Behold! It's finally ready! Thanks go to Alex Howard for transporting it for me, which he was under no obligation to do, so thanks for that Alex :)

It looks smaller than I thought it would be.

Trial run of fitting the engine, just to make sure there hadn't been a tremendous balls up already.

Since that photo I have taken the exhaust downpipe off, so it fits properly now.

Now for the terrifying prospect of actually having to bolt stuff in! Stay tuned.

Today the last of the suspension came apart. It was quite a struggle as Mazda obviously put it together with the intention of it never coming apart. It took a blowtorch and a 20 tonne workshop press (Supplied courtesy of my university colleague Alex Howard) to get them apart. What this means is that all the dissasembly is done, from now on, stuff just goes back together :)

To people who do this kind of stuff a lot, this blog would seem to be a bit long winded. But it shows to complete amateurs like me just how much there is on a car, and how complex they are. Even one made in 1996.

Day 12

A significant step has been today. The old MX-5 body has been taken away, which means that now I have space again!!

Obviously the other bits and pieces had to go back in, but it means that the engine hoist can stay assembled which is nice :)

With alot of sweating and swearing the back end has been mostly pull apart.

I think one more trip will have the garage ready to recieve the new chassis when it arrives in a few weeks.

Day 11

It's official, the car is now no longer a car, it's just a pile of bits. Both subframes are off, and the body is scheduled to be taken away in a weeks time :)

It'll be nice to have some space again! It's so underated.

As you can see, my nans garden looks more like a breakers yard (kudos to her for putting up with this)

Also my new chassis and suspension has just been ordered, and should be ready for collection in around a month, it's all coming together now :D

The only slight fly in the ointment is that I couldn't for the life of me get the suspension to part ways with the hubs, and I broke a socket trying. Still it'll come off eventually.

Day 10

Today me and my friend Matt removed every last scrap from the car including speedo cable, seats and fuel pumps. The seats had to be cut out in the end and the only thing left on the car is the handbrake cable, which just won't budge, so it'll stay as is.

The rear subframe has been removed aswell, bringing with it the diff and rear suspension, so thats very handy. Just the front one to go now and the shell can go. It should be much easier than the rear, no huge heavy diff ready to fall on us. The only tricky part was doing it in such a way that the coils didn't go off like a gun when the bolts came off. I admit it got a bit nervy when the last bolt was removed and the rear of the car lifted about a foot off the axlestands. Still, no harm done. Next time I think I'll bring some spring compressors though.

Day 9

IT'S OUT!! It took an entire day but with a lot of effort on the part of me and my friend James we finally got the engine and gearbox out at 8 in the evening, having started at 9 that morning.

Todays problems were mainly about the exhaust and PPF which is the frame around the propshaft. As usual they had managed to chemically bond themselves to the car and refused to come off.

The exhaust should have come off just past the manifold, but I didn't have the right tool to remove the heated oxygen sensor so I couldn't get to the bolts. Eventually we used the angle grinder to remove one of the bolts on the downpipe, and the other one was coaxed off with a ratchet and my foot.

Day 8

Today was basically just a cleanup day to remove all the final bits and bobs left over that needed to come out before the final dissambly.

With help from Dad the alternator was removed and the final bunch of cable was pulled out. It was actually a bit harder than we anticipaated as the alternator was held on by a 5inch or so bolt, which only had about 2 inches of space behind it. To get it out we also had to remove a strange bracket which didn't appear to do anything but it was fairly substantial so I think I'll put it back.

Second on the list was the steering rack, which finally came off of the column with the help of a large wrecking bar, and a hammer :)

The clutch and brake master cylinders came out quite easily, leaving the engine bay looking nice and empty.

While we were there we sized up the suspension to see how best to remove it, and we've got a list of tools for next time. The engine should also come out on the next trip, using an engine hoist courtesy of Bob Burns. If we're quick we can also take the body off and get it carted off to the scrappy, and once that is done, I can order the new chassis :)