Changing the oil on my cars is something I’ve never done before; I should have because it’s so easy and is probably the most important thing you can do to prolong the life of your engine; keeping it running efficiently and prevent nasty disasters that can end up costing you a small fortune. Think of [...]

A woodruff key is the bane of my life at the moment – that’s what it is. An insignificant oblong piece of metal, the Achilles heel of Mazda MX5′s built between 1990 and 1994. For such a tiny thing, it can have a big impact on the health of your engine. It’s the Metal Micky [...]

Well, we’ve finally found the reason my little smurf coloured MX5 sounds like an asthmatic running up a hill. The principle is essentially the same – breathing problems! Mechanic no.7 said timing and he was right! No.7 is a mechanic for Arriva buses who’s hobby is stripping cars and today we stripped Maurice, who’s looking [...]

Damn good question and glad you asked. I’d never heard of one until a helpful chap I know suggested it was worth looking at Maurice’s. He said, that it sounds like timing from what I described and that there are only two or three things that will stuff up the timing. The crank angle sensor [...]

As the onboard diagnostics for the Eunos is limited I bought a multimeter also known as a voltmeter to be able to test connections to various things. I’m all for a bit of guesswork, but aside from attaching myself to the battery and the suspect part, I thought a multimeter would be a far less [...]

I’ve been thinking; again. It’s a dangerous occupation for me I know, but I really want to know how these damn cars work.  I’ve been rather reluctant to start whipping bits out and pulling things off just in case it takes me longer than expected to do what I intended to do or I make [...]

There’s scant information around for the 1989 onwards Eunos as regards to tapping into the diagnostics system, so I thought I’d stick a post together on how use it. You won’t get as much information from it as you will from later cars with an ODBII connection but it can give you an idea of [...]

There is a little black box – one of many – in my car that is apparently called a throttle position sensor or TPS unit for short. A friendly mechanic who came for a look said he could narrow Maurice’s problem down to either the AFM or the TPS – as I’d already changed the [...]

My little blue Mazda – Maurice – was hauled away yesterday (finally) by my mechanic. Dragged away by a Ford Escort van just to add insult to injury. For some reason, I’m very attached to my car and having been carless for the last week I’m beginning to understand why. A car to me represents [...]

I’m getting quite into this diagnostic thing with cars – I like a puzzle to work out, a problem to solve and something to scratch my head about, so I did a bit of researching and came up with a list of the top ten reasons why your car will lose performance. Green ticks indicate [...]