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February 13, 2007 - Those with sharp eyes will notice some navigation changes to the site.
You can now read the updates in reverse chronological order - in other words, with the newest updates at the top. Click on the link at the top or bottom of the page that reads "Show newest first". The site will remember your preference. Feedback is appreciated!
entry 54 - tags: announcements |
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February 13, 2007 - We would like to welcome Corbeau as a sponsor of the Targa Miata team.
Corbeau will be supplying the seats and harnesses for the car. We approached them because we found their seats were the most comfortable of all the ones we've tried - and we've tried quite a few.
The FX1 Pro seat is also a very compact one that will fit well in our small car while providing us the comfort and support we'll need for a full week of racing.
entry 55 - tags: announcements, seats |
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 | February 16, 2007 - It's time to paint, so how do you move a chassis with no wheels or suspension to another part of the garage?
With these handy dollies, loaned to us by Flyin' Miata. It's kinda fun driving the car around on these, one person can easily maneuver it around the shop with one hand.
entry 56 |
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 | February 16, 2007 - In the temporary paint booth.
Some inexpensive plastic sheeting is used to contain the overspray and the fumes. The floor has been swept, vacuumed and mopped and still the plastic picks up dust with static electricity. Oh well, maybe it will hold it instead of letting it into the air. The car's awaiting one final degrease and then it's ready to start shooting paint!
The goal is to have the chassis painted by the end of the weekend. The other body parts will be done later, as it's the chassis that's holding everything else up at this point.
entry 57 - tags: paint |
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 | February 17, 2007 - Tah-daaah!
A white Miata. Okay, it's just the primer coat and there's still a whole lot to learn before we can lay down a good paint job, but this is a major hurdle. Tomorrow the top coat goes on.
I'm using HVLP equipment to spray - the lack of overspray is dramatic. This is good.
entry 58 - tags: paint |
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 | February 17, 2007 - This is the first car I've painted.
At first, I figured that changing the color of a complete car was a tough way to start - but really, it's a pretty good one. I can easily see where I've missed a spot or where coverage is uneven. Also, since the car is totally stripped, there are very few exterior panels where the finish is important. Most of the work is figuring out how to get paint into all the nooks and crannies. The engine bay is a pain.
entry 59 - tags: paint |
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 | February 17, 2007 - While the engine bay was a pain to paint, the roll cage was truly difficult.
First, I kept painting myself into a corner and making it difficult to access the next tricky spot. Then there's the problem of trying to get all sides of all tubes. It's not going to be fun shooting the final coat on this. Still, it looks just as cool as I'd hoped it would, as if the whole car was just dipped in a big vat of paint.
entry 60 - tags: paint |
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 | February 17, 2007 - The biggest problem is the paint on the rear fenders.
It's, umm, textured. Obviously more time learning the spray gun is required, and I've had some good advice on solving the problem. I'll sand this down before the top coat goes on. Oh well, if I didn't want to learn I would have paid someone else to do the work instead.
entry 61 - tags: paint |
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 | February 18, 2007 - Hi Mom!
entry 62 - tags: paint |
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 | February 18, 2007 - The finish coat is on now.
It's much glossier than the primer although of course it didn't cover up the orange peel. I didn't bother sanding it down.
That peel came from a total misunderstanding of how to set up the paint gun. I've got that sorted out now, only to discover that my grades in high school chemistry don't apply to the real world - I forgot to mix in the reducer! Doofus. This meant the paint went on fairly thick. Exactly what it means to the finish I'll find out.
It's not a big deal, however. There are only two exterior panels on the chassis, the two rear fenders. When it comes time to paint the other body panels, I'll take the lessons learned here and apply them. I'll also sand down these rear fenders and shoot them again. Of course, they'll be covered in stripes and sponsor stickers anyhow so it's not a big deal. In the sunlight, being white, the surface imperfections won't show up all that much.
And the most important thing is that I can now start bolting parts on to the chassis and building it all up. From here on I'm in familiar territory - I might not have built a rally Miata before, but I've built cars!
entry 63 - tags: paint |
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 | February 18, 2007 - The plastic I hung for the "paint booth" had a useful secondary purpose - the static charge on the plastic trapped all the overspray dust!
If I wanted to sound high-tech, I'd say that I painted the car in a custom-made booth with heat lamps (those halogens are hot!) and electrostatic dust traps.
A happy side note is that almost no fumes ended up in the house. This is good for domestic peace, as that windshield is still in the spare bedroom...
entry 64 - tags: paint |
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February 19, 2007 - There's a small change in how the site's set up.
