Thursday, April 30, 2009
Temporary pause
No recent updates because I've been taking a pause from doing any work on the Miata, since any work typically costs money and I'm currently suffering from a spending spike, so I'm trying to slow that down. The next planned upgrades for the miata are power door locks with remote entry and a remote trunk release, both from wolfmiata.com. The trunk release is only bolt-on pieces that don't require any drilling, and the door locks are a setup with "minimal drilling required". So i'll have to see about that, I may get my own powerdrill as its a very useful tool to have, and if you only have one power tool thats probably the most versatile. If I decide against that though, I can probably just borrow August's drill. Anyway, I think it came out to $286 for the parts from wolfmiata, so I'll get on that shortly. Perhaps after my next California visit (in 2 weeks!) =)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
My first spin out
When Aaron got his miata, he had his first spinout within the first few days. I at least managed mine in the first month. I still haven't really found a safe spot to push the car where spinouts wouldn't be too bad, but I was fortunate enough yesterday morning to be taking the 405N exit from 70th street which is more or less a slightly banked hairpin turn into a 3-lane wide on-ramp. There was absolutely no traffic in front of me or behind me so I pushed it a bit, and made the turn pretty well. Then when I thought i had straightened out enough I went to accelerate out of the turn and accidentally broke traction and oversteered into a spinout. I ended up turning almost 270 degrees across 2 lanes before sliding to a stop. It was kinda fun, but really scary too, because I stopped right at the edge of the road, and I was really afraid I'd slide into the ditch that was probably a foot or two behind where I stopped. The loose grass and mud in the ditch combined with the rain would've probably meant I'd need to get towed out of the ditch, which would've been a shitty ordeal.
But yeah, overall no harm no foul, and I've had my first loss of control! Now if only I could find a nice abandoned parking lot! (I found a couple but they're very close to residential districts)
And I think I figured out my next project for the Miata. It's either going to be installing the sun visors or installing a remote trunk opener. The keyhole for the trunk is located really close to the bumper and i'm always afraid of scratching the bumper with the other keys on my keychain when opening the trunk. So that's on the list of desirable changes =)
But yeah, overall no harm no foul, and I've had my first loss of control! Now if only I could find a nice abandoned parking lot! (I found a couple but they're very close to residential districts)
And I think I figured out my next project for the Miata. It's either going to be installing the sun visors or installing a remote trunk opener. The keyhole for the trunk is located really close to the bumper and i'm always afraid of scratching the bumper with the other keys on my keychain when opening the trunk. So that's on the list of desirable changes =)
Monday, April 13, 2009
The car pays dividends in smiles
So yesterday was a very wet and rainy day here in the Seattle area, and I was out and about in the Miata. I found out that the new roof repairs held! This rain was definitely worse than the previous rain which caused the old roof repairs to fail, so that made me happy. When the weather gets warmer I'll re-do the other two cuts in the same way. I wonder how long I can go without replacing the top...
Other news is that the car was handling beautifully yesterday on some of the hard, low-speed turns. Because of how wet the road was, the back slid out easily with a little excess gas, and because of the low speed corner, I wasn't scared to death to try and control the slide through. It was amazing. I'm really enjoying this car! I'm trying to think of a way I can record some of its great handling to post up here... the best idea I've got so far is to manufacture some sort of a harness to hold my digital camera up in my car, though the best view would probably be from outside. I need to hire a camera man, lol.
Other news is that the car was handling beautifully yesterday on some of the hard, low-speed turns. Because of how wet the road was, the back slid out easily with a little excess gas, and because of the low speed corner, I wasn't scared to death to try and control the slide through. It was amazing. I'm really enjoying this car! I'm trying to think of a way I can record some of its great handling to post up here... the best idea I've got so far is to manufacture some sort of a harness to hold my digital camera up in my car, though the best view would probably be from outside. I need to hire a camera man, lol.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
What to do next?
Now is where it gets tricky. I've done almost all the simple easy things that I needed to do. I don't know what else I want to do from here except for the addition of sun visors. The current ones aren't attached for some reason, and when I tried to connect them it seemed like the ports wouldn't accomodate them, so I either need to get new fixtures or new visors. But that shouldn't be too difficult either way.
What will be tougher is deciding what to do next. This was the driving reason for starting this blog. I am thinking I will try to do something technical, perhaps with the radio. I had an idea to have a finger-print recognizable ignition, but that would be a pain in the ass for handing the car off to anyone else (mechanics, friends, etc), plus its kind of unnecessarily gimmicky. That leaves me with a few other ideas that I haven't fleshed out very well... digital instrument panel readouts... mp3 audio system... not sure what else. There are some simpler things I'm thinking of, like a remote trunk release, but I want do more than just buy parts and install them (though I want to learn and be comfortable with how to do that as well).
