Miatatude

Not far, just busy as a little beaver.

Friday night we kid-sat for some friends. We took the kids in the MSV (Mom’s Civic) and previewed the Miata Light tour for Saturday night. The kids had a good time. The best house was the last, the grand finale if you will, this guy took a page from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and has his whole house covered in lights. It is all run by a PC and there are several variations /gyrations the lights go through in a 5 minute “show.” We got home at 11PM I went out in the garage to see about yanking the tow hooks so I could install the grill that was waiting on my doorstep when I got home from work. They were torqued down so much and in such inaccessible locations I ended up pulling out a half dozen plastic panels/pieces of car to get at them.

Saturday I pulled the car out of the garage and put the front up on jack stands so I could get in and actually take out the hooks. I had to use my 1/2″ drive torque wrench, which is 18″ long, to get enough leverage on the bolts to break them free. Next on the agenda was to install the air horns. It went real easy (after I figured out how to mount them) because I had all that room with those plastic pieces out.

All this was accomplished in between coats of paint on the cabinet interior and installing the new hardware on the doors and hanging the doors and installing magnetic latches and…oh yeah, I had to disconnect to washer and dryer to make way for the new set that was coming in the afternoon. This left just enough time to wash the windows and shake out the mats of the Miata before heading over to North Augusta for the Master’s Miata Club meeting/light tour/party.

Today we went out for breakfast, grocery shopping, last minute cabinet finishing, out for lunch, pick up Mom at airport and now blogging. Going to be good to go back to work tomorrow and get some rest.

After spending a little more than 2 days hanging out at UPS’s Greensboro, NC hub, the grill left there this afternoon and as I write this it is in West Columbia, SC. This means it will get to Aiken at around 4 AM and be on the truck for delivery, exactly as predicted, on December 5th. I called the 800 number and spoke with someone who could see a location scan at 12:15 PM today that was not on the web site. Maybe the grill has relatives nearby and slipped out for a quick visit?

I guess I’m going to have to get busy and yank the baby teeth tomorrow or Saturday so I can install the grill. They weren’t too much of a hassle in my ’95 IIRC, but from reading on Miata.net, this generation car can be a bear to get one of the out. We’ll see.

When we got home tonight there was a message on the answering machine that my car was ready. I called the salesman back to let him know that tonight and tomorrow was bad for me and I would come get it on Friday afternoon. Besides the convince factor I want to get a good look at the repair in the daylight. When I asked what was done the reply was, “A little touch up and a lot of buffing.”

My UPS delivery of the grill, according to their web site, is exactly where it was yesterday at this time. There are a couple of possibilities; 1) they estimated a delivery of December 5th, and there is no sense delivering until then. Or 2) it is lost in the warehouse. Or maybe 3) it is on a truck to be delivered tomorrow and the web site hasn’t been updated yet. I’ll call their 800 number tomorrow and see what is what.

Last Monday, the night we picked up the new car, I ordered it’s first non-hand-me-down modification, a black mesh grill. I ordered it from a place in California and they are shipping it via Conestoga Wagon and it should arrive on this Friday according to the UPS site. I suspect it might make it here tomorrow as it was in Greensboro, NC at 12:35 PM today, check the progress for yourself. A mesh grill serves two purposes, 1) it protects your expensive A/C condenser from damage when the low slung mouth of a Miata eats road debris. And 2) it looks good in there, hiding that A/C plumbing.

Mod #1 is not even here and today I ordered #2, mudflaps. On my pervious Miatas I never did get any and towards the end of their lives with me I regretted it. After 100K miles the paint and finish behind the wheel wells starts to really became ugly looking with chips of paint missing and tar spots that don’t come off. On the last one I even got some white paint specks from some where that never came off. A front and rear set, pre-painted in Garnet Red were a little over $100. Money I hope will be well spent.

Dropped the Miata off at the dealer last night. They are going to look at it Wednesday when the “paint guy” comes in. Here is why.

Got as many pictures as I could gathered up for the Master’s Miata Club 2004 Calendar and uploaded them to Shutterfly. We got 16 submissions with a couple of folks having more than one choice. I also uploaded a copy of the Club Logo for the cover. If you want one you don’t have to join the Club, but you will have to join Shutterfly! Here are all the pictures, check them out.

The car has been ours for exactly 24 hours now and I’ve already started the personalization process. Actually that started before I even turned the key. On Sunday I returned the blue car to as stock a form as possible, but I didn’t have my original shift knob, so I had to leave the Voodoo Magnum on for the drive over. After the price was agreed on and the finance guy was looking for a cheaper than we had 4.09% interest rate, I removed the stock knob from the new car and put it on the trade-in. Then the Voodoo went on the new car.

When we got home I put the matching e-brake handle and the black leather brake boot on. Next I swapped out the 1 piece sun visors for the folding ones of a early 90s Miata. They are slightly faded compared to the brand new ones, but they don’t cover the top latches, so they eliminate two steps in the top dropping process.

Next was the removal of the government mandated baby seat tie down points and the seat stop bracket which kept you from impaling your kidneys on the tie downs. This gave the navigator an extra 2 inches of rearward seat travel.

While technically not a mod, I removed the front license plate mount and with it the plate that said Rader.

The numbers at the bottom of the page reflect the totals for a car I no longer own. If you are looking for a ’95 Laguna Blue Mazda Miata with 124k and in excellent condition, call or email Scott Rushton. (800-634-7038 / s.rushton@radernet.com)

A few thing are going to change around here because of this event. First I’m going to stop counting top cycles. I’m also going to stop with the running totals on money spent, maybe because it will jump $300 the beginning of the month for the next 60 and I don’t need the reminder. I think I will keep track of maintenance costs and at what mileage & when I do them (I’m getting old and it will be nice to have the reference.) I will also keep track of the modifications I make to the car and what I spend on them (these will be few and far between because of that $300 thing mentioned earlier.)

Oh, yeah, the colors will shift here too. I bought an ’03 Garnet Red LS with the Parchment Leather interior (read, maroon and tan.)

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $2641.54
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 284