I contacted Westfield on Monday and they duly sent out the lock nuts for the top ball joints. These arrived the next day and fitted a treat. I just need to buy a 22mm spanner to tighten then up!
On Wednesday I picked up a long bolt to finish of fitting the spacer to the diff. It duly snapped! The next day I took it to the garage and pressed the spacer back out. It wasn’t as damaged on the top as I thought (I may have tapped it with a hammer once… shhh) so I was able to turn that out on a lathe. I cleaned the holes in the diff up and it pressed in with absolutely no argument. If only I’d have done a better job of cleaning the holes to start off with! Lesson learned.
With new found enthusiasm, and a hope of being able to fit the diff finally I started fitting the bracket. This is held on with two 4.5″ bolts. I couldn’t find these, but there were two 4″ bolts on the pick list so I presumed it was just a typing error. Wrong, they weren’t long enough. Looked like I wouldn’t be fitting the diff after all. Further checking showed I also didn’t have the spacers required for bolting the ‘arms’ on. A phone call to Westfield the next morning and they were all on their way to me. For the record, the spacers are supposed to be rescued from the Mazda. It rings a bell, and I think I might have done this but I have no clue which safe place I’d have put them in!
Lastly, I paid the deposit for the completion kit this week. I’ve gone for:
- Orange bodywork
- FW front end
- No dash
- Sport turbo seats (black with orange piping)
- 4 point harnesses
- Cat silencer (my donor is a ’96 model)
- Detachable rear arches
I’ve forgotten to specify that the front arches should be black, and I also meant to add the carbon effect rear lights. I hate carbon effect, but I like the design so I’ll probably just spray them black. Must remember to tell Westfield about those things though!
I’ve got a preliminary collection date of 14th-16th December. Plenty of time. Only got the rear wiring to finish, the diff to fit and of course the trivial job of rebuilding the engine and fitting that.
Westfield build, Mazda SDV 
Hi, good to keep an eye on how you’re getting on. Great progress
Im not at a dissimilar place (http://andyswestfieldbuild.wordpress.com/)
currently pending me stripping the donor further – hope to get a load more done in the upcoming weeks! As I’m sure you know only too well – some seriously corroded bolts.
Orange seems a really popular choice at the moment (not a criticism, a compliment infact) – also the colour I’m looking at (that or perhaps the electric blue). And I see Marks build has gone orange too http://markswesty.weebly.com/index.html. Certainly a colour that realy suits the car.
Where are you based out of interest? I’m in Bucks
Good to see another blog, I’ll have a read of that and stick it in the link section.
Good luck stripping the donor – I’d forgotten all about that. I don’t think I’d have liked to have tackled some of the jobs if i had to put the Mazda back together again. I can’t believe I didn’t use an impact gun until pretty much the last thing I did – removing the front crank nut off the engine. It would have made life so much easier! Particularly with the wishbone bolts.
It’s funny you should comment on orange being popular, it’s something I was discussing with a mate at work. We came to the conclusion that it’s a common colour for anything custom/modified at the moment. Much like white is (or at least was) a common colour for anything new. Of course, at the start of the project I was dead set on going red, after seeing a red french Sport Turbo. Then I saw an orange one for sale on pistonheads and that was it, colour decided!
Of course, once I’d decided on orange I did have a look at the other colours, now that it had become apparent that it wasn’t going to be red. I looked at electric blue and the lime green colour but in the end I was only brave enough to try orange. I couldn’t see any examples of the other colours with the FW front end.
I’m based in Swindon, for my sins!