While true, no super big hurry. You have a kick ass TDI if I recall...just one problem: it doesn't go sideways. By Jan you'll be in Snow and you'll want the thing indoors anyway so no neighborhood thugs get free ditch rides.

Amazing attention to detail, love it. I wouldn't pay $950 for a hardtop, especially one that you are going to paint anyways.

Should be able to find one with bad paint for ~700 or so.

I've tried to find one close enough to pickup for the price but no luck so far. Any that are around that price are on the east coast so shipping it would negate the price advantage. Or ones that are close enough need glass, new gaskets, and repair work to the shell. I'll see. If I can get it to the paint shop before they paint my car I don't think they'll raise the painting price(hopefully).

After I mount the brakes and wheels I'm going to roughly sand the bottom of the subframes and give the a quick lick of paint. Small scratches and dings that should be covered with paint.

Then I'm painting the steering rack

Cutting the rear bumper in half and cutting holes in the front bumper to remove a little weight.

Then clean the carpets and dye them black.

Then when my brother comes down I'm going to attack the wiring issues and get that sorted. Hopefully after that point no more work will need to be done besides painting the interior and laying down the coolmat product I bought for the driver interior and transmission tunnel heat wrap. When I bought the coolmat I also got a down pipe 25" 2600° downpipe 1/2 sleeve. I didn't want to buy downpipe wrap so this should make it so the downpipe doesn't get destroyed. Also need to put some reflective tape on the lines and master cylinders and modify the cheap turbo heat shield I bought from atpturbo to extend a little farther to cover the downpipe.

So a lot of work still need to be done when I put it like that. My right foot was literally baking on the drive home so I went a little overboard on heat proofing.

Anybody on this forum live in or around Sacramento California to pick up a hardtop for me? There is one for a great price but wouldn't be able to pick it up for a while.

I, as always, spoke to soon.:noob:

How does one replace the boot and/or the whole ball joint on the front lower control arm?

I noticed it was torn right in half while I was inspecting the boots and decided to replace it. I have the entire front subframe torn apart and all the bushings out but this is something I don't want to try before I can get the correct information....which I can't seem to find.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385444704

Looks like you've optimised your "Track-Day only" storage space requirements to the max (tyres+seat) :P

PS: The one good thing about having OCD is that you'll never regret not fixing something while it was most convenient.

Ok I'm an idiot, they are the front upper control arm ball joints.

In this picture you can see what I'm asking. The two ball joints are completely different. One had a removable rubber boot, while the other(that was torn) had a permanent boot.

Removable on the left, torn permanent on the right

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385458798

I know you can replace and repack the joints, but I've never done it myself.

SEAL,DUST-BALL JOINT (H266-28-448) - $7.67 - H26628448

How you get it on there and repack and everything, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure you need to buy a brand new arm to truly replace it.

AFAIK to replace those you either:

1) buy oem replacement control arms.
2) buy these: V8 Roadsters adjustable/rebuildable front upper control arm ball joints - MiataRoadster - High-performance customer service...and parts for Roadsters

I may be wrong though, if anyone knows any other alternatives I'm all ears.

I've replaced all my ball joint and tie rod end dust boots. They tear, fact of life. As long as the joint is still tight and offers some resistance to being turned, you can repack and move on. Basically:

1. Clean out the old grease (as best you can).
2. Repack the ball joint with new grease (again, as best you can).
3. Go to HP or Lowe's racing department and buy PVC plumbing parts that snuggly fit the boot -- you will use these to press the boot on the joint.
4. Pack grease into the new boot.
5. Place boot over joint with your PVC press tool. Insert into vice and carefully press the new boot onto the joint until it's seated.
6. Done.

Note that the lower ball joint and tie rod ends are individually replaceable. The upper ball joint is integral to the upper control arm. Like Fire said, one of the benefits of the V8 roadster control arm is that the upper ball joint can be replaced.

Thanks guys I've got some replacements on the way.

Is it possible to powder coat the upper without damaging the ball joint? I think I have hit my limit on wire wheel grinding and want to just send it to my powdercoater along with the Lowers/subframe.

