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

So the wedding is getting closer and it has slowed down progress on the miata. I did finish up the guestbook/C10 door though.

Then I went back to work on my fender. First I needed to see how good the paint match was. So I just set it on the car

Looks okay, now lets see what kind of orange peel/texture it has.

Not great. You can see it best up in the light reflection. Then I got to it. Started at 1000 and worked to 2000.

Looks pretty flat, lets get to polishing.

Overall I was pretty pleased with the shine/results. Only issue was I barely burned through on a few corners before I noticed and taped them up, and I didnt have a good mount to hold the fender so it was hard to keep pressure on the fender with the polisher. Probably should have mounted it them polished it.

I went back and just laid it on the car to see results. I have not reinstalled it yet. Maybe Ill get to it today

Im pretty happy with how wel my spray bomb turned out. Its probably the best panel on the car. The hood is too big to do with those sprayers, but If I could find a decent fan nozzle I might be able to do it. Ill use my second can for the mirrors and spoiler. Still cant find a good set of seats.

The fender looks great from here after polishing out. 

If the hood was off the car and, say, hung on a wall or something so you had good access to the whole thing without leaning over the car, do you think a number of thin coats of color paint could then be sanded and polished to yeild similar results, non-optimal spray pattern rattle cans and all?  My gut says yes but I don't have the most amazing track record spraying paint of any kind so maybe others that try this stuff more/better than I can weigh in. 

On the seats, maybe get a recovering kit, and install yourself on the seats you have? 

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

I think the hood is just too big for crappy spray pattern I have. Ill try to make it over to the paint supply place and see if they have cans with a better spray pattern. If not I found a red hood that has decent paint locally.

I thought about the seat recovering, Ive done them before on C5 seats, but the kits for the NB1 seats are kinda expensive for a flip car

When SWMBO had a most unfortunate "incident" on The Caravan I painted the replacement hatch with those Prevals....seemed to have a decent fan pattern. You could also get a HF gun and do the hood. I like the suggestion of taking it off the car first. What you've done thus far looks good !

Progress has been slow (non existent). We got married, and almost immediately after bought an old house, which is a huge project. Then I had to get the other house ready to sell, and get my old house ready for a renter. So cars were way on the back burner for the last few months. I finally got almost everything done. We close on the previous house tomorrow, we are mostly unpacked in the new house, and I finally got a renter in my old house after like 2 years of saying I was going to do it.

Attention turned back to a project. This Miata was always going to be a flip car. SWMBO has wanted something to wrench and learn on, and I sold the Firebird right after we got married, so I needed something that both she and I would like. Originally we were looking for a single cab short bed C10 or Square body, but they have gone crazy lately, and I cant see spending 7-10K on a chevy truck, that puts me in price range of much cooler stuff. I found the first gen coupe mustangs can be had very cheaply, everything is available and cheap, they look good and are crazy simple. I think a basic stock rebuild, would make a pretty and fun cruiser. So we started looking, went and checked a couple out this weekend, but they were all terrible.

I realized that if Im going to buy another project I should probably get rid of the Miata, so I charged up the battery and went and washed it so I could shake it down and make a new list of what needs to be done.

I had an intermittent left low beam. Quick check found this

Luckily the parts store had a new connector and the bulb was still fine. Put a new connector on it and the headlight is working great. SWMBO did a bulb check and it appears only the left rear running light was out, so we put a new bulb in and now all the lights work except for the fogs, and Im not diving into them.

I noticed the horn didnt work, that seemed like an easy diagnosis.

Relays missing. Ordered a new one, will be here tomorrow, hopefully thats the only problem.

Seems to wash up pretty well.

Also put the NA seats in I picked up

Then while searching for a first gen mustang I stumbled on one for trade, and noticed the guy was in some of the same miata groups Im in. I asked if he would trade, and he seems pretty interested, so It might work out even better than expected.

Still hunting for mustangs. The couple I really liked ended up selling before I could get to them.

Back to the yata.

I picked up my horn relay and popped it in, waiting for the horn to start blaring, but nothing. So i guess there wasnt another problem someone just took the relay out. So i go to test it and hit the horn a few times. Beep. Beep. Beep. Then BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. The horn just keeps going and its pretty early and Im right next to my new neighbors. I smack it a couple times and it stops. 

Try it once more and same thing, but It wont stop this time even if I smack it a few times. So I pull the relay so it stops, then the airbag to inspect the horn switch. The U shaped bracket has 3 buttons on it, and it is suspended by 4 springs. when you push the wheel, it allows one of those buttons to make contact and completes the circuit which blows the horn. Well the components are all metal and to keep shorts from happening the are separated by plastic isolators. A quick inspection found all of my isolators were crumbling, allowing a short at the bracket, hence the horn is always blowing.

Well  crap. I didnt want to spend any more money on this thing besides paint and a top, and I really didnt want to wait forever to order the bushings/isolators or a whole horn switch which will probably have the same problem. So I thought about options for a while then had an idea. I will cover the bolts with heat shrink.

Heck yah. This might work. I did the other 3 and reassembled the horn switch, then plugged the connector in and as soon as I did....BEEEEEEEEP. I unplugged it and rechecked it and realized Im a big dummy. The switch was still shorting through the springs. So I added a fiber washer to the 4 springs and reassembled.

Buttoned it back up and VOILA it works as intended. I cant believe I spent this much time trying to fix a horn on a flip car.

Then I pulled the hood off (Its crazy light) and started scuffing it up.

I just hit it real quick with some 180 and put some paint stripper on it. The stripped worked pretty good, but there was still a lot of sanding to be done after it. I pretty much have it stripped. I need to lay down some self etching primer, wet sand, High build, wet sand, then color. I wasnt too motivated to get paint on it though, because my paint guys wont have more paint for me until next week. Ill order my top in the next day or two and try to get the primer on it and ready for color. Week after next I took a little time off, maybe I can get it all done and listed.

I finally found a mustang. Its a 6 cylinder car. Im picking up a V8 parts car this weekend. Ill make a thread about it once I start working on it. Have to finish the miata first.

Got the hood stripped.

Laid down self etching primer (from a can)

My paint guy recommended not spraying on top of self etching (oops thats what I did on the fender). So then I laid down some high build.

Im going to let it cure for a day or two before I do the color. I was going to just get pre mixed cans like the fender, but I was worried about the terrible spray pattern on the tips, and I couldnt find any tips that work on the cans. I thought about the Repsol (?) setup from home depot but I had the same worries about the tips. Then I realized Im going to have to paint the mustang so I might as well spray it out of a gun for practice. So I went and just got a pint of paint. I just have to wet sand the high build and make sure its cured and Ill spray the color on it this week.

I also ordered a top from Ebay, Im hoping it gets here early enough to do it this week. Thats the last thing I like. Maybe a battery if I cant save this one. Ive had it on a trickle charger for a few days.

I just jumped on this thread for the first time, congratulations on your marriage.

You're giving me some ideas for some painting on my old c20.

I tried to spray it yesterday but was having some compressor problems. I got those solved this morning, got some paint mixed up and sprayed it. We still have a bunch of stuff we havent unpacked in the garage so I decided against spraying in there, so I just sprayed it outside. Had a couple leaves and bugs land in the paint. It was a little breezy. I also got a couple of small weird spots where the paint wouldnt lay down. Overall Im pretty happy with it. First time spraying with a real gun, and I think alot of the junk I can get out when I wetsand it. The rest of the paint isnt perfect anyways, and this is a huge improvement over what was on the hood.

Plus I will be much more prepared for painting the mustang.