Miata Mods

Right You Are Ken

Watched a couple of episodes of MXC today, can’t believe that show actually exists. It would never get produced in the US, thank heaven for those wacky Japanese.

Speaking of wacky Japanese, my bumper sticker from CafePress arrived last night. The maroon color was nowhere near the car color, so I used an xacto knife and cut out the kanji letters and stuck them on the front small section of the side sills, one set on each side. From my limited (read none) understanding of Japanese kanji one simple character stands for emperor, but it is mostly used to mean the Emperor of Japan. The second symbol represents sovereign, so the combination means sovereign emperor, or The Emperor. Now that I’ve gone to all the trouble I’m not sure it is going to stay on the car. The tan is a tad too bright for the basically dark sided automobile. I may remake the sticker with black characters which should be a little more subtle. I’ll have to get a picture of the car with the tan letters on there first, so I can add it to my Hall of Shame along with the Japanese license plate.

Flan: “It’s in the can.”
Vic: “Next is Flan Peters. He developed the aromatherapy product ‘Zoo in a Can’.”
Kenny: “Yeah, I’ve got ‘Monkey Enclosure’.”
Vic: “Good for you and it looks like he’s got a pretty good run going.”
Kenny: “He’s into a full San Quentin.” (Flan is straddling two timbers with his butt in the air)
Vic: “Right you are. Oh he’s stepping up there … Oh. There he’s into a defrocked bishop. (Flan is straddling two timbers with his butt in the air again.) And I think he might be trying for a dirty nurse. Yes. Oh he can’t quite pull it off.”
Kenny: “Not everyone can do a dirty nurse.”
Vic: “Right you are Ken. And… Flan cannot. It’s over for him.”

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 271

The Emperor Gets A Pedicure

Well today was the day for the long delayed brake caliper painting. In preparation, yesterday I had bought a pint can of “Colonial Red” paint and some cheap small paint brushes at home store L. Pulled all the wheels off, including carefully backing off my defective stud/lug nut combo, and proceeded to clean all the calipers using brake cleaner and one of those small brushes. Opened the can and started painting the left rear caliper. Boy this looks a lot less maroon than the label led me to believe, maybe it will darken up when it dries. Painted the right rear. Then the two fronts, but unlike last time I didn’t paint the brackets, just did the calipers. Went back to check on the left rear, the first caliper painted to see if it looked any maroonish. Nope, the paint had darkened a bit, but it just looked like I had painted it red and it got dirty.

I finished my 1st coat at around 11:00AM and decided that the color was just too red, so I figured I would go out to the home store HD and get something more maroon for the second coat. Trouble is I live in the Bible Belt and we still have blue laws around here, the stores do not open on Sunday’s until 1:30PM. Seeing as I now had a couple of hours to kill I thought that it would be a good opportunity to clean up the interior a bit. Over on the Miata.net forum someone had recommended using Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on dirt and those tough scuff marks. And what do you know it works pretty good, so I cleaned up all the tan plastic of the interior. Didn’t do any of the black because the Magic Eraser is just like a pencil eraser, it leaves behind dust. Even though I wiped behind my erasing with a damp cloth I didn’t want to get white fuzz or whatever on the dash.

With still more time to waste I went ahead and cleaned the leather seats, then followed that with a good conditioning. It really needed it, the seats weren’t too dirty, but after last week’s unexpected rain soaking they really did need the conditioning.

Cleaned myself up and went in for lunch. When the sandwich was finished the clock read 1:20, perfect, by the time we pile in the MSV and get to HD, it will be open. This time I got a can of “Claret Wine” and although the shade shown on the label was just like the one for “Colonial Red” I figured with that name it should be perfect. When we left the store the rumble of thunder could be heard off in the distance. Good thing I had put the top up on the Miata. Even though it was under an awning at home that wouldn’t keep it totally dry. By the time we got home it hadn’t started to rain there yet, so I quick like a bunny painted the second coat on the calipers. The color was better, but not really close enough to the car color for my perfectionist ways. Not two minutes after I finished painting the rains came, so I had plenty of time to sit in the garage and look at the car and contemplate my options.

Donna had a great idea, she said why not use those three little bottles of touch-up paint that you got for free from Mazda. Would have been great, but the paint I have been using is latex and the touch up paint is oil-based and would probably eat the the other stuff off and make an icky mess. For now I am going to just live with the mismatch, in the future I may look for something more maroon, but for now “Claret Wine” will have to do.

When I went to put the back brakes back together, I couldn’t get the caliper back over the reinstalled brake pads. Dang, usually it is a tight squeeze, but this is way too much interference. That’s when it hit me, when I cleaned the interior I had pulled up the ebrake handle to get underneath it clean. Activating the ebrake expands both back calipers. Dang. Slight set back, but not insurmountable. I put the rear pad in and lower the caliper into position, then using a big screwdriver pry on the front claws of the caliper and it squeezes the piston back. Side one went easy, but on side two I slipped with the screwdriver and scraped a big spot of the new paint right off. Double dang. No problem, we’ll just get the paint can back out and touch it up. That worked just fine, no one will be the wiser that I had to do a repaint of that spot.

