Hello everyone and thank you for adding me to this forum!
My name is Frank and I'm from germany. Last year I bought myself a '91 BRG which was an import from canada.
The car has had 3 pre-owners and currently has around 225k km. The last owner got the car repainted in the
original color, since the original paint was in a real bad condition (so still is the hardtop I got from him). The
paintjob was done by a professional and looks pretty good at first glance - but it was done really cheap and
so the whole lights, trim and everything else was not removed but just taped. On the second look you can
spot a lot of imperfections on the paint.
But after all I bought the car to have something to work on and to restore it to its old beauty.
My first intention was to buy a Nissan 200SX (240SX in the US) RPS13, since this was my "real first car"
after I got my license (before I had a Nissan Sunny/Pulsar GTI for about 1 year) and I learned a lot about
working on cars on this one. Sadly most of the 200SX you can buy here in germany are in pretty bad shape
and most time have a lot of rust, are poorly modded or have some pretty heave mechanical issues. If you
are lucky enough to find one in good condition it's most times pretty expensive...
So I changed my search for a MX5/Miata and after looking at a NB with lot's of rust I found my NA in used,
but acceptable, condition. I did drive the car a couple of times last summer and put it in the garage over
the autumn/winter. Last year I changed all oils, fuel- and air-filter and spark-plugs. Through the winter
the car rested in my garage and I was too lazy to do anything on it, because my job was pretty exhausting
and I couldn't find any motivation to work on the car in the cold garage.
This spring I changed the timing belt and also several gaskets which where leaking oil. I also started to clean
up some rust in the trunk under the battery - one of the pre-owners got the battery changed to a "normal"
one, which was not connected to the hose for battery-ventilation.
At the moment I'm on hollidays till july, because I quit my old job and still got a whole lot of free time to take.
I started to finish the trunk this weekend and also removed the master brake cylinder and brake booster, since
it was leaking brakefluid and the whole paint underneath is flaking of. The panel itself luckily only has surfacerust
which I'm going to remove with a sandblastinggun and then repaint it.
I also changed the two gaskets for the shifter, since both where broken and leaking. Car will get new brakepads
and discs and I have to fix the electric windows - both are just moving slowly and passenger side doesn't even
open completly.
After that I'll drive the car throughout the summer (license plate is only april - october) and hopefully get more
work done on it next winter.
Plans are to get the interior fresh made new from an upholstery, change all the bushings and eventually get all
rust removed and the car painted once more.
So this was my introduction, which was almost the start of a build-thread. I hope my english is ok, since I don't
get to speak or write that often.
The car last year, after I got it:
And this morning with lot's of work going on: