clivvy
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2009
- Messages
- 6,918
ok, not 4x4 related in anyway, in fact, other end of the scale. Being a lover of cars (not physically, mentally) I own a nice rare Mazda MX6, some of you already know this!
The Mazda MX6 is an early nineties coupe, it came around as Mazda's answer to the Corrado, Calibra, Celica and Prelude. Not what you might call a boy racers car, more of a gentlemans coupe. There are a few variations of the same car, the two main ones being the European Spec model, and the Jap Spec model, the Jap Specs being higher powered and more toys, mines the E-Spec.
I can almost guarentee you wont see many of these about, they are FAR less common than the coupes mentioned above, and probably about as rare as the bigger brother the Mazda RX7, and dont confused them with the MAzda MX-5/
The build quality of these cars, I have found over the years, is superb, and testament to a great period of Mazdas history. I have owened mine for over 4 years now, when I bought it, I bought it, unknowingly, with some major faults, part of the point of this post will become clear.
This is my baby, picture taken last year on a trip to South Wales...
today was MOT day for her, but she failed. Nothing major, but all this week i was giving serious thought to getting rid, as I just cannot afford any major repairs after the costs recently incurred by the mazda AND the Maverick. The failure was simply handbrake effiency at 7%, which is funny because yes, the hand brake was high, but held perfectly, so hopefully just needs adjusment. Other than that, I got an expected advisory for front brake discs (recently, the nearside caliper seized, causing pads to wear down to metal and damage the discs), again, no big deal. And thats it. MOT comments were "really good for an old car", which really made me come back to my senses, and decide to keep her. The other deciding factor was an issue that turned up a few weeks ago...
A caliper had seized, so I bought a new one at considerable expense and fitted it myself plus new pads. I also fitted a new air filter. It was then i noticed that when I put my foot down, I didnt seem to have the power. Sure, it shifted, but it actually felt like something was stuck under the pedal. I checked the pedal, all ok. odd, so I decided it was simply the change in power from fixed brakes and new filter. Anyway, this morning, I went to get petrol, and wheni got home, did a quick check of the engine bay and checked the throttle linkage. Sure enough i couldnt push it more than half way, it was then I noticed that an air pipe I have (blocked off for when you fit CAI kits) was actually stuck in the linkage! So I unblocked it, and 20 minutes later i burned of a 2.0 GTV Alfa going up hill, I got my power back!
A quick history of the car. When I bought it, I had lots of issues I didnt know anything about (refer to Petes current problem, well, this was a similar situation). I basically drove the car for approx 18 months with these various faults. First fixed was heating system and sound system. The next issue was the killer. After a while of owning the car, I noticed the engine seemed to lean. Now, the engine is a quad cam V6, so its a big chunk of aluminium, and something i knew nothing about. Everything worked fine, so no reason to suspect an issue....
Well, I had another fault along side this odd leaning. Imagine the belt tensioner, for tensioning the power steering. The bolt that holds the bracket for this to the engine block, was broken, so it used to unscrew and rattle against the chassis. Could never ever fall out, the gap was about 3 inches, bolt is about 8 inches. So i put up with this for a long time. One day, I decided to give my car a valet. I spent ALL DAY cleaning it, so much so i took a ton of pictures, it was that good! Now, this is why i dont clean my cars. When i had done, I took a look underneath the engine bay for no particular reason. Hmm, i thought. I have a water leak.
turns out the water leak was the water pump, which on these cars, is MAJOR, but it doesnt stop there. I had to drive from Huddersfield, to Sheffield with a broken non functioning water pump (amazingly, I didnt even have to top up the water, i love these cars) to a specialist. The chap had a look, and noted the leaning engine when i pointed it out and said, to me, to get rid. His worry was that if he starts the job to fix the pump, he may find something else and then its an engine out job, £800 mate. sound familiar?
So he patched me up and I drove home. Parked up and called for help from the MAzda Club. I was set to get rid. Untill a great guy called John actually came over to my house, to have a look. Ex mechanic, he brought his tools, and we set to finding out the problem. We jacked up the engine using a trolly jack. To give you an idea of how difficult it is to work on these, the trolly jack doesnt fit under the car, thats how low it is, only way to do it is to jack the side up, then slide the trolly jack under the engine, and raise the engine up.
We raised the engine (trolly jack+block of wood under sump=no problem) and removed the chassis engine mount componant. it was at this point John downed tools and said "this is where i stop" why? "the engine mount bolts are snapped, the engine has been leaning on the mount and the pulleys. The pulleys have worn a groove into the mount!"
again, i was set to get rid, i couldnt afford a new engine, i couldnt afford a new car. I thought about it for a bit, and decided to fix it, or at least have a go. I had approx 6 inches space between the chassis, and the engine. I had to drill out the broken engine mount bolts (2) and broken pulley bolt. HOW? i hear you ask? HOW did you do it with 6 inches gap, how did you get a drill in? how can it be done without removing the engine? This is why I never take a mechanics first diagnosis as the be all and end all. All I did was buy an angled, wood drill extension. so a 90 degree extension for the end of your drill. Into this, I used some super megga expensive drill bits. essentially, it JUST fitted. It took me 5 weeks on and off to drill out the steel bolts, e.g.
