Day ? (Lost Count) Saturday
Couldn't wait for car to return from
garage, so armed with a box of bits
from mazdatrix visited the car in
hospital.
Decided to replace the rear springs
first (they looked easiest).
As the car was still on the ramp everything should have been simple. Unfortunately the rear shock absorbers had turned into vampires, as soon as they where exposed to sunlight the crumpled to a pile of rust.
Not to give up easily, scooped up pile of rust and took it to local tyre and exhaust specialist (Pemberton Tyres). He said he new where he could get some Koni adjustables for it.
Day ?+1 Sunday - Nothing to do ! Day of rest.
Day ?+2 Monday
My local tyres & exhaust didn't let me down. They phoned to tell me they had some shocks (if somewhat dusty) in their posession.
Fetched car from garage and picked up shocks on the way.
Not bothering to eat or change, jacked up car and fitted rear shocks and springs. Couldn't have been easier - job done in a couple of hours.
The front was not to be so easy.
Day +3 Tuesday
To change the front springs, the whole wheel,brakes and bearings have to be removed. This alone took over two hours because of seized bolts, and the worst collection of spanners and sockets that any one would admit to owning.
Day +4 Wednesday
Finally the front strut was out. First problem was that the adjustable spring perch would not fit over the top of the strut because of a hexagonal shaped top. Out came the angle grinder and off came the restriction.
The spring perch then sat nicely on the strut. Tried to fit the top of the piston through the camber plate, but its diameter was to big....argh !!! i couldnt replace the suspension insert because I had cut off the top which I now realised was there to allow you to remove the insert.
Chapter 2 (Days too difficult to work out !!)
Had to send both struts to have the top ground to fit the adjustable camber plates.
Unable to fit at the weekend...went to Brooklands instead.
Got back from Brooklands on monday afternoon. Re-assembled front suspension and bolted wheels back on (also bolted seat back in.)
Next task was to tart up the exterior.
Removed rear bumper and sprayed all underneath with waxoyl. Finsihed off with a watertight finish and my skin a colour Al Jolson would have been proud of.
After numerous baths, showers and every form of soap from peach facial scrub to Jif, got skin near enough to normal colour.

Next day, removed all scuff trim from sides and removed glue (which was strong enough to fix heat shield to space shuttle)

Bought 10m of graduated stick on stripes from Halfords, and applied to sides.
You can never under estimate the value of 'Go faster stripes'.
After much deliberation decided to paint wheels as they were looking a bit tatty !! Applied white primer (had some kicking about) and thought wow!! white wheels look great. Sprayed other wheels with white primer, and finished with Hammerite White.

Next day, bought a 6ft sheet of 1mm steel plate and covered hole left by rear bumper with it !
Bought a huge tin of filler, and created a new rear end that would be the envy of any catwalk model.
After liberal splashes of paint and filler, here and there, the job was done.

My next aquisition will be a roll cage ...... this will be the next chapter !!