Guess I'll keep giving it some thought... but if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share!
What will be tougher is deciding what to do next. This was the driving reason for starting this blog. I am thinking I will try to do something technical, perhaps with the radio. I had an idea to have a finger-print recognizable ignition, but that would be a pain in the ass for handing the car off to anyone else (mechanics, friends, etc), plus its kind of unnecessarily gimmicky. That leaves me with a few other ideas that I haven't fleshed out very well... digital instrument panel readouts... mp3 audio system... not sure what else. There are some simpler things I'm thinking of, like a remote trunk release, but I want do more than just buy parts and install them (though I want to learn and be comfortable with how to do that as well).
Guess I'll keep giving it some thought... but if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share!
Now to do something about those dazzling brake LEDs...
The previous owner was an elderly gentleman that seemed to be concerned about people noticing whether or not he was braking. Because of that, he added these two little LED clusters over the license plate which sparkled and dazzled drivers, alerting them to my Miata's presence.
I, however, do not want to dazzle drivers with LEDs. I want to remove the LEDs. So today was the last warm and sunny day we have in a while so I went about just that. I left my apartment with two flathead screwdrivers and two phillips screwdrivers, but I ended up not even needing that. Here's a shot I took after I had already started removing stuff, meant to show the "before" picture that I forgot to take.
You can more or less see what I was striving to remove, the wires were hidden really well before I got to them though. I started by emptying my trunk and removing the floor carpet and the battery cover, exposing the spare tire and removing all pieces of trim that was blocking the removal of the rear trim piece which is where the wires had disappeared behind. Then I went about removing the plastic fasteners holding that trim piece in place. I accidentally broke some of one of them, almost making it unusable! (it still fastened just fine though).
The one on the far right was my doing, the one thats highest up was the previous owner's doing. He figured out how they worked without breaking it as badly as me, haha. You need to pop the center part out just a bit which disengages the lock, and then you can pull the whole fastener out. After I removed all but the last two fasteners, I started prying the trim piece away, trying to see if i could see where the wires were headed. As I did that though, the wires pulled straight out and unplugged themselves from the back of the passenger-side brakelight.
Oops... sort of? Judging by the way the wires were wound together without the use of any tape, I assumed it was a plug-in port that had no risk of live shorting if I didn't go in there with some electrical tape of my own. So I let a good enough thing be and simple replaced the plastic fasteners on the trim that I had removed and put the trunk back together. Then all I did was unscrew the LED clusters from the license plate and replace the license plate screws and I was done!
That took alot less time than I had anticipated, so I went to the gym afterwards and had an overall very productive day (ending even now in productivity as I start the blog and fill out all the backlogged posts!)
I, however, do not want to dazzle drivers with LEDs. I want to remove the LEDs. So today was the last warm and sunny day we have in a while so I went about just that. I left my apartment with two flathead screwdrivers and two phillips screwdrivers, but I ended up not even needing that. Here's a shot I took after I had already started removing stuff, meant to show the "before" picture that I forgot to take.
You can more or less see what I was striving to remove, the wires were hidden really well before I got to them though. I started by emptying my trunk and removing the floor carpet and the battery cover, exposing the spare tire and removing all pieces of trim that was blocking the removal of the rear trim piece which is where the wires had disappeared behind. Then I went about removing the plastic fasteners holding that trim piece in place. I accidentally broke some of one of them, almost making it unusable! (it still fastened just fine though).
The one on the far right was my doing, the one thats highest up was the previous owner's doing. He figured out how they worked without breaking it as badly as me, haha. You need to pop the center part out just a bit which disengages the lock, and then you can pull the whole fastener out. After I removed all but the last two fasteners, I started prying the trim piece away, trying to see if i could see where the wires were headed. As I did that though, the wires pulled straight out and unplugged themselves from the back of the passenger-side brakelight.
Oops... sort of? Judging by the way the wires were wound together without the use of any tape, I assumed it was a plug-in port that had no risk of live shorting if I didn't go in there with some electrical tape of my own. So I let a good enough thing be and simple replaced the plastic fasteners on the trim that I had removed and put the trunk back together. Then all I did was unscrew the LED clusters from the license plate and replace the license plate screws and I was done!
That took alot less time than I had anticipated, so I went to the gym afterwards and had an overall very productive day (ending even now in productivity as I start the blog and fill out all the backlogged posts!)