I'd be worried about the heat cooking out the grease. But keep in mind that the upper isn't nearly as loaded as the lower. It basically sees side loads.

Actually, the ball joints I linked are replacements for use in the OEM control arm. From the description on the page I linked

"splines on housing match stock Mazda control arms for easy replacement"

You can press out the OE ball joint and run these replacements instead of buying new control arms. Pretty neat.

Well this is a "you should have checked this when you paid for it moment".

I received my TSE studs and even after telling the machine shop the length of the studs they didn't drill nearly deep enough. I'm not sure if that is because there wasn't enough material to use or not. I'm disappointed but I'm not going to waste my time sending it to another machine shape to fix it. More time and money down the hole.

I'm just going to measure the depth of each hole and cute the studs accordingly. Diamond edged cut off wheel should make short work of it followed by cleaning the burrs and filing it flat. Jeez I wish people would do their work correctly.

Painting....

Can't clean the dust off yet, hasn't hardened enough yet, so it looks worse in picture.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385709779

Why would you cut holes in the front bumper?

Front bumper plastic impact bar.

Bethania Garage won't contact me back in regards to replacing my roll bar so for the price of shipping my old bar, I picked up the same model as mine from a fellow in Vegas. Paint was shit on it though, lots of wear and scratches etc. etc..

Stripped it with my new angle grinder(should have bought one ages ago) and sanded out any imperfections. Followed up with some VHT chassis & roll bar paint(I love this stuff)

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385889758

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385889758

Anyone recommend a good vendor for roll bar padding? Does TSE or 949Racing sell them?

Hmmm. Maybe it's only for an original purchaser? I've never heard of BG being like that before.

Obviously, BG has nice padding and covers that custom fit their bars. If you are just after padding material, most of the race equipment sites have it . . . SafeRacer, UltraShield, etc.

dried up it looks much better

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385920328

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385920328

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385920328

That must be the reason Hornet, can't see any other reasons they have ignored me for the past 2 weeks.

I'll probably just get the custom fit padding from BG, less work that way.

I have the Hard Dog padding with vinyl cover and it really does look more finished.

Cleaned the rust off the control arms and the rear bumper bar...time for a bit of painting! Powder coater wouldn't touch the upper control arms due to the ball joints literally exploding out of the arms, when they removed them from the oven.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385956013

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385956013

This spray paint bottle attachment handle makes painting a breeze. No more tired finger and getting paint on your hands.

All done, won't be able to come back for a couple days so it should leave it plenty of time to cure without me fiddling with the part due to impatience.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385963280

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1385963280

Looking top tits, man. I can't wait to see all these parts go back onto your pretty new painted chassis.

Whats the finishing date for the paint job?

Should be the end of this week. Thanks! I'm too critical of stuff you won't even see.

So considering my OCD nature I just randomly(unfortunately) came across a build thread where the fellow replaced all his bolts with new shiny bolts.

What is the easiest, cheapest solution to clean your bolts? Only reason I ask is I just realized the heads of all the bolts are painted white and most are covered in 20 years of nasty. I know, I know, ignore it you say, install it and get over it you say....well, I can't!

I'm considering using a tupperware tub and sectioning it off in little boxes and emptying all the labelled bags I have with bolts into it and letting it soak in a mixture of lime-away/purple power/ aircraft stripper. I'll have to see if any of those chemicals are on the no-no list to mix(deadly fumes) but I believe this would be sufficient enough to clean them all correct?

My worries after doing that is stripping the rust-inhibiting coating off the bolts though.

Thoughts? I am pretty OCD, but wire wheeling every god damn bolt makes me want to cry at the thought.

I seriously love your OCD :)

if its just goo then yes purple power or lime away or something. You wanna get hardcore fill tub with gasoline

Hardcore it is. I'll step it up a notch with diesel fuel and cetane booster though!
:eek3dance:vash2:

Sometimes while doing all this cleaning work with very nasty chemicals I look back at the best $30 I ever spent.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386034633

My token comment in this thread, inserted again for effect:

You're insane.

But great work.

