Opti wants a Miata....just not this one

Paint bubbles usually either mean outgassing from the lower layer or a chemical reaction with the old paint. 

In reply to BoxheadTim :

Which would mean I didn't let it dry long enough between coats?

In reply to Opti :

Only if the bubbles are caused by solvent still evaporating from the primer. If it's due to the primer reacting with the old paint, or the combo of new paint and primer reacting with the old paint, letting it dry longer wouldn't have made a difference. 

What kind of sorcery is this. It looks way closer now and I havent touched it since I painted it. Texture still looks like E36 M3. Ill see if anything can be done about that.

Maybe You got some bad old paint. May want to get a quart of single stage mixed at a paint shop, use a Preval brand sprayer from home depot. Sprays more like a real gun. Has a glass bottom that unscrewed and a aerosol top, about $13....yeah lots of bad reviews, most from people trying to spray water based latex house paint! 

I found a local paint shop that will mix me some matched single stage and load it into a can for me. Hopefully at some point this week I can grab some and shoot the fender. 3 day weekend ahead so ill have a little extra time.

Today I got the rest of the brake parts in from rock auto, so I worked on it after work. Front and rear rotors with cheap centric semi metallic pads. Front pads were supposed to come with hardware but didnt. I was able to reshape and clean them and they worked ok.

I need to tightened up the rear caliper adjustment a little but it stops so much better already and is way smoother.

I need to align it, check PPF alignment, and adjust the a/c belt (it makes a terrible noise)

I aligned it this morning. It wasnt terrible, and I wasnt interested in spending a bunch of time setting up a perfect align. Goal was to make it drive straight and not eat up tires. Front toe was out, rest of it I didnt touch.

Ive been driving it as often as possible that way I can address issues that might take a little bit of driving to pop up. On the way to work yesterday the temp went about 3/4 of the way up then immediately dropped. I didnt think anything of it and remembered how nasty the cooling system was,. I figured the thermostat was probably sticking. Ill check it this weekend.

On the way home from work It got hot and QUICK. It was 3/4 of the way up the gauge so I started eyeballing it and when it didnt drop like in the morning, I turned the heater on, and found a safe place to pull over. When i got stopped the gauge was almost pegged and then the temperature immediately dropped back to normal. 

I got back on the road and she acted fine all the way home. I planned on just messing with it this weekend but then I remembered how easy these things are to work on. So I grabbed a tstat and a gasket from the local parts house. Took the Tstat out and the lower hose loose to drain all the coolant

I stuck a water hose in the radiator and flushed it until it ran clean. Then I stuck the hose in the water outlet and flushed the block until it came out clean. It was every bit as nasty as I thought.

Thermostat looked terrible, and when I tried to push it open manually it did stick for a second then pop open. So hopefully that was the problem

I filled and bled the system then went and drove it around last night and this morning with no overheating. This is the coolant after 1 drive. Its not all murky and brown, so I must have got most of the crap out of it.

Previous total was 1462.

I forgot to include the Duplicolor $10

Thermostat and Gasket $15

New total $1487

Maybe air pocket got purged? Do miatas have water pumps with plastic impellers?

In reply to Agent98 :

Some of the cheap replacements do I think, or their was something about the impellers differences in cheap aftermarket ones. The one I installed was metal.

I thought it might be an airpocket because I never really checked the level again after doing the head, but it was full when I got it home.

Put me on the list of interested people when you get ready to sell, and if you feel like fixing more paint then I have a couple more projects for you. 

 In reply to oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) :

Lets see how good this fender comes out first. I used to be pretty good with a rattle can but this is the first time Im going for match factory finish. I keep putting off getting a booth so I can just spray out of a HVLP gun, always "Ill wait til I get a bigger place. That and its kinda fun to try and get decent results the homebrew way and now Agent98 has introduced me to this Preval sprayer thats super cheap and I need something to try that on.

