Jag! The Ghostly fleet thread

[CLINT]

Good purchase! You'll enjoy that, a lad your age shouldn't be running around in Volvos.

[Hooli]

RWD convertibles are good, shame it's git the wrong gearbox though.
Do try not to kill it when finding out how to drive forwards* while looking out the side windows.

[bub2006]

Driving forward while looking out the side window is great fun. I used to do it regularly in my old reliant robin. Didn't half get funny looks for that.

[ghosty]

So, today was the first proper day with it. Took my mum out for a drive in it, she likes it. Went over to Holmfirth, found a copy of Blue Monday in a charity shop for £2. Already got a first pressing, but for £2 you can't go wrong.

Fucked off work as it's too hot to function properly, let's look at things on the car instead.

First, wanky DRLs. It turns out the little mesh grille in the bumper is actually pretty alright looking, so I'm just going to leave it be. I looked at the DRLs. They have threaded rods on the back that should have nuts on, but there weren't any, they were just shoved through the holes in the grille in hopes of an interference fit. The wires for them went down the centre of one of said posts, so it was out with the grille to remove them. Easy, two bolts.



This revealed some excessively long wire, held together with spade connectors, chocoblocks and cable ties. All just sitting in the bumper, going off up into the engine bay somewhere. I followed it...



(oops, blurry). The long red wire was spliced into a wire that seemed to be a sensor for the washer fluid bottle or something, and the other one was the earth - a female spade connector just shoved under one of the wing bolts. Once the cable ties were gone it all just pulled out. I'll have to reconnect the spliced wire at some point.



I noticed the factory wiring for some driving lights just hanging around in the grille doing nothing.

Gave the interior a cursory wipe down, but it really didn't need it, it was super clean already. I knocked one of the speaker covers off the doors as it wasn't clipped in properly and it revealed a replacement JVC speaker, which was another nice surprise. I thought it sounded good.

Then, after going over the car with a toothbrush and a damp cloth to get rid of all the polish residue it was caked in, it was time to remove some polish residue (bear with me).

I noticed the GB sticker on the rear bumper was hiding something:



also below it the bumper has a hole drilled for a previous foglight, but a better positioned one has since been added, under the bumper by the exhaust. Can't see the hole except from underneath the car so I'll ignore it.



See? Polish residue. Turns out the GB sticker was plonked there unceremoniously to hide an older sticker someone had failed to remove. There was also adhesive residue on all the free space on the numberplate (there was still a Brick Lane Bikes sticker on the plate on purchase), and some above the Eunos badge, that I cleaned over with some nail polish remover. This Polish sticker seemed to be made of vinyl that had dried out or something: nail polish remover started to dissolve it and made it easy to chip away if it got around the edges.



This was all cleaned off and it revealed the sticker was merely hiding a bit of minor paint damage where it looks like someone reversed into a wall or something. I just touched it up with some red nail varnish that was knocking about, and a fine brush (picture taken before I did).



In the above picture you can see all the polish dust around the brake light, every conceivable gap like that on the car was full of the stuff. I can't stand cars like that.

As I was there and with the nail polish and remover out, I also set to work on the Eunos badge. (The 'Roadster' badge is missing, but I don't mind, I like it better with just the one - I also prefer the Eunos rear plate surround to the UK one, which looks like an afterthought, especially with the badge placement along the top).



As you can see here the red lettering has completely faded (the badge was full of polish residue too). I cleaned it out and painted it with nail varnish, then wiped over the raised surface of the badge with nail polish remover to remove the excess colour, however I noticed this made the badge lose its shine - eh? Turns out there was some sort of coating on the main face of the badge, I've no idea what it was but a solvent-based cleaner (intended for uPVC window frames) thinned it, and it just scraped off.



It came out as well as you could expect:



I also changed the wheels. The wheels on the car when I bought it were 15x6" Enkei manufactured Mazda branded five-spoke wheels from an MX-3, that'd had a blowover in wheel paint to shine them up. The 205/55 tyres were too big though, as well as being cheap Chinese 'Westlake' brand, with date codes ranging from 2005 to 2007, and starting to crack up a bit. The tread looked ok, but they were worn smooth in the middle (?). I didn't trust 12 year old Chinese tyres at all, even if they did grip well it's been bone dry, I'd hate to use them in the wet. The wheels in general looked slightly awkward, so for the time being, until I can get the original daisies refurbished, I put my Panasport Pro Rallies on, as they aren't going with the Civic. In doing so I discovered the brake pads are EBC Green Stuff, but they need replacing.



I'm going to paint the wheel faces silver, I'm not too keen on the black.


While I was outside a fella that lives further up the street dropped by and told me he was an ex-Eunos owner and may have some spares knocking about that he'll drop by if he can find them.

Good day all in all, I can see a good future with this little car.

[LynehamHerc]

Some good work there, the badge has come up brilliantly.

[Hooli]

That polish residue is a bugger!

Tyres bald in the middle mean they've been run well over inflated.

[ghosty]

Oh yeah, also found out it's had a cambelt done, so that's not imminently due.

[SiC]

Non interference on these anyway

[bub2006]

Do those led lights still work? If so do you have any plans Mr?!

[ghosty]

One of them broke when I took them off, and they didn't work on the car. They weren't fused either so suspect they're dead.