So... about that "miata warchest" from the proceeds of the 2000 civic I repaired and sold...



Sorry for the crappy photo quality, I took this last night after I got it home.

I bought it from a gentleman on the peak to peak miata club mailing list who originally had intended to build a spec miata racecar, but due to changing life plans is now clearing out his Denver property and expecting to live/work elsewhere.

It's got 143K or so, and it has a large but growing list of minor to moderate maintenance items (discovered so far.) The hardtop is damaged, with the resin chipped in a few places and cracked in two other places and the glass broken out (it was apparently dropped on the ground at some point.) The softtop is relatively new and in decent shape. At some point, I think recently, the vehicle suffered a front end impact, and some reconstruction was completed. It has aftermarket adjustable shocks on all four corners, but I haven't had a chance to eval more than surface deep.

Plans? Restoration. I have a lot of work ahead of me on this one, but it's actually quite drivable now, and the powertrain seems OK.

Nice.

Score with the hardtop!

Hope it doesn't cost too much to get the window fixed in the hardtop. You can usually pick one up in good shape for $800-1000 and it would suck to have to spend over half that just to repair one that's not in the best shape.

With some TLC and proper maintenance these things run forever and will be super reliable for you. I put 3k into mine (including a new soft top) after buying it and it's run like a tank ever since. One of the most reliable cars I've ever owned.

Yeah, it's not going to be cheap to source the replacement glass window. I'll do as much of the labor as I can. It may not happen for a while, and that's not to say I wouldn't grab a cheap hard top if one comes up. They don't seem to lose their value.

Congrats! That thing looks hungry for a full plastidip

Good luck with it. I hope you enjoy the car. Fun to drive for sure!

full plastidip't mx5:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JveTkdhFQiA"]PLASTI DIPPED MY MIATA TODAY! - YouTube[/ame]

Interesting faux matte black. I have no idea what my plans are for cosmetics yet, still wrapping my head around it all...

Some more photos...



I'm continuing to check everything out closely on the car's body. So far, no surprises. Front bumper cover and both fenders are out of the way to aid access.



The engine is fairly clean and stock from above, from below, the main seals and/or oil pan gaskets have been seeping for a long time. A lot is unknown here, I still need to run a compression test and inspect the plugs. I don't know the age of the timing belt; there's some occasional noise from the vicinity. Are the timing belt, idler, and tensioner pulleys are factory original, along with the water pump? The coolant expansion tank has a leaking crack at its bottom, holds nothing.




The carnage front-end impact I mentioned earlier can be seen clearly because the popped paint hasn't been resprayed. It doesn't appear to have extended to the shock absorber. Vehicle felt aligned and fine at highway speeds when driving it come, as well as on CO-74 from Morrison to Evergreen. I'll still be curious to see the numbers eventually. The front clip looks bad, it's spot-welded on to the frame spars. This holds the radiator, AC condenser coil, and front bumper on the car. One option would be to eventually cut another one off a salvage NA, and very carefully replace this one using the MIG welder.



Overall, not too bad. The seats could stand to be washed, and the driver side left bolster has a tear in its base. I may eventually replace them, it could help with my 6'2" legroom situation a little. The headrests are missing their speakers, though the doors appear to have some Infinity speakers installed. The audio deck is missing, but I have a kenwood included as parts with car, when I'm ready to go there. While out there today, I found some deep fuzzy white mold, and not a little, growing from the carpet on the shelf behind the driver seat where the softtop folds. Some detailing should work wonders here, aside from the one seat bolster, everything appears to be intact, though both the door window manual receivers need some sort of TLC, they resist going more than 1/3 way down and I'm afraid something will break if I try to force them.



Relatively clean from the back, though I think there are some dings from the inside on one fender near the battery, the battery is unsecured and its lugs may have done the work in corners. There's also a 1/2" deep 2.5" long ding from the outside in the same area; no paint chips, maybe dentless repair can help there. The pigtail for the center brake indicator was cut, I assume to provide the bulb socket assembly with the rest of the trunk lid when it was swap with a hail-damaged car's lid, but never reconnected for this trunk lid. There was no bulb socket assembly (pops and twists into center brake light lens) I could find with the included odds and ends that fit the assembly on the lid. But... a trunk cover with hail damage was included, and I did find a bulb socket for that one's slightly different taillight lens (maybe from a 1995 model year or so). I swapped the brake light assemblies between the trunk lids, soldered the leads and insulated with heat shrink tape. The bulb still didn't light on brake, further investigation is needed. I think it may expect a ground path through the lid metal? Something. It was energized with the brake pedal down.



This is the last bit, and I'm still not positive caused this to happen when the rest of the car is pretty much cancer free. This is just in front of the rear right wheel well. I dug at it for a while with a screwdriver and eventually some tin snips, this seems to be the limit of the corrsion, but I'll need to bring this down to shiny metal before I'll have some confidence I got it all. It seems like the exterior fender sheet metal was the very last to corrode. There's some sort of frame rail, but it seems thick enough it did not rust through yet. This may turn into another MIG welding job before long, once I'm done removing material.

I'm extremely grateful for another inclusion with the car: the 1994 Mazda mx-5 workshop manual.

Yesterday, I removed the door cards and greased the window receivers. This helped with movement, but there is still perhaps excessive resistance on the driver side when lowering it the final half way. Might be a window alignment issue, or something in the receive may be bent. Passenger side was a little better. There is an aftermarket power lock solenoid bolted to the door lock lever, part of an alarm system that was added to the car at some point.

Removed the moldy carpet from shelf behind the headrests.

Spent some time doing general detailing of dashboard and doors. The interior cleans up nice, though their is a hairline crack in the dashboard in front of the passenger seat.