On that note though, I did run by the local auto paint supply house and they mixed me up some SU Classic Red single stage and put it in aerosol cans for me. She gave me a few pointers on how to get a good finish. If anyone is on the west side of Fort Worth, English Color and Supply is great people. Hopefully if the weather permits I can do it this weekend

I adjusted the belts yesterday. No pictures because I was dreading doing it and I just wanted to get it over with. I hate manually tensioned belts, almost as much as I do paper gaskets. The LS has ruined me. Gaskets should be a seal encapsulated in an aluminum plate or just rubber. One time I was replacing the water pump on my C5 and when I removed it i found PAPER GASKETS (apparently the early LS motors still used them), I almost E36 M3 my pants I was so upset. It a completely irrational hatred and I understand that, but dang do I hate cleaning them up.

Whatever, weird tangent over. I adjusted the belts, it wasnt too bad, took me like 25 minutes. Its doesnt make a terrible squealing anymore when you start it, so thats good.

Yeah I had a rattle can do something similar, looked way more orange for a bit then seemed to level out. The part number was the other one through, I used 388 not 398 (both GM bright red). Makes for a good enough match on my hardtop for now.

It was pretty oily under the car so I decided to try and degrease it a little so if any new leaks pop up they will be easier to spot.

Before

After

Its not perfect but I got a lot of oil off, so should be easier to see leaks if the pop up. I just used some gunk engine degreaser, it worked ok, but I think this thing had been leaking for a long time,

Its super hot here in Tejas, so good working A/C is a must to get a decent price on a used car. I blew out the condensor, there was a suprising amount of bugs and dirt and rocks in there, so hopefully that will help a little. Then I used some evaporator cleaner. You put it in the drain tube and fill the Evap box up with foam that is suppose to clean up the evaporator core. 

Some pretty nasty stuff came draining out. Ive seen good results on the C5 and Dodge but It was so much cooler outside when I was done, I didnt get a good before and after test.

I had started hearing a rattle at random RPM and under decel. I remember the OP had used the wrong bolt to secure the coil pack and it was loose. I thought that might be my rattle.

Bolt was too long and would suck the coil pack all the way up so it could move around. A trip to the bolt drawer and found something suitable,

Then I though I had cleaned up the underside of the engine bay so I should probably do the topside. So I fired up the pressure washer and hit it.

Before

After

It wasnt super dirty so I dont think it did too much that you can see. Helped on the sides of the block though, but nobody really see that.

Then I noticed my headlights looked terrible and one was noticeably more E36 M3ty than the other. So I hit them with some sandpaper up to 3000 then some plastic polish. They arent perfect but much better and much more even

Before

After

You will also notice a strut tower brace magically appeared. The car had one when I bought it and I never put it back on after doing the head. I assumed I would have to pull it back apart because I forgot something or something else was wrong with it, but after a week or two of driving looks like its okay, so I reinstalled it.

My fog lights dont work so I was going to look into that. First thing I did was check the fuses.

Looks like they are missing. I grabbed some fuses and they wont stay in the slots. Its like the pins are missing. It was a pain in the ass to get under their because Im fat and out of shape and I was getting tired. So I left it alone, something to investigate another day.

My horn also doesnt work, looked into that and noticed the horn relay is missing, Need to get one of those, and see if it works,

On C5 Corvettes the clutch fluid gets super dirty and causes problems for the hydraulics which are a PITA to change. I got in the habit of checking and changing it all the time. I just changed it on the Miata but figured Id check it again, and it was pretty dirty, but not as bad as last time so thats good.

Sucked it out and wiped down the inside of the reservoir. It was super nasty

Then top if off and ready to roll.

Back to that rattle I thought was the coil pack. It wasnt. The cat was rattling. I thought it wasnt a big deal, Id ignore it until it caused a problem then I would fix it....Well it caused a problem on the way home. Rattle stopped. Well thats good, then I noticed it would barely rev and car is WAYYY down on power, and it doesnt have any to spare in the first place. Its just a weld in universal cat, so Ill just go have another one welded in.

