Third Time’s Not The Charm

Gray Mats 2

Our first two attempts at floor mats came from the cheap throw rug aisle at Wally World. Both the red and the gray didn’t look as nice in the car as they did in our heads while looking at them in the store. Plus they were a bit flimsy and moved around when they were stepped on getting in and out of the car.

Last weekend we were in Home Depot looking at their in-stock commercial grade carpet because we had so much success with the remnants from the Valve Store’s office remodeling. No luck there as everything was browns and tans with nothing in gray. But over in the rack with some other stuff we thought we had the perfect solution to our mat desires. There was something that might have been an outdoor mat or an internal dirt catching carpet protector that was a solid gray, not too dark and not too light with a nice square high-low texture, so we bought it.

When I got home I used my usual procedure to turn carpet into mat: Trace the upside down OEM mats onto the back of the newly purchased mat material with a sharpie. I cut out the new mats using a utility knife and a retired pair of kitchen shears. Then the finishing touch, running around the edges with my butane charcoal grill fire starter to seal them. They were just the right weight and stiffness, plus the back side was covered in a rubbery #10 grit sandpaper-like stuff. They seemed perfect. After several days of use the mat’s Achilles heel showed itself though, the fine fibers it was made from started to shed like the fur of an Angora cat in the summertime.

So, we’ve now tried three different times to find a floor mat that would meet all our stringent criteria, spent around $50 and are nowhere near happy. Might be time to go ahead and bite the bullet by spending the $130 on the Zeromotive Checkered Floor Mats in black/light gray I’ve been eyeing for a while now.

The Shoe Is On The Other Foot Now

Back when we owned the aging Emperor I considered adding a roll bar to stiffen up the chassis some. I never could seem to pull the trigger on the cost of one though. John Haff of Clunk & Thunk fame runs a ’91 Miata in NASA‘s TTE class and has been threatening forever to turn his wife’s ’99 Miata into another race car now that she doesn’t drive it so much. The ’99 has a Hard Dog Hard Bar installed in it and I have told John several times when he welds a race cage into that car I’d buy the used bar from him.

Donna and I drove over to Augusta’s Cars and Coffee this morning to check out the cars (even had our peekture taken.) John Haff was there with a “booth” trying to entice people to join NASA to go racing on weekends. When we stopped to chat, John asked how I liked my “new” car. His next question was, “How’d you like to swap that Hard Dog Ace roll bar for the Hard Bar?” “No thanks,” I said.

We also went there to see if we could find some cars with stripes on them and ask where they had them done. We struck out. Oh, there were a ton of cars with stripes, but all the older cars had them painted on and all the newer cars had vinyl, but they came from the dealer that way…

Shiny

Shiny

  1. Remove the 4 black lug nuts
  2. Remove wheel from car
  3. Pop out the center cap by pushing from the back
  4. Remount wheel on car
  5. Install new chrome lug nuts
  6. Repeat 4 times
  7. Mask middle of center caps
  8. Paint center caps with shiny silver paint
  9. Remove masking tape from caps
  10. Apply new RevLimiter badges
  11. Snap center caps back on wheels
  12. Stand back and admire

What Color Is The Miata? (Stripe)

What Color Is The Miata Stripe

Back in June when I was dreaming of a 2016 Miata I was also dreaming of what color I make it with a vinyl wrap. I went so far as to order some samples and stick them on the trunk lid of the Emperor. Well, I’ve ordered some more samples. This time it is not going to be the whole car, just two 8″ stripes with a 4″ gap in the center. Donna and friend Jackie picked the outside blue (Satin Perfect Blue S347) while I picked the one on the inside.

This afternoon when we walked out after work Dona said it really didn’t matter which one as long as it was blue. So we peeled off the other 3 colors and left my pick the Matte Riviera Blue (M67). Tonight as we left through the garage to go out to eat, I looked at the one lonely 2″ x 4″ sample and thought, that looks familiar, the blue painter’s tape that surrounded the windshield a few days ago. I pulled out a roll I had in the garage and the painter’s tape is actually a little darker than the vinyl. But I can’t get that image out of my head now.

So I have my criteria, blue for her & matte for him. Back to the color chart and look, there is another slightly darker matte blue available – Blue Metallic (M227). Now, that number sounds familiar and sure enough, it was one of the colors that were applied to the Emperor back in June. Back then it was the inner left one. Looking at it now, that color in that photo doesn’t look any different than the Matte Riviera Blue (M67) on the CTBNL does right now. Maybe we should go with the Satin Perfect Blue the ladies picked or maybe I should buy a couple more rolls of the blue tape…

Hindsight Is 20/20 (Part IV) Third Time’s A Charm

Read Part I, Part II and Part III first.

Thursday after work when we arrived at the glass shop there wasn’t a silver Miata sitting outside waiting. While one of us was saying out loud, “Uh, oh, that’s not good.” The other one was simultaneously thinking the very same thing. As I open the front door I can see through into the shop floor and the guy waving us back. Donna and I go through the second door and see the CTBNL in the middle of the shop. They are just finishing up.