This is one area where I think you need to back-off.

Give the connectors a good cleaning with diesel, parts cleaner, or something else that leaves an oily residue. Avoid anything stronger, including wire wheels -- you do not want to strip the black oxide, zinc, cadmium or other coatings that Mazda thoughtfully applied.

If there are any bolts that are visible and will really drive you nuts, they are all available new. 100point restorations usually replace all fasteners -- so if you want to be the first Miata at Pebble Beach, that's what you should do.

BTW, I suspect you would make a fine showing at Pebble Beach.

Admittedly so, and thank you.

We'll see, I think I'm mostly considering it just to remove the grime gunking up the threads and heads of the bolts. If I can strip the paint off of it that would be awesome as well. I'd rather have bare bolts than painted bolts anyways. Paint always chips when you remove the fastener, which looks terrible.

I don't think Pebble Beach would give it a second thought! But my own Pebble Beach in my head would appreciate the hard work.

Most people probably think with all this hard work in cleaning and painting and restoring that it is going to be a garage queen type car and I won't drive it hard. I only care about this type of stuff up until it is done. Then I'll drive the shit out of it, give it a quick wash and detail and not worry about it. It is the initial base-line work that is the most important, anything following should just be maintenance and general care for the things you own.

I called the paint shop today and since the car is so stripped down they said if I said yes, they would give me a heavy discount on painting the interior, engine bay, inner door panels, and trunk. After the price was given to me, I quickly said yes. It was over half as much as they originally quoted me, and they won't charge for extra labor as well.

So thank god for that. Last thing I wanted to do after getting the car back from painting this weekend was get everything covered in paint dust to paint the engine bay and interior.

I'm slowly learning that SOME things are OK to pay others to do. Especially considering that updates are going to be fairly intermittent in the coming weeks due to the Christmas season, busiest month of the year for me business wise.

I think this is worth reiterating. A soak in some cleaner to remove the worst of it, but this is a spot worth trying to find a balance.

I went to a local brafasco and bought stainless steel allen head bolts and washers for my visible connectors when I painted my honda (for the same reasons your stating here)


Might be something to look into.... I got about 100 bolts and washers for $30.


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386085802

They look pretty clean from far too....
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386085802

Send them all off to a zinc plater. They'll strip and re-finish them all in a nice pimpy gold zinc coating. It's surprisingly affordable.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386085954

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386085954

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386085954

holy. fuck. me.

I'm buying a Zinc plating setup so i can do that myself this winter. I already have a nice big blast cabinet, so the prep will be simple, if time consuming.

yeah, a vibratory cleaner would be a lot less man hour consuming to prep the parts. lol

I have one of those, too.... but i've had a hard time finding the right media for bolts.

Jesus. Christ. That is insanity! I just wish I had a local shop close to me that does it, maybe I am searching using the wrong words but the closest is 3 hours from me.

This

I'd love to buy my own setup, but I just don't want to spend a lot of money on a really one time usage.

I think I'm just going to soak it in a cleaner over a couple days while I cant work on the car. I'm pretty good at making pretty potent cleaning combos. If all else fails I'll ship the bolts to a plater if I get really insane, but I think I'll be able to control my OCD to just cleaning them well.

now i must post my box of miata bolts/nuts.

Shipping them wouldn't really be a huge deal...

True....:vash:

Ok, that's dope. Where did you have that done?

That's not me, but that particular batch was done by a place in Louisville, KY. There's a few options within a couple hours of me that will do the same.

I'm just going to invest in the tools to do it myself and maybe do side jobs for people as an investment.

I just got a quote from a shop in Northern Utah for $55 for <20 lbs of bolts. Going to ship them to him tomorrow. Decided to do yellow zinc since supposedly it has higher corrosion resistance than the clear.

I would NEVER be able to put a car together after shipping off a multi-pound box of hardware.

Does that price include sandblasting? Would of been a great alternative for me when I restored my bike. Instead I went to Ace about 5 or 6 times, dropping somewhere between $20 and $60 each time in SS allen head hardware.

Excellent!

