Bye bye deathtrap
Bye bye deathtrap
Budget update first
Previous total: 1699.96 with 2000 recoup
New money:
turbo drain fittings $25.80
turbo drain fittings $10.44
door bushings 12.99
harness tape 2 rolls $19.00
clutch $60.00
door glass bushings $10.50
window weatherstrip $33.98
fog lights $5.00
3d printed shock adjuster stuff $5.00
New totals: 1917.67 with 2000 recoup
I chip away at this build almost daily. I really do. Sometimes its only 3 or 5 minutes, but SOMETHING gets done every day.
However, there’s a looong way to go from where we left off.
I guess as good a place to start as any is with the body, as that’s my never-ending empire of crap. We had the rear half of the body done, wet sanded, buffed, and assembled. And one door buffed. We still had one door in primer, a front fender needing reshot, mirrors and mudflaps to paint. Art and I did that one day in the driveway.
20250823_123140 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250823_141924 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250823_164824 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Came out pretty good for outside with a $40 paint gun (before buffing)
20250824_071055 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
While I waited for that to cure to wetsand and buff, I assembled the drivers door. Which I took almost no pictures of, apparently. In the process, I cleaned all the old grease out of the regulator and tracks, regreased. Scrubbed the door weatherstripping, soaked in VRP to soften. Lubed all the latches and hinges. Wound up having to replace the window bushings, the window weatherstripping, and the door bushings because I just didn’t have any good ones anywhere in the pile.
Screenshot_20250922_075126_eBay by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Screenshot_20250922_075307_Amazon Shopping by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Screenshot_20250828_073637_Amazon Shopping by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250810_145531 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
There was a massive purge, selloff, ad organization of my miata parts horde. Its actually still ongong, as im getting rig of stuff as I complete parts of the car.
Anyway, during the door rebuild I parted out a focus SVT. In the SVT was a polk DB8 subwoofer. I love those subs. So, I had to see of it would fit, as they are rated for free air. The answer is yes, they will fit just find in an unmodified miata door if one is so inclined. I do not know how it will sound though.
20250827_195429 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250827_195432 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
The door was finished and hung and adjusted properly. Mirror mounted and all! You can also see I refinished my DIY frog arms and reinstalled them, as well as cleaned my fender liners.
20250829_173754 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Around this point I realized that the car was assembled around the wiring harnesses. And those were still in deathtrap, the drivetrain donor. If I wanted to keep consolidating the parts pile, I had to make the pile bigger and get the harnesses in. so I pushed the green car outside, in the daylight, started at it and got happy for a while.
20250831_104125 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250831_104144 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250901_085745 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
And then I got unhappy. I cannot see past the imperfections in the repairs in the hardtop. Ill have to redo it. dammit.
20250901_085909 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250901_085909(1) by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Regardless, I pulled deathtrap in, and pulled it apart. I did my best to save every factory clip and fastener, to put the harness back exactly as the factory had done it. that was a job, but we got there. Dash harness was first. This, as we all know, routes up both sides of the engine bay. I re-wrapped most of it after a lot of scrubbing, as it just wasn’t looking nice. I also decided somewhere in here that I was taking all the gold plated under hood brackets and painting them black, as well as doing the weatherstripping restoration tricks to the hoses.
20250910_072523 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20251001_065735 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
The engine harness got hit with the pressure washer, same as the battery harness
20250920_071248 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
While I had my harbor freight electric pressure washer out, I did other stuff. Well come back to those in a few.
Transferred all the cleaned up wiring and components over to the green car, installed the rebuilt HVAC components, installed the HVAC lines and evap stuff and cruise bits
20251001_065723 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20251001_065715 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Now that the car was undrivable and a pain in the butt to move, it was time to make it go away. So we did so with extreme prejudice. Cut the front and rear 19 inches off to gain more working room. Cut the bent PPF in half because the chassis was too bent and rusty to get stuff to pull out. Had been soaking all the rusty hardware in free all for months, so there was a minimum of fuss there. Cut the brake lines and got my sport brakes off. Pulled the drivetrain out the front.
20250906_154559 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250906_163354 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250914_170256 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Pushed the car outside on the 5 dollar wheels held on with one lug nut each. Cut the rear control arms on each side to get the diff and chunk of PPF out, as well as the rear coil overs. Cut the fronts to get the front coilovers. Pulled the rack and fuel pump module. Called steve, my scrapper buddy to make the rest go away.
20250915_175137 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250915_175145 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250915_183013 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250915_183028 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
And with that, death trap is no more.
I’m glad I pulled the fuel pump module. Forgot how much I hacked the other one for the v6 swap. So the one from death trap is in the green car.
20250921_094123 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Broke the six speed and engine down to put on stands after draining whatever green gear oil was in the trans all over my floor. Twice.
Found that there was a lightweight flywheel that LOOKS like the flying miata piece, a SMOKED orange clutch, and not many other concerns. I’m going to weld a bung to the oil pan for the return and use AN line, and hardline the turbo coolant lines. Possibly the oil feed as well, but haven’t decided on that yet. Mostly for reliability’s sake, some for vanity. Because I like hard lines, and hate rubber. Hard lines done well make me happy, and are pretty.
20250915_175141 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250919_170503 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250919_170751 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250920_073151 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
And then they met zep industrial degreaser and the pressure washer
20250920_080034 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
I’ve gotten the passengers door and drivers fender wet sanded, buffed, ceramicoated and installed, the passengers door mostly reassembled, started cleaning and painting brake calipers.
I also managed to free up every piece of the ohlins coilovers, sandblast the scruffy ass springs, clean all the anodized aluminum, and reassemble the rears. I painted the steel eyelets black after blasting them and the springs got a fresh coat of yellow.
20250920_122616 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20250927_064229 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
Until next time, friends.
Until FRIDAY.
por15 exhaust manifold paint
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