Owner guy says, “I put those rubber pieces on the blocks and you can see how everything is tight.” So I reach over and peel back the gasket at the top and sure enough it feels just like the one on the Emperor did when I blacked out the windshield surround. He then points over to a small bench that has a windshield face down on it. “I went ahead and bought a new windshield to put on your car.”1 “If you know someone who needs one, I’ll make them a good deal on a used one.2” Then, “They’re just finishing up, so give us a minute and we’ll bring it around front to you.”

Donna reluctantly leaves me behind and drives home in the Sonata. After a few minutes I hear a Miata fire up and circle the building. I step outside and there are two strips of blue tape across the upper corners of the windshield. Owner guy asks if I’m going right home or do I think I’ll be driving it around. “Two miles home is all,” I tell him. He says, “If you were going to drive a bit I’d put the tape all around, but this’ll hold you for just that.” I think for a second and say, “Why don’t we just go ahead and tape around the whole thing. Just to be safe.”

Because we rode the tandem to work on Friday I didn’t even pull the blue tape off until Saturday morning and with a couple of drives on Saturday plus a short one today, so far so good.

In hindsight, maybe we should have learned to live with that little divot.

Hindsight Is 20/20 (Part III) But Weirdly Distracting

Read Part I and Part II first.

Wednesday morning I carefully peel off the blue painter’s tape. The windshield still looks a little low, but the gasket fills the gap in the corners. Donna took the afternoon off, so I took her home and drove back to work uneventfully, if you don’t count the weird look out the back through the magnifying squared off mirror.

After work about a mile from the Valve Store, on my way to the glass shop, I start to hear a slight whistle. What the heck could that be? Then I notice a thin line of black peek above the windshield header on the passenger side. As I’m cruising along at 45 MPH the line turns into a loop growing in size and starting to flap around like one of those inflatable wacky waving arm tube men, now, with whistling sounds. As I slow while approaching a stoplight, the flapping and whistling decreases until at around 20 MPH it stops. But of course as soon as I get back above 20 it starts all over again. To limit the distraction, after I’ve shifted into 3rd I drive along with my right hand up above the header holding down the gasket. I have no idea if that looks even remotely normal, but at least the whistling is stopped.

When I enter the shop, a fellow I haven’t seen before (the owner?) is there and he greets me with, “How you doing?” “Not good,” I reply, “My windshield still isn’t right.” He picks up a box and says, “I can fix that, got your new mirror right here.” I tell him, “That’s just the half of it. Come outside, I’ll show you.” He takes one look at the car and says, “The gasket has come unstuck. We’ve had a rash of that happen lately. Its the cheap glue they’re putting on them now.”

Now that the gasket is out of the channel I can see that the glass itself is still a 1/4 inch low all around the top, so I ask owner guy, “Is this the right piece of glass? When I blacked out the windshield surround on my previous similar car I had a hard time getting the vinyl under the gasket here at the top glass because it was way up here.” “Or considering your little mirror trick,” I say, “Maybe you lost the two blocks that support the bottom of the glass and put something else in there.” “Oh no,” he says, “Those two are in there. What I’ll have do is pull the window back off and cut a 1/4″ thick piece of rubber to place on top of them to lift the glass.” “Can you leave the car with us?”

So for the second time in three nights the CTBNL spends the night in the shop at B & B Glass.

to be continued…

Hindsight Is 20/20 (Part II) And Squarely Magnified

Read Part I first.

Tuesday after work we drive back to the glass place and there is a silver Miata in the same spot as yesterday, so it is probably finished. We park the Sonata right next to it again. The sides and top of the windshield has a line of blue painter’s tape around them. I peel back a corner of the tape and there is the OEM (or an aftermarket replacement) gasket. That’s more like it. I go inside and give the guy a check for the work and he says, “Just leave the tape on until morning to let the sealant dry.”

We head back home in our little two car caravan. The first time I look in the rear view mirror it seems different, but I can’t place it. I shrug it off to the fact that I’m still adjusting looking through the 2 cross braces of the roll bar. The next time I glance at it, my brain registers that the view is seems magnified. By the third look I come to the conclusion that the mirror is not the same mirror that was on the car before I took it to them. It is too rectangular, it has square corners. Because at this point I was close enough to home, I figured I’d call them up and ask.

But first I wanted to pull up one of the pictures of the car I had taken over the weekend, just to be sure that that mirror was in fact not right. It wasn’t. I call up the glass place and say, “That’s not my mirror.” “Huh?” “The mirror you guys put back in the car is not a Miata mirror. It is too rectangular,” I tell him, “It looks like it belongs in that 1964 Ford Thunderbird that was in your lot.” Dude says, “Hold on, let me check.” When he gets back on the phone he tells me, “When they were removing my mirror they broke it, so they just put another one on it.” “That is not acceptable,” I say. “Don’t worry, I’m going to call Gerald Jones (the Mazda dealer in Augusta) right now and get you a new mirror.” “Just stop in after your work tomorrow and I’ll pop it on.”

Did they think I wouldn’t notice the random mirror?

to be continued…