Yup final adjustments will be on ramps. Just merely putting them on for now.

 

****, I think my rear sway may be installed upside down

 

Yesterday the Jeff-bug has got to me...

Started with this:


An hour later I ended with this:


Jeffffffffff - what are you doing with all of us...! Nevermind, I just couldn't paint whatever paint there is (I did wan't to use POR15) over that rust...

 

Damn...you weren't kidding about my rust being laughable...that is ridiculous.

Good work Zaphod, LET THE OCD SPREAD!

 

Looks worse than it really was, it's only surface rust and was be wirebrushed away quite fast.... There are some small crevices that you barely reach though

*stopthreadjack*

 

Jeff you have no idea what real rust is

 

I'm going to be grateful that I still remain naive to what "real" rust is. That means I haven't had to deal with it.

 

Wow just went through all 65 pages in two days. You're attention to detail is astounding! I second the idea that the ppf should have just been hung on a wall as a momento of how awesome this car is. Major props for all the work you've done! Now I'm motivated to start working on mine again.

 

Looks like the one that you can see on the driver's side front of the engine. You can see mine hanging from the motor not hooked up to the subframe yet. it goes to the threaded hole in the subframe. You can see it faintly in my crappy cell pic in the subframe above the steering rack boot.

 

The driver's front ground strap is a braided one from the factory. Some people upgrade it to a beefier solid cable like pictured above. It connects from the little shelf under the brake booster to one of the bolts holding the tranny to the engine.

 

And, BTW, for low-electrical noise and proper ground references, you should go back to a braid. They did that for a reason.

I've never seen one on the front of the engine like John shows. On all my Miata's the ground goes to a threaded hole on the shelf like Adam described.

John, that's some impressive inner-fender sheet metal work. What's that about -- or is this a swap into another car?

 

That's the Miata motor in my SAAB. You must be the only one that hasn't seen my build thread, lol. Oh, and it's gots truboz now. As far as the "never seen one" I can't answer that. Mine is as I removed it from the 94R that I parted and got the drivetrain from so I assumed it was stock. There is a thread hole in the subframe already and the cable matched perfectly so I assumed this was normal. His cable looked just like mine.

 

Thank you Stein and Rev for locating the ground cable locations for me. Very much appreciated.

Stein your SAAB thread is insanity levels of fabrication and restoration. Kindred spirits we are. Only, you surpass me so far with your technical/welding/fabrication ability it makes what I do seem trivial.

Also for those of you that have bought your own leather to refinish things, is there a certain grade/grain/quality you'd recommend? Did you just pick it up from a local upholstery shop?

I know nada about leather.

Reason I ask is I am going to redo my arm rest on the center console, and I think I will wrap my ABS door cards/upper door pad, as well, for a slightly more refined look.

 

I'm not a professional when it comes to leather or anything, but I would suggest trying to find something that has a more natural finish, at least if you're going for durability. A lot of leather these days has almost a painted, plasticky finish on it that makes the grain and color perfectly uniform. This looks very clean when new, but as it wears the dye will fade and you will wear through the perfect finish exposing subpar leather underneath.

If you buy a natural-finish leather -- which, if you get good quality, can still be uniform in finish, though the grain will often be smaller -- it will look better as it wears, and it will feel much nicer on your poor, abused elbow.

 

Good points. Thanks. I'm halfway tempted to find the source for the "pleather" in my Jetta. 4 years and 75k miles of abuse and it still looks brand new. Plus it is soft and comfy to boot.

 

Yeah that v-tex leatherette is pretty good stuff, I think it's a lot better than the leatherette you get in BMWs and Benzes. Not as nice on the skin as real leather though

In for leather-wrapped dash and door cards.

 

FTFY

 

I believe Adam/Revlimiter is into leather

 

Anytime I think about working with leather I always see the scene from "Best in Show" in my head. "6 months of working with leather who WOULDN'T be happy!"