Newbie in Massachusetts

[MPG]

I've been lurking here for a while, but I guess that it's time to introduce myself.

 

I recently started building a Westfield kit. The donor is a Miata I bought new back in 1993. Before the Miata, I drove an MGB (which is actually sitting on jackstands at the back of the garage at the moment), but a 7 is what I always wanted to have. The Miata was starting to get some body rust (it was a daily driver through 20 New England winters), but the drivetrain was still in good shape and I loved working on it, so it seemed like giving it a "change of life" was the right plan.

 

It appears that I can't add pictures to posts in this part of the forum, but you can find some at the Westfield feed on my blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/garritys/Westfield. There's nothing very exciting yet. Mostly stripping parts off donor and cleaning them up (there was 30 pounds of wiring hiding in that little Miata!). This weekend I started fussing at installing the handbrake before I start putting the panels in, but I can't seem to find those 22mm spacers anywhere, and metric rivnut tools aren't the sort of thing I can find at the local hardware store here, so there's a bit of waiting for boxes from Amazon. 

 

I'm sure I'm going to have 1,000,000 questions, especially once I get near the registration stage (it's not too simple in MA), but you guys seem to have 1,000,001 answers here. So thanks in advance for all of your help.

 

  - Mike

 

 

[Rab (bombero) Reid]

Hi Mike and welcome to the friendliest forum on Earth!

 

I like your story about your Miata and how cool will it be to tell people that you're still using the engine out of a car that you've owned since new .. albeit in its new clothes! There seems to be a pretty good Westfield following in the States of late and the best of luck with your build .. we love pictures! Guys on here will tell you that you need to host your pictures through a provider like Photobucket, etc but Im sure a more techy minded bod will be along shortly to tell you some other ways that you can display your pics on here!

 

Just had a look at your blog .. that handbrake switch 'might' come in handy as a microswitch for your brakes. the standard Westfield set-up is usually a pressure fed type switch, which don't react as quick as you'd like it to so many owners retrofit a microswitch at the brake pedal.

 

The footwells do look tight .. and are, well, compared to a normal road going car that is! Slim fitting shoes/sneakers are the way to go. Don't be tempted to drive your Westy in boots .. you'll hit at least 2 pedals at once almost every time!

[Norman Verona]

Welcome Mike, great to have you on board.

 

The million and one answers is for each question, and they'll all be different

 

Mark, Smokey Mow, is the man you want, he'll be along soon no doubt.

 

By the way, the Miata in the UK is known as the MX5. I'm sure we all know that but just in case it may be worth mentioning.

 

Good luck with the build.

 

What do you plan to do with the MG? 

 

And lastly you can post pictures in a thread. You need to host it on a website. and then use the picture icon to link it.

[Captain Colonial]

Hiya Mike, thanks for joining!  There's tons of advice and pointers here in the boardroom from Mazda SDVers, including a gent on the opposite coast who's done one recently - no doubt they'll all introduce themselves soon.

 

This thread is a must and I'd advise you to bookmark it now:

 

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/98062-updating-the-mazda-sdv-build-manual/

 

As a member, you have a Gallery here in the boardroom - just click on the Gallery tab at the top, and if I remember correctly, there's a button on the upper right that will say something like Create Album or My Gallery, and you can add your photos there.  Afterwards, you add them to your posts by just clicking on the My Media button next to the emoticon button above the text box.

 

Looking forward to seeing it progress - hope you have a warm garage, Mass winters are awful!  I'll be posting out your magazine and 2014 calendar very soon.

[Rab (bombero) Reid]

As a member, you have a Gallery here in the boardroom - just click on the Gallery tab at the top, and if I remember correctly, there's a button on the upper right that will say something like Create Album or My Gallery, and you can add your photos there.  Afterwards, you add them to your posts by just clicking on the My Media button next to the emoticon button above the text box.

See .. what did I say!  

[MPG]

I have all of my pictures hosted at Flickr. When I tried to add one to the original post using the Image button (below the Text Color) button, I got the following message from Preview:

 

You are not allowed to use that image extension on this community.

 

I assumed that it was trying to say that images weren't allowed in "The Start Line". But that's obviously not it, so I'll keep trying.

Here's a try with Flickr's embed code instead:

westfield2 by Chris Garrity, on Flickr

That seems to work. I'm the one on the left. Those are my sons on the heavy end.

[MPG]

As for the MG, it's just sitting around waiting for some love. It's problem was always that the Miata's ratio of driving hours to wrenching hours was so much better that it always won the competition for the limited number of hours which were available after work and ferrying kids around.

 

And now there's another car ahead of the MG in the pecking order! Poor thing. There's a picture of it here.
 

[Mark (smokey mow)]

Hi Mike, welcome to the club and the ever growing number of Mazda SDV owners

I built mine way back in 2008 and over the years since have been tweaking, modifying and refining it. There's a few pictures from my build here http://www.mx5westfield.co.uk

Scott has already kindly posted a link to a thread I'm sure you'll find useful during the build, there is also many more similar ones lurking within the archives as most of us at some time have got stuck, questioned, done it wrong and then needed to seek advice on what to do.

Have fun and enjoy the build. If you're never not sure of something then stick a question on the forum and we'll all do our best to find an answer for you.

Mark

[7sRWild]

Hi mike, welcome from Canada.

[Speed Freak]

are you sure that one on the far right isn't the same person as on the left? Looks like a bit of photoshop to me

[SootySport]

Seems that will be some bonding with the boys whilst you are building the Westfield. 

 A little tip -  the bits on the underside are for the boys  to fit and adjust, just send them under there when something needs doing.

We all love a build thread here, especially when it's being done in the USA, a couple of Miata/Westfield builders in California as well.

[alexander72]

welcome from this side of the pond - good luck with your build mate.

[Dommo]

Trying to pick up from the blog from the start and a Trojan keeps rocking up from this page:

 

http://blog.garritys.org/p/archives.html

 

It's this little thingy here:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/threat/encyclopedia/entry.aspx?name=Trojan%3aJS%2fRedirector.LZ&threatid=2147679462#tab=1

 

Could be a false positive of course, but thought best to mention it. Now, back to reading the blog!

[GuitarmanUK]

Welcome aboard. One thing, does the wiring loom have any form of immobiliser built in to it? A friend built an Roadrunner SR2 using a Mazda MX5 donor and whilst trying to cut out all the bits of the loom he didn't need, cut out the immobiliser. He ended up having to get a different loom to fix the issue. You may not have that issue with the Miata, but thought it was worth a mention. David.

[MPG]

Trying to pick up from the blog from the start and a Trojan keeps rocking up from this page:

 

http://blog.garritys.org/p/archives.html

 

It's this little thingy here:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/threat/encyclopedia/entry.aspx?name=Trojan%3aJS%2fRedirector.LZ&threatid=2147679462#tab=1

 

Could be a false positive of course, but thought best to mention it. Now, back to reading the blog!

 

Thanks! It appears to be referring to the blogger plugin which I use to sort the archive by date.

 

I generally use Chrome, which has not been flagging this plugin as a problem, so I hadn't seen this. But if IE is cranky about it I should probably look for a replacement. I think that there are some new archive plugins available since I put this one in, so I should be able to find a replacement which doesn't upset IE.