There are pros and cons to living on an island, the proximity to the coast is great, but there are often limited options when it comes to services that you need from time to time. So I’ve decided to chop the body shell into more managable chunks to make collection / disposal more straightforward.
To keep it all safe and rigid as I chop pieces off, I replaced the two rearmost front subframe bolts and put the 12mm nuts back on to the tops of the coil overs. Then out with the new recipro-saw….!
Here’s the results so far. As you can see the MX5 was not long for the road in anycase.
The next cut will be directly across the passenger area, forward of the gear stick. I then hope to drag out the engine, gearbox and PPF, leaving the rear of the passenger floor, boot and rear subframe as one piece to wheel back into the garage (the PPF is only cable tied to the rear subframe since I’ve already removed everything else bar the wheels & hubs).
Transmission liberation!
After jacking-up the remainder of the body shell, removing any remaining nuts and bolts holding the ‘skate to the shell and cutting the cable ties holding the PPF to the rear subframe, out came the engine, gearbox, front subframe and PPF in one piece. And the rear subframe fell over and out!
Next step is strip the subframes and dispose of them with the bodyshell and PPF.
Rear upright removal.
Wasn’t sure whether taking the lower rear wishbones off of the subframe before taking the uprights off was a good move, but seemed to work out well. It never ceases to amaze me how much rough treatment a workmate can withstand but it was more than a match for removing the long lower upright bolts. Used a breaker bar to get the bolts turning (along with lots of penetratiing oil) and then used the ugga dugga to spin the bolts out. All done in 15 mins for the pair!
Pressure’s on – kit collection day next Thursday!
