I ran a flush through it before I drained it. ATF isn't a bad idea, actually. The thing is, though, these lifters are ultra finely made devices. One TINY piece of junk and you get a tick. They virtually all tick unless they had a very clean and happy life. Same parts in my truck engine, hand cleaned by me. V6 is harder to pull down and clean up, though.

Sunday morning resulted in a much improved driving experience :-D

1) em_knaps hoisted my car on his special tool
2) Found clunking noise, loose nut (nearly off) on new-looking swaybar endlink (replaced for last WOF and not tightened properly)
3) Made some shifter bushes from old alloy aircon pipes, installed, yay

Also, I defintiely have LSD! Yus. Win.

I guess I should put the centre-console/interior back together now.

Brakes next, they've gotten worse/more annoying.

Fred.

Ordered rotors and pads for the beast today. Pick up and pay tomorrow. Install maybe Wednesday evening. Ute and tools for her, need my love first.

Rotors and pads are in hand and may get installed tomorrow evening! :-) Looking forward to smooth braking...

May >> did! :-D

Drives pretty nice now :-)

Poor gearbox.

Gave it a squirt through first gear tonight for a neighbour to listen to. Clutched in at 7500 RPM and coasted down the road. Engine RPM fell back to idle. Then clutch release mechanism failed and effectively dropped the clutch rocketing the RPM back up to 6+k and hammering the gearbox bearings. Took me a second to realise what was going on. Pedal stayed on the floor. Lifted it up with my toes. Synced it into second and cruised out of the town that way, got it into third and stayed in third till the end of the road (very tractable engine despite what hentai might think!). Tried to use the clutch and it worked, but weirdly, with very little travel, and occasional obnoxious noises. Hmmmm, parked up until further notice. Will need to get a kit of parts and pull it to bits and give it a new disk, bearing, and maybe more. Annoying.

Fred.

So, in fixing this thing, we broke the coolant fittings to the heater core, and bypassed it with a brass coupler. And I managed to strip a bolt hole in the block by forgetting that it was alloy. Therefore the existing engine shall be eventually swapped out and serviced ready for becoming marinised in the boat project here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2311

What that means is that the KL-ZE swap is a sure thing, at some point. I'll find a nice clean one and prepare it to go in. That ought to liven up the car quite a bit. I'll find a spare box and axles etc at the same time, and give them a freshen up first. Will be a pretty capable car at that point :-)

List of stuff to fix for WOF (which is due in a few days) and general enjoyment, respectively:

• Right indicator bulb out Must have been a dirty connection or broken wire, working now, bulb was fine.
• No park lights in the front or both bulbs blown will buy tomorrow 11/05/2015
• Find second set of rims and choose tyres to fit on them

Not required, but desired:

• Belts squealing badly need replacing urgently
• Lock sensor is not working well, requires wiggling to trigger central locking
• Centre console is all in pieces, and has been for months, reassemble this
• Drivers side mirror has been assembled wrongly, pull down, put back right
• Give it a thorough wash outside (all gutters etc) and vacuum/wipe inside (all carpets, seats, etc)
• Make antenna not pop up without radio on, and/or replace it with a non-broken one
• Reattach the heater core by figuring out a hose fitting arrangement that is reliable

Will edit this post with del tags as I get through the above.

Failed WOF on Saturday on park lights, break rubbing/binding, ruined right rear wheel bearing. Had lunch with my olds and sister. Drove Volvo down to Taupo and back, had a party, and woke up a bit dry on Sunday. Drove Volvo back up on Sunday, had dinner with my mate, came home, tidied up some more. Alarm at 530am, at work by 7am, out the door nice and early, to the parts shop, picked up a hub for this thing, home by 4pm, fitted and cleaned up including test drive and fleet shuffling before 6pm. It's early on Monday evening and I'm ready for my WOF already. Perhaps I'll go and get it tomorrow arvo after work and check on my wheels that are being modded and fixed. Hooray for efficiency.

Brake bind is a typical issue for these BA chassis mazda's methinks.. I have a daily driver '98 323p (hatchback BA/ familia), and over the 5 years I've had it it's required constant care of the front brake calipers.. The slide pins for the floating calipers just get stuck really easily.. I've replaced those and a rusted caliper 1.5 years ago and it is already binding again.
Should be on a 6 month maintenance schedule.