Not really updated for a while again on this, as I've had a few other things to do (one of which was to have a little meeting with the magistrates regarding an unfortunate incident involving the RX8, a speed gun and my purely accidental over application of the throttle) but I'm actually almost done and ready for getting it back on the road in time for the 4 days of sunshine which we call summer.

I had to fit a larger master cylinder to the clutch to get enough movement at the gearbox end, which caused me no end of bother trying to bleed it up, after running the same litre of brake fluid through it about 50 times and still getting nothing, I stripped the new cylinder to find the little rubber cup which blocks the inlet when the pedal is pressed had a little bit of a burr stopping it sealing. Trimmed it off with a knife and it was all good 😀

The mazdas PPF was extended and some brackets welded on to make it match up to the new gearbox (pics to follow soon)
I marked the propshafts reverse splined end up where the gearbox seal came up to and then took it off to have a talk with the propshaft company about what we could do. I was hoping to retain the rx8 carbon prop and just swap the yoke at the gearbox end for something that I hadn't smashed all the bearings up whilst swapping the end,then just take care of the length with a spacer at the diff end.
As it turns out, the bearings are ever so slightly different types so the mazda prop won't take the Ford end without a small amount of play in it, we decided it was easier and a more reliable option to just make a new one up thats right for the job rather than mess around with spacers etc.
A couple of weeks, and £190 later, I came home with this ☺


3" steel and tough as old boots!

Unfortunately, through some sort of mix up, its an inch or so too long, so is tight up to the gearbox when fitted, so Its now back having an inch taken out... Bummer 😣