I'd left the manual which tells me how to disassmble everything at home, a 3 hour drive away. Not the best start but oh well.
First things first I felt like draining the engine oil. After all its been a while since I was covered in the stuff. Got the thing up on axle stands, you can just see axle stand number 3 in the middle. Its not actually sitting on that one, its just an added precaution becuase I really didn't want to die by Mazda.
Leaving it to drain I got to work removing the bonnet and pop up headlamps. Gingerley I reconnected the battery to raise the headlamps so they could be removed, hoping all the time that the infernal aftermaket alarm didn't go off. It seemed to like going off just to make me jump, which was why I pulled the battery out in the first place.
The bonnet was a piece of cake, just 4 bolts. The pop up lights were another story. How Mazda manage to make everything be in the way of everything else I will never know, but eventually me and my companion for the day managed to get the bleeders off.
Next the pipes had to come off. Now these pipes have probably never come off in 17 years, so they were rock hard and completely unmovable. I didn't have time to be dictated to by a radiator pipe so out came the stanley knife and they were quickly removed.
And we tried and failed to remove the front bumper. Without the aid of the manual we just couldn't find all of the bolts to undo it, not to mention the fact that most of the ones we did find were so corroded they either snapped clean off, or will have to be drilled out next time I'm there.