Why is there black water leaking onto me...?
The roof of my miata was leaking. I had known this was a possibility when I bought the car, and during last week's heavy rains it happened.
Some backstory: the previous owner had to abandon the car on the side of the road last winter during one of the seattle's heaviest snow storms in decades. During that time, someone had cut into the softtop in 4 places to steal whatever was in the car. The previous owner had repaired the cuts by sewing them shut for mechanical integrity and then taping over them on the inside for watertightness.
At first it was a very small leak mostly contained by the tape, but I foolishly began feeling around the slight water-laden bulge in the tape which caused the water to break through the rest of the glue and then I was getting leaked on by a few drops a minute. The weatherseal would have to be re-done and I was glad to do it properly this time. I spent some time on the Miata.net forums looking up suggestions and results of other people's attempts to repair similar soft-top damage. What I ended up going with was the following:
The permatex black rubber sealant was only about $2 and would form the weathertight seal in the vinyl soft top. The Gorilla Tape was $12 and would help with mechanical stability as well as reduce the stress on the rubber sealant by keeping it solidly in place, since the sealant was not also an adhesive. As a slightly added bonus, the Gorilla Tape also looked a bit better on the inside of the roof than black rubber sealant smeared over a sewn-up cut, so that was nice too. Here's a picture of the inside of the cut after I had removed the previous black tape weatherseal and let the area dry out:
Here's a shot after the second application of black rubber sealant (I forgot to do the small cut in the bottom left the first time because of the dark and didn't notice it until I came back inside and saw the pictures on my computer monitor).
I simply squeezed some black rubber sealant onto my finger and smeared it up onto the Vinyl. Sophisticated and advanced, I know. I suppose a dinner knife would've helped here but my fingers were more readily available. For the third and final application, I did it in the daytime, and made sure all areas of the cut were sufficiently covered, including the hard-to-reach area underneath the metal support bar at the bottom of the picture. Here's a shot after the final application, with the soft-top half-up:
I then let the sealant cure for its full 24 hours before going over it with the Gorilla Tape, and the finished product looked like this!
I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, since its been sunny and warm since I made the repair, but I think it should hold. This covered two of the 4 cuts that were made in the roof, and if this one seems to be holding fine I'll redo the other two cuts in the same manner when the weather gets warm again. The other two cuts are on the vertical side part of the roof, so there's no significant danger of a leak from those in the meantime.
Some backstory: the previous owner had to abandon the car on the side of the road last winter during one of the seattle's heaviest snow storms in decades. During that time, someone had cut into the softtop in 4 places to steal whatever was in the car. The previous owner had repaired the cuts by sewing them shut for mechanical integrity and then taping over them on the inside for watertightness.
At first it was a very small leak mostly contained by the tape, but I foolishly began feeling around the slight water-laden bulge in the tape which caused the water to break through the rest of the glue and then I was getting leaked on by a few drops a minute. The weatherseal would have to be re-done and I was glad to do it properly this time. I spent some time on the Miata.net forums looking up suggestions and results of other people's attempts to repair similar soft-top damage. What I ended up going with was the following:
The permatex black rubber sealant was only about $2 and would form the weathertight seal in the vinyl soft top. The Gorilla Tape was $12 and would help with mechanical stability as well as reduce the stress on the rubber sealant by keeping it solidly in place, since the sealant was not also an adhesive. As a slightly added bonus, the Gorilla Tape also looked a bit better on the inside of the roof than black rubber sealant smeared over a sewn-up cut, so that was nice too. Here's a picture of the inside of the cut after I had removed the previous black tape weatherseal and let the area dry out:
Here's a shot after the second application of black rubber sealant (I forgot to do the small cut in the bottom left the first time because of the dark and didn't notice it until I came back inside and saw the pictures on my computer monitor).
I simply squeezed some black rubber sealant onto my finger and smeared it up onto the Vinyl. Sophisticated and advanced, I know. I suppose a dinner knife would've helped here but my fingers were more readily available. For the third and final application, I did it in the daytime, and made sure all areas of the cut were sufficiently covered, including the hard-to-reach area underneath the metal support bar at the bottom of the picture. Here's a shot after the final application, with the soft-top half-up:
I then let the sealant cure for its full 24 hours before going over it with the Gorilla Tape, and the finished product looked like this!
I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, since its been sunny and warm since I made the repair, but I think it should hold. This covered two of the 4 cuts that were made in the roof, and if this one seems to be holding fine I'll redo the other two cuts in the same manner when the weather gets warm again. The other two cuts are on the vertical side part of the roof, so there's no significant danger of a leak from those in the meantime.
