Hi all,
not a good couple days for my poor 91 Mx5, yesterday while out for a blast in the country after dark I had a possum appear infront of me, too close for me to think about it (otherwise I would have just hit the sucker and cleaned it up later) and my reflexes kicked in.. usual story of inelegance, locked the brakes while trying to avoid, lose control, spin out, and end up facing where I came from, off the road, luckily in a nice large grassy (but muddy) area.
Actually, that was (luckily, at the time) not too bad (and also kinda fun, in a scared shitless sort of way), poor MX5 was more brown than BRG but none the worse for wear it seemed, only my pride was damaged, so I got back on the road and carried on my way after a quick once over.
Today (after removing the mud and returning the BRG to it's former glory) I did the usual days errands, all seemed fine, went out to the scene of the incident and admired my tracks in the grass (nicely criss crossed :-)), everything fine.
But tonight, my bro borrowed her for the evening, rang me later to tell me something has gone nastily wrong. He was driving along quite casually, and heard a bang or pop and then started a VERY loud clicking/clunking (the car, not him), only when the car is in motion, increases with speed, and you can feel it through the stick, and it is LOUD (volume increases with speed too).
We've had a good look underneath, can't see anything wrong externally (it sounds external), At this stage my only guess is the differential, that the rotational force involved in the spin the previous night might have knocked things out of alignment and it just "held" in until tonight when it finally gave way and is now slipping or something, and that I'm either gonna have to try and make an insurance claim (hopefully they'd buy it was the direct result of the incident and not just plain old mechanical breakdown, but I won't hold my breath), or find copious amounts of $ to have it repaired.
Can anybody with more mechanical aptitude than I add credence my hypothesis ?
It's a 91, with roughly 135000 km's on the clock, not modified at all as far as I know except for a front brace and a proper rollbar (with brace) which should give the back end a good bit more strength too. Havn't heard or felt any problems, ever (well except for when the clutch gave out a year ago).
Arghh! This sucks, I cant live without my MX5!!