I then had to drill out the bolt holes, and use bolt removal tool and then helicoil the bolt holes. Once done, I fitted new water pump, and put the engine mount back on. most of the bolts fitted ok, some were slightly too long but were fine and did the job, so not perfect, but totally sound. lowered engine back onto mounts and secured, fitted perfect and level again!
so far it had cost me a lot of money for parts and tools, and now my battery was flat. So I went and bought a VArta battery for £80, and fitted that (turns out my existing battery was wrong anyway and too small in size/power!). Moment of truth. put the key in, paused a second, heart pounding. have i connected everything up correctly? Water? oil? bolts? sod it, turned the key BVRROOOMMMMMMMMM. V6 roared into life perectly, and sounded different, better. so not only had i fixed it, i was gifted an improved sound/performance from the engine. No more rattly bolt, more power, the car sounded happy and I fell in love with her again.
Now this work took time. And all through the process I had the dilema of fix it/scrap it/sell it. I had garages/mechanics telling me to get rid, or it was going to cost £800. Ok, I am lucky in that i have a driveway to work on, and we had three cars at the time so I had other transport (Fourtrak is what I drove) BUT I went from that, to a fixed car that has been running strong now for a furthur 3 years. Its gone from MOT to MOT with either a pass, or minor failures such as drop links or breaks, never had anything ever more serious than that.
I now know this car so very well, and have done lots of work on it myself. when it goes to the garage, i am very forceful about what i do (and do not ) know about the issue at hand, I wont be told its this mate its that mate because i will NOT be ripped off. I find that many people see its a v6 coupe and they just add ££ to the costs of work, when underneath the car is less complicated than my Ford Maverick.
the moral of this story is simple. If you have a major problem with your car, dont give up at the first hurdle. Dont let mechanics convince you that its not worth it, that you should "just scrap it" because its old. Give it some time, maybe not 5 weeks like me but just some time untill you have some facts, or have fixed it yourself! The clubs out there, especially this one, are simply awesome. If it wasnt for the clubs, i simply WOULD NOT have my Mazda now, or my Maverick. And for that, I applaud them, and I love them, because I love my cars. Thankyou.
watch this now, come Monday my car will be screwed and a write off.
The Mazda MX6 is an early nineties coupe, it came around as Mazda's answer to the Corrado, Calibra, Celica and Prelude. Not what you might call a boy racers car, more of a gentlemans coupe. There are a few variations of the same car, the two main ones being the European Spec model, and the Jap Spec model, the Jap Specs being higher powered and more toys, mines the E-Spec.
I can almost guarentee you wont see many of these about, they are FAR less common than the coupes mentioned above, and probably about as rare as the bigger brother the Mazda RX7, and dont confused them with the MAzda MX-5/
The build quality of these cars, I have found over the years, is superb, and testament to a great period of Mazdas history. I have owened mine for over 4 years now, when I bought it, I bought it, unknowingly, with some major faults, part of the point of this post will become clear.
This is my baby, picture taken last year on a trip to South Wales...
today was MOT day for her, but she failed. Nothing major, but all this week i was giving serious thought to getting rid, as I just cannot afford any major repairs after the costs recently incurred by the mazda AND the Maverick. The failure was simply handbrake effiency at 7%, which is funny because yes, the hand brake was high, but held perfectly, so hopefully just needs adjusment. Other than that, I got an expected advisory for front brake discs (recently, the nearside caliper seized, causing pads to wear down to metal and damage the discs), again, no big deal. And thats it. MOT comments were "really good for an old car", which really made me come back to my senses, and decide to keep her. The other deciding factor was an issue that turned up a few weeks ago...
A caliper had seized, so I bought a new one at considerable expense and fitted it myself plus new pads. I also fitted a new air filter. It was then i noticed that when I put my foot down, I didnt seem to have the power. Sure, it shifted, but it actually felt like something was stuck under the pedal. I checked the pedal, all ok. odd, so I decided it was simply the change in power from fixed brakes and new filter. Anyway, this morning, I went to get petrol, and wheni got home, did a quick check of the engine bay and checked the throttle linkage. Sure enough i couldnt push it more than half way, it was then I noticed that an air pipe I have (blocked off for when you fit CAI kits) was actually stuck in the linkage! So I unblocked it, and 20 minutes later i burned of a 2.0 GTV Alfa going up hill, I got my power back!
