Miatatude

Today I did the 10th modification to the new Miata, front & rear mud flaps, but it was only the second mod I spent money on. The other eight were leftovers I removed from the Laguna Blue car before I traded it in. If you ever want to see what I’ve done, just click on the BtR Equipment Package link over to the left.

I’m sure the mud flaps would have been quicker to install on a lift in a well lit garage, but in my cramped quarters with just a drop light, I figure an hour and a half wasn’t bad. The second flap always went on a lot faster that the first, so with that familiarity I’m sure I could put on a set tomorrow in under an hour. I wonder how long the dealer’s book says it should take?

Electronics Technician – Ha! My statement in last night’s post was way off (sorta.) Swapping the red and black wires is not the same as actually tapping into the ground wire and cutting the hot wire. Once I sat down and drew out the circuit on paper I could see just how different they were. So the instructions that Lynn has on the sheet for correcting the non-blinking situation doesn’t work if you don’t have the black wire tapped into the ground.

Ray came over this evening and we had him up and flashing in a matter of moments. I’m not sure how to solve Lynn’s instruction problem though, there just doesn’t seem to be a way to make hooking this up foolproof if the fool doesn’t have a multimeter to actually correctly identify the ground wire.

At the Miata Club Holiday Hoe-down on Saturday I managed to sell a couple of Lynn’s Brake Lite Blinkers. One fellow couldn’t get his to work no way, no how (even blew a couple of fuses trying.) He came over this evening and we tried a couple of other units and had the same results. I told him to let me try some on my car (haven’t done this mod yet) and if I got some to work I would write down how I did it and we would do it on his car.

My first attempt was like he tried, green as ground (so the black blinker wire hooked to them) the yellow to the light and the red to the wiring harness, it didn’t work. I tried swapping the red and the black wires as per instructions and it still didn’t work.

Black is ground on my car and probably will be on his car too. When I hooked the black wire from the blinker to my black wires in the car with the yellow wire to the light and the red to the wiring harness they all work as advertised.

Don’t ask me to explain why this worked because I can’t (and I was an electronics technician in the Navy for 10 years) because the second set up is the same as the first setup with swapped wires. So if that didn’t work, this second option shouldn’t have either – but it did.

Mine is up and running, hopefully tomorrow so will his.

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.