I'd wait on welding the front end together. You may need to make adjustments after you drive it.
Adjusting gaps after it's been welded will be a bitch. Especially if you warp anything with the welder.
I'd wait on welding the front end together. You may need to make adjustments after you drive it.
Adjusting gaps after it's been welded will be a bitch. Especially if you warp anything with the welder.
I can't stop starring at this
The door closes beautifuly, btw, with a perfectly crisp "thunk".
Looking great!
I would seriously try to keep the front panels as separate bolt on pieces like VW did. Much easier to adjust , and also repair later.
TurnerX19 said:I would seriously try to keep the front panels as separate bolt on pieces like VW did. Much easier to adjust , and also repair later.
Oh yeah, the front fenders will bolt on for sure. It's the pieces that they bolt to, those need to be attached back to the body where I cut them originally, in front of the windshield. And the area where the front bumper bolts to needs to be attached to the chassis rails in front of the radiator.
Bottom Left with a 'Buck Diamond' style stainless grill insert (as seen on many Miata)
wheels!
The way the car's sitting, without the weight of the hatch door, gas, people, etc., the fender is just barely touching the tire. Moving the arch's an inch, inch-and-a-half up on the fender is still the leading idea, but I could probably get away with just "stretching" the fender, it only needs to move a little bit and it would probably be a lot less work. And it might even look better. I'm going to do whatever looks the best.
New video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy8zKZaGr1g
Still working on getting the front fenders on there but, just holding the fender in place, it looks like it will clear the tire by less than half an inch.
That is looking pretty awesome.
Having just completeded the effort and expense of painting the Molvo, I would question the sanity of touching the paint on your project. I could drive that "as is" no problems.
Any pics of you in the seat to see where you land vis-a-vis the B pillar?
Pete
Boy, that tire to fender clearance is really close. In the photos it looks like you might be able to get away with rolling the lip and working the existing flare out a bit. It probably would look a little better if you move the opening up just a bit.
What about making the vents on the rear fender functional and ducting air to radiators back there?
Thanks Pete, yeah it's going to be a rat rod for until next Winter probably. I'll patch the rust throughout the year. The front fenders are in pretty bad shape though, but they make new ones for $300 each and probably don't fit too well either.
APEowner, the radiator and AC condenser will have no problem fitting in the front. Oh you mean so I don't have to cut a grill? That seems like I would be creating a problem where one didn't exist. I don't mind cutting a grill, really.
Went and watched your latest video. Lotta fun watching other people do this stuff!
I see where you ran into my good friend the oilcan on the one front fender. Those are fun and you are correct that you are dealing with a stretched metal situation.
I had a ton of those on the Molvo due to sandblast damage; the roof panel was essentially destroyed. What saved me was this video on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8BSmmym9Y8
It was still frustrating, and the car would never be metal-finished with my skills, but worked out in the end. I use a shrinking disc as my weapon of choice for this kind of work.
Pete
There will be a slight gangster lean thing going on. Also, the seat has had the classic "foamectomy" performed, so I'll have to do a reverse-foamectomy and that will get me sitting an inch or two higher. So, not to bad, not unsafe or anything, can see out the winshield reasonably well and pretty good visibility all around.
There's no issues at all with clearance between the inside of the doors and the dashboard area and the new door sills. Except for the window cranks, of course.
And I thought I would should you guys the difference between the new wheels (175/60r16) and the old ones (195/60r14). Joe_mama, this may be of useful information to you and your 205/50r15s. Good luck fitting those, sir, you have your work cut out for you. FYI, my Miata was stock height, or maybe lowered an inch. I failed to measure that before taking the fenders off. Oops. [edit: the coil springs are stock, indicated by the red dots on the front springs and blue dots on the rear]
Nice!
New video posted, showing the install of the front clip, hood, hood release, etc.:
Oh, and this happened:
I was a little hasty with the cut, but it will hardly be visible at ride height and with the front bumper on
Today, I'm re-assembling it to the point where I can drive it onto a trailer. It will be the end of stage 2. It will be very rough, very hastily assembled. But I absolutely need to have this thing wrapped up by the end of this weekend, no matter what state it's in. Unfortunately that's my reality at the moment. I told my wife a few months ago that I would have this project at a good stopping point by the end of April and here we are...
Some updates:
I've decided that when/if I do a restoration and paint job, I'll get a replacement front passenger side fender. It's too rusty, too bent up, but mostly too rusty. The drivers side fender is a little better. So I started some rust repair on that one, I made two patches and welded them on and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.
And I removed all the rust scale from the insides of all four fenders and coated the inside surfaces with POR-15 followed by ruberized undercoating.
Here's some 16 gauge steel that connects the Miata unibody chassis rail to the front bumper mounting area. It's not strong enough to survive a minor collision or anything, but it should keep the front bumper from wobbling around too much. One oversight I made while hastily putting this thing together was to build a crash bar or something in front of the radiator.
And then I made a pair of brackets with captive nuts for the bumper to bolt to, bolted the brackets to the bumper, then clamped the bumper onto the car where I wanted, tacked the brackets on, unbolted the bumper from the brackets, and finished welding the brackets onto the car.
