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As someone who currently has their transmission out of the car and therefore empty - where did the magnetic drain plug come from? Mine needs a new washer anyway, might as well replace the whole thing.
Lol, I knew someone was going to ask this if I didn't post a link
These are available generically from a whoooole bunch of sources online, I'd just use google at this point and buy what looks good. The engine oil pan is M14x1.5 and both the 5 speed drain, 6 speed drain, and both diff plugs on NAs & NBs are M18x1.5. Your transmission & diff should both have one already from the factory, these ones are just easier to turn thanks to 17mm hex and have a stronger magnet.. These sell for anywhere from $10-$12 online, or you can buy them from MR for $25/ea. I just checked my inbox and I couldn't find an invoice so I'm honestly not sure where I bought them from originally, my apologies If you really want to get crazy you can buy them from Dimple for $35/ea As far as transmission and differential drain plug washers go I bought one of those
and have never had a problem with leaks. Unfortunately I ran out of the M14 copper guys a while ago... and the FLAPS gave me M18s for the trans and diff, lol. Anyway, hope that helps!
Plenty on ebay that were aluminium and magnetic, but for a stainless one like that there was only one, made by Votex which also appears on amazon, runs 20 bucks. Goldplug is another also available on amazon for about 20 bucks.
Damn, those belmetric ones look good. Those guys are fantastic for ordering oddball metric stuff, though its been a hot minute since I've needed anything from them. Props for link
Big props to Alex over at SNSMazdaParts for throwing in a fuse box cover with some other odds and ends that I ordered. Of course it fits and the patina is a PERFECT MATCH for the rest of the stuff under the hood. Now I can once again pressure wash with reckless abandon
Good luck with your revival project as well! I don't know what happened to your Silver NA but its looking pretty rough these days too.
Ha, ha! You do know there are 2 Silver NA Miatas laying my casa, right? In fact, there are a total of 4 (well 5 if you count the Exocet)😄. They seem to multiply like rabbits.
This is my original Silver NA that I literally and figuratively took you for a spin in that time we went to Thunder Hill. I sold off the hardtop to a coworker a few years ago and just recently pulled out the turbo kit.
This rolling eye sore is the “parts car” that sat behind my garage for about 3-4 years that I suggested you could come over and resurrect with all the used parts in my garage. I think your response was “Hell No! I already got tetanus just looking at it! I’m going to move away North just to get away from it!” This is proof that my friend David is dumber than you and took me up on my offer to let him turn the 255K heap into the Track Rat that has been to two Miata Reunions and a handful of other track days till the stupid rubber plug on the little 1.6 popped heading up the corkscrew and warped the head.
This is David this weekend getting the 1.8l prepped to replace the blown 1.6 with hopes of getting back to the track again in a couple months.
Well, if you can't get rid of the car, just dump it and sell the trailer. There is some character on another thread looking for a smallish trailer to take his car to the track, I'm sure he'll give you a good price for it - in for 10% spotter's fee!
Well, if you can't get rid of the car, just dump it and sell the trailer. There is some character on another thread looking for a smallish trailer to take his car to the track, I'm sure he'll give you a good price for it - in for 10% spotter's fee!
No, trailer needs a few modifications to the tilt mechanism but actually works great. Needs some paint or at least rust inhibitor too, but other than that very convenient.
Back to our regularly scheduled program “Polishing Gordon’s little black turd”
See, I'd totally buy that trailer. That's the perfect amount of sketchy for me
Originally Posted by Cxracer
Ha, ha! You do know there are 2 Silver NA Miatas laying my casa, right?
I did *NOT* realize this was the case, glad to hear the OG silver car is still looking good! I thought maybe it caught on fire at some point or something.
Originally Posted by Cxracer
This is my original Silver NA that I literally and figuratively took you for a spin in that time we went to Thunder Hill.
Thats a hard experience to forget! definitely broke my fear of an "off" that's for sure.
So what the hell are we doing today? Well children, today we are going to build some door panels!
I contacted Alex @ SNSMazdaParts (#notsponsored) on Faceballs and requested some "racecar quality" NA upper door panel pads, and then got in touch with Chris @ Primer3D (#notsponsored) and ordered a set of their "Forever Panels" for an NA with NO cutouts. And here is what showed up!