The trick is to make a spreadsheet with detailed information before you send it off. Many pictures.

Buying individual pieces like that sucks so bad. I spent over $400 in OEM hardware from Mazda when i was working on the Escort.

I wish i could just buy a gigantic grab bag of Mazda bolts for future projects. Should be easy... they really only use about 3 different bolts, just in different lengths.

It's called parting a car out.

1. Buy shitty crashed/rusty/non-running miata (or whatever)

2. Part out everything valuable

3. Keep all the hardware

4. ???

5. Profit


(PS I did basically this same thing with my old RX7 and now have an ample supply of high grade OEM bolts/nuts in all sorts of sizes)

Yeah i'll be doing that with my next MX6 coming, but from how much i tend to get out of a car, i really need to part out say... 4 cars, and none of them will be rollers by the time i'm done.

About to just go to the junkyard and start pulling bolts and nuts.

I have a confession. Every time I go to a pick-n-pull, I generally leave with a pound or two of hardware. Especially if they don't inspect my tool bag. One time they did and they didn't even care.

I figure I'm stealing all of $.02 of scrap metal value. Or it'll end up sitting in the gravel.

I kept all the bolts from both cars so if anyone needs some spares I'll throw them in a box and ship them to you if anyone wants them post zinc'ing.

Yes, includes media blasting, good company. I've done the same replacing bolts on my industrial 6 rack bread oven for my bakery...never again, so much money spent.

I'm slightly terrified.:facepalm:

Decided to come down and work on the car tonight. Couldn't stand being in my store any longer and needed a break.

Replaced the Upper Control Arm boots. I took some detailed photos in case anyone does it.

Item number for the boots is: SEAL, DUST (NA01-34-548)

Use a dry chisel with the angle side facing the control arm and lightly tap it with a rubber mallet slowly going around the bushing so that it evenly goes off the control arm.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

I used an old seal from my transmission and it fit perfectly over the metal retaining part of the boot. You don't have to do this it just ensured I didn't damage it, and it gave me a better fit with the PVC Pipe.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

Clean out the old grease from the joint and seal surface, and fill with your favorite grease, which for me is Amsoil Dominator Synthetic Grease.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

Fill the new boot with grease, put on the seal(if you'd like), and find a pvc pipe that fits perfectly on the boot.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

Position the boot onto the ball joint and with a rubber mallet lightly tap on the pvc pipe to get the extremely tight boot onto the ball joint. Try not to flex the boot too much or you'll eject some of the grease.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

Make sure the boot is flush on the mounting surface.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

Booyah.

Also chemical bath of goodness. Apple cider vinegar, paint stripper, purple power, a little diesel additive. Put it in the backyard since even my respirator wouldn't filter the fumes out. Vinegar for the rust, and the rest to remove the gunk.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386123257

Also, what do you guys think of changing the color of the Buddy Club Race seats to all black?

I Don't think I'll like the look of red seats in a blue car.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386124620

Yea that seat is ugly as fuck.

Brake Booster rust removed and ready for painting. Yes I see the string touching the metal! ;)

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386135532

Fabric stripped off seats to clean in washing machine. These seats rock for maintenance. All velcro fabric connections and removable padding so you can just toss the fabric in the washing machine.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386135532

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386135532

Upper Control arms all done, that was a messy job. Checked all zerk fittings to insure that grease channel through the poly wasn't blocked. Put silver anti-seize on the interior of metal bushing to help with corrosion.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386142393

Brake booster all done. A couple runs on the back side but nothing to complain about.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386142393

Just waiting on the fabric to dry so I can refinish the seats in black.

I don't know why I even bother to post suggestions. By the time I get to it, he'll have already made a decision and implemented it.

For confirmation, I agree with changing the color. :)

I figure if I get no response by the time I get done with the project at hand, I need to make an executive decision. I still appreciate late input as sometimes after I make my "choice" I still haven't actually gotten to it yet!

Currently tearing apart my rear subframe. Holy fuck the rust! The rear diff housing is a little scary. The rear hubs have so much rust I think I'd rather replace them not for superficiality but safety!

East coast is not kind to cars.