Month: June 2017

2016 MX5 Miata Repair – Stripping Away The Covers

I have spent the past few evenings stripping off the dead parts to have a good look at the damage and I really don’t think it’s that bad. But, I can see how an insurance company may have run away screaming. There are tons of little bits and bobs that are broken or cracked. Plus unless you really hunt for the parts getting everything would add up quick.

Looking at the left side, the damage isn’t too bad, save the wrinkle in the skirt. I think I frame shop can pull it out, but if not I’ll replace it. Considering the the left took the brunt of the force of the impact it’s descent. I think the shop that sold me the car, replaced the shock and lower control arm You can see the yellow marker on the shock and it’s on the arm.

The right side is in really descent condition, save the lower control arm has a bow in it, that is pushing the tire backwards. The fire shouldn’t be touching the mud skirt.

Now the front really shows the damage, I removed the radiator support already. You just drill out the spot welds, and it pops off. The while frame on both sides is shifted to the right side of the car. The bumper support is really mangled. I took a picture with the old and new to really show the issue.

I couldn’t figure out why the car wouldn’t stay running after being jump started and now I know. The A/C and alternator belt were shredded. The battery box seemed to have touched the alternator pulley and something, hit the A/C pulley pretty hard. I think I can repair the A/C puller with my dremel, if not I’ll have to but a replacement compressor. The ND is so new aftermarket parts haven’t caught up yet, so I can’t buy a clutch by itself. You’ll need to click for the high res picture to see the pulley damage.

2016 MX5 Miata Repair – Initial Pictures

Here is the beginning of the journey on my newly purchased 2016 Mazda MX5. I bought the car on ebay from a dealer in New York called Affordable Motors. I’m not very impressed by these guys and I plan write something about that process, it’s hard to argue with the price I payed for the car. Which was well under 50% of the new price of a new car.

I plan to use all Mazda Parts to fix the car it should be close to new as I can get it eventually. Things like running lights, and the plastic grille might wait until I see a bargain.

Here are some pictures of the car in its current state.

The front driver’s scraped along something pretty hard. I’m guessing a concrete lane divider. The fender, hood, bumper, and headlight bought it hard. The upper radiator support need to be replaced. I’m going to see if I can get someone with a frame machine to pull the kink out of the apron, if it can’t be pulled it will be replaced with a new part. You can see the LED headlamp is toast, I’m also going to take it apart the busted LED headlight and play with that.

Turns out the lower drivers side control arm and tire was replaced by the seller, to make the car look better.

Here is the passenger side, I really don’t really have a good explanation to what happened. Best guess is it hit another car after the other impact with the concrete object. On this side if you look closely the wheel is pushed back a bit. The lower control arm on this side has a slight bow to it. Also the front impact barrier is cracked and pushed to the left. The wiring for the headlamp is also damaged. I think the apron is slightly bent to the left as well. Once the debris is removed (junk parts) I’ll be towing it a frame shop.

Front and back shot of the car, the rear shot looks almost perfect.