Day 10!

The day starts with a steering problem to tackle. As mentioned in the previous update, we ran into some clearance problems with the shaft.

Here are the temporary bolts that we're using in place of the brake master cylinder to hold the steering assembly:



Attaching/adjusting the assembly to the firewall:





And here is what we end up with:





Notice the clearance? That shaft is supposed to be in the center of the hole...

Off comes the assembly:







Time to grind! I'm going to widen the notch that BSI made in the subframe to accommodate the U-joint:





Now to attack the firewall hole:











Some rust reformer:





Lets try it again:









The modifications gained us some clearance but we still didn't have enough to feel comfortable with it so we ended up shimming the rack with a few washers which really helped the situation out:







With all of this assembly and reassembly comes some mistakes, and this one deserves mention. While I reassembled the steering rack and column, Jose was to put together the mount and steering wheel inside the cockpit. When he was done, we had a bolt left over and this was the result:



It isn't real important because when the car comes back from paint this all comes out again to put the engine/brake master cyl. in, but it's a lesson that needs to be learned... And this is what I made him do:

 

Alright then, on to the rear subframe:





Removing the transmission mount:





Hmmmm.... DROP!









The old brakes:







Now to reinstall the cleaned up fuel tank:















Suspension disassembly:





Cleanup:





Bushings:

























Painting:

 

Que mongo!!!

 

Dude i wish my old man would help out when i do shit to my car Your a lucky guy Alex.....

 

Day 11

This LONG day begins with a trip to the junkyard. With us we bring two boxes of spare parts that we removed from the car and will not be reinstalling such as interior pieces and OEM Miata engine stuff. In exchange for this (and many other parts we've brought) we can pretty much take whatever we want from any of the Miatas that the owner happens to have sitting in the yard.

So our quest begins by looking for:

1) A rear finish panel - the plastic piece that sits between the taillights that we cracked in 400 pieces (it was brittle and rotted)

2) A gauge hood - the plastic piece that surrounds the gauge cluster (which we also broke)

3) A front sway bar mounting bracket and bushing (which we lost somehow)

and

4) The steering column grommet which goes where I drilled out the hole in the firewall (not real important)

First we find two Miatae:





And we remove the sway bar bracket and the steering grommet from it:



The gauge hood and rear panel are nowhere to be found, however.

The we find this little gem:





Which also didn't have what we needed, so we headed back home with our two parts.

 

Back at the house, work begins reassembling the driver's rear corner including the new stainless brake lines, rotors, caliper brackets, and pads:















Then I start working on the passenger rear disassembly:





Cleanup:





While I'm cleaning/painting, pop installs the braided line on the pass. rear:





New Bushings:













The graveyard of stock bushings:



New line vs. old line:



Assembly of the new caliper bracket:



Painting the passenger a-arms:





Meanwhile I split off to the front to install the new outer tie rod boots that came in:









Installing the tie rods:













The Passenger A-Arms hanging out:

 

Installing the final (!!!!) polyurethane bushing on the pass. rear hub:







New bushings on the arms:



Pass. rear reassembly:





New brakes:





Then we remember that we have to trim the rear brake dust shields in order to fit the new larger rotors (DOH!):













That wasn't so bad... New brakes installed with the pads (Hawk Blues):









All done! Now to lift the subframe back up onto the car:







And to reinstall the transmission mount (again):









Wheels back on:







Tada!



Phew, we finally called it quits at 2:30AM. *drops dead* All that is left for the car to be ready to go to paint is installing the front bumper. Now to call that paint guy back....

 

That bolt thing made me laugh. I remember that day we were working on your silverstone s2k when you wrecked it. And he was in charge of putting the stock injectors back in. And he spliced some wiered to remove your supercharger and ended up welding the wires to eachother in a continous loop instead of where it was suppose to connect to lol

 

I envy you. You are working on your new toy and I? I am reading FASB concepts for accounting bleh! But the good news is, i'll be home for the upcoming week so I can play with my toy for my last time Selling the S for something new here.

 

Hahaha yeah, that was hilarious. This is all a learning experience though, I've made some mistakes too but you all will never see them since I'm the editor