Tyres, Bearings, etc

We went to Lincoln last weekend, and had a great time working on the house.  The only thing was this vibration in the car...
I went to a local tyre place, and asked them to help me out.  I got the front tyres re-balanced - they were quite far out, even though they were done when I had them installed about two months ago.  I wanted the rear tyres replaced as well, but the chap said I only needed one, so a bit of savings there.
Took it for a boot around the country lanes.  The vibration is still there, but not as bad, so some of it was the balancing of the tyres.
So, back to the drawing board, as it were.
I did some research, and found that if the front bearings are nearing the end of their lives, they can give the symptoms the car has - a little vibration going straight ahead, steadily worse the further left I turn the steering wheel, at it's worst between 30 and 45 mph.  The vibration magically disappears when turning right, but hard right turns (like around a fast roundabout) I get a clunking, grinding sound.  Now, I need to get the front of the car up in the air and spin the wheels.  A grinding noise whilst spinning the hub (with the wheels still on to keep the load on the bearings) would indicate bad bearings.  Now the bad thing is, because the car has been lowered, every time I jacked it up using the factory scissor jack, it was putting lots of strain on the jack.  Now it's almost impossible to turn the jack when it's at it's lowest setting.  So, I need a new jack.  I can't really go to Halfords and get a nice trolley jack, because they don't fit - I know this from the tyre shop, they had to lift the car by the wing in order to get the clearance to insert the jack.  I will need to get a standard scissor jack.  Not a bad thing, it just makes me wonder how many jacks I'm going to go through....
So this weekend we're off to Canterbury to visit a friend.  I won't really have much time to work on Hugo, but I can always hope.  In the mean time, I have to source some new bearings.  I want to do both the front bearings; if one is gone, the other can't be far behind.  I also have to wonder if the bearing failure has anything to do with the severe camber the car had when I first dropped the car two and a half inches, and the bad alignment.  It's not so bad now, but I think it may have contributed to its demise.
Hopefully my next update will show the new bearings installed!

MX-5 Owners Club National Rally and other Bits

So a few weekends ago, we did a bit of a polish on the old guy.  We took all the lights off, polished them, and got out the T-Cut - the paint had faded to pink again.  The T-Cut did a crazy good job at making it red again!  The polymer finish stuff I had used before didn't really stand the test of time, so this time, it got good old fashioned wax.

Lights removed, ready for some polishing

That's better!

This is all in preparation for the next weekend.  And what a weekend!  The MX-5 Owners Club held their annual National Rally, at Northampton.  Spread over three days, it was full of stuff to do; all of which I wanted to do, but very little I actually got to do.

Ready to go...

Oh well, next year!
The missus and I went to the events on Saturday, which were held at Silverstone race track.  We got there around lunch time, and we watched the cars go round!  The club has secured track usage on the Stowe circuit for us, and lots of people took out their daily drivers for a spin.
This was a very tempting prospect for us; I've always wanted to take the car out on the track, but I had some things I had to do first.
Just before I got the MOT done, the car developed a tiny vibration in the steering wheel and the floorboards.  I ignored it; thinking it was would go away.  Shows you how much I know about owning 20 year old cars!
The vibration got steadily worse.  On the way up to Silverstone, the vibration was getting rather distracting.  It started creating rattles in the dash, which are my worst enemy!  Anyway, the vibration was enough of a worry for me that I didn't take Hugo on the track.  The next rally I hope to do this, as it  looks like the most fun you can have in a car (one without a backseat, anyway).

In the open pits.  The Kit car in the front started life as an MX-5.

We toured the infield and looked at all the awesome cars.  There were some seriously sweet rides there.  There was a black Mk1 with what looked like 13 inch wheels, lower than anything, and he was really fast and smooth on the track.  So fast, my camera couldn't focus, so I missed that picture.
There was a Mk1 painted like the Japanese flag, which grabbed my attention.  A supercharger!  Ooooh, I know what I want for Christmas!
They had some track only cars as well; the drivers would take you out for a few laps in a quick fashion,  we saw one lady come back in from her laps and she looked like she was in shock - she was very pleased with her laps!
After grabbing a quick (overpriced) bite of food, we headed to the club tent and got our map instructions for a fun drive around the Northampton countryside.  Off we went!

