I think the interior paint is done.

More lessons learned and prejudices confirmed. Painting is a bit of a black art is the lesson learned. My prejudice that painting sucks was strengthened further by this experience. It just does. Big fairly flat areas are a piece of cake. Its cylindrical objects that contort and move into tight spaces that are a pain. That said, the car portion of the interior looks nice. The floor, the rear deck, and transmission tunnel are fairly easy to paint. The roll cage on the other hand was quite a challenge. You will notice in the photos, the masking tape was starting to give way at this point. I am sure I will have some overspray to get rid of. As promised here are some photos.

The interior of the door painted

(A nice shot of the overall picture)

(Nice glossy paint with no runs, the cage is another story)

The interior is mostly painted

Last weekend, ended up being busy with some work stuff. So I took a couple days off this week and wrapped up a couple items on the car. I finished masking the car for painting the interior.


I then shot a coat of primer. Using a full size spray gun on the interior of a small car, that has since had a series of bars, etc installed to make the spaces even smaller, is no small feat. I then shot a second round of primer to get the spots that I missed previously.

After allowing about 24 hours to dry (its 55 degrees in the shop) it certainly does not dry quickly, I then shot my first coat of gray. The primer was white, so I had a pretty good idea what the interior looks like in white, and I have to say it looks dirty, even painted. So the gray really looks nice. I need to shoot another coat of gray, again to get the spots I missed. I will let this coat dry some time longer. I will shoot another coat tomorrow. I first have to round up another quart of paint. I will get some photos tomorrow.

Ready to be put back on the ground

The rear suspension is all back together. The exhaust is on. An interesting note on the exhaust. The muffler on the Mazda Spec Miata exhaust is noticeably smaller and has one less mounting point. This caused no problems, it makes getting to the sway bar mounting locations easier. It is also easier to remove and install with the one less hanger.

Now I am onto interior paint. I started masking the passenger side door. This is going to be a serious job. There are so many things to mask. To further complicate matters, my masking tape doesn't want to stick to some things. I think I am going to regroup and do some serious cleaning before hand. It will have to be done any ways and very well may be easier without the masking in the way.

Rear suspension

The passenger side rear suspension is together. Tires on, ready to hit the ground. Tomorrow the plan is to get the driver side rear suspension together and the exhaust on. This should not be a challenge. The exhaust is simple and straight forward. The other side of the rear suspension should be be very simple. I have a couple things I need to lookup on the rear brakes, but I am pretty confident the passenger side is correct.

Not quite the spec miata

Well today I worked on my trailer. After an incident Friday morning, when the trailer decided to unhitch itself, I decided today to fix the damage and fix the problem. I removed the old style coupler and replaced it with a new collar lock coupler. At the same time, I replaced the jack while I was working on that. Removing the old jack proved to be the largest problem. Welded from the top and bottom, in addition to bolts, required some serious grinding, cutting, and cursing.

Despite the setbacks, it is all back together. So far so good, the coupler held once it was placed on the tractor to move it to its storage location. I will hitch it back up to the truck and see how it does tomorrow.

I also noticed I now have a tail light to replace. It was likely damaged when it came unhitched I am guessing it reared up and busted the light. No biggie, its not like I have to replace the coupler again.

Front suspension is done

The front suspension is together. The front rotors, calipers, etc are all in place. The rear is nearly to the same point. I have a few more bolts to torque down on the rear. However, it is largely together. By this weekend the car should be back on the ground and the interior ready for paint.

My friend took his Miata home from my shop so I am much more likely to paint interior in the shop. With one of his other cars, I had a length of 2x6 fall on the fender of his car. So, there was no way I was going to risk over spray on his car.

I will post photos this weekend!

More progress tonight

Tonight we were able to do the following.

• Installed new calipers on the rear.
• Installed right side rear brake line.
• Installed the rear sway bar.

I was able to get the catalytic converter off. I need to get new gaskets and some bolts for the bypass as it does not have studs. Once I get those, I should be able to install the exhaust.

Tomorrow I will pick up those items, rotors. I will finish putting these items together and do a complete inspection of torque specs, pins, nuts, bolts.

With a little help from my friends...

So, after my rather large purchase of parts, I have installed a large majority of them.

A quick list of what has happened.

• Front hubs/bearings repacked. I do so following the below walk-through. It was a somewhat surgical as I was using hemostats to hold the bearing carriers and wearing nitrile gloves. http://www.waltermotorsports.com/v/Racing/hub/
  
• The front suspension largely assembled.(Thanks Joey and Greg)
  
• The rear suspension is largely assembled. (Thanks Dave and Brandon)
  
• Kill switch plate tacked in. I had some wire feed issues with the welder, but I got it done.
  
• The front calipers are rebuilt, boots, seals, slider boots, bleeder valves (Thanks Greg)
  
• New wheel studs pressed in (Thanks again Dave)
  

With the parts I have, I still need to do the following.

• Install rotors all around and new calipers on the rear
• Install right side rear brake line
• Install the rear sway bar
• Install the exhaust

Below you will find some photos of the progress.