What I've done to my car this week!

[ian65]

Nice day to get mine out and give it a rub

you'll go blind!

[codge]

Not a repair post for a change. More a reminiscing post.

Drove Gus a little ways last night. Dry night so good for a run.

Really enjoyable trip to a country pub to meet the daughter and partner. I drove there, about 20 miles out into the sticks, the wife .....lovely, beautiful, gorgeous, TEETOTAL and good woman driver that she is brought me home later, burping and farting after all the ale.

I set off afterdark, lights up ....yippee, beautiful things those lights. The car seemed alive in my hands, oozing character, just like the old individual cars of the 60's we used to have. These 1st Gen cars have now passed into being individual personalities, not like the luxobarge machine we normally travel any distance in. A really nice drive, Gus was purring, the steering was....well enough said, but I still kept on the right side of the road. My gearchanges were magnificently doubled as always (what a bighead I can be).

So as said another lovely (but hazy) trip back and of to bed thinking what a lovely old style drive we'd had.

[Lucky]

I finally got a few minutes to fix something that's infuriated me since getting the car... fixed the roller blind luggage cover doobrie. One end had the self-tappers that secure it to the underside of the rear seatback pull through, so it flopped around at one end and every time the car went over a large bump (often on our decrepit roads) it gave an almighty clank. Drove me nuts.

The reason it's taken so long is it's a bit of a Krypton Factor puzzle to work out... you can't get to the screw heads as the body of the roller is in the way and it's difficult to get into the screws that hold the roller to the bracket because even with the seat folded down it's hard against the bulkhead so none of my screwdrivers could fit in. I refused to go and buy a stubby screwdriver just for that, in the end I cut the end off an old one where the handle was split.... then remembered I bought an adaptor to fit screwdriver bits to a ratchet a few years back Oh well, I've got a stubby driver now for when I need one next time. Some properly long self-tappers seem to have sorted it though I'm not sure how long for. I may have to get some captive nuts welded onto the inside of the metal seatback edging and use proper bolts because the entire strip looks like it's pulling through. What a top piece of design, Mazda; must have been the work experience lad on that particular day

Anyway, I now have a retracting blind thing that works to cover the boot with. It's one of my most favourite hilarious things about the FB, along with the colostomy bag rear washer reservoir. In fact, the boot's full of funny stuff, I think the designers got there at the end of the design process and whoopeed it up on the sake a bit before finishing it off. With the fifth alloy in the wheel well and the sunroof bag, the depth between the boot floor and the blind cover must be about two inches. Presumably it was for people with very, very thin suitcases

[ian65]

I actually quite like the boot on our cars..... better than the US cars with just a flat loading area... I can just imagine braking hard in one of those and end up with half the stuff smacking me on the back of the head and the other half around my feet.

[Lucky]

Funnily enough...

When I worte off my first FD whilst interfacing quite sternly with some scenery, the only injuries I recieved were nerve damage to my two smallest left fingers from smashing the central console with my elbow, and a bloody great lump on the back of the skull from being warped round the head by the airborne steering wheel clublock that had evacuated the back seat at high speed I always wedge it down bteween the seats now or put it in the boot, not eager to repeat that particular learning curve

[RX7SA]

So, anybody got any plans for their cars this weekend? Cleaning, fixing, tweaking or just drinking tea looking at the car pondering?
I will back at RoTechniks on Sat for more stripping, swearing, drinking of tea and discussing of engine options . This time though I hope to remember to download the photos and from my ladies camera and get them posted up.
Have a great weekend whatever

Simon

[TOOL]

So, anybody got any plans for their cars this weekend? Cleaning, fixing, tweaking or just drinking tea looking at the car pondering?
I will back at RoTechniks on Sat for more stripping, swearing, drinking of tea and discussing of engine options . This time though I hope to remember to download the photos and from my ladies camera and get them posted up.
Have a great weekend whatever

Simon

12AT!!!!!!

[TOOL]

Anyone going on that Miss Banzai tunnel run tomorrow night?

[Lucky]

Working tomorrow so can't make the tunnel run .

...also means I won't be working on the car, but the last couple of days I have picked the wheels up from refurbishing, got some tyres on order hopefully for collection tomorrow, mystery spoiler arrived today (God bless eBay) and looks like it should fit pretty well and I think I have all the parts for airpump deletion and inlet water leak sealing (thanks Steve ). Phew. Looks like my next long weekend'll be a busy one then

[TOOL]

Yeah, looks like no rotors going...................