The weather held out for us while we hung out at the track - a bit cold, but no rain.  You can see it looked rather imminent in the photos.  About five minutes into our drive, the hood went up in a hurry - torrential rain!  It lasted about 10 minutes, and we weren't bothered for the rest of our drive but we did get a bit cold.

Awesome single lane roads - the SatNav proclaimed 'Driving on - Road'.

Some ducks in the road, having a kip.

The planned course for the drive was unbelievable.  I had no idea that Northampton was so beautiful.  The quaint villages, the thatch-roofed cottages, sprawling fields under massive skies, and of course the wicked, twisty one lane roads!  The drive couldn't avoid A Main roads completely, but they were kept to a minimum.
We stopped at a free range farm shop and grabbed some potatoes and some eggs - we were waved off on our way out by the chickens!

Chickens gather to watch us cart off their unhatched children.

We ended our drive at a pub, the Ward Arms.  Not our first choice for pubs, but it was mostly empty, and served lovely bitter shandies and a nice plum ale.  And the lady behind the bar was lovely!

We didn't actually complete the entire drive, as the car was vibrating like mad - getting worse and worse...  The drive was mostly 30-40mph cruising, and that's when it was at its worst.  So we got on the motorway and headed home.

We hit rain, and saw a rainbow.  The quality of the light was extraordinary - very bright and high contrast but dark at the same time - photos couldn't do it justice.

So, Sunday....
Where is this vibration coming from?  I got the car up in the air, started it, and put it in gear.  The back tires spinning freely, I watched them carefully.  sure enough, they weren't anywhere near round.  There is some pretty profound egg shaped tyres going on here!  The back tires passed the MOT, but looking at the sidewall, they are perished.  So new tires are up next.
As the dash felt like it had rattled itself to bits, I took the bottom cover off the steering column trim and fished out the LED light I had installed ages ago and had fallen inside.  I carved a new (smaller) hole in the plastic, and put the LED in there - now it shines on the key lock, so in the dark I can find the keyhole! Yay!
Since doing the rear brakes, the hand brake hasn't been quite right, so I adjusted it (again).  It's still not where I want it to be, so I'll have another look when I can.
I also fished around with the wiring for the fog lamp and the rear defrost.  One wire had worked itself loose so the light wasn't coming on when the defrost was switched on.  All better now!
The factory supplied jack has been getting a real workout from lifting Hugo in it's lowered stance, and it's pretty much given up.  I will need to get another one to replace it.  It just never ends....

So we're off to Lincoln again this week for a four-day visit to work on the house.  Hopefully the car will give us a fun ride up north!

Brakes!

It's been a while, that's for sure.  I don't get to give poor Hugo the attention he deserves so much as I'd like. This is the price you pay when you're refurbishing a house and moving and working non-stop...
So we had our MOT test done last weekend.  Went to a great garage called Ferndale Autos.  Never been before, but I was quite confident that all would be okay.  My only concern was the rear brakes, as I didn't get a chance to do them before the test.
The chap at Ferndale was really nice, and let me participate in the MOT process - I got to pump the brakes, turn the wheel, etc.  I know, not very exciting, but it was my second MOT test in the UK, and I didn't get to watch the first one (it was on my other car, a Golf).  He was impressed with the shape the car was in, particularly underneath.  I was lucky enough also to go underneath, and I got a good look at the gubbins down there.  The exhaust is good - a bit scraped at it's lowest part due to the very low suspension I had at one point.  There were similar scrapes on the frame just behind the front wheels from the same thing.  The plastic splash guard that protects the bottom on the engine was a bit loose, but I now know how to fix it when I get underneath.  I noticed the gearbox was a bit oily - it was a bit wet, nothing serious, and it looked like engine oil, but he said it's likely old ATF fluid (remember, this is an automatic!).  It didn't raise a warning for him, so I will replace the gasket at my leisure.
Everything else under there looked lovely - in good shape and not rusty at all for a twenty year old car!
Then came the brake test.  It did excellent on the rolling road bit, and he got out and said that I need to replace the rear pads, but it was still gripping really well.  That was the only warning on my MOT.  (It needed a bulb, but I replaced it before he wrote it up).  I told him I had the parts at home and I would do it straight away.  He saw that I had done lots of other stuff, and he asked if I did the work.  I said yes, and he said he would trust me to do the brakes real soon.  Top lad!
So, new brakes...
I was anxious to do them, and started bright and early.  I got the wheels off the back, the car set on jackstands, and chocked the front wheels.

