We traded an old project Jeep for this 2002 P5 for my son. As I have time I've been fixing all the little things. Last weekend we took off the ugly dumbo mirrors and installed a pair of euro style power mirrors with the blinkers in them. We also added a big "MAZDA" windshield banner but it got slightly bubbled so we'll redo it later, it's not noticeable from 10ft away. This weekend I started chasing electrical gremlins and kept finding a recurring theme.....loose terminal sockets, and old dried up electrical grease with some corrosion mixed in. Starting with the headlights blasting out the sockets with contact cleaner, then compressed air. Then tightening up the terminal connections by way of tiny screwdriver and careful prying. Then added fresh di-electric grease. Also need to buy new low beam bulbs as they are not the correct ones. Moving on to the non-working o/d pushbutton on the shifter. Some dummy had pulled it off and broken the wiring in two! Then they just went ahead and crammed the shift handle back on while smashing the remaining wire....DUH! After some careful soldering I had nice new 6" pigtails coming from the button down the shifter and heat shrinked onto the old section. BINGO! O/D off now functions properly. Moving on to the the fan switch and hazards. AGAIN no continuity when measured out with an ohm meter. Took the whole center section out and tore into the HVAC section. I carefully pryed apart the blower speed switch and once again found old dried/burnt grease covering up the copper contacts. Cleaned it all up with brake cleaner, used a small brass brush on the dremel to clean up the copper, lubed it all down with fresh grease and re-assembled. Works great now. Same with the hazard switch although the brittle plastic tabs broke while taking that one apart. No problem, I just melted the edges over with the soldering iron after I was finished, works like a champ! Finally went ahead and installed the nice Kenwwod cd/usb deck we got him for christmas, along with some new front door speakers. Overall I think we did great and got a lot accomplished. Next on the to-do list will be brake rotors and pads.
