Dual purpose NA Miata

Supposedly, the rain is going away this weekend for a few days. If it actually does, I'm torn between painting the hood and ripping out the AC. I may actually do both, just have to remember to buy the right belt.

The AC is gone and the power steering still works. Awesome. I was really over thinking how in depth it was going to be. Although the evaporator is still behind the glovebox everything else is gone.

Also tested the blue I'm thinking of painting the car on the gas cap lid. I'm going to need a dark primer and a couple coats to get it the shade I want. May actually be cheaper to buy a gallon paint and an HF sprayer than enough rattle cans.

Anyone know where to buy subaru World Rally Blue by the gallon?

Ordered the paint tonight. 1 Gallon of paint, quart of reducer, and a pint of hardener, delivered, for $95. It's a single stage acrylic enamel from paintforcars.com (Challenge participants, they have just gallons starting at $40, kits from $65)

If the weather cooperates when the baby isn't here, I'm going to start piece work on the car, stripping to bare metal and priming. Not looking forward to it, with my palm sander, but I don't have a big enough compressor for a DA, and don't trust the wire wheels made for angle grinders.

If I understand correctly, sand to bare metal, spray with an etching primer, then an epoxy primer, and all I should have to do come paint time is clean it and scuff it with 600. The part I'm still trying to learn is the plastic bumper covers. From what I've seen so far, rough sand it but NOT to bare plastic, filler primer to fix any problems, another scuff, then paint. I'm not taking them off the car, I don't think. I might.

I'm actually going back and forth the best way to do it. Rattle can primer or sprayer primer? I don't care about door jams, trunk, or engine compartment, so would it be better to just leave the car as it sits, or take bumpers, trunk lid, hood, etc off and try to mask the engine and interior? That seems like a ton of extra work.

I'm going to make end walls for my car port with plastic, it's plenty big enough to work in, and the only place I have out of the weather. put my crappy wheels and tires that I don't care about on, with shopping bags over the rotors and calipers. After the June auto cross, I'll have a whole week alone, so I'm hoping to have piece primed most of the car by then, to make the most of the week.

I may actually attempt to repair the rust as well, but seeing as how my fiber glass patches from last year now show rust in the paint, I might not.

Paint just arrived. The fedex guy tried to buy my miata. He has an old RX7 he's been looking to play with, so I gave him the regions autocross link and schedule.

Got my FREE sandpaper and primer just now as well. 80 grit and 400 grit. Figure I'm going to bare metal, and the 400 should be good for the plastic bumpers. I also picked up self etching primer for when it's bare, then an enamel primer for on top of that to keep it safe until paint time. Please someone confirm I'm doing this right. Please.

Why are you sanding to bare metal? You should be just fine knocking the shine off the old paint and making sure the old stuff isn't flaking off. Going to bare metal is going to be a LOT of unnecessary work.

The white paint on the 1.6s was crap, and flakes off in big chunks. I've got quite a bit missing around the windshield, and a lot of paint is starting to separate and flake off on the quarter panels. There's also been a really bad respray done on the car once before, which isn't helping anything.

I've done a trunk lid to bare metal once before, took about 6 hours to strip, fill the holes, prime, and paint. I'm thinking over a few weekends I could get the whole car stripped and primed, especially since I don't have to do any hole repairs, so I can spend the week off I have coming up painting and finishing.

I had a '93 that was originally white and had peeling paint. I blasted all the loose stuff off, feathered the edges of what was left, sanded everything down and put down paint. It's been five years since then and nothing new has started pulling up and falling off.

Damn, yours was much worse than mine is. Looks like a lot less work your way too. A lot less. The trunk lid, windhshield surround, and wheel arches are rough enough I have to go bare, but the bigger body pieces might be alright with a scuff.

I've just had a lot of surprises with this car already, like last summer I tried to patch rust above the rear wheels, got the paint off and found it was all bondo. A 4 inch section of the wheel arch, was made entirely out of bondo.

I do have the primer order right though, etching onto bare, then enamel primer over that because I'm not painting right away, then paint, which is a single stage acrylic enamel?

I'm changing the color, so another worry with leaving the paint was the white bleeding through the dark blue.

I painted mine dark green and no white has bled through with a very similar paint job (high-build primer then single-stage enamel).

A word of warning: when you feather the edges between good (old) paint and peeled paint, spend some extra time on the sanding. I thought I did a good job feathering, sanded till I didn't have fingerprints left, plenty of DA sander time too, and swore on a bible that the transition was perfect. Then we put down paint, rolled it into the sun and ohmygawd they looked like eighth-inch cliffs. I don't have the patience for super serious bodywork. Fortunately for me I started with a $1500 car.

Well, I got the trunk, gas cap both primed and back on. Looks like I have some putty work to do on the trunk before paint.

I wish whoever did such a great job with the putty on this car did the paint. All of it that I've found, wouldn't have known it was there had I not stripped it. I doubt I can do it that well, but I'll try.

I'll post pics up when it's sunny.

I also flat blacked the headlight plastic and speaker surrounds, going to do tombstone and center console hopefully tomorrow if it's not raining, then get started on the hood.

Been using simple green and dawn for wax/oil removing and it's working fairly well I think.

I did manage to drop one of the nuts that hold the third brake light on INTo the webbing in the trunk lid. Hopefully it will rattle it's way out like it rattle off the stud during treatment.

