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I don't really need a car. Work from home, commute once a week about 50 kilometres one way and run some errands. So let's get a smallest car possible to wrench on as a hobby. Cheap insurance is a plus. Ta-da, 1992 Miata, asking price $2000, sellers pics:     Cool, let's have a look, smaller rural town an hour outside of Toronto. Oh:    Rocker rust on both sides, pictures of the worst side. Runs and purrs like a kitten though, shifts fine (as far as I know at this point, havn't driven manual for the last 15 years). According to backstory, the car was bought locally from original owner, a older lady, driven for a fair bit by another lady and parked in a barn for a couple of years after she developed some back problems. Maintenance seems to consist of regular oil changes at home. Mileage is decent for the age(in kilometres):  Also included four of original daisy wheels with yoko rubber, proper car cover and a matching hard top with defroster.  To me that's a running car with some nice extras, so talk about rust for a while and make an offer of 1500, let them think about it and leave. Just as the buyer remorse sets in next day, the lady emails and says sure, come take it away. Oh, crap. First own car ever, wtf do I do now. Talk to parent's insurance broker arrange for a binder for today, catch a bus to the seller's town, meet them at the MOT office to get plates. The fun starts here, car older then 20 years is no longer in the black book, government need to know the value to tax it, it has to be appraised professionally. An hour before the office closes, that's nice to know. Fine, find a local guy, look at the rust, appraise at $500. Cool, buy the car extras for a grand more, everybody's happy. Stuff four extra tires on rims into it and learn to drive stick on an hour drive home. Take side roads, stall a few times, get exponentially better by the time I get it home. PS. This all happened in August, done a few small things with the car in the meantime. Just wanted a place to record the journey and see how much the cheap car turns out to be cheap. e: oh, tags, thank you kindly iv46vi fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Dec 5, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 22:39
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It has... two radios?
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Dec 4, 2012 23:03
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Ok, 10 days temporary plates. Need to fix the rockers to pass safety inspection.  Has to be as cheap as possible, cause that's the value-oriented approach we're aiming for here. Visit some no name body shops in a an auto plaza in North York: "Not interested" "No time" "1000" "600 with safety" "400 a side minimum" Well, gently caress. Note that both outer rocker skin and inner rocker strengthening structure are gone.  Don't have enough experience/equipment to fix this on my own. Parents live in Hamilton, ask around there: "At least $600 " Finally as some body place that specializes in trucks: "At least $800 but if you want it cheaper, ask Joe by the railroad trucks." Fine, got nothing to lose by asking. Find Joe's place by the tracks, yard full of half body work finished Camaros and Mustangs. Beer cans and sofa outside in the sun with a tattoo covered guy napping. "Are you Joe?" "Nah, Joe's the boss, was out partying last night, should be back in the afternoon" Talk for a bit, show the car get a quote for $300 all in. "What's included?" "New inner rockers welded in, new outer skins welded in, primed, painted rocker guard." "When can you do it?" "Leave the car, ready in a couple of days" "Deal"   Probably should have negotiated it down some, cause they painted both sides of the car up to that little crease on the body with rock guard, including doors and rockers. Looks much better though.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:07
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Ziploc posted:It has... two radios? It did, but neither worked. PO is the gift that gives on giving.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:11
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This brings us to a second week of ownership. Major holes fixed, the car passes safety and gets plated. The inspection covers basic mechanical stuff so I'm no longer worried about dying a sudden and horrible death from major parts falling off. When going over road bumps at speed the car likes to shake the rear end like it's at a party. Fixing the rockers does not reduce the shaking, so it's probably shocks. No big surprise there, twenty year old shocks living for a while on rural roads should be replaced. Quick look around indicates some options: - cheapo replacement shocks at about $200-$300 - quality replacement shocks at about $400-$600 - used NA shocks - used NB shocks/springs/mounts Now, done properly option 2 is the best way to go. Being a So the plan is to hound the forums and find a set of used NB suspension parts and bolt it in. The plan hits a snag when the shipping has to be accounted for. Four shocks with springs come out to about $50 in shipping in the states and naturally double that to Canada, so any saving on buying used are quickly eaten by the couriers. Let's hop onto car-part and check for junkyard NB miatas around here. Great, there is one(1) in toronto, they have 2002 miata with bilstein suspension at $100 a corner. Bilstein is a factory option on miatas and NB version is known to be probably the best factory suspension. Call