I've also started the wiring for the exterior lights. The Miata's sealed-beam headlights are an exact match with the VW's, so I can re-use those and their connectors as well. The Miata's front turn signals have me confused a little because there's three wires going to each bulb, which are 1157s (one bright filament and one dim one). I assumed that the bright one is for the turn signal and the dim one is for running lights. In the rear, the Miata has three bulbs (tail light, stop light, and turn signal?) and the VW tail lights also have three bulbs, so I should be able to figure that one out. Oh, and the battery will need to be fastened somehow in the back, and the battery cables routed under the body. I don't have to worry about it yet, but if I keep the battery in the cabin of the car, as is the plan, then I'll need one of those Optima batteries I think.
So everything is ready for me to put the fenders one! Followed by the bumpers, rear door, and the two removable windows. Put the dash back in, seats, and it's ready to go! I'll have to figure out the windshield wipers, cowl area, window cranks, finish the sheet metal around the trunk area and rear fender wells, etc. in a few months from now, which will be Stage 3 of this build. Stage 3 is getting it daily-driver-able, and stage 2 is/was turning the two cars into one. Stage 1 was stretching the Miata by six inches. Stage 4 will be the full restoration.
Almost done! I got all four fenders on, and I figured out how to "stretch" the rear fender wheel arches to make the tires fit under them. It's impossible to explain in English, you'll just have to see the next youtube video. Ok I'll try to explain: if I push inward and upwards on a bottom corner, it causes the sheet metal to bow outward maybe 5 to 10mm. And if that's not enough then maybe adding some negative camber will be enough. The front still remains to be seen but I can roll with the smaller diameter wheels if I need to at first.
Ok back to work...
Edit: finished "stretching" the rear fenders, and got the battery cable routed under the car and into the trunk area. Stretching the miata by 6" didn't seem to effect the battery cable. Must have been enough slack in it. Only think left to do now is the rear hatch door, the headlights, and to put the wheels on and cross my fingers that they clear the fenders. If they don't then I'll go down to the auto parts store and do the unthinkable.
mannydantyla said:
APEowner, the radiator and AC condenser will have no problem fitting in the front. Oh you mean so I don't have to cut a grill? That seems like I would be creating a problem where one didn't exist. I don't mind cutting a grill, really.
Yeah, I was trying to come up with a way to avoid putting a grill opening on the front of the car. I just really like the look of the nose as is. If you're happy with a grill opening (and there's no reason why you shouldn't be) then, you're right rear mounted coolers would be way more trouble than they're worth.
Well, I did it. It's done.
The YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PfYIBcxTRs
Also, take a look at the new stickers on the back window. I just had to represent my favorite community of off-beat car enthusiasts like myself :)
Unfortunately the tires where hitting the fenders in the rear, even after "bowing" them outward. I thought maybe I could put the old wheels on, which are 1" smaller in diameter, and at first I had the clearance needed. But I guess the coil springs where still settling after being at full droop for a few months while the car was on jack stands, because when I drove it to the gas station (about 0.25 miles away from my house) the clearance I thought I had was gone and the rubber on the tires was melting and making a mess.
That tire is ruined, right?
And of course, when I say "done" I mean Stage 2 (turning the two cars into one) is done. There's still a berkeley load of work to be done before I can really drive it around. Top things on the Stage 3 list will be to cut the arches off the fenders and weld them back on a few inches higher up. It will be more work than raising the suspension, but it will look a lot better and it will be cheaper too. I'll also need to finish welding the sheet metal by the back wheels, add a muffler and have the exhaust go out the back of the car rather than into the cabin. Cut a grill. Windshield wipers. Etcetera.
But I won't be able to get to those things for a few months probably. My wife has been supportive but all good things must come to an end. When all (and I mean all) of your time is spent in the garage every single weekend, it's just not fair to the other spouse. I haven't been helping with any of the chores, haven't been spending any quality time with my wife, haven't had any energy to do anything else but work on this frivolous project. And it seems especially frivolous right now because I need to be focusing on my new career change, on getting our house sold, on finding a new house to buy, and packing up and making the move. Which will be a lot harder now that I have to trailer a car across half the country.
There's a car show that I'm hoping I can attend. It's called the Old School Reunion, in Seattle, WA, which would be a 3 or 4 hour drive from my new home in Portland. It's on June 9th. I think it's unlikely that I'll have the car road-worthy by then but it's still a possibility. [edit: screw it. Next year!]
In reply to mannydantyla :
That tire is not yet ruined, but it will be if you run it any more!
As someone who is 5.5 years into his chassis swap I cant believe the pace you have kept on your project. Very jealous that you get to drive yours the whole time while I have been stuck with a pile of parts in close formation.
I agree that it might be time to go spend some quality time with others just to prove that you have not crossed a mental line that cant be recrossed!
The car looks great. Go park it and come back when ready with a fresh perspective.
Pete
Very nice!!
Looks great!
Since it looks like you have to do flares anyways, here is a poetic path forward. These are metal flares harvested from a VW Rabbit repair panel. I understand they are relatively inexpensive as a bonus.
Pete
Thanks guys!
I don't want to think about the fender clearance issue right now. Smaller tires would be a good way to throw money at the problem for the time being, maybe.
Someone pointed out to me that one of the many dealer-installed accessory for these cars was a fake front grill. What do you think? Maybe I could find one...
Well shoot I saw the Old School Reunion car show and thought sweet I can look at this in person. Guess I'll have to wait till next year. Me and my wife and a few friends are headed to Portland this weekend for the Swap Meet at the Expo center. Been wanting to go since high school. Now that I'm 55 I'm finally going.
As for the fenders I'd use one of the eastwood fender rollers. You'll be surprised just how much you can stretch the fender arch out without to much effort.
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