Jeffbucc

Glad to hear the tires work great....I like predictability.

It is very pretty country. The drive to CO was great(in my Jetta) the drive back was a different story.
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I can’t describe the past 14 hours because I am so fried I can barely function.

Old man river is what we’ll affectionately call the seller. Talk about your angry old dude. I made a comment about the tires not being “new” and I think I almost got shanked by a lighter(he managed to smoke 8 cigarettes in the 20 minutes I was there).

Dude doesn’t believe in that “clear coat ****” so it supposedly doesn’t have a clear coat on it. Paint actually feels and looks solid though. I believe the only problem with it is scale build up due to it not being used/washed.

Luckily the body looked better in person then in the pictures. No problems, no bondo.

Interior needs some loving. Dash is cracked, tombstone is cracked, center console is cracked…but interior doesn’t matter since the interior from mine is in perfect shape and didn’t get damaged.

Idle issues were a big problem until I tore the throttle body cable, and mechanical AFR sensor in the intake apart and cleaned them up. Then it idled no problem. The mechanical AFR on the 1.6 is a finicky little bitch. Took a lot of back and forth to get everything right.

5 speed is perfect. No slipping, no grinding, no bouncing, and no vagueness. Should sell well.

Engine pulled really strong after I fixed the throttle idle issues. Saying that, the 1.6 engine is a piece of ****. No power, hills were painful, and I have never seen a speedo tach move slower in my life. The sweet spot is like 10% throttle, any more and you are wasting gas.

The body is good but the rest of the suspension is ****, or at least the struts/springs are. I have never been more scared driving a car in my life. Alignment was so far out it felt like I was driving on washboard roads. The struts and springs were shot. The tires needed a shot of tire sealant in them since they had a slow leak.

Everything was going fine until I was 20 miles away from my parents house and the temp gauge shot to hot, the battery charge light came on and the car wasn’t liking life too much. Pulled over right as the coolant blew the radiator cap off. After waiting an hour for AAA I’m home. Guessing the alternator died which killed the fans, and @80mph was just too much for the ol' girl.

What an epic adventure. Worth it for the clean shell and B+ paint. My buddy can wet sand and clear coat it for dirt cheap if need be.

Never want to drive a mechanically doomed car like that again. Ready to pull this **** and get the shell nice and tidy before I put any parts on it.

I probably could have backed out easy but I just wanted it to be over with. Panels are dent free and the paint is acceptable, and will be passing for new once I break out my orbital buffer.

Once all the parts start streaming in I can really start making a rebuild out of this.

Scariest part is when it started to snow and the roads were freezing up. Back end slid out a couple times and really woke me up. Forecast didn’t call for snow until Tuesday but that is Utah for you! I held a constant 40mph for 1.5 hours since I was so scared of crashing it and ruining all the hard work.

*edit* did a prep panel on the paint with a clay wipe, Menzerna 400&4000, and a little spray wax. Not too bad. No paint transfer to the pads either. Doesn't look like a quality spray gun was used because I see occasional globs like a spray can was used in certain areas. Easily fixed once we wet sand it though.

look at the light clustering and feathering in these pictures. 1st is post buffing, second is original after clay bar wipe.




Post trunk buffer


Passenger side



Small dent in rocker


This picture makes it look like a lot of weird dents and bumps but it is just the lighting

curly

iTrader: (25)

The alternator failing won't cause it to over heat. You're perfectly describing the alternator belt breaking, but not the alternator itself not working. If it's not enough power to spin the fans, it's not enough to keep the engine running.

Also, something to know about miata coolant gauges: They sit at high noon from something like 180* to 220*, without moving. So when it does shoot up, you know you have a serious problem, not just a small change.

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

+1 on what Curly said. Def alternator/waterpump belt that failed. Also 90-93 were single stage (no clear coat) paintjobs from the factory - so maybe it was re-pained using OEM single stage or similar? Looks a bit orange peel-ie, but should sand/buf up well.

Look like a MUCH better shell than some of the others you were considering. Bravo. Lets see this thing get tossed back together now!

Harv

iTrader: (4)

Yeah, sounds like the water pump drive belt broke, but I'd assume you would see that pretty easily.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Solid shell. Used to live and work in Idaho. I remember making the drive over the divide in an unboosted 1.6. Doesn't make a lot of power above 10K'. LOL.

Jeffbucc

Strangely enough none of the belts are broken, I'm guessing it was slipping quite bad.

