OK so the start up goal was not such a good idea.

Me thinks Jenna follows this blog and still thinks she is running the show.  Things were going well till I put in writing my goal to drive her to church 7/7, to which she clearly said "LOL ya think so do ya??"  Let’s see, where to even start…

Well the good news is the diff set up went pretty well but took twice as long as I thought it would. My pattern is still not the best especially on the drive side but it’s the best I can get it.  

The drive side still shows the pinion is a bit too deep even with no shim under it.  You can see the pattern best in the tooth at the bottom of the picture with just the shadow of paint on it.  It should be right in the middle so it's not horrible but I am very fussy on this!

Nailing the back lash at 8 took 4 or 5 try’s but it’s beautiful! 

Spec is 7-9 so I am very happy with this reading.

For whatever reason this rear end didn’t have a magnet in it so I grabbed one from a dead Camaro rear end and attempted to put it in.  There was not a good flat place on the bottom to glue it in like is usually done so I figured I’d mount it to a little tab out of the way.  Turns out you cannot drill a hole in a magnet!  It killed the bit and shattered the magnet.  So I cut a slot in my tab and used a hose clamp instead.

I had to paint it with something and still have plenty of gold paint sooo.

Thankfully no one will ever see it but me...

That was about the the good that came out of the weekend. I figured it would take about an hour to put the exhaust in. The Miata it came out of was a B so I knew the center hanger would be in a different spot. I also figured I might have to tweak a few things since I am using a Ford rear end and the car it came out of used a Cadillac.  Well it wasn’t even close! 
With the muffler in the right spot this is how far off the hangers are and in this shot I had already bent them closer to try and make it work!
With all the pipes bolted together in the way they are bent the muffler has to hang down this far to clear the diff. Nice right? This is the same shot from the back...

And what it should look like.
So with that I decided to go up front and work for a while and let the exhaust problem ponder a while.

Putting the front suspension in was another job I figured would take an hour. First up the new longer wheel studs would not fit.  The knurled part that seats into the hub are too big.
Turns out the front hubs are a different stud seat size then the rears and the new longer studs only fit the back. Seriously Mazda engineers different size studs in front than the back?  Brilliant just brilliant...

 

For trade one nearly complete Miata V8 swap for a Mustang GT or Camaro SS.

I also managed to get the steering shaft in wrong. On the column side it is indexed so there is only one way it can go but I did not notice that the gear side is infinite and quite easy to get wrong. Why yes the Camaro is indexed on both sides so it’s impossible to get wrong!  So out came the steering rack again and I'm thinking it's about time for an adult additive to the ice tea...

With all the joy of the day I thought I better grab a wheel and see if it will bolt up… 
Thankfully it did. 


As I grasped for a glimmer of hope that this beast will ever run I decided it was time to do a smoke check. As I think about it now the way the day was going I could not have picked a worse time to tempt fate!  But in went the lube and out came the battery charger.
I turned the key and was quite delighted that it turned over. I did have a ground wire start smoking so I took the old negative battery cable and made a massive engine ground out of it. After another round of cranking I had 40 psi on the oil pressure gauge and was delighted nothing was running out anywhere.

So with one bright spot in the weekend and the rest a disaster I think the odds of this puppy moving in 6 days are just barely above 0.  Speaking of disaster this week was a clear reminder of who is in charge around here. Even though the dopes who hold the highest offices of the land can’t figure out how to put slot A in to tab B or what marriage is NOT, at the end of it all God is sovereign.  Am I ever glad of that!