Dirty old worn out discs!

I'm glad I read a bit about how to do the rear brakes before I started, because it wouldn't be immediately obvious how to push the piston back without knowing - there is a hidden screw inside the caliper that you unwind to retract the piston.

Here is the caliper off the axle, with an allen key in the piston retractor.

Here you can see the piston has been retracted - because you can't see the piston anymore!  It's gone behind the rubber seal

Once that was done, it was dead easy to remove the old discs (a quick tap with a hammer), and fit hte new pads:

Here you can see the difference between the new and the old.  the old ones were just starting to make a scraping sound.

Installed!

After getting stuff bolted back into place, I turned the allen key to seat the pads against the disc.  I turned them until there was resistance.  At that point, I couldn't easily turn the disc by hand, so I backed off the piston one full turn.  Then I threw the wheel back on, and went to the other side.

Not very visible, but that's okay - I know I've got some good brakes back there.

It took me about 45 minutes to re and re the passenger side brakes.  The driver's side took about half an hour, just because I knew what to do.  A few things I figured out in the process:

• The first time, I took the caliper right off the axle and then tried to remove the screw that hides the retractor screw.  I couldn't get the leverage, so I had to stick it back on.  So for the other side, I made sure to remove the screw before I removed the caliper.
• When I tried to fit the caliper with the new pads around the new disc, I had to wrangle it on - there wasn't much room.  So on the other side, I took the small metal guides off the caliper, brushed off the loose dust, resat them, and installed - much smoother going on.
• When getting the pads around the new disc, I quickly found I didn't have enough hands to hold the disc in the correct position, hold the pads apart, and guide the caliper into place.  I put one lug nut back on the lug and got it finger tight - this was enough to hold the disc steady.

So an hour and a half later, I had new brakes - yay!  I knew I would have to adjust the handbrake, so I got the car down on the ground and tested it.  The handle went up all the way with no resistance, so with the hand brake released, I took the cover off, and turned the adjusting screw clockwise about 15 revolutions.  Now the handle will only go up about 4 clicks - it used to go about 8 clicks before I did any work.  So I tested to see how well they held.  I started the car, put it in drive, engaged the hand brake, and released the foot brake.... I drove forward.
The hand brake is not engaging at all....
I tried adjusting the handle a bit, but no real difference.  Not sure what to do, I did some testing to bed the brakes down (long, slow, light pressure stops), and had a quick look online.  I found my fatal error quite quickly.  I had backed the piston off a full turn after they grabbed.  Apparently I only need to go back about a third of a turn.
So I set out to re-adjust.  And you know what happened?  It starte to rain.
So now I have a car with great brakes - the pedal travel is solid, and it feels good - but no hand brake.  I guess that will have to wait a few more days.  The car's parked until the weekend anyway, so I'll have a go at the adjustments then.
Anyway, it was great getting back under the car and getting grease under my nails - I missed working on it!
So next weekend, brake adjust and a polish of the paint - the paint has faded again, so it's looking rather pink - a bit embarrassing, so best to sort out as soon as...