As previously mentioned, I'm pretty non-technical. ie. I do not know where the alternator is, nor the drive belt leading to it. Is this likely to just be coolant on the alternator which will drain/wear away with some engine use and right itself? Should I go back to the garage who fixed the hose? I t...

Question. As of yesterday, the "charge" light on my dash is permanently on. I noticed this first thing this morning - the first time I'd driven it since I had a coolant hose replaced due to a coolant leak a few days ago. The car appears to be running fine. I'm not terribly technical when it comes to...

Cheers ... managed to get an actual MX-5 zipper-head for $11.50 in person from the place who quoted me $500 to fix it over the phone. I wonder if I can justfiy blowing almost $500 on something else now, based on how much I saved?

ummm ... yeah. Ideally a solution which involves me using the top in both the up and down positions.

Hi there. The zipper in my back window seems to have died, and now I can't get the back window. Whilst my soft-top is getting to the point of needing replacement, I'm not really in a position to blow a grand or so on a new one right now. Anyone know of somewhere in central/Eastern Auckland who can e...

I have no beef with red as a colour for MX5s, it's more just that, with the older models at least, there are so many more red ones than any other colour.

Sorry to jump in with being vaguely off topic but, seriously, WTF is wrong with British Racing Green as a colour? In my opinion it's classic, and a helluva lot nicer than, for example, red.

yeah, I wondered about the glue ... obviously, it needs to be strong so you don't lose your mirrors on the motorway, but not so strong as to make it impossible to get them apart again in the future.

My springs look like they need replacing. Guess it's time to give Ross a call. One last question. Once I've got all the bits'n'bobs sorted out, do I put the mirror assembly back together, glue the mirror frame back on and then attach everything from the bottom, or do I reassemble everything on the c...

supplementary question: Yup ... black surrounds successfully removed from mirrors and, crikey, there's a lot of rust action going on in there. Looks like I need two new bolts, and two new springs. So ... Anyone know what bolt/spring I buy? I am getting increasingly tired of the gormless teens who st...

awesome. Cheers.

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because I've been overseas. (And, Howard, I haven't forgotten.) Anyway, one of my side mirrors on my BRG NA just dropped off. I went to look at the other side mirror to see how it was mounted, and it came off in my hand. Both mounting bolts seem to have total...

So you have solved your problem, no need to blow big bucks at a garage, you may still want to go to an alarm centre to have them re-adjust the switch. It's easy to do, loosen the nut at the botton and reach below and turn them so the switch moves up. Check the clearance now and again so the bonnet ...

By the way suburban_ennui - you must be an artist :) Not sure if that's scarcasm or not :) - if you're referring to the quickie photoshop job above - I spend about 50 hours a week in front of a Mac using Flash and Photoshop. As you surmised, the fiddling with the switch happened *just before* the p...

and here's the mystery swith if anyone can shed any light

There is no such switch as standard. Can you submit a photo? I'd guess you were looking at an aftermarket pin switch for an alarm or something similar. As to why it would cut the engine off when operating, I'm not sure - the only thing I can think of is if it was part of an autostart circuit, but i...

David - thanks. Is this a book one can go out an buy? It'd probably be a good thing to get because that Haynes model normally poses more questions than it answers for someone only vaguely mechanical like myself. Anyway ... after reading the threads last night it occurred to me that on Sunday afterno...

Cheers ... sadly ... almost none of that makes sense to me. ECU? Earth connectors in the engine? I guess I'd better head to a garage. Thanks anyway.

oh, and I had the cambelt replaced about five months back. if that makes any difference.

Coming home last night on the motorway, I had a couple of weird shudders ... kind of like I was "bunny hopping". They stopped before I could work out what was going on. Tonight, driving home, I had the same problem. Everything appears to be running fine, but then, for a brief second the revs drop aw...

cheers ... and any idea if you can get extra screws like that anywhere?

I was putting my soft top up yesterday and noticed that the brackets above the front windscreen had worked very loose, and also that each bracket was only attached with one screw, not two. Firstly, I note the screw has an odd, six-sided hole for tightening ... any idea where I can get a screw head/t...

it seems like my car has gone from a-OK to a dog over the last fortnight. Suddenly my factory (I assume it's a factory one) alarm keeps going off when I use my remote to lock the car. it's happened four times in the last two days and a few times over the previous weeks. Could this be a "battery on i...

my car wouldn't start yesterday morning. Granted, it's been bloody cold, but I had to rev like hell to get it to turn over and there was blue smoke a-plenty coming from the exhaust. This is the second time this has happened in the last six weeks now. I'm wondering if this is in any way related to my...

would still appreciate some help/advice on this one