Hoping the weather allows me to get this fender off and spray my single stage paint I bought this weekend.

For some reason, every NA Miata I've ever owned turned the clutch fluid black about five minutes after I changed it.

I yanked the fender off today. You can see all the junk in the fender.

You can see the damage to the paint, then a closer up.

I started sanding the whole thing down before I realized I needed the rock guard texture because I cant recreate it, so I added some tape and didnt sand down there anymore. Hopefully some of the texture is still there and its not super obvious.

Little bit of putty to fill in a dent, which didnt work that well,

Then some primer on the whole thing

Ill spray it tomorrow. I didnt get much done today. We had a bunch of wedding stuff to sort out, and SWMBO and I worked on our guestbook for the wedding.

Its an old rusty C10 door we gutted and did the rustoleum paint job on. We were sanding it down today. Ill polish it up tomorrow and put the sticker on we made. It supposed to look like an old work truck door, I made a logo for the wedding for the middle in black. People will sign it in pastel colored sharpies and after the wedding we will seal it and throw it on the wall.

It was raining all day so I didnt get much done. Got the Door all polished up. It came out decent for a rustoleum paint job that was rolled on without being thinned and not attention paid for the amount of texture I was leaving.

I told SWMBO to grab the sticker of our logo my brother made and put it on. She grabbed it and I noticed it was white and not black, then it dawned on me that I asked him for  a stencil, cause I wanted it to be in paint and not vynil, that way I could age it. E36 M3. I just spent an hour polishing it up, now paint wont stick to it. So I knocked it back down and told her to put the stencil on,

She got it on straight and with only a few bubbles. We shot it with some black rustoleum and peeled it back off.

I peeled the stencil off when the paint was wet because there is a bunch of really thin detail work and I was worried if I let it dry Id pull those off. So because of that there are a couple of strings and run, Ill try and clean up once everything dries. Then Ill polish everything back up and decide If we want it shiny or to age it. We did some testing sharpie writes real nice and dries in just a few second. SWMBO decided on pastel colors. So the wedding guests will sign this and when we are done we will seal it up and hang it. This is my GRM Wedding Guestbook.

Now on the Miata. I was watching the humidity all day, so I could shoot this fender. Finally late it dropped below 65% and I went out there. 1 light coats, one medium coat and one heavy coat. There is some orange peel, but these cans didnt even have the good fan tips so I expected a lot. I think it will come out better than I expected. Ive got some reflection in the paint already, I think after a little wet sanding and polishing it will look pretty dang good.

Up close

I also dropped it off at the exhaust shop (sans fender) to get a new universal cat welded in. Cost me 200 but the car runs much better.

Previous total was 1487

Cat and install 200

1 can of Classic Red 25

Current Total 1712

FYI, you can buy "Stoneguard" at NAPA. Perfect texture match to the sills/bottom of fender. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Well dang, I should have known to just ask you

Re: your wedding door, Mr. K signed the hood of my 240Z a million years ago, with a Sharpie, and I thought it would be a great idea to seal it in with some clear. I almost did it, but at the last minute thought I would test my theory. The clear instantly destroyed the Sharpie test line. So I left it as is.

You obviously know a lot about paint, and probably have it figured out, but I cringe to imagine the level of suck achieved if the clear did a number on the signed door. 

In reply to bradyzq :

I dont know very much about paint, hence all of my terrible results. I hadnt thought about the clear damaging the sharpie though. Ill have to make me a test panel and see what type of sealant/clear will work before testing on the real thing. Thanks for the head up.

Opti said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Well dang, I should have known to just ask you

Someone else on this forum actually twigged me to it, so I can't take credit :)

Nice stencil and fender work. Orange peel is ok as long as you let it harden enough and as long as there's enough paint on there for wet sanding.