Thanks All The oil is now draining. Particularly appreciate the guidance on here re size location and torque ! Could have been interesting without it. I've just finished changing the oil on my 1970 Lotus Elan , having a workshop manual for that car makes such a difference to all the jobs I do on that car. My next piece of research will be relating to checking the Mazda gearbox oil : I already note there are a number of threads to read before I can start to get my head around how to do it.