You can see the panels are lazored for all the little thingers and options that Mazda cut out originally, but on the set I specially requested they aren't punched all the way though. The intent of these panels is to cover them with foam and fabric to make custom "forever panels" but I'm not ClubRoadster for that, so I'm going to build something much simpler.
Most of the plastic "bosses" for the door panel screws are busted out, but I don't care because they were cheap and I can fix them relatively easily
You can try to superglue them back together if you have the pieces, its probably maybe worthwhile. I did it.
So to reinforce these guys, first thing is going to be trimming back the black vinyl so we've got some room to work.
Next we cut up some 5/8" ID plastic tube that matches the height of the busted screw mount boss
and we superglue that bastard in place
After the superglue dries, I packed these things full of Gorilla brand 5 minute epoxy. It'll self level so make sure the panels are on an appropriately level surface.
It's 5 minute epoxy but I chose to wait 24h at this point before proceeding with the project. I left the panels in the car and let them bake in the sun so the epoxy was sure to fully cure.
Next step requires some #8x1/2" button head sheet metal screws, some #8 washers (stainless if you are baller as ****) and a massively oversized drill that's completely inappropriate to the task. Drill bit should match the MINOR diameter of the threads on the #8 screw, we want to remove the material rather than displace it and we just want the threads of the new screws to bite into the remaining plastic and epoxy.
Drill, washer, screw, done. Don't over tighten these bastards as they can strip out.
They should looks something like this after they are all installed. Hopefully your alignment pins on your panels are still present.
If you are a complete caveman like me, be sure to go completely ham with the drill bit and fire it through the vinyl. This will prove to people that you aren't perfect, and you may just be human after all.
Test fit for the grins and realize these are totally out of place on this car. Also seen here: sill seam threshold cover things, so I can stop tearing up my knees on the transitions.
More out of place ballin' with M6 stainless allen bolts. But how the hell are we going to mount them?
Awww yisss. Big thanks to @afm for the loan of this amazing tool.
I originally started by drilling out the factory fastener holes to mount the nutserts, then realized the recess kinda screws things up and I ended up drilling more holes in the door. I call them "speed holes"
I fired a bunch of those fancy stainless M6 flange bolts in the door and now... DONE! I learned a lot doing this on the passenger side first, driver side I'll have to do tomorrow as working in the dark is full of suck.
Thats all for today, just glad to have made some progress.
Looks good, but how do you close the door from the inside? Just roll down the windows and grab the door? Thats what I did, when my doorhandle broke
Unfortunately the passenger side window only goes down about 3/4" at the moment. I'm going to pull it apart and PMCS everything much like I did on the drivers side and see if that'll get the power window regulator working again. If it's still good I'll leave it powered and relocate the switch somewhere else, otherwise my junkyard passenger door has a manual regulator in it that feels serviceable. For door pulls I'm going to make some simple straps, either a hanging loop or a band across 2 points on the door, still haven't decided yet. The no arm rests in this car is going to be highly annoying, but I don't have a driver side one and the passenger side one looks like an animal chewed on it, then threw up on it.
Originally Posted by der_vierte
Keep it up, very nice read
Aww, thanks! I'm just having fun here, this is all stuff I'm not brave enough to do on the NB. At this point I can't really make the NA worse... < FOREBODING MUSIC INTENSIFIES >
So I've got a bit of a problem that I'm not sure how to rectify...
One of the big problems that can happen when you cut a car in half and weld it back together is that you have to make sure your overlap is correct where you are doing the graft, and you have to make sure the car is both level and square. This can be challenging on a coupe or a 4 door because you have to get the door holes in the side of the car to line up correctly or the doors won't work right. On a convertible you don't have that pesky roof in the way and the soft top can cover your sins. You can kinda slap it together and things will generally work out with some adjustment.
...until some ****** goes and tries to bolt a rigid, removable hard top to the car.
Back when I first put a hard top on this car, circa 2003 or whenever, I had a real mother of a time getting it on and latched. It took 2 people and an extreme amount of ignorant force to even get things halfway lined up, and getting the latches to seat was a real pain. After seeing the floor without the carpet it starts to make a lot of sense as to why it was such a bastard of a job. Looking at this in a new light, a whole bunch of things start to make sense.