them up, offer to take all four corners, get a deal of $250 out the door. They go to take them off the car, call me back and say that there is a mistake, there are aftermarket coil overs on the car, they don't know what kind, but if i still want them, they'll drop another $50 off the price. I say sure, thinking the worst case is I show up to look at them, spot obvious ebay crap and walk out. Quickly scour the webs for most common coilover options for miatas and go pick them up. Ta-da:  Full set of used Bilstein PSS9 adjustable coil overs for $200. Now for the fun part: - raise the rear end, jack stands  - lot's of surface rust, so penetrant soaking is a must:  - rubber doesn't seem to be in a horrible shape, I'll take what i can get  - apply you favourite combination of extensions, something ratcheting on one end and a proper leverage on the other:  - undo the tops of end links on both sides:  - take out the shock bottom mounting bolt:   - and the top control arm to wheel hub knuckle bolt:     - protip, the bottom control arm and the hub will want to drop down now, use the poor man jack to control its movement:   - undo the two nuts holding the shock mount in the trunk and lower the jack holding the control arm until the mount clears the body:  - then swing it towards you and remove:   - a smarter man would clean/paint this whole area while access is good, but i'm the guy who bought a miata with rusted out rockers so you can't ask too much of me:   - wipe it down with some penetrant on a rug and clean the biggest spiderwebs, on to the old and slightly newer comparison shot:   About the same length from bottom to the top mount, the ride height before/after should be comparable. - reassembly and preventing rust:   - don't forget the little anti squeak gasket:  - sometimes foresight is required:  - anyways:  - clean and anti seize:   - start the nut, but don't tighten it yet   - view from the trunk:  - 9-way adjustable, should suffice for DD:  - liberal anti seize and a couple of nuts:  - connect the link, but don't tighten it:    All the suspension bits connected with rubber bushings have to be torqued while loaded. Using our favourite auxiliary jack and auxiliary piece of wood under the wheel hub raise it until that corner lifts off its jackstand:   Now the weight of the car is on that corner's suspension and all the rubber connected bits can be tightened to specs  Note that the helper spring is fully compressed as it should be. Here's what the passenger rear looks like all buttoned up:  Then off to the drivers rear, where top access is somewhat obscured:  And horrors like this are well hidden:  Up and atom, upper link, top control arm to hub, bottom shock mount, out:    Load and torque:   Rear done:     Unsettled height about 13", about an inch lower than stock:  Now would be a good time to go for a test drive. Except I can't get the car out of parent's garage. It's an older two car wide garage. They use the right bay for their car and left bay for storing yard stuff and car work. That left bay also has a concrete speed bump under the garage door to stop the water from coming in. The bump is about 6" high and the rear of the miata dropped just enough for exhaust to not clear the bump when the wheels are on the ground. Foresight and all that. iv46vi fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Dec 5, 2012 |
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Dec 5, 2012 05:12
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drat talk about stealing suspension you lucked out. I have rusty rockers on my Miata also but have opted to sell it and get a clean platform. Unfortunately rather than upgrading suspension I have to get another Miata first.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:04
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e: nothing to see, took too long to click "submit"...
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Dec 5, 2012 06:25
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PSS9 NA Miata buddies, sup   This is a fun as hell first car. Do you have wiring in the car to mate up to the hardtop defroster? Mine doesn't.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:47
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leica posted:drat talk about stealing suspension you lucked out. I have rusty rockers on my Miata also but have opted to sell it and get a clean platform. Unfortunately rather than upgrading suspension I have to get another Miata first. Well the cheaper end of the market for Miatas around here is 3000-4000. Cheaper ones occasionally pop up but then they have rust and/or much higher mileage. Or someone's unfinished project. I've been keeping an eye out for Miatas on the market during the summer so when this got listed we went to look at it the same day.It was driveable and at the time I didn't know that the rust problems are so serious. Chalk it up to youthful optimism. I don't think it would be too hard to sell this one for 2000 with the rockers patched and newer suspension and recover monies spent if anything better shows up. tl.dr.: pros > cons Seat Safety Switch posted:PSS9 NA Miata buddies, sup Yeah, there is a defroster pigtail. There is no dedicated control for the defroster on 92 though, it turns on with the vents knob. And then the relay cycles on/off every 3 minutes with a loud click like the wipers relay. And you get the cool orange light on the dash. Any tips on setting up PSS9? I think they are set at 8 front, 9 rear now. The car came with NB's 16 inch rims and 205/40 tires.