Yeah the orange peel is easy enough to deal with. Just patience and a large block sander with 2000 grit.

I remember trying to go over the divide in my old Subaru Outback H6...no thank you. I love going over it in my TDI though. Just leave cruise control on in 6th gear and roll right on up it. Diesel and 330+ tq FTW!

Where did you live in Idaho? I was in Twin Falls for 4 years. Loved it there. I'm glad Idaho has a stigma of a bad place to live, it leaves all the great outdoors open to us who know about it!

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Lived/worked in Boise.

Jeffbucc

Also Curly, since the default gauge seems to not be to accurate, is it mostly recommended to get an aftermarket digital gauge for oil pressure?

Can't decide If I want to keep the gauges in the A-pillar or move them to a double din blank. The nice thing about the A-pillar is the information is in your face so it is easy to keep track. But I have always hated the look since little ricer Hondas always had them.

curly

iTrader: (25)

My pod gauges are a little ricey, and are annoying for left turns. More then you'd think.

Oil pressure gauge is great. I'm referring to the coolant gauge. If you have a '94+, the oil pressure gauge is a dummy gauge as well. Straight up for good, down for low. Later replaced by an on/off light. Swap the gauge and pressure sensor from a 90-93 and you've got yourself a good gauge

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

+1. If you plan to track the car, give yourself as much out-the-windshield visibility as you can. Look at Crusher for example. No pod gauges there.

Even if you're street driving, what is that pod covering up?

Drag racing? Well, OK, pod away.

miatauser884

iTrader: (11)

Nice to see it coming together. I would change the gauge location. It works well because it is at eye level, but on left hand turns it can feel like it obstructs the line of site too much. My 2 cents.

I'm still following along, but with only a cell phone for web surfing I don't surf nest as much.

miatauser884

iTrader: (11)

The op sensor on that engine is from the 93

Jeffbucc

Reorganized the garage to get parts out of the way.

Patients prepped for surgery.

Jeffbucc

This is much easier the second time around. Just need to pull the firewall wiring out. Engine/transmission/subframe/misc hardware.

Probably going to strip everything(including gas tank), wheel it out to the driveway, soak it in degreaser, and start really really clean.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Dang you work fast...

Jeffbucc

Also, what are people using to plug the AC hard line holes? Just a **** load of epoxy?

The gas tank cover and the gas filling hose covers had decent rust on them so I'm switching my old ones over. This was definitely an outside only car. I probably vacuumed about 20 lbs of dirt out of it. The padding under the carpet is a bitch. I'm guessing a vat of goo-gone? Purple Power will probably have the same effect though.

On the rubber sound deadening in the trunk...dry ice or heat?

Also I found out why the car died. The bottom pulley bolt was hand tight...I was laughing so hard.

Also...power steering fluid is nasty ****.

Jeffbucc

It helps being single, self-employed, and the GF being in Chicago...

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

So, hard work and cold showers. I get it.

BTW, are Miata guys allowed to have GF's?

Looks like a really solid shell though. Love the brake fluid color. I'm guessing it's NOT blue racing fluid.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

As stripped down as you are, you could just pull out the evaporator and replace it with the OEM flex tube. Rosenthal sells that. Then just patch the holes.

curly

iTrader: (25)

If you're referring to the firewall, we use OEM rubber plugs, the size and part number are floating around here somewhere.

If you're referring to the blower box, you can either use foil tape to patch them, or buy the smaller and lighter non-ac cross over tube.

If your car died from a loose pulley, the crank, pulley, cog, and key are most likely fubared. Make sure to advertise that or inspect it before trying to sell. 1.6s go for dirt cheap anyways, maximum about $300 in decent 60-100k mile condition.

The rubber trunk gunk in the earlier 90-91 cars can be easily scraped off with a good 1-1.5" puddy knife. My '93 was definitely caked on more than the two earlier cars I've worked on, and required a torch and knife. Have a plastic container, torch, and puddy knife in the trunk, go at it bit by bit, heating, scraping, and scraping off into the box, vacuuming the small stuff out of your way occasionally. Once you get down towards the end, I used a wire wheel to get the rest, and vacuumed out all the final debris.

Also I'm not sure if you've done anything to the carpet sets, but 90-93's have excellent carpet, don't be throwing those away! I'm kicking myself for not picking up the decent set I saw at pick-n-pull for $36 this summer.