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.
