She's back in Black!

The paint color was actually dictated by a job I took on to paint a railing at our public library but she my turn that pretty Lexus blue in a year or 2.  This is semi gloss black and honestly the photos don’t come close to how good it looks in person.

Rather than me telling you how it went I did a video.  It’s fast, fun and of course has a great sound track.  Enjoy!  CLICK ME
 

 

 

 

How NOT to make DIY fender flares on a Miata!

It’s been over 2 months since I posted on the flare project.  Not because I have not been working on them but because the endless hours of filling the low spots and grinding the high spots is about as thrilling as watching bondo dry.  Actually if I put the hours working on it into a part time job at minimum wage I could have purchased a wide body kit and paid to have it installed by now!  Well anyway here is an update on it. 

 

In my last post I had the rear frames welded up and ready for glass.  This time I used tape to make bridges between the slats hoping things would be smoother than the fronts.

This looks good at first glance but it was a colossally bad idea because that tape was near impossible to get the tape off after the glass went on.  But not knowing that I glassed them up.

It was better than the fronts but I still ended up with many hours making high spots low and low spots high. 

 

Fixing the rocker rust I did make a normal cap for it but decided to try making a cap that would push the rear out some to fit better with the larger wheels.  So I took a hunk of 3" exhaust pipe and made a support.

Then I formed a panel to cover the rust.

Tech tip a piece of 2 1/2" PVC pipe is the perfect radius for that rocker curve.  

I liked how it looked so I welded it in,

and started filling.

Speaking of filling I also took out the antenna hole.

Fast forward forever of working them and I rolled it out to check for tire clearance.  Crank the sound and check out the video.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSQ4Ry3kE9I

Yeah it was fun!

The clearance was fine but the photos from that trip reveal some problems. As you can see in the photo above I took too much off a couple spots when I ruffed in the radiuses.  Also the drivers front and a weird bump in it I don't like.  It took another couple of weeks of grinding and filling to fix all that. 

I finally got to the point I put a guide coat of flat black on it and rolled it out for another look. 

Yeah I thought the same thing.  GAG!  The fronts are OK but the backs look like a wart on the car.  It looked fine up close in the garage but when it was all one color and I could step back from it she was UGLY!  

So it was back to brainstorming and a few days off.  Solution - add another layer...

This is a hunk of plastic screwed and glued with structural adhesive.  

 And the panel

More glue and screw,

and welding where I could.

20 hours of work later and presto no more wart!

It's coming along but in a nutshell there are LOTS of different ways that are better then this for building flares!  Still it's been fun and there are only a few regrets in it.

I hope things are well with you and you are living large in the joy of the Lord.  Next post paint, but I can’t promise when that will be!

V8 Miata Cooling upgrade and other little stuff.

The flare sculpting is progressing slooooowly. Like all new things it is one step forward and 2 back as I keep trying to get things looking good and symmetrical 

Or in this case wipe on, sand off, wipe on, sand off, repeat....  I've used about 2 gallons of fiberglass so far and as you can see about half of it has been turned into dust!  I have a short video update I made a couple of weeks ago if you want to see it HERE 

 

More on that to come but this post is to update on the cooling system and other stuff I am doing to get ready for summer.

 

I decided to do a cam swap because for about a 100 bucks the new cam will give me 35 more HP, put less stress on the valve train, and well OK I'll be honest and it has a much more wicked idle!

Surprise the cam won't come out because it hit's the core support.
 

Yeah like that would stop me and out comes the saws all! :-)   I got it all back together and if you want to hear it check out the flare video update mentioned above.   

 

Also new this year I decided not to mess with the cooling issues anymore and went for broke on a HUGE radiator.  It's a beast at 5 inches taller and 2 inches wider than my old one!

It is an LS swap radiator for a 60s Chevelle and given that car probabaly weighs 4000 lbs I think I will be in good shape now. 

 It looks low but dosn't not hang down any farther than the AC condenser did.

I had to cut the radiator support quite a bit to push it upwards in the car. It clears the hood by just a hair.  I think it is the biggest possible radiator you could put in an NA miata.

 

This is the new cooling fan to go with the bigger radiator.  It is a 16" and the old one was 11".  It makes an absolute hurricane!

 

I set it off the radiator using a piece of fuel line because a little space between the blade and the fins moves more air. 

 

I finally put horns back in and these are the Camaro horns.  No cute beep beep in this muscle car!

 

The other thing I did under the hood was made a brake pedal support at the end of the master cylinder. 

 

The firewall flexes when you mash down hard on the brakes in these cars and this anchor at the end of the master cylinder is the fix for it.

 

 

I found a great deal on a metal strap mount fire extinguisher so I welded up a proper mount and put my old plastic strap wood mount extinguisher to use elsewhere.



 

I whipped up a couple luggage racks using the wing mounts for them. This one is a tire rack and I also made one to fit my bass drum so I can gig with the car.

 

That about brings you up to speed on the mechanical stuff. I have more body work to show you but will wait till next time so this doesn’t get too long.

 

I hope you had a wonderful Easter season. I always ponder which I enjoy more Easter or Christmas but always decide either would be useless without the other!