Just leaving myself a note so I remember:

Depot

1 masonite 4*8#1/8

2 gallon paint thinner

4 10#25 3.5mil plastic sheeting 2

5 black round head self tapping screws

General

2 duct tape

3 directions for removing power mirrors

4 grinder for front fender tabs

6 box fan and furnace filters

Well good news bad news from the dealership. If I'm reading the prices right, OE control arm bushings are cheap. But, rear lower control arm bushings are no longer available.

To mix oe and urethane or go straight to full urethane? That is the question

It kills me the nut and dust cap for the front spindle, what I'd replace with wheel bearings, is 10 bucks. FM has it cheaper but that's opening a money pit for me, sway bar bushings and caps, frame rails, fluids, can turn a 15$ part order into hundreds real quick.

Managed to repaint a bunch of interior stuff today. Finally. God that white and blue was aggravating.

BEFORE PICTURES

After Pictures

There are some runs on the plastic under the dash, and I wasn't too thrilled about painting inside the car, but it was easier than expected.

And I think this flat black looks a hell of a lot better than that crappy white and blue. It's starting to look like a nice car again.

Nice work on the paint

NA01-28-460 should be the inner lower rear control arm bushings, the outers are NA01-28-4B0 and NA01-28-4D0. Quick googling showed them in stock at a bunch of places online, they're not exactly what I'd consider "cheap" though.

That's what I'm worried about. Even some on the front, he wrote 44.95, but not if that is for both or one. I thought OE would be cheaper, I'll find out for sure this weekend after I get a time sheet and can login to mazda comp. At least they like me at the dealership, I show up with part numbers, no guessing or pointing or diagrams.

I've been seeing a lot of STS guys running the energy suspension poly bushings, so I'm not entirely afraid of them, I just don't trust myself to drill a bunch of grease zerks.

They're about $16/each on MazdaMotorsports, so you're looking at $60/LCA. Adds up fast. I just did the grease zerks and they were actually easier than I was expecting, time will tell if they help with the poly binding problem though.

In reply to cmcgregor:

Did you use a drill press while the parts were off the car, or did you do it on the car?

I did them off the car with a hand drill. You're going to want them off the car anyway to press out the old bushings and press in the new - you can do it with them in and dangling, but it's way easier to pull them.

Ran it's first for points events this weekend, saturday and sunday. I'm consistent, at least. Still 3 seconds behind NB Miatas, but within .5 seconds every run. Which was surprising for how much spinning and sliding in the rain there was today. Luckily, I was class winner both days, but thats because I'm the only STS running. Technicalities be damned, I won my class.

Now, if this rain ever goes away, I'll be back to sanding and priming, and getting ready for paint.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kacTH4AYLas Here's sundays run in the wet. Accidentally deleted saturdays run. I'm trying to get better with this video thing, but my crappy dash cam can only do so much. I will have audio in all future videos though, hopefully.

Going to depot in the morning. Getting masonite to make new door cards with, as well as materials for the derrick for the turkey fryer this weekend. And white lithium grease for the window rails, since I'll have the doors apart anyway.

So this happened today. I shouldn't drive it like this. anymore.

New door cards cut, of course I forgot to take pics, but not painted or setup yet. I thought I could just ditch all the vinyl, but seeing how the top piece is also a window guide it's going back on.

That also means I DON'T have to deal with this black tar anymore. 2 cans of Brakleen, simple green, sponges.. BLAH. I'm leaving them off to dry out, and maybe the heat will help some tar come off. I probably can't get any work done till the weekend, when the little noisy ones birthday party is, but the doors will be getting painted and lubed before the door cards go back on. Then back on the car.

The mirrors are off too, but haven't gotten that far. Because my 2 hour job turned into 5 stores, and the better part of 9 hours, so the hell with it today.

pictures to come later or tomorrow, whenever I feel like fighting with my phone and seb server.

got the inside of the doors painted flat black, as well as the door jambs. I figure any body paint that gets in will be fine, and since the interior is all black now, might as well make the jambs black. Still need to mount on the new door cards I made, still haven't decided if I want the smooth or textured side on the person side, and still haven't drilled any holes, so I can still switch them around.

Got the front fenders and the front bumper off, no easy feat. Sawzalled off very front ears on the sides where the fenders attach to the bumper, but ran into a minor issue. The 2 bolts on the very bottom right in front of the door, both snapped, on both sides, about halfway out. Might try to drill and weld new nuts in, might just say berk it and weld the fenders back on.

The new washer nozzles are installed. High while sitting, but perfect when moving. I'm looking forward to being able to actually clean my windshield now.

No wonder people pay so much to get their cars painted. Even going about it 3/4 assed, this is frustrating work.

The fenders are ready to go back on the car. Primer on the outside, rubberized bed liner on the inside to help prevent rust from forming.

I really like this look, but I'm curious. How much of that white plastic can come off? Like can I take it off or attack it with a hole saw?

Yes, I've been working on gravel. berkeley gravel. When I have some extra money, I'm thinking plywood floor. But I'm debating covering the gravel with sand before laying down playwood to level it out and prevent a jack going through a board.

In between setting up the turkey fryer derrick, fryer, smoker, getting beer and ice, and all the other crap to get ready for the party sunday, I'm going to try to prime the front bumper and maybe even get the front end all back together tomorrow, since the easiest way is bumper, fenders, doors. We'll see how this goes, as it's still my first foray into removing panels and painting and such.

Looks good, keep it up!
I bought a full face Racequip helmet for SM club racing this year and I really like the fit. They are really a good value.

This thing is coming along great!

Maybe I'll do the bedliner thing when I put a fresh fender on my '97.