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Dec 5, 2012 17:44
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Unfortunately, when I bought my car it was the start of winter so I haven't had a chance to tinker with it (or even drive it hard outside of a few parking lot rips and one-tire-fires). Right now the PSS9s are at full soft and the alignment seems pretty biased towards understeer as well as having a huge front swaybar from the previous owner. So far the Miata ownership experience is underwhelming.  I don't know what the spring rates on the PSS9 are so I haven't looked into it very seriously yet, but in the general case, it probably goes something like tuning Konis: http://www.bimmerhaus.com/tech/shocktuningTN.html A lot of it will depend on your driving style. If you wait a few months for me to put summer tires back on I can share what I find. Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Dec 5, 2012 |
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Dec 5, 2012 17:53
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Man, 200 bucks to fix those holes? You got a heckuva deal.
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Dec 5, 2012 20:36
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Are you dipping those bolts into the jar of anti seize? You only need a thin coat on the threads because anti seize can mess with the torque specs on the bolts. Just lightly coat one side of the bolt, and then as it's being threaded the anti seize spreads around naturally.
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Dec 5, 2012 20:50
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I can't find the pdf from Bilstein right now, from memory PSS9 have 343 spring rate on every corner, which is about double the stock. The body shop was like a set for a chop shop in some movie. When I went to pick up the car there were a couple of legit biker dudes trying to sell an 80s american land barge to anybody in the shop for a couple of grand. Anti seize is just liberally brushed on the metal parts. It's a personal preference for any year round driven car in Ontario that I may work on in the future.
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Dec 5, 2012 21:51
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whiskas is right about the anti seize, I was thinking the same thing. After you drive it for a while, probably best to retorque the bolts... that is a lot of fluid material you're putting throughout the thread engagement area.
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Dec 5, 2012 21:59
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EVERYWHERE 
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Those NB wheels look surprisingly really good on the NA.
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Dec 5, 2012 22:11
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jesus dude you stole that suspension.
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Dec 5, 2012 22:47
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Slow is Fast posted:jesus dude you stole that suspension. 
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Dec 5, 2012 22:54
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So what do you do when you trap your car in a garage defeated by a 6 inch tall concrete strip? It's a two car wide garage, so you do a 900-point turn and drive through the other bay that doesn't have the drat barrier thing. In the process you become infinitely more familiar with the car's dimensions. Fronts then:   - undo the top mount:    - disconnect upper link to sway bar:   - lower shock mount bolt comes out:   - washer and nut go on the tierod side:  Now we have to make upper and lower control arms move independently from each other to gain enough clearance to swing the shock assembly out. There are several ways of doing it. FSM recommends lower balljoint. Don't much feel like touching balljoints on a 20 year old car if I can help it. Another popular way is the long bolt method which disconnects the lower control arm from the subframe. I think it's a 22 head bold that's about a foot long and the swaybar has to be dropped to clear it. Too many old rusty bolts to remove. The low effort method for me is the balljoint tongue method. The lower ball joint attaches to the lower control arm via a metal piece attached with two 17 head bolts. - here's bolt number 1 just under the lower shock mount:   - and here's bolt number 2, just under the balljoint:    - remove top first, then the bottom:   - now swing the tongue out:   Then use magic ancient incantations, 3D spatial reasoning and a bit of luck to free up the shock. For me a breaker bar in the hollow of the bottom control arm to step on to bring the top of the shock below body mount, one hand on the upper control arm pushing down to create enough clearance for the shock to swing out and the second arm on the shock worked out eventually. It's hard to take pictures when doing acrobatics, so use your imagination on that step. - again, pretty:  - magic incantations, magic incantations, magic incantations, all the acrobatics from removal step plus extra height of the coil over unit until:  - loosely tighten the top:  - then insert the ball joint tongue back into the control arm and tighten the lower tongue bolt:   - for the top tongue bolt the tongue has to be pried up to line up the threads:     both of the tongue bolts can be tightened to spec now, they are metal on metal - connect the lower shock mount bolt:  - and the sway bar link:  - repeat on the driver's side:    - then load up each corner in turn and tighten the rubber bushing connectors to spec:   Unsettled at about 12.5"  Oh god, I think it's getting slammed now:    For comparison, before: It feels like it dropped about and inch in ride height, the speed bumps are scraping the exhaust ever since. The thing about junkyard coilovers is they don't come with spanner wrenches so it's stuck at whatever height I got them. iv46vi fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Dec 6, 2012 |
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Dec 6, 2012 05:09
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I'm pretty sure if you ask nicely to Bilstein they'll sell you some
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Dec 6, 2012 05:47
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couldn't you just use a brass punch like on a motorcycle's rear shock?
