my hand
 
Been a bit of a wait for the weather and help being available, but some serious progress made this weekend.

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It was a surprisingly straightforward job, 8 bolts at the front, 6 at the back, make sure everything is disonnected, or cut off bits that you realise you haven't disconnected when you lift the body and know you're making fuela nd brake lines up anyway..

Next job, strip the suspension and sub frames down and send them off to be blasted, coated and re-bushed.
 
Well my casual "strip the suspension" comment was optimistic...

Apparently North East living doesn't suit a rust prone car...salt in the air summer and winter causes carnage with suspension bolts rusting to hell....who'd have thought?

Sheared both the bolts for the ABS sensor on one side and rounded off the coilover bolt.

However a quick test with the blowtorch usually used for cooking soon proved the point and heat is the solution, so a proper blow torch and rounded bolt sockets are incoming.
 
DereksDontRun said:
great work. doing it all in a single garage too? makes it seem a moderately do-able kit... (apart from all the rusted bolts...)
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It's not quite a single garage, it's a townhouse and we use the garage to get in and out the house day to day. To the right is a bit more space at the front of the garage but the back is taken up by a toilet.

I suspect space will be at a premium when I've got the new chassis and body parts in there too...
 
ci_newman said:
You've got much more patience than me :D I wouldn't be removing the old suspension to repaint it, I'd just start bolting on the new kit :D
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That was how I started but the more I get into it the more I want to do it properly now and not have to refurb it at some point, the bushes are 138k miles old....

That and I haven't got the chassis yet anyway so may as well use the time.
 
DereksDontRun said:
mk1 and 2 mx5, so i think you're golden, according to your signature pic...

used to have a mk3.5 and I've been itching at getting another for a weekend car, but getting a 3.5 would stop me for being able to exocet it... guess I'll watch this...
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By the way, I think MEV showcased their MK3 kit at the Stoneleigh Kit Car Show last weekend.
 
Well I've not updated recently, mainly because there's not been much progress!

A month to the day after I got the body off I managed to remove one side of the rear suspension.....

Seriously, don't try this on a very rusty MX5, every bolt has been days of heat, penetrating fluid, 3 ft crowbar and 2ft breaker bar to get the nut off.

Even then it took another round of swearing and pain to get the bottom bolt out the lower wishbone, it was seemingly welded to the bushes and so wouldn't turn or even hammer out.

The kit is ready though, just need to break the suspension down even more to make room in the garage.
 
Dr Who said:
When doing something like this it is worth buying a small compressor and a proper impact gun.
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Not really, no. Small compressors can't give impact guns enough power to make stubborn nuts and bolts move so you need to spend quite a bit more to get a worthwhile one. Given the amount you need to spend and the hassle involved in using a compressor it's cheaper and easier to just get a cordless impact gun.
I have a cheaper Clarke ( CIR220 ) and it works well enough for most things although it's not great and I'd rather have a Milwaukee Fuel (maybe the M18FMTIWF12-502 as it's got 610Nm or the M18FIWF12-502 with 300Nm ) as you're spending similar money to the compressor + decent impact gun but getting a lot more usability, less noise and no cords/hoses.
 
Yeah I bought a Ryobi for the job, bbu that ain't up to it....neither is a 18v Snap On I borrowed.

Essentially to break the nuts off you need a big bar on a 15 year old MX5 that's lived near the sea...
 
Fair enough, thankfully I've not owned a car that's rusty to that extent and I've generally managed to get most things loose with some PlusGas and the Clarke but prior to the impact gun I used to use a bar and snapped various parts. :p
 
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