Hey Mike!
Hey Mike!
Hey jim!!
Great things are afoot. Great things! - slartibart.
Gonna have more parts to sell....
Budget update first
Previous total: 1720.62 with 2000 recoup
New money:
pack of reflectix $9.59
black stainless washers $9.49
black stainless bolts $9.99
antique pewter spray paint 1/2 can $10.98
krylon fusion matte black 2 cans $15.96
ace chrome aluminum 2 cans free from trashcan at scrap guys place
cast coat iron 1/4 can $12.49
cast coat aluminum $12.49
rustoleum professional semigloss black $9.98
dei floor and tunnel shield leftover from the cup car
New totals: 1796.62 with 2000 recoup
About two months since the last update, and this one won’t be too exciting. Unless you like super OCD level restoration stuff, in which case welcome to your happy place.
So, lets pickup where we left off. With the frame rails. I needed t add some points to bolt the factory line set back in, so while the car was at dads place, I went ahead and did that, as well as ground down the wends some. And touched up some others. It was still ugly, but as the old saying goes: a grinder and paint make me the welder I aint!
20250325_192941 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250325_192932 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
For grinding, to keep it off the fresh paint and from going all over the shop, I hung welding blankets from the rockers and such all the way around the car with heay duty magnets. Worked like a charm to keep the mess contained and protect the car. No pictures.
After grinding, it was still pretty freaking bad, so I turned back to our lord and savior: SEAM SEALER!!!!
Needed to be done anyway, but makes it way prettier. Pro tip: to keep your bolt holes usable, put crappy bolts in them, then throw them away after the seam sealer cures.
No pictures yet. You have to wait. Mostly because oi have none of this point.
I then loaded the car up and brought it to my house where I can get tedious and anal retentive. Which I actually thoroughly enjoy.
20250405_184129 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250406_100436 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Step one was washing the car. Scrubbing the trunk and interior with a red scotchbrite/dawn/purple power to remove overspray and dirt, blasting all the cavities to get rid of yet more crushed glass blasting media, and then ceramicoated the jambs and engine bay.
20250406_100446 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Grabbed my trusty old Valspar, 2-inch brush, and started in. goal was black trunk, and take care of any bare spots.
20250409_191139 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250409_192413 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
The interior floor I did with a leftover can of rustoleum hunter green. No reason to waste the good stuff on parts that will be under carpet for the rest of eternity.
20250412_132514 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Before I really got moving, I mocked up the whole car, and rolled it outside and cleaned the shop. The mockup really was a shot in the arm. i needed it. I’m super happy I chose BRG. It was definitely the correct decision for my soul.
20250419_085447 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Pulled it back in, and had the glass guy come out and pull the broken windshield out as well as the hardtop glass.
20250421_122356 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Then, ordered a bit of reflectix off amazon for added firewall insulation, and a little sound deadener I had left over from some project at some point. The amazon reflectix is not as thick as the stuff at Lowes, ad the mylar is not as good. I would not recommend it. I laid the firewall pad on top of it as a pattern, cut all the holes slightly oversized on the reflectix, and hung it.
20250501_070430 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Then, cleaned up the pad with Windex. Followed by soaking in chemical guys vrp to keep it flexible and healthy for as long as possible. It soaked in quite a bit before it started to pool, so I’m calling that a win.
20250418_203720 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250430_185927 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Hung it on the firewall with fender washers and m6 nuts from my bolt bins. A note about my bins: there are YEARS of part outs, junkyard runs, leftovers, etc. in these bins. The salvage yards here don’t charge for hardware or body plugs, and I always leave with some nice ones to add to the stash, and therefore have an organized horde to use as needed. Most of the blue bins you see on the wall are metric.
20250501_202904 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Next, I put the car up on stands. It was time to get the underside painted, seam sealer touched up, etc. quite frankly, I LOVE a detailed and clean undercarriage. May be why I’m an ass man, I dunno. So, I started by knocking the crossmembers out from underneath, and grabbing two cans of Krylon matte black. The fusion stuff is really nice and bonds well to questionable surfaces.
20250425_193931 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250426_084609 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250427_152133 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250426_090501 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Cleaned the tank and shot with rustoleum semigloss black. The heat shields got done with rustoleum antique pewter, as it looks like galvanizing. Tub in matte black. I used some leftover window AC foam to replicate the crumbling foam seal from the front of the tank to the tub upon reinstall.
20250427_152117 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250427_152111 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250427_152157 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
I then cleaned and went to hang the lines. Which turned into an ordeal in its own right. Turns out I put the weld nuts in the wrong places in the frame rails, so the line mounts wouldn’t clear. I don’t have any pictures, but a bit of finesse with a carbide burr to slot the hole, and some hacksaw to cut the extra locating tab off, and it went in well enough. I don’t know what year these lines are from,but im assuming 99-2000. They’re the ones that came with the turbo car.
After this, I attacked the filthy rear suspension drop out. While disassembling, I used a cold chisel to cut the dust shields off the rear spindles, as they will not clear the larger brakes from the turbo car. I also cut off the previous PPF delete mount that I welded in that was denting the fuel tank and rattling on the heat shields.
After that, it was simple disassembly. Until the FU bolts. One came out nice and easy. The other took 4 days of mapp gas, penetrating oil, and impact hammering to finally break free. But it did.
20250509_190937 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Then everything was scrubbed down, and the control arms and cradle painted gloss black. The diff housing cast coat aluminum, hogshead cast coat iron. The hardware was all cleaned up on the wire wheel and sprayed with the free ace hardware chrome aluminum.
