The Engineers Are At It Again!
Well Hello There Fellow Technicians And Hivers!
We do a lot of cars! Like really ALOT. With that said though we do a lot of the same cars repetitively, we do have a huge variety that we work on but there are some car brands that just doesn't see the inside of our shop too much or even at all.
The first two that comes to mind would be a Mazda and a Toyota but today we'll focus more on the Mazda! Now I've done more Mazda's than I have ever done Toyota's but even still Mazda's are top of the range vehicles when it comes to durability, if you take care of it it'll take care of you.
Today I have a Mazda CX-3 one that would be fairly new to me but not entirely, see I've done about five of the CX-5's in my short time with Mayfair and one Mazda 2 which was manual it only needed a clutch replacement. I don't expect the CX-3 to be much different than the CX-5 perhaps a little smaller but the concept should stay the same.
At-least I'm Pretty Sure.
There She Is!
Before we jump in can we all take a moment to admire this vehicle? I know it's lifted up and the hood is slightly open but dayum! It's really a beautifull frikkin piece of machinery! I would prefer the Mazda CX-5 but this would do just fine in my opinion.
All it is, is a smaller version of the CX-5 it even has a similar transmission, slightly smaller again but it's really on point there!
Apologies for the background noise! Laughs.
I Damn Near Love It!
Say what you will but I know that I love the engine cover idea of it all. Most car fanatics say yeah but what you really want to see is that metal.
No.
No, not nearly! What I really want to see is a neatly and well designed engine bay, not something that was just slapped in there like your local hood shop does it. I'm that guy that wants to put the bolts back where they came from, like the exact spot and if I had the time to even mark them out at work I would have.
I know this was a vehicle that moved in or around a mining area because it has all this dust covering everything that looks a lot like well.... Mining dust xD
See what I meant, it'll have dust covering it underneath all those pretty panelings!
Just as I suspected it's a lot like the CX-5 just smaller! I know this because I've just finish building the fifth CX-5 of my life and came inside to tackle the CX-3. Now I am only going to remove the transmission on this one.
Check out the video below.
https://youtube.com/shorts/WgFwo_8POTo?feature=share
The concept they used for keeping the wiring and cooling pipes in place is also the same.
Which in my opinion is a wildly amazing concept, trust me most manufacturers have the same methods but Mazda went above and beyond!
What Mazda did was they made the bolts holding the steel plates in place accessible and that was all. Other manufacturers would let the loom cross over the head off the bolts so that you have to snip off the ziptie holding it in place.
Pointless right?
This is the one and only thing I hate about Mazda.
Until I find the next thing to hate.
The fact that you have to remove the entire sub-frame to get this transmission out, it's a no brainer it really is! But it's something that I should get use to because I will be removing sub-frames for the rest of my life. I think it's becoming more of a thing nowadays than ever before.
I'm going to be very honest here, even though the motor and transmission isn't bolted down onto the sub-frame except for the lower sway mounting. Which all it does is keeping the motor from swaying to the front and back. Which mind you that mounting is doing a pretty good job in making it solid! Considering how lose it actually is when you remove it.
But with that said it's still insane scary having to work underneath this hanging block of metal and aluminum! It's the most terrifying thing ever!
Oh This Is New!
Oh darnet! The engineers are at it again!
Why do they despise us so much! It might not look like much but I have one bolt in a crooked up cranny over there and if I want to remove it I will need to remove one of the coolant pipes! And that means coolant everywhere! Down the face, down the arm pits! EVERYWHERE!
Damnit!
It's hard to see I know.
But it's not the one in plain sight, just below that one is a little black head of a bolt half tucked away behind a corner. I am pointing at it with the screwdriver... Now I will need to remove that entire black block on the top side of it. It would have been fine if it wasn't a coolant pipe!
I hate having to work with anti-freeze!
This Is A Must Watch.
Well I bet nobody will catch my sarcasm in any way possible because the laungauge I speak might sound so damned foreign to everyone on this planet, except for the French I think they might have a familiarity with weird sounds. Not including any Dutch or Netherlandic people.... (Yeah I know Netherlandic isn't a word but it is now!)
Watching the video now really gave me a good laugh!
https://youtube.com/shorts/UhbIfeVJVwE?feature=share
I finally got that sucker out of the way!
Trust me it was unpleasant! I was opening up a pipe that had liquid inside it and what did you reckon happened when I pulled that pipe off above my head. Not directly above my head I'm not that stupid but it's water coming out with a force. It splashes everywhere and I mean everywhere!
But I got it out of the way and the bolt removed!_
I'm Glad I Got It Hooked Up Top.
Now the Mazda's don't have engine support hooks up above which can be a little annoying to say the least.
With the CX-5 we usually strip them on the ground but this one I did on the lift so I had to make a plan to support the engine because if some bloak just comes by lifting the vehicle up and having the engine stay behind! That wont be good at all!
Now it's not an issue! Hopefully we can have it removed from the lift as soon as possible! I really don't want to be making this thing mobile again!
Dated 07/09/2023
Connecting the people of #HIVE across South Africa. #hive