Haynes’ World is a regular feature that takes a look at what the staff at Haynes are doing with their vehicles. This time, Euan’s been helping to fit a new gearlever gaiter and gearbox oil to his pal’s Mazda MX-5 Mk1.
The phone rang. It was my pal Iain, someone I’ve been friends with for more than 40 years. We bonded over copies of MCN and various car magazines in our teenage years, and have been mates ever since. Iain is a bloke who loves the process of driving, which is why he has a Mazda MX-5 Mk1, a car with purity of the driving experience at its heart. He’s exceptionally skilled, too, and can make that MX-5 sing and dance when he wants it to.
Wasn’t always that way though. We laugh now about the time he crashed his dad’s Vauxhall Cavalier, then two weeks later shunted his mum’s Peugeot 205 into another car – a Ford Cortina being driven by another pal. Sub-optimal evening that was, I can tell you. At the time, we thought he might be exiled. Probably to the sort of place you only ever hear about on the shipping forecast. Anyway, I digress.
Notchy and noisy gearshift
Driving with enthusiasm does tend to wear bits out, hence the phone call. The MX-5 was starting to get weirdly noisy, and at the same time, the gearshift (one of the joys of the car) was becoming decidedly notchy.
After a bit of research using the Haynes Mazda MX-5 Mk1 manual, it became clear that the first-generation MX-5 has a rubber gaiter between the bottom of the gearlever and the outside world, and over time this can become brittle and split. This was the most likely source of the extra noise from the lower reaches of the cabin.
As for the notchy shift, we reckoned that new gearbox oil would do the trick. The weather forecast was consulted and a visit arranged for a suitably dry day.
All the gears, some ideas
We did the non-messy stuff first, which entailed studying the Haynes MX-5 Mk1 manual, and removing the centre console. This was an incredibly easy job that required only the removal of a few screws. Better still, we didn’t lose any of them in the process.
Then it was simply a case of undoing four bolts and lifting off the rubber gaiter, before employing that old Haynes stalwart phrase “replacement is a reversal of removal” by putting the new gaiter in place, doing up the four bolts and replacing the centre console.
Boom. Job one – done.
Gearbox oil change
Then it was time for the grubby stuff. So, we took out the car for a drive to warm up the gearbox oil, then returned and set to work.
First, we raised the MX-5 and put it on four axle stands, before sliding underneath (not easy for two chaps whose teenage years are a few hundred pies in their past) and sussing out what was what.
At this point, before you even think about draining the transmission oil, undo the filler bolt, because if you drain the oil then find you can’t get the filler bolt off, you’re in more than a bit of bother. Thankfully, it came off easily enough.
Thereafter, it was just a case of placing a drain pan roughly where we expected the flow of gearbox oil to land, and undoing the drain plug; Iain even remembered to quickly remove his arm from the vicinity to avoid ending up with hot gearbox oil all up the inside of his sleeve. Hard-won experience that. Iain then fitted a new washer to the drain plug and torqued it up.
The refilling process was straightforward enough, if a touch physically demanding, because it entailed wriggling out from under the car, filling a syringe, then getting back underneath and placing the nozzle into the filler hole. The syringe wasn’t the biggest, so it took a lot of wriggle/stand up/fill/lie down/wriggle/squirt. By the time the gearbox oil was at the point of dribbling out of the filler hole we felt like we’d completed an army assault course. It was time for a cup of tea – washed down with celebratory cake.
Test drive
It’s always a great feeling when you do something to a car and can immediately feel the difference, and that was what we felt on that first drive.
The noise from the gearlever area was gone, and the actual shift itself was noticeably smoother and lighter. Pure driving joy was back.
The MX-5 was designed from the outset to be a simple car, so replacing worn-out bits is easy, and you can usually feel the benefit straight away.
He’d better not crash it though.
