Thank you and Good Bye

As of March 2014 I sadly bidded farewell to the Westfield.

It was a tough decision but after thinking long and hard between me and Dad we decided that we were just not getting the use from the car that it deserved.

We had our ups and down, screaming and shouting, blood, sweat and even a few tears at times,

Do I miss the car? the truth is no not really.... Would I do it again? Maybe........maybe not.....

I will leave the blog up as I hope this will help people out with information.

Here we go again

Now that the weather is finally getting out of the minus figures and march rapidly approaching I guessed it was time to get some work done on the car this week.

First job up was a strip down and check up of all the fuel pipes. After a few posts on the forum of people saying to check the condition of the rubber hose. Luckily everything seems to be ok on this front.

Next up was since the car had been put away in November, I had noticed a few small drips of coolant ending up on the floor underneath the radiator, but not on the inlet / outlet side. Meaning that some where I had a small leak. So off this came and I took it to work for a closer inspection.

Once I had it at work it became apparent that the core had developed a small leak at the point in which the water gallery meets up with the header plate. This is probably down to how the rad was hard mounted onto the chassis and the vibration. This was easily sorted with the aid of some aerospace glue the rad was quickly repaired and heading back onto the car. To stop this happening again I have now mounted the rad onto anti vibration mounts. So this should stop it from happening again.

Some time ago the exhaust developed a really loud and annoying rattle / grinding squeak, which at high revs was so loud you could hear it above the exhaust note itself. After getting the exhaust off and peering down into the exhaust it appears the centre perforated section of the exhaust has completely disintegrated and fallen to pieces. So out comes the death wheel and the end of the exhaust was promptly cut off to reveal what damage has been done. On closer inspection it appears to be the result of the section where it joins to the cat getting too hot and becoming brittle and subsequently snapping through the welds. This means now I have to replace all the internals of the exhaust, I am also deciding if I should remove the cat and and have just the silencer. I could also put the overheating of the cat down to the oil contamination that it might have suffered during the engines spell of drinking oil at an alarming rate and the initial over fuelling problems I had when I first installed the engine. Luckily I have some more perforated tube and have some race spec matting to pack the exhaust back out.

Other jobs to complete.

Fit a bolt to act as a clutch stop, this should stop the problem of the clutch slave cylinder leaking / blowing the internal seals.

Trim the carbon dash to remove an annoying squeak that is cause when it vibrates against the GRP of the scuttle.

Replace the poor / cheap / soft aluminium that Westfield supply to make the tunnel cover.

It's nearly time to put it away....but not just yet

Where has the summer gone? I seems like only yesterday that I was getting the car out of it's winter hiding place only now to see it's time to put it away again. But with the weather forecast this week I don't think I will be putting it away just yet.

So far this year we have only covered about 2500 miles, and these haven't always been without an issue or 2.

A few weeks ago, the engine developed a serious thirst for oil, consuming about 3/4 litre in 200 odd miles. With no sign of obvious leaks this means it could only be going one way - out of the exhaust!!

So after a bit of investigation, with no oiled up plugs, very dry cylinder bores across all pistons, a lack of smoke from the exhaust under hard acceleration or on start up it started to become a bit of a mystery as to which cylinder was burning the oil.
After a bit of research and a bit of head scratching online, I ended up coming back to the MX5 owners 'must have book', Rod Graingers guide to all things MX5. This book has been a godsend during my build. And looking back at it I should have refered to this book from the start, under diagnostics at the back, a section entitled 'excessive oil consumption' to which it's first port of call Is the PCV valve on the top of the engine being faulty, I read on one site some where that if the pipe that goes from this valve to the inlet manifold was wet with oil, it was likely that the valve had stopped working causing the oil to be burnt. Off out to undo the pipe on the car and guess what I come across, a very wet and oily pipe. So a new valve was ordered and fingers crossed after a few hundred miles things seem to be running ok.