While I had the drivers side door apart I figured I'd try to see if I could adjust things to close up this window gap
Unfortunately there isn't actually much adjustment in the system and what little there is (mount points) were already pushed back as far as they would go. So why is there this huge gap?
Looking down at where the top interfaces with the body sheds some light on the issue. The top is full forward, its latched at the top of the windshield and the adjusters are maxed out to pull it forward and yet the top is sitting on top of the side rail.
To give you an idea of what its supposed to look like...
This is hard top to body interface as seen on my hasn't-been-packed-in-the-***-and-welded-back-together NB. Even this is a little off because one of the little rubber trim pieces is pushed up out of place, but you get the idea.
What's hilarious is the passenger side on the NA is EVEN WORSE than the drivers side. I popped the black hard top off and took a couple of cross measurements so I know its symmetrical, which means the tub is out by at least 3/8" from side to side.
This Frankenstein bolt is missing, but even if it was in place it would have no hope of hitting that striker correctly
The driver side one is, well, it is what it is.
With the top sitting on top of the rails rather than over them, this pushes the rear of the top up off the bodywork, to the point where there is significant gap, as illustrated by the above pic. I'm sure that whistles like a **** on the highway
So what's my point here... well, the top is barely on the car and that needs to be corrected. The window gap is what it is, I'm not sure I can correct that at this point. I think I can get away with some Spec Miata style hard top brackets at the windshield striker locations, but the rear is completely fuckered. As I see it, this leaves me with 2 options:
Put a jack under the windshield frame and try to bend the frame "up" thus allowing the top to slide forward and drop down onto the body correctly.
Cut out the fiberglass from the hard top where it contacts the rail on the body so that it can "drop down" and have a hope of lining up.
Option 1 includes possible destruction of the windshield but I could also tweak things to get the hard top lined up again and then use SM side brackets and maybe close the window gap some.
Option 2 involves permanently modifying the hard top and destroying its value even further. I mean, its pretty fucked now, but then it would be even more fucked. Would have to fab side brackets and probably wouldn't close the window gap much (top would still be "back" too far in relation to the back edge of the glass.)
I'm leaning towards Option 2 at the moment but I'm open to reasonable suggestions.
Lol, its not even in my name yet! As its coming from out of state I need to get a VIN verification done at the CA DMV before they'll even think of issuing me a title. Unfortunately they won't take an appointment for love or money thanks to COVID. There is one independent DMV contractor who can do verifications in Norcal but he isn't returning my calls. /sadtrombone
But I'm not driving it on public streets at the moment so I'm just not going to worry about it.
You have some serious **** going on... At least the dude "fixed" it
I wouldn't bend the windshield frame. I changed the windshield on my shitbox (look at my build, if you're bored... well, I don't think you are, haha) and I really tried to pull it out without brekaing, but it cracked SO FAST.
You would have to bend both sides up pretty much even, but even then, I can not imagine that it doesn't crack.
Could you mill the striker plate thinner to move it upwards? Or do you need more meat than that?
Hey, that's a good call. I could try moving the striker and the door bushing up and then re-aligning the whole door. It's a little low on the drivers side so that might help a bit. I'll have to check the interface between the wing window frame and the windshield and see if there is room.
Originally Posted by der_vierte
You have some serious **** going on... At least the dude "fixed" it
I wouldn't bend the windshield frame. I changed the windshield on my shitbox (look at my build, if you're bored... well, I don't think you are, haha) and I really tried to pull it out without brekaing, but it cracked SO FAST.
You would have to bend both sides up pretty much even, but even then, I can not imagine that it doesn't crack.
That's my worry as well. The windshield isn't broken yet, so I'd prefer it stay that way. Its not like they are terribly expensive its just not something I want to pay for at the moment.
09-21-2020, 04:55 PM
If you really want to get crazy you can buy them from Dimple for $35/ea 
As far as transmission and differential drain plug washers go I bought one of those
and have never had a problem with leaks. Unfortunately I ran out of the M14 copper guys a while ago... and the FLAPS gave me M18s for the trans and diff, lol. Anyway, hope that helps!
0
I could try moving the striker and the door bushing up and then re-aligning the whole door. It's a little low on the drivers side so that might help a bit. I'll have to check the interface between the wing window frame and the windshield and see if there is room.