I had photos of all this, but thought I had already copied them off my camera when I formatted its card this morning. Duh.

Today, I started applying some Folex carpet stain remover to the passenger seat upholstery. I hope what it was pulling out was coffee, because that's what it looked like. This is a temporary measure, these seats need to washed with an upholstery shampoo machine.

chromal wrote:Yesterday, I removed the door cards and greased the window receivers. This helped with movement, but there is still perhaps excessive resistance on the driver side when lowering it the final half way. Might be a window alignment issue, or something in the receive may be bent. Passenger side was a little better.

I've fixed the alignment on the driver-side window of both my old geo and bmw, a lot of times it's just a matter tightening the correct track-bolt, (roll it down, get it aligned tighten lower-bolts, roll it up to the top, align it and do top track-bolts)

it looks like the project is coming along well.

I'm still working on convincing my wife that our garage is in need of a Miata. Congrats on the ride, I'm a bit envious of your project!

Sell her on the fact that, aside from being a two seater with almost no cargo space, they're extremely practical in every other way. XD

Work continued slowly over the past week, hampered by the snow and cold.



The expansion tank had a hole in it when I bought the car, from the impact damage. When I removed the tank, it was a stress fracture. Until I can get around to replacing it, I patched the 1/4" hole with gorilla glue and silicon sealant, reinstalled, and topped off the coolant.



In an effort to stabilize the vehicle for its new outdoor parking home, I went around the front end briefly with some zinc primer and a q-tip, hitting bare metal where fatigue had popped paint off the body and front clip.



I previously mentioned that I did a quick interior detailing pass with Mothers' natural shine and also some Folex carpet stain remover on the passenger seat. (Haven't hit the driver seat yet, which still looks comparatively dingy.) Here's how it looks, now.

This weekend, I'm hoping to flush (and lay eyes upon) the brake system, hydraulic clutch, and also replace the transmission and diff fluid. I will hopefully run out to Georgetown and submit the title work and get a temp tag for the car on Monday.

Today's efforts were spent mostly on the rear brakes. A minor mystery has been solved: I wasn't sure why there was a set of EBC yellowstuff rear pads loose in the parts bin. (I was probably told, but didn't remember). Turns out, the pads had been installed on the other three corners, but in the rear left corner, the caliper was resisting efforts to remove or even just pivot it on one pin. I persuaded it off with a Stanley foobar, along with the rotor. Since the appropriate rebuilt caliper was also in the parts pile, I swapped it in, leaving the old one to rebuild or core refund later.

Measuring the left and right rear rotors with a Fowler 0-1" 0.001" micrometer, I had 0.320" remaining on the left and 0.305" on the right. (0.35" orig, 0.31" service limit.) Napa premium rear rotors are $20/ea, so I'm just replacing them both outright. Unfortunately, my replacement rotors won't be in until noon on Monday.

Checked the diff fluid level and color, seemed OK. Could not get the transmission fill plug to budge, and so I hit it with PB Blaster penetrating spray and am letting it sit overnight. While under the car, I also examined what seemed to be a transmission fluid seep from the propeller shaft mating surface as well as both rear half-axle seals.

Suctioned out the DOT3 fluid from the clutch and brake fluid reservoirs, replacing with clean fresh stuff (in preparation for a system flush). I also hit the CV boots with silicon spray, but they look pretty dry rotten. while turning the wheel hub, I might have detected a notchyness in the rolling resistance, but I don't know if it's a wheel hub, cv joint, expected from the open diff with both wheels off, or what. I'll file that for later investigation, but two rebuilt half axles seems appealing, given the condition of the boots.

Placed an online order with rockauto.com for gates timing belt replacement kit and a new water pump, as well as some other odds and ends like crank and camshaft seals, valve cover gasket, etc.

The plot thickens. Well, not really, just more work. And plates. It's street legal, again.

Fenders and front bumper cover back on the car. A wiring conduit wound up zip-tied. The front bumper is only partially secured. I installed the missing headlight motor linkage, now both sides pop up when turning on the headlights, although further attention is needed on the newly re-motorized right headlight-- it aims about thirty degrees too low. The adjuster works flawlessly, but doesn't seem to have any memory between runs. Maybe I need to reposition and retorque the linkage/motor nut with the light in service mode and positioned more close to true. In general, there are some fitment issues around the hood, headlights, and fenders, it will just take time to sort out.

The rear brake rotors I picked up from from NAPA were the OEM size (9.1") for 1990-1994, but, apparently the calipers I have are 1995-? (9.9"). The car was mid-upgrade, with the newer larger size on the right, and the OE spec size on the left, complete with OE disc shield. I actually had a new rotor, but didn't realize it was for the rears. It was paired with the rebuilt-looking caliper. (the passenger side looks more like a pull). (Anyone need an OE spec 1990-1993 miata rear?)

I completed the upgrade, reluctantly bending back the too-small rotor shield and installing the 1995+ rotor, caliper, and pads. It's not ideal, though, a rotor near the service limit on the right and an new one on the left. Once the new pads bedded, the EBC yellowstuff on the rears felt balanced. I'll probably try to get the newer-spec replacement rotor when I return the new OE spec one to NAPA.

For now, the battery is bungeed down to the frame.

The left rear wheel hub bearing (or maybe more likely the CV joint) is suspect. Not sure which, or if both. Am feeling inclined to replace all, but will investigate further before making plans.

While it's drivable now, I wouldn't want to make the commitment to the commute round trip of 80+ miles just yet. But I wrung it out on some local roads and it's more than willing and able to go, steer, and brake. The Eibach coils and KYB AGX shock absorber setup seems to work, though I have no basis for comparison.