Also are some pictures of the LED light upgrades that I purchased at the kit car show, these were well worth the money and are seriously bright bits of kit. I will do any thing to make sure that I am seen by others road users, one thing you get to learn whilst being out in the car is that other road users do not see you what so ever. So with some bright brake and indicators I am doing my best to ensure this is not the case.

stoneleigh kit car show

well the time had come to go and visit the stoneleigh kit car show, and what a lovely
day it turned out to be!

fantastic turn out from the WSCC, i don't think i will ever see that many westfields in one place again.

it was really nice to chat to people and put a few names to faces, ( thats you Dean!!)

now i have to admit it was rather hard to go to the show and manage to keep my hands and wallet firmly in my pockets. now sadly i failed at this and ended up buying a few bits on the day, i managed to pick up a set of floor sill covers from carbon mods cheap, and a full LED light upgrade for the rear of the car, including the fog and reverse.

these are currently half fitted but i am hoping to have this all installed by the weekend. as usual it turned out to be more than just a five min job, as the plastic light housings have to cut and modified to fit the new lamps into them.

i also bought a little some thing for the front of the car but i am keeping this quiet for the time being.

colour change of doors

another job to complete was the doors, now originally i purchased a set of blue doors for a very good price on ebay, now blue doesn't really go with the rest of the car, so after some research i found a product that should hopefully change the colour, and the results are above.

The time has come ....

I am finally able to sit down in front of my laptop and do some much needed blogging updating.

after being so busy at work these past few months with the F1 season starting i have been lacking in much needed time to get parts done to the westie, but just in time for the sun to start coming out the road tax is back on and last night it was taken out for a quick spin around the block after getting a few jobs done over the winter period.

first job was purchasing a playskool MSA roll bar, this has been stripped of the original black powder coat and repainted in a Zylan black finish which is a matt finish and more in keeping with the rest of the coatings on the car.
to go with this i also got a new carbon mods boot box cover, as the last cover was a vinyl carbon effect one, again to keep in with the carbon theme running on the car.
to add a little more finishing touches i turned up some stainless steel spacer bushes with a collar on for the seat belt eyelets.

next up was the carbon mods front mud guards, i have had these for some time, but after buying them i was unsure about liking them or not on the car, so over the winter i got them in and out the box a few times to see if they finally grew on me, and i have to say they have, i am now kind of regretting not fitting them sooner.

Updating for Dean. How's the snow again?!

Dean I am updating my blog just for you!! 

It's nearly time to get back out on the road so I have been trying to get the final jobs done and dusted. 

Really looking forward to finally being able to get the car to stoneleigh this year and show off all the hard work I have put into it. 

Now due to a busy schedule I am having to update my blog via my iPhone which means I cannot upload any pictures of the work in progress but once I get back infront of my laptop I will add some. 

The roll bar has been off for blasting and has now been painted Matt black and is looking very nice. Just need to re install my high level brake light on to it. The new carbon mods boot cover has been cut to shape and and has been marked out ready to cut the holes in for the rear stays with the assistance of some string and auto cad to generate my Ellipse shape to cut out where the stays pass though, to keep the gap as small as possible and tidy. 

Now some time last year I purchased some carbon mods front mud guards, now at first I was unsure if I actually liked the look of them so never got round to fitting them, but over the winter I sat them on the brackets to see if I did get to like them. So last weekend I finally decided to fit them as they grew on me, and now they are fitted I have to say they do look very good. I decided to go with drilling and bolting them on as the safest option. But to make it a little less noticeable I have ordered some anodised black bolts to blend in with the carbon.  Will get pics up of these soon. 

The new clutch slave cylinder has been fitted after the old one shit itself. Easy job to get sorted. 

All of the suspension bolts have been regreased as I was suffering from a few squeaks which was driving me mad. 

Still awaiting for some dye to re colour the side screens, purchased some dye which after doing a small sample looked terrible as it was very shiny.