Tonight I will mainly be fitting new wheels and tyres - taken a while as I ran out of dosh. I'll post up some pictures, assuming I get them on before the light runs out. Woop! Woop!
Well I wanted big rubber and I got big rubber. Just need to make them fit inside the wheel arches now.
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Felt the last pictures didn't do the car justice so here's some better ones.
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Wooop, woop. My car passed it's MOT today. Insurance and tax in the next couple of days, suspension realignment on Saturday and do some miles to see what falls off.
So I take my car out on public roads for the first time and stop at a local garage for fuel. A lorry driver hangs out of his cab and says "Is than an MX5?". How different do I have to make the bloody thing so that it doesn't look like and MX?
I have worried about the roof but I don't like the proportions with a soft top. Maybe I'll speak with Chris about the LM mods I originally considered.
On the wheels and tyres, these are more 70's to my eye and my kids (15 and 20) hate them as the modern style is for stretch tyres on wide wheels. I couldn't find anyone who was prepared to make adapters for the wire wheels and trust me I tried. These will be appearing on an internet auction site near you shortly.
The interior is next. although don't tell the wife. Not sure what to do with the door handles, I'll have to see what is possible.
Thanks all for the suggestions. I love the hand painted car, look great.
I tried Orson and they never got back to me. I also tried MWS who said they wouldn't make their universal adapters to fit the MX as they would be too heavy for the car. I had a good look around for other universal adapters and then thought sod it, I'll put muscle car wheels and tyres on it.
The truck driver did at least have a question in his voice so it wasn't that obvious.
Thanks DSG4ME - looks good.
I'm hoping it could be something bonded on to the hard top to take advantage of the existing mounts.
That looks like it will bring the lines out to where they need to be and create the wing section - excellent (as Mr Burns would say).
If you split the wing and make it a bit wider it might avoid the filler cap and flow better into the roof????
How illegal is this front number plate and how long do you think I could get away with just sticking letters onto the grill on my MX before Mr Plod tells me off?
I think those are just white letters stuck on a black grill Scottie so you still get the air flow. Perhaps I'll look at this for show plates.
My little car goes down to Chris next week for the roof mods and I've been pleasantly surprised this week as I've taken the opportunity to drive it about with lots of questions and comments from various people wondering what the hell it is. Hopefully I won't run in to that truck driver again ;-)
Still have the car but a combination of mechanical problems and a lack of cash have stopped things. I'm currently working on bonding the MX hard top on, Chris didn't have the time to make the mods I wanted so I'm just going to stick with the hard top as is.
I also replaced the suspension with coilovers to get the ride height right for the wheels and tyres I have chosen and, just to help things along, the steering rack sprang a leak so I have had to replace all the pipe work and the rack itself.
Also doing some work on the interior, lining the doors with alcantara and then going to do the dash and binnacle. I hope to get it painted this year, finally decided on yellow as it will make it stand out.
With all the recent discussions on painting on here I thought I'd post a the start of my budget effort on getting some colour on my MX.
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In case you are confused, the car will be yellow not grey. Just to get some colour I've decided to roller it and have tried things out on the bonnet. After a few cock ups I finally got a half decent finish, at least from a few feet away.
Week after next the rest of the car gets painted.
I'm using Rustoleum 7300 and plan to roller the whole car. The rollering leaves very bad orange peel but I put a thick layer on the bonnet, let it harden and then cut the orange peel back with 240 grit dry then went through the different grit levels wet until it was ready to be T Cut and then polished.
It's not perfect but I can't afford a pro job so this will do until I can. I estimate that the entire job, paint and consumables, will cost about £300.
Dunno but I prefer the recessed lights personally.
No there's a thing. When I put the first coats of primer on I used thinner bought from the same company. First two coats went on okay and then I left it to dry overnight. When I put the next coat on the next day, after a light sanding, the thinned paint started to strip the first coats off so I am now putting the paint on without thinning.
For info the thinners I bought was Rustoleum 160 which says it's for thinning Combicolour paint for spraying so I'm not sure what went wrong. Applying the colour not thinned seems to work so I'm going to go with that for the rest of the car.
Thanks Paul. I agree, as long as it is finally all one colour I don't really care and after I sanded back the bonnet quite dramatically the orange peel disappeared.
Mazdarazmataz, I gave it about 24 hours between coats but only gave the surface a very light sand with 400 grit between coats to give it a key. For the deep sand and polish, I left the bonnet for a week to harden.
BTW, just had a look at the website where I bought the paint and I bought the wrong thinners - oops. Here's a link to their site with all the tech info:
https://www.promain.co.uk/combicolor-7300-smooth-gloss.html 