It didn’t go smoothly though, continuing what started at breakfast, this small job didn’t go right or easy either. As I dodged the tire sitting to the right of the car I stumbled with the open can of paint and splashed about a quarter of it on the driveway. Thankfully, continuing what started at breakfast, it was not a major snafu, the paint didn’t get on anything but the ground.

For the rest of the night I will be in the living room reading a book and watching the rebroadcast of today’s stage of the Tour de France on OLN. Hopefully I won’t fall off the couch or anything.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 208

Aborted Mod

I had 3-1/2 hours free this morning after we returned from the store, so I decided the time had come to paint the brake calipers. I loosened the lug nuts on all four wheels a half turn and put the car on jack stands. I pulled the right side wheels off and when I started on the back left there was one lug nut that required a lot of force to back off. I quit after a half turn knowing just what that meant, stripped or cross threaded lug nut. It felt just like the last time back in April. So much for painting calipers.

What the heck, I thought, I’ll do the passenger side this morning and do the other side at another time. I removed the bolts holding the right front caliper on and lifted it off. Sprayed it real good with brake cleaner, so the paint would adhere to it and rested it on top of the rotor. I then went in search of something to hold it or hang it from while I sprayed it. First I was going to paint it with some silver I had as an undercoat before hitting it with my Garnet Red in a can. Couldn’t find the old coat hanger I thought I had in the garage, so I went back to the car to study my options some more. The more I looked, the more I thought it would be hard to mask all the spots I needed to and make it easy to paint without getting overspray on places I didn’t want to. I relubed the slider pins and put the brakes back together.

Because I had the wheel off in back I lubed those slide pins too before mounting the wheels back on the car. I used some of my recently purchase anti-size compound on the lug nuts as a good measure. For the heck of it, I also put some anti-seize on the left front lug nuts before putting it back on the car. That left me with the left rear and it’s stuck lug nut. I tightened the other three down and slowly backed off the offending nut. Maybe because the car was a little cooler or the other nuts being tight, but I could slowly back it off the stud. When I looked inside the nut I could see that it was very mangled. The stud had a few misplaced grooves but otherwise it looked OK. I put the anti-seize on all of them and carefully tightened up that scarred nut on the scarred stud.

I have zero proof that this is what happened, but from recent experience it certainly seems likely. The knucklehead who changed out my previous stripped stud decided he didn’t want to put a half mangled lug nut on his nice new stud, so he walked around the back of the car, removed a random lug nut off the left rear wheel and using his impact wrench force fed the bad nut on hoping that would re-form the threads. Instead he just created another problem as I am going to have to have the one on the left replaced, plus it might be a good idea to get a new lug nut. You can bet that even though they should do the work for free at the LTS, I’m going to cut my loses and go somewhere else and pay to have it done.

I haven’t given up entirely on painting the calipers yet either. I think instead of the exact match thing I will go get a small can of the liquid Rustoleum in maroon and use that. I had a real good experience with that stuff when I did my old Laguna Blue’s calipers in yellow.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 156

So Subdued, It’s Comatose

I didn’t put anymore than the 6 coats I did yesterday on the mirror. When I got up this morning I was tempted to paint it silver and start again, but didn’t. When I held it up to the car in the garage it was definitely Garnet Red, just kind of pebbly and matte and uneven. I decided I should spray some clear coat over the top and see if that helped. Of course I had to run to Autozone and spend another $4.43 on a can of paint. After 4 light coats of clear it cured the matte and unevenness. The texture, I knew, was there to stay.

Re-installed the mirror and looking at it in the garage you can’t even tell. The color is so dark and the angle of the windshield make it look as if nothing was done. Even outside in the daylight, if you didn’t know it was painted, you would never know. Perhaps on a bright day and with the sun at the right angle….I do like subtle mods, but this one is perhaps a little too understated.

I’m not sorry I did it, but this mod would probably be much more noticable on a lighter colored car like, white or silver. Should look real good on the primary colors too, classic red, mariner blue, or a 10AE. Of course if your Miata is black, this mod is already done for you at the factory. đŸ˜€

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 80

Shoulda Primed

When I got home from work I removed the rear view mirror and masked off the front, the day/night tab and the mounting arm. I wiped it off with some alcohol to get rid of my finger grease and sprayed on coat number one.

The cover that is on the Mazdaspeed mirror is nice and smooth and glossy. The stock mirror housing is matte black and has a pebbled finish. I had zero plans of trying to sand it down to smooth, that is way too much work, I’m just want to make it car colored. This paint that came from PaintScratch.com is pretty thin so I knew I’d need a few coats to get the black mirror to look Garnet Red and so far I am up to 5 and it is starting to get there. Probably get one more on tonight and then a couple three in the morning. Hopefully that’ll do it.

I know now that if I do decide to do the brake calipers, I’ll prime them with some silver first…

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 78

Side Maker Lights

I only did the rear side marker light mod today at tech day. I decided against the blinking side markers because, at least for the rears and maybe the fronts, if you make them turn signal indicators they would lose the parking/running light ability, which is what I really wanted.

Today’s Tech Day could have been called Electrical Tech Day as most of the work done was to the wiring of the cars. I did the side marker thing, 2 folks added air horns and two folks did the power window switch repairs. One member took the discarded stock horn from an’04 with new air horns and added it to their existing stock ’90 to double their noise value for free.

I guess I’ll go add the $8.46 I spent on parts to the BTR Equipment Package list.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 55