Tacky stickers.... ewww
So when I bought the car, the previous owner had two big fat American flag stickers on the trunk. Now like I said before, I love America but not on my car. The stickers had to come off. My two significant concerns were not ruining the paint in the process, and whether or not the stickers were placed to hide some horrific gash.
I asked around a bit about what I should use to help take the stickers off, and I got a variety of responses from some orange natural glue remover, to just a razor blade and a steady hand, to a heat gun and more. I ended up going with this stuff:
It was about $4 from the automotive store, and the guy told me with limited confidence that it wouldn't damage the paint. I was originally going to go with Goo Gone but someone at work suggested against it since it was petroleum based. So I went to work pouring some Goof Off on a paper towel and edging the stickers off little by little. Here's an in-progress shot of the first sticker:
Easy does it and a few minutes later I was at:
Then about 20 minutes into the process I finished getting all the glue off the paint and voila!
So clean! Though while I was doing this I saw a bit of red tinting the paper towels, which began to seriously worry me. I didn't figure out what this actually was until I was removing the 2nd sticker. It turns out that while Goof Off doesn't seem to damage automotive finish, it will eat right through touch-up paint, and thats what was tinting the paper towels red. Here's the glue left after the 2nd sticker was removed:
And finally after a bit more time carefully removing the glue so as not to damage the finish I got both stickers off and the car looked sooo much better!
The next thing in line was to remove those annoying little LED lights screwed into the top of the license plate that flashed everytime I braked. My friends described it as "dazzling", which just didn't fly.
I asked around a bit about what I should use to help take the stickers off, and I got a variety of responses from some orange natural glue remover, to just a razor blade and a steady hand, to a heat gun and more. I ended up going with this stuff:
It was about $4 from the automotive store, and the guy told me with limited confidence that it wouldn't damage the paint. I was originally going to go with Goo Gone but someone at work suggested against it since it was petroleum based. So I went to work pouring some Goof Off on a paper towel and edging the stickers off little by little. Here's an in-progress shot of the first sticker:
Easy does it and a few minutes later I was at:
Then about 20 minutes into the process I finished getting all the glue off the paint and voila!
So clean! Though while I was doing this I saw a bit of red tinting the paper towels, which began to seriously worry me. I didn't figure out what this actually was until I was removing the 2nd sticker. It turns out that while Goof Off doesn't seem to damage automotive finish, it will eat right through touch-up paint, and thats what was tinting the paper towels red. Here's the glue left after the 2nd sticker was removed:
And finally after a bit more time carefully removing the glue so as not to damage the finish I got both stickers off and the car looked sooo much better!
The next thing in line was to remove those annoying little LED lights screwed into the top of the license plate that flashed everytime I braked. My friends described it as "dazzling", which just didn't fly.
The backlog of work
So its been 3 weeks since i bought the Miata. I haven't done much to it, but I have done a bit, and whatever that may be, it should be documented!
First and foremost, I took the car to a heavily recommended local mechanic called ZahnTech Import Automotive for some maintenance. When I got there I saw a civic and an NSX in the parking lot, which made me feel better. It was about $48 for an oil change which is pretty pricey for such a small car, but I have reason to believe they used synthetic oil since the little reminder sticker suggests I should get my next oil change in September or at about 54k miles, which justifies the cost. I also want to use these guys to change my transmission fluid to either Redline MT-L or MT-90, I'm not decided yet which. But I've got about 10k miles until that decision.
First and foremost, I took the car to a heavily recommended local mechanic called ZahnTech Import Automotive for some maintenance. When I got there I saw a civic and an NSX in the parking lot, which made me feel better. It was about $48 for an oil change which is pretty pricey for such a small car, but I have reason to believe they used synthetic oil since the little reminder sticker suggests I should get my next oil change in September or at about 54k miles, which justifies the cost. I also want to use these guys to change my transmission fluid to either Redline MT-L or MT-90, I'm not decided yet which. But I've got about 10k miles until that decision.
First! Well sort of...
I created this blog as a way to satisfy my desire to start a blog on a side-project that I want to work on. Given my recent attachment to my beloved Miata, I think its safe to say that the side project is going to be heavily related to this beautiful little roadster. So it's time for me to stop spamming facebook with my Miata work and time to start blogging about it.
Oh, and it's pronounced "double-o-Miata". Because Bond is cool, and my Miata's a 2000 model.
=)
Oh, and it's pronounced "double-o-Miata". Because Bond is cool, and my Miata's a 2000 model.
=)
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