Ownership Verified: Meet Luigi DeVito! That's right, another MX-5! Sorry.

That's horrible. :lol:
 
Redliner;n3553279 said:
That's horrible. :lol:

It is, it was an afterthought as the foglight was never designed into the car originally but became a legal requirement to have in Europe in 1990, so they made a hole in the lower bumper and stuck it in. :-D
 
:thumbsup:
 
Tomorrow just after lunch time, I will be heading off on another roadtrip with Luigi, here is an approximate map with key locations:



This is the current status, I will post another picture of the dash when I get back!

 
This looks like a good route. Have fun! :)
 
Wow, nice. Also, do have some tools with you. You never know when you have to change a clutch bearing in the middle of nowhere. :mrgreen:
 
From Nurburgring to roadtripper. Damn son.
 
So, the first issue popped up on the holiday - A strange knocking sound on the front right corner over bumps. I stopped several times and wobbled things and climbed under the car, couldn't find anything - I drove on for some time, stoping and checking stuff until I found a place where I could jack the car up and properly check. Suddenly!

[video=youtube;T7AGkFvd2-g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7AGkFvd2-g[/video]

Sadly my tool kit did not have the correct sized socket ... And it was 1900 in a small town in the south of France, I tightened it as best as I could by hand and carried on. I managed to nurse the car the remaining 50km to our accommodation by riding the brakes over bumpy roads, I stopped every 10km and checked to see if it had come out completely or any more - But it was stable enough, so we made it.

This morning we drove to the nearest supermarket and bought a reasonably cheap tool-kit that would do the job. Obviously I could have found someone to tighten it or borrowed some tools but I figured I should have the right tools in case it happens again:





Anyway, here is a compilation of pictures:















And after that, the noise was gone and I have a toolkit!

We are nearly at 2,000km on the trip so far and this has been the only problem. I look forward to the next 2 to 3 thousand kms!
 
:thumbsup:
 
nicjasno;n3553783 said:
I see you ditched the black rubber around the windshield... :p

Yeah, I found out a few things are missing to replace it properly it seems - I can make it work but I didn't have time to sort it before leaving ... And it's really annoying when it comes flying off...
 
I see you tried to fit in with the locals by taking up two parking spaces. :p

I don't know if I could be annoyed with that car, no matter what went wrong. The colour makes me happy every time I see it...
 
Yeah, I’m with Matt on this. :D

i wasn’t so lucky about a year ago when I had a caliper bolt come off at highway speed. I thought it was some gravel being kicked up and was greeted with a lovely grinding sound when stopping for fuel. Caliper was dragging on the rotor. :D
 
Last edited:
A few holiday snaps :)


On the coast by Marseille:





Some hills near Carcassonne:





Gave him a wash at Carcassonne





Got on a ferry:





Found some hills:





Met a colourful friend:





And made it home!





That is 2682 miles, which is 4316km ... Other than the issue with the caliper bolt, it performed basically flawlessly. I used 1L of oil in a single day doing very hard driving - and in a massive hill descent I managed to get the front brake pads smoking!


However, I can definitely tell that the exhaust rattle is much worse (I guess a full new exhaust system is needed), the Diff is rattling much more than it did before the trip (not surprising given it is probably original to the car and has done 337,000km) so that needs to be done.

I would like to drop the engine out and do some maintenence there, but that will likely happen next year. For now the car might come out and get washed if I find the time before it's winter sleep.
 
Why would a full exhaust replacement be needed for a rattle?
 
93Flareside;n3554222 said:
Why would a full exhaust replacement be needed for a rattle?

Pretty much, all the heat shields are rattling and replacing the headers is a good idea anyway... may as well just get it done!
 
Top