by bmv6197 » Sat Dec 13, 2014 11:44 pm
Certainly worth getting a workshop manual to take (some of) the pain out of jobs like this one. Rod Grainger's Mk1 manual has a useful step by step guide - can't imagine it's hugely different to the Mk2. It's not a complicated job - but you'll be undoing a good number of bolts, nuts and fixings, starting with the inner wheel arch liners.
As Eddie says, the real pain is that after a decade of salt, moisture and dirt (and cheap quality Mazda nuts and bolts), most of the fixings won't give up the fight easily... So expect to soak everything in WD40 first, but still anticipate ordering a bunch of new hardware before you can put it back together. When I first did this job a few years ago on my Mk1 (which is a very clean car having spent the first 10 years of its life in London), I still ended up breaking at least half a dozen bolts and brackets - I ended up replacing everything with marine stainless hardware, which made removing the bumper a second time a couple of summers back, an absolute doddle.
Good luck,
Brad.
1995 Mazda MX5 1.8iS (BRG)
1996 Eunos Roadster VR Limited (Combination B) [Now sold]