Friday 5 December 2008

Completion Kit - Collection

Early start for collection of the completion kit. My friend Martin, who formally had the Volvo estate which we used to collect the chassis (on the roof), who now has an Audi A4 estate (what do Top Gear say about Audi drivers?) picked me up at 6am.

A quick drive down the M6 and M5 and we were savouring the delights of a full breakfast in the Beefeater next to the Westfield factory.

There were a few items out of stock (exhaust connector, windscreen mountings and dashboard) so they are going to send those along in a couple of weeks. Everything else went easily in the back of the Audi estate.

I had a full list of questions to ask the guys at Westfield. The 1st of which was about the front mounting for the steering column. After looking at a chassis in the factory, we established the mounting had been welded onto the wrong part of the chassis. For the MX-5 SDV the mounting is farther back than on the standard SE chassis. The top mountings was correct (2 tabs rather than the single bracket). While we was there they fabricated a bracket which could be bolted onto the correct chassis member.

While I was there I looked at a LHD black MX-5 model they had in. I found out later that it was Gunther's (see the "Gust (Belgium)" link). It was in for a check over before going for its SVA. It was the 1st time I had seen an MX-5 based Westfield in the flesh. It's a shame it was LHD as I would have liked to see the routing of things like the steering column and brake line to the rear. Even so, we put it on the ramp so I could have a look at the diff/rear suspension and under the bonnet to see where some of the electrical items had been mounted and the routing of the air flow.