Edit-After the photobucket mess you now need to add an extension to chrome to see this threads pictures. This works as of 8/17/17
Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you a 2 month build thread documenting the construction of a Bright Yellow 1991 Miata for the $08 GRM challenge by a husband and wife team. Im sure we arent the first Husband/Wife team, but its first one for me. The idea started after a co worker of my wifes decided he wanted to upgrade to a newer Miata and needed to get rid of his. I was asked if I was interested. Most of you who know me or know of me know I had 9 cars on my property with at least 6 of them being some kind of project. I didnt need the car. I knew the car was in need of a fair amount of work and we have a decent daily miata already. I checked out the car, did the math on what parts it would take to get the car to nice daily status, subtracted that from the about $1500 I could get a decent miata for, subtracted another $100 because I just didnt need another car. Well he thought of it for a few days, decided he didnt really want it to go to someone who didnt know the cars, and took my offer.
So here it is-The $400 yellow beater miata
As it sat it needed a driveshaft, top, AC, seats, both window regulators, several interior pieces, plug wires (hopefully), find and fix coolant leak, and whatever I havent discovered.
After much discussion with my wife on how its getting that time of year for her to become a challenge widow again, the crazy idea dawns on me that she might actually like to help. Heck, ive been rambling about all my crazy challenge ideas for years and shes been patient enough to listen, maybe she would be nuts enough to actually want to help build one? The cool thing is she said yes! A little bit of info on her. Shes incredibly smart, beautiful, and amazingly tolerant of my car collections and obsessions. Shes road tripped with me to pick up projects from locations ranging from Miami to Connecticut. She enjoys neat cars and even let me talk her into an 03 WRX as a daily. Trick is, shes never turned a wrench. She doesnt know what most tools are called, much less what they do. But shes smart, and willing, and its sure beats working alone.
So here we go:
Build day 1: Tuesday July 29, 7-10pm
Step one-Add lightness! Out comes the interior!
Did I mention it needs seats?
Nice to have a little Helper for that pesky steering column bracket!
Good stopping point for night 1.
Hmmm, I guess the purchase price is $396.15 now
At the conclusion of day 1 here are my thoughts:
With much of my time spent teaching, we are really getting maybe 1.5 times the work done instead of double. Its well worth it because its %50 more than I can do alone and shes a good student. Besides that I dont feel guilty about spending all of my time working on cars, and im more likely to work on them with her company.
In some ways the car is really rough. I would hate to try to turn it into a nice daily, but its going to be great for a racecar. Overall im really excited! This should be a fun build!