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Dec 6, 2012 07:05
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Bilstein has a great parts department. Do what OM told you to and you should be able to get everything - adjuster wrenches (two came with mine for some reason, they appear to be different sizes so I'm guessing the collars are different front to rear) and the damping adjuster as well.
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Dec 6, 2012 07:07
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I have to say this is reading like a new Sock in the making. Mmmmmm...patina.
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Dec 6, 2012 16:32
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Omgz posted:couldn't you just use a brass punch like on a motorcycle's rear shock? DO NOT DO THIS. This is a really good way to destroy the rings on your coils.
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Dec 6, 2012 18:56
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Those wheels sure do look oversized.
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Dec 7, 2012 07:23
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Remind me never to buy a car from up North. I've literally never seen that much rust on a vehicle since the 1970's. When I pulled the lower a-arms off my 8 year old 110,000 mile Miata, the only rust I could find were a few tiny pinholes where rocks had compromised the paint. A little bit of a bath and they looked like new.
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Dec 7, 2012 07:45
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There's hardly any rust on that car. 
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Dec 7, 2012 12:51
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SierraEchoBravo posted:There's hardly any rust on that car. You want to see cars with no rust on them, try Australian cars. I've never seen a tenth as much rust on the bottom of an NA as that thing. Even cars that parked near the beach their entire life.
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Dec 7, 2012 13:05
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Memento1979 posted:You want to see cars with no rust on them, try Australian cars. I've never seen a tenth as much rust on the bottom of an NA as that thing. Even cars that parked near the beach their entire life. I'm from a north eastern state, people daily dive much, much worse.
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Dec 7, 2012 15:09
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SierraEchoBravo posted:I'm from a north eastern state, people daily dive much, much worse. OP, I love your car and I've been trawling Craigslist since you posted. I'm going to blame you for my future divorce.
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Dec 7, 2012 15:32
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Octopus Magic posted:DO NOT DO THIS. This is a really good way to destroy the rings on your coils. brass should be softer than the rings, I don't see how it will destroy them. anyway just trying to help op save some $$, back to lurking.
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Dec 7, 2012 16:01
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A set of proper wrenches is going to be like 30 bucks tops.
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Dec 7, 2012 16:43
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SierraEchoBravo posted:There's hardly any rust on that car. Mind. Blown. I'll try to snap some pictures of what neglected cars look like around here.
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Dec 7, 2012 17:54
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I'm no sure if this is specifically a New England car, but this kind of rust is fairly common on most older vehicles where I live. My 1996 Suburban is rusting on all kinds of bodywork, frame is solid though. No big deal.
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Dec 7, 2012 19:00
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The rust on that miata wasn't bad. I've fixed worse. Also, OP I hope they welded in new metal and didn't just pack the corners with bondo.
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Dec 7, 2012 19:41
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It's just surface rust, probably from sitting in the barn for a while. Would also explain the smell in the interior whenever you put the roof up. That "ain't no new car and may be an antique" smell that mostly went away after some scrubbing and washing of the soft top. As for rockers, there is new skin welded on the outside for sure, the inners are a mystery. Bilstein wrenches, last I heard were $50 plus shipping. Bit rich for my blood. Still secretly hope to find something compatible in a modded civic in a junkyard one day.
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Dec 8, 2012 00:32
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iv46vi posted:Bilstein wrenches, last I heard were $50 plus shipping. Bit rich for my blood. Still secretly hope to find something compatible in a modded civic in a junkyard one day.
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Dec 8, 2012 00:52
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Seat Safety Switch posted:You could probably 3D print them out of stainless at Shapeways for cheaper than that. The car, or the wrench?
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Dec 8, 2012 00:55
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Can't you just buy suitable-sized C spanners somewhere?
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Dec 8, 2012 00:56
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Just use a Flathead screwdriver, if your not a loving idiot, you wont damage anything. You only need to knock the locking nut loose, then grab the spring and twist the top nut in the direction you want.
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Dec 8, 2012 09:29
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 08:21 |
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To a life-long Floridian, that scale is a 10 out of 10 on the Ulimateforce rust scale.
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Dec 8, 2012 16:20
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