The diary entries now indicate who's written them and we're not going to use the third person anymore. This will probably be less confusing and certainly easier to write!
Eric's doing a bunch of research into rally computers, maybe he'll chime in with a few notes.
entry 65 - tags: announcements |
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 | February 19, 2007 - While looking at the pictures of the painting, I realized I hadn't put up any shots of the overall car with the final coat.
It's a very white car. I have a few factory "Crystal White" body parts to compare it with and this one is much brighter. Are the old (repainted) parts the wrong color, or did the paint shop give me something a little extra spicy? It's supposed to be the standard color.
There's one good way to tell - I have a factory white 1991 hardtop that's in as-new condition. I'll have to see how it matches the car.
entry 66 - tags: paint |
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 | February 19, 2007 - The best paint finish on the car is on the roll bar.
This is probably because I had my little detail gun set up better than the larger panel gun at first, so the tight areas got a better primer coat. Or it could be a reflection of how much time I spent on each section! Regardless of my talk earlier, the paint on the fenders isn't all that much worse than some other paint jobs that I've paid for.
For those who are wondering, the materials for the paint job came out to about $230. This includes a gallon of reducer (which is, umm, untouched), solvent for cleanup (lots left), the mask (read up on isocyanates to freak yourself out), lint-free towels, 2 quarts of paint (half gone) along with hardener and a quart of primer (all gone) with its hardener. I think that's about it. The guns were a couple of inexpensive Harbor Freight units that had received good reviews. The compressor was a 60 gallon 3.2hp Porter Cable that can move about 14 scfm at 40 psi and is completely unfazed by the amount of air used for the painting.
entry 67 - tags: paint |
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 | February 19, 2007 - If you paint with HVLP, this is the overspray you can expect.
That's from the engine bay and I think it's mostly primer from when I was trying to figure out how to lay the stuff down. I used the engine bay as my primary practice area.
entry 68 - tags: paint |
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 | February 19, 2007 - The car is back in the "assembly bay" (ie, the back of the garage) and is ready to start going back together.
It's going to be a bit of a shame bolting old parts onto the blinding white chassis (I did mention it was white, right?) but we're not doing a full Pebble Beach restoration here. If there's dust on top of the fuel tank, so be it.
entry 69 |
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 | February 20, 2007 - Time for assembly!
I started by installing the brake and fuel lines. A big reason for this is because they're a really big pile of tubes and I've been tripping over them for months. Time to get them out of the way! The gas tank is also installed.
The fact that someone else stripped the car down might make things a little difficult, although the biggest problem so far has been dealing with lines that were bent while off the car.
This is the sort of work that's really fun, because you see the car coming together in a big hurry. It's also where I can get sucked into what I'm doing and accidentally work until the wee small hours of the morning.
entry 70 - tags: brakes |
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 | February 20, 2007 - Assembly continues.
And here's where things start to get interesting. The brake booster and master cylinder are from a Miata with the larger "Sport" brakes. They should give a firmer pedal and are well suited to our big brake setup. The proportioning valve is obviously mounted in a different place on our 1995 as opposed to the 2005 that donated the master so we'll have to deal with that. Actually, it's not a proportioning valve at all as this particular car used the ABS instead. This sort of interchange is fun.
We'll have our own cockpit-adjustable proportioning valve which will involve bending and running some new brake lines anyhow.
entry 71 - tags: interchange, brakes |
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 | February 20, 2007 - Another bit of interchange information - one we weren't expecting.
It turns out that when the brake booster was changed in 2001, so was the vacuum nipple. And possibly the location of the brake fluid reservoir. So there are two different shapes of hose to join the hard vacuum line that runs across the firewall (visible in the previous picture) to the booster. It's possible to make the early one (top) fit, but the later one is much happier and gives more clearance.
Upon inspection, it appears the new design has less restriction in the hard pipe going into the booster. It's not drastic, but the Mazda engineers felt it was important.
entry 72 - tags: interchange, brakes |
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 | February 20, 2007 - Time to test-fit the cockpit!
The seat isn't the FX1 Pro that we'll be using, but an older Forza. But it lets us try things out while we wait. The pedals are the ones that were on our chassis originally, and have big MOMO pads on them. The one on the clutch pedal is in the way if I want to use a dead pedal, but the gas and brake ones should come in handy for heel-toe. The doodad taped to the transmission tunnel is the proportioning valve, as I'm trying to find a good place put it where it's out of the way, easy to plumb and accessible from the driver's seat.
entry 73 - tags: seats, ergonomics, brakes |
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THE DIARY