The $1,200 Miata

Finally had time to go back out and do some sanding.  I left a little bit of a low spot in the filler somehow.

So another quick coat and some sanding:

It is certainly not perfect, but I think it's pretty good.

I need to give the lower half a little bit of sanding to clean it up a little and take out the sanding grooves, then do the same to the right side, give it another quick skim coat, and then more sanding.  I may need to put a little glazing putty in the pinholes as well.  But the left side is now almost perfectly smooth with only the slightest little bit of bump that can be felt under the paper towel.  It's so slight that you have to go real slow to notice it and it doesn't cast any weird shadows when I put the super bright flashlight on it. 

Heh..  turns out that little bumplet I've been trying to work out is present on the other side of the car, too.  In a place where I didn't cut!  To be sure, before I got in there with the stud welder, it was a pretty big hump, so it needed to be fixed.  But I think that it's even closer than I thought before.

Everything is sanded down with 320.  My glazing putty is over at the shop so I'm going to pick that up tonight so I can fill the little pinholes.  After a quick hit with some 800 on the DA, I'm going to call the shop down the road and see about getting it in for the paint.

Making notes for myself:

Need the three clips that hold down the rubber trim at the front of the rt headlight.

Stud to which the inner bumper brace is supposed to attach broke off on removal.  Need to come up with some sort of solution for that - I think I'll wind up cutting it flush and either welding on a new stud or drilling and tapping a hole.

Other than that one connection and that rubber flap in front of the headlight, the front of the car is back together:

While it was off the car, the front edge of the fender got a little bit of a bend in it so it'll need to be touched up and maybe bent a little more, but I'm not too worried about that yet.  The marks on the bumper will come off with a little bit of rubbing, so that'll come out pretty easily.

I put a little glazing putty on the sides and once it dried, I hit it with the DA with some 800.  It's beautifully smooth and seems like it's pretty close to perfect.  I just have to sand the character line on the left side one last time.  Once that's done, I need to clean it up a bit before taking it to paint, but I've got to do it without getting anything wet.

Nice build and work !!!

I suspect there are a non-trivial number of Miatas running around without that bumper brace. Not saying you don't want it - my cars have it - but your failure is common and the car doesn't seem to suffer too badly for the lack. The bottom corner of the bumper can start to spread, that's the main problem. 

Took the Miata over to the body shop this afternoon.  The official quote is for about $1900 but he said I'd drop it down to about $1300 if I took off the bumper, tail lights, convertible top, hard top, and the weatherstripping at the base of the top.  Since he can't get me in until the 19th regardless, I'm going to take it back home and do all those things myself.  The top needs to come off anyway since I've got a replacement to install. 

I say that I'm going to take it back home because I got about a third of the way back from the shop when I discovered that the lugs nuts were a bit loose, so we're going back to fetch a socket.

After I did my homework, volunteer work, and made dinner, I scooted out to the garage to get some of the to-do list squared away.  The hardtop mounting brackets and Frankenstein [sic] bolts are removed as is the top, the rain rail, the moulding around the top, and the tail lights.  All that remains is to take the bumper off but, frankly, I didn't feel like getting down on the ground.

I don't know if this had anything to do with anything, but the rain rail was broken in several places and a repair attempt was made.

I don't remember if I got the rain rail with the new top or not, but it looks like there's at least one aftermarket solution out there if I didn't.  I've got to go over to the shop this week sometime and play with my wood, so I'll hunt around and see what I've got.  With all that removed, I can get to the drain tubes pretty easily of course, which means I can pop them out a little bit so I can pretty easily sneak the 360 degree spray nozzle on the Eastwood Inner Frame Rail Coating down into the quarter panel.  I'd like to do what I can to reduce the chance that this just rusts through again after a year or two!

I went over to the shop last night specifically to get one of the extra spray hoses for the Inner Frame Rail Coating.  In the process of packing up the toolbag - while I was there, I got the things I'll need to do the air strut in def Scheißwagen tonight - it fell over and dumped its contents.  Of course the one thing that apparently skittered across the floor and didn't get scooped back was was the damned hose. 

That shouldn't be too big of a deal, I guess.  When I get the car back, I can spray down in there before I put the new top on.  And speaking of the new top, I did also get the rain rail when I puled the top and that rain rail is in perfect shape.  It's nice to not have to worry about that!  Yesterday, I finished pulling the bumper off and this morning I went out and cleaned things up a little bit.  In a couple hours, I'm going to drive it down to Crone's and they'll get started with the spraying!

While it's off at paint, I want to get everything lined up so that I can have it put back together very rapidly once they're finished.  I know that 14" tires suck.  I don't care.  The car was built to run 185/60R14s and I think the best-looking wheel an NA can have are daisies.  I know that I can get a repro daisy-looking wheel in a 15x8, but a 225-width tire seems a little big for stock power levels.  It seems like the best street tire in a 14" that is out there would be the Vredestein Quatrac 5, but that tire seems to be only theoretical in my size, not actually in-stock anywhere.  Looking, then, at non-generic brand tires that I could actually purchase, I'm looking at the General Altimax T45 or the Kumho Solus TA51A.  I could go to a 195/60 which would give me access to the Riken Raptor HR or two different flavors of Falken Azenis.  I'm not sure I want to spend $800/yr on tires, as wild as driving around on a set of 200tw tires would be.  I could also get into the Michelin MXV3-A which I know very little about.  It's about double the cost of the non-Falken tires.  I'd consider it a lot harder if it were in the actually correct size simply because I've never had a bad Michelin tire, but I'm just not sure that it would be twice as good as the Altimax. 

I was going to try to get the wheels cleaned up and the new tires mounted while the car is at paint, but I've settled on waiting until after it's back because that way I can have the shop take the old tires off the current wheels and dispose of them without worrying about them wanting to charge me twice.  Tire Rack is fast enough and my local tire shop is quick enough that once I have the car back, I should be able to order the tires and make my install appointment while I'm putting the new top on and getting the bumper and whatnot reattached so that the minute I'm finished with all that, they'll be ready to do my tires.