20250515_162304 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250514_174051 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
The axles wouldn’t come out of the spindles no matter what I tried. Ultimately, I cleaned and painted them all together. The spindles were cast coat iron, and the axle shafts gloss black. The cvs got a dab of green, and the CV boots got VRP. Then, the whole mess got reassembled in the car. Came out pretty nice!
20250514_174009 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250516_163141 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
IMG_20250517_161936 (2) by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
IMG_20250517_161936 (1) by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
I’ve also been cleaning up all the grommets and weatherstripping and rubber parts as I go. all of them have overspray, oxidation, and general sconge on them. I read in jeffbucc’s thread a tip about soaking in a purple power/dawn/water solution overnight to soften the surface contaminants before scrubbing with a brown scotchbrite or washcloth or scrub brush as the case may warrant. After its clean, I soak in VRP until it wont anymore. Then reinstall.
20250426_084609 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250504_095908 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250508_181950 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Next up, I sanded down and painted the roll bar. Three times kept getting what I thought were fisheyes. After getting art over here, turned out that I was experiencing dryshot in odd ways. So, it was finally done with rustoleum semigloss black.
20250501_070202 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Cleaned, pained the spots that needed painting, and reinstalled the power steering cooling loop
20250421_082927 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Used up some leftover dei floor and tunnel shield in the trans tunnel. I bought two of the biggest rolls they sell for the stock car, and this was all my scraps. It photographs well, and will look way better with a transmission in the way.
20250517_142201 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
To end the update, lets talk about the turbo car. It has started smoking heavily, and had developed a misfire. I wound up trying new plugs in the flyin miata and that fixed the misfire. Previous plugs were fouled from fuel, and it ran way better. I then pulled the exhaust to swap the broken driveshaft. In the process, found that the cat was partially plugged.
20250416_191638 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
It ran way, way better. Tire smoke show in fourth gear, no more vibrations, trans shifted way better, noise from trans went away. Amazing what all 8 u joint caps do for you!
However, it still smokes heavily. Doesn’t smell like oil. Possibly fuel, or a popped head gasket from the “no wastegate and I pegged the boost gauge” initial runs I did. I’m nervous to pull it apart, but I think at this point I’m going to have to. Thankfully the challenge rules allow for repairs for damage due to testing. As long as I’m not upgrading anything while its apart, I’m ok there. But I’m still very, very nervous.
Question to end the post: is the turbo back flyin miata exhaust pictured the same as the stock catback in length/shape? At some point this exhaust will go away, as its pretty rough, and id like to keep my eyes open for a good used one that wont make my life a living hell later.
20250417_180908 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
in other news, brad is coming down Saturday to paint the hardtop and windshield frame.
then on to cut and buff
This thing is looking great. Are you planning to remake the butterfly braces? What's the plan there?
In reply to Crackers (Forum Supporter) :
For now, the plan is to use the factory nb2 butterfly brace, along with the other factory bracing. Im honestly not sure that any additional bracing is needed at this point. Between the seam welding and the subframe connectors the car seems to be remarkably stiff. However I am a belt and suspenders kind of guy so using the factory bracing is a no-brainer. I'm also going to leave my frog arms in place after doing a little bit of reworking to them. But I think I'm at the point of diminishing returns with concerns to wait and complexity versus stiffness. Don't know if there's a way I can test or if anybody's got any different thoughts on that but I'm all ears
this makes me reconsider my dedication to keeping emissions functional. For now. Ill leave it in place and hope to figure out ways to tidy it later.
Should the brackets stay gold cad, or go black? Engine and charge piping is planned to be almost all black and aluminum.
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
Black brackets, and I'm all for ditching as much of that junk as you can.
This is a 30,000 mile 99 survivor i ran into at a local show. Looks way better than what I got going on. It also looks like I've got 01 up suff there that the 99 doesn't need.
That's what I get for having a hoard.
So, I need to pull the stuff from deathtrap, use it and use the best of the identical components. And paint the brackets black or silver.
I decided to use the 01 up booster and master. But keep the 99-00 prop valve and location and chassis side lines. So i chopped up some kines from that $150 tub to make conversion lines. Obviously not final form.
that $150 tub has been a treasure trive of stuff. Good carpet, nice rack, clips, plugs, lines, hoses, Bolts, etc. All sorts of fantastic diddly things. I've sold 250 from it while keeping what I needed. Can't complain a bit, and the tub is leaving here the 21st. Gotta finish stripping all the stuff i want by then.
Then to strip deathtrap. And be down to one miata tub on the property. Which will make the wife and I very, very happy.
little cut and buff action today....
Still needs da, ceramicoated, and such. But holy crap!! Came out way nicer than intended.
todays stopping point. Just rotary buffer and aggressive compound with a white foam pad.
Next is a LOT of cleanup, as i didn't plan for this today, so I didn't prepare the car or the work area for buffer schmuck.
Then, some more assembly and check my work outside....
every challenge team completely rebuilds their hvac systems, right?
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
yes
Looking fantastic!
this is becoming a very busy engine bay very quickly. Not sure im happy about that.
my wife doesn't know she's going to divorce me later today.
Our bedroom is above the garage, and im fixing to spray paint....
Really happy how it turned out.
Sorry about the pending divorce, hope you get the car. Looks worth it.
In reply to GoLucky :
Lol.
Apparently, she never even smelled the fumes yesterday! No idea how that happened, as she smells brake cleaner when I use it outside.
I'll take the win.
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
Awesome 👍
Also, happy Father's Day
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