A quick history of the car. When I bought it, I had lots of issues I didnt know anything about (refer to Petes current problem, well, this was a similar situation). I basically drove the car for approx 18 months with these various faults. First fixed was heating system and sound system. The next issue was the killer. After a while of owning the car, I noticed the engine seemed to lean. Now, the engine is a quad cam V6, so its a big chunk of aluminium, and something i knew nothing about. Everything worked fine, so no reason to suspect an issue....
Well, I had another fault along side this odd leaning. Imagine the belt tensioner, for tensioning the power steering. The bolt that holds the bracket for this to the engine block, was broken, so it used to unscrew and rattle against the chassis. Could never ever fall out, the gap was about 3 inches, bolt is about 8 inches. So i put up with this for a long time. One day, I decided to give my car a valet. I spent ALL DAY cleaning it, so much so i took a ton of pictures, it was that good! Now, this is why i dont clean my cars. When i had done, I took a look underneath the engine bay for no particular reason. Hmm, i thought. I have a water leak.
turns out the water leak was the water pump, which on these cars, is MAJOR, but it doesnt stop there. I had to drive from Huddersfield, to Sheffield with a broken non functioning water pump (amazingly, I didnt even have to top up the water, i love these cars) to a specialist. The chap had a look, and noted the leaning engine when i pointed it out and said, to me, to get rid. His worry was that if he starts the job to fix the pump, he may find something else and then its an engine out job, £800 mate. sound familiar?
So he patched me up and I drove home. Parked up and called for help from the MAzda Club. I was set to get rid. Untill a great guy called John actually came over to my house, to have a look. Ex mechanic, he brought his tools, and we set to finding out the problem. We jacked up the engine using a trolly jack. To give you an idea of how difficult it is to work on these, the trolly jack doesnt fit under the car, thats how low it is, only way to do it is to jack the side up, then slide the trolly jack under the engine, and raise the engine up.
We raised the engine (trolly jack+block of wood under sump=no problem) and removed the chassis engine mount componant. it was at this point John downed tools and said "this is where i stop" why? "the engine mount bolts are snapped, the engine has been leaning on the mount and the pulleys. The pulleys have worn a groove into the mount!"
again, i was set to get rid, i couldnt afford a new engine, i couldnt afford a new car. I thought about it for a bit, and decided to fix it, or at least have a go. I had approx 6 inches space between the chassis, and the engine. I had to drill out the broken engine mount bolts (2) and broken pulley bolt. HOW? i hear you ask? HOW did you do it with 6 inches gap, how did you get a drill in? how can it be done without removing the engine? This is why I never take a mechanics first diagnosis as the be all and end all. All I did was buy an angled, wood drill extension. so a 90 degree extension for the end of your drill. Into this, I used some super megga expensive drill bits. essentially, it JUST fitted. It took me 5 weeks on and off to drill out the steel bolts, e.g.
I then had to drill out the bolt holes, and use bolt removal tool and then helicoil the bolt holes. Once done, I fitted new water pump, and put the engine mount back on. most of the bolts fitted ok, some were slightly too long but were fine and did the job, so not perfect, but totally sound. lowered engine back onto mounts and secured, fitted perfect and level again!
so far it had cost me a lot of money for parts and tools, and now my battery was flat. So I went and bought a VArta battery for £80, and fitted that (turns out my existing battery was wrong anyway and too small in size/power!). Moment of truth. put the key in, paused a second, heart pounding. have i connected everything up correctly? Water? oil? bolts? sod it, turned the key BVRROOOMMMMMMMMM. V6 roared into life perectly, and sounded different, better. so not only had i fixed it, i was gifted an improved sound/performance from the engine. No more rattly bolt, more power, the car sounded happy and I fell in love with her again.
Now this work took time. And all through the process I had the dilema of fix it/scrap it/sell it. I had garages/mechanics telling me to get rid, or it was going to cost £800. Ok, I am lucky in that i have a driveway to work on, and we had three cars at the time so I had other transport (Fourtrak is what I drove) BUT I went from that, to a fixed car that has been running strong now for a furthur 3 years. Its gone from MOT to MOT with either a pass, or minor failures such as drop links or breaks, never had anything ever more serious than that.
I now know this car so very well, and have done lots of work on it myself. when it goes to the garage, i am very forceful about what i do (and do not ) know about the issue at hand, I wont be told its this mate its that mate because i will NOT be ripped off. I find that many people see its a v6 coupe and they just add ££ to the costs of work, when underneath the car is less complicated than my Ford Maverick.
the moral of this story is simple. If you have a major problem with your car, dont give up at the first hurdle. Dont let mechanics convince you that its not worth it, that you should "just scrap it" because its old. Give it some time, maybe not 5 weeks like me but just some time untill you have some facts, or have fixed it yourself! The clubs out there, especially this one, are simply awesome. If it wasnt for the clubs, i simply WOULD NOT have my Mazda now, or my Maverick. And for that, I applaud them, and I love them, because I love my cars. Thankyou.
watch this now, come Monday my car will be screwed and a write off.
