BAC Garage | My Automotive Activities Thread

Monday night I pulled the engine back out real quick, and pulled the steering rack to depower it. 

I'm a little confused by what I found, but it works, so I'll take it. 

There are 3 lines right by the input, 2 were looped together and one pinched off, not well. You could hear air when turning the wheel. 

I pulled the rack apart and removed the key seal, no issues. Actually it was even easier than the Miata rack. 

I expected to have to weld the pinion like the Miata rack too, but this was what came out, and there's nothing that moves there so I don't know if they swapped in a different pinion at some point and didn't go far enough to take the seal out. I'm not sure. But it works, so I'll take it. 

It's back in. I just need some inner tie rod boots. 

Just got the call earlier that the appraisal came in for the house, and it was above what we're paying, so that's awesome! It is quite a relief too, since it was an auction, if it appraised for lower I would either have to make up the difference to buy the place, or lose the place and potentially be out a decent chunk from the deposit and potentially more even because the rules are weird. But it appraised, so I should be all good to close at the end of the month!

I also just scheduled an exam for Saturday, frist of three to get my securities license. Little nervous, but I'm hoping I have enough to pass. 

Haven't said much about it here, but I've been studying and building up a side business in finance, and today I passed an important exam for that process! 

Was hoping to have the engine/trans mounted in the civic truck this weekend, but sadly I ran into another stop. 

I got this nice weld in bracket from Hasport since the factory bracket is not present. This car was previously swapped at some point I am told. So this locates with the single M6 bolt there and then I can weld it in the rest of the way. I haven't welded it in yet because I want all the mounts to be test fit before I weld it. 

It looked like the rear mount bolted up nicely, and I just needed the correct rubber mounts for the driver and passenger side mounts, so I ordered those, and they seem to fit, but it appears that the bracket from the engine to the rear bushing/mount is too short, so now I have one of those on order... 

In other news, I had to pickup these two items from Harbor Freight because they seem like they could be handy for getting into tight spots. 

So that's that pretty much until my new engine bracket comes in. 

Well, the rear engine mount bracket I ordered off eBay came in yesterday, but the seller sent the wrong one. Already messaged him and sorted it out, but still stinks that it'll be a few more days. 

However given that the other 3 mounts line up perfectly, I was confident that the weld on bracket I got was correct, so I did weld that in, and get the engine/trans set in place. 3/4 mounts connected. 

Also got some boots in the inner tie rods and set toe. 

The exhaust that came off the parts car is roughly in place. It's very close to fitting, there is just one connection that is about an inch short, and clocked wrong, so I can fix that once the last motor mount is in place. 

Shifter is mocked up. Need to drill one hole and bolt in the bushing. 

All in all, good progress last night!

Hoping the correct rear engine bracket comes in today. 

Yesterday I got the intake on, and most of the engine harness in place. Also got the core support on and beat roughly into place with a hammer. Radiator installed as well. 

Hood is on, kinda. No latches, but I'll probably do hood pins. Also 2/4 of the hinge bolts broke, so I'll have to take some time to correct that at some point. 

Slowly but surely. Moving starts next week though, so it'll slow down a lot here for a bit. 

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

Was hoping to have the engine/trans mounted in the civic truck this weekend, but sadly I ran into another stop. 

I got this nice weld in bracket from Hasport since the factory bracket is not present. This car was previously swapped at some point I am told. So this locates with the single M6 bolt there and then I can weld it in the rest of the way. I haven't welded it in yet because I want all the mounts to be test fit before I weld it. 

It looked like the rear mount bolted up nicely, and I just needed the correct rubber mounts for the driver and passenger side mounts, so I ordered those, and they seem to fit, but it appears that the bracket from the engine to the rear bushing/mount is too short, so now I have one of those on order... 

 

In other news, I had to pickup these two items from Harbor Freight because they seem like they could be handy for getting into tight spots. 

 

So that's that pretty much until my new engine bracket comes in. 

 

I bought the same rachet except I had to replace my smoked snapon one. 

The correct rear engine bracket came in yesterday and went into place last night. Since that was finally sorted I also knocked out the exhaust. In total I added about 3.5" to one section, but now it all lines up perfectly. My neighbors shall hate me. 

Going to try and get some caps here today for the heater core ports. There is no heater core in the car, and for now I'm just trying to get it running. Main other thing before test fire is a section of fuel line. 

Well, I'm moving starting Monday, so garage updates will be slowed down greatly for a while. 

Current status on the Civic Truck from last night, I got it to fire on starting fluid, but the fuel system is kinda rigged right now and I couldn't really get it to work. I'll probably get a new fuel pump and a full pump-to-filter braided line to be sure it's all fresh. 

Also all of the wiring is a mess, so that's going to need sorted eventually... At least somewhat. 

I put it on the ground to be able to help a friend replace a couple things on his truck tonight and found that my exhaust doesn't fit quite as nicely as I thought....

I'm sure I can tweak some things and get it decent enough once I'm back to work on it. (It really will be a while though, because with my limited garage time considering the new house, my main garage priority will be to have Motley Miata ready for Carlisle in May.) Stay tuned!

Also, I won a giveaway on TikTok! Techs Choice Tools does a free tool Friday and I entered and was the lucky winner! The ratchets are Gearwrench locking flex head, plus some other Gearwrench swag, pretty awesome! They do have some good deals on their website depending on what they've got going on at the time, I would recommend checking them out. 

Back to work after two weeks off to settle into the new house. Spoiler alert, it was more than I anticipated and I have a lot left to do. We're still in the apartment, I took next week off and my goal is to be out by then. I'll put a couple highlights here. 

Our bedroom started as this:

Scrapped the wallpaper and pulled the carpet:

And with the first coat of color paint, it is currently here:

One more coat of paint, some touch up on the ceiling, and a good cleaning on the floor and trim and one room will be done. 

Every room in the entire house besides the kitchen and bathrooms had wallpaper. They now all do not.

I am very thankful for many friends who chipped in on wallpaper removal, it still took a long time, but at least that is out of the way. 

Lots more to clean and patch and paint, etc, etc. There are other rooms in progress but I'm not going to post it all. 

We do have a nice sunset view out of our bedroom windows. 

Last weekend we went ahead and did some pluming to optimize water pressure since the house is on a well. It also is a general improvement in serviceability and reliability. Jacob has been doing a lot of this type of thing and was beyond helpful in getting it done. 

The old water pipes were not routed efficiently at all, and included things like this...

So we ran some nice PEX for all the water lines in the house, and made our own manifold so it is easy to shut off any room needed. 

So much more not pictured, and even more yet to do, but one step at a time I'm doing what I can. I will say we are very happy with our purchase, even with the extra work involved. 

Passed my third/final exam needed for my securities license this morning! 

Now, back to work on the house... Much to do!

House stuff is moving along. We've been officially moved in for a bit now. Not many pictures to show really. I did find this when we moved our vintage oven over...

I noticed the wires were separated a bit and when I moved the wire to look closer the insulation just disintegrated... Needless to say, a new cord is in place.

It's been a rough bit for the NB daily. 

Last Wednesday this happened. Not really sure what caused it. I found a small nail/staple, but it turned out not to be the whole way through. 

Then Monday on my way home from work, as I am downshifting on the off ramp the car won't go into gear... Stop, try again, etc, etc. With the car off it's fine, I'm wondering if the clutch hydraulics went out, but the pedal still felt almost normal. 

Tried a master and slave cylinder from the local parts store and then determined that wasn't it. Pulled the trans out and, do you see what I see?

So yeah, the spring from the pressure place somehow popped out, then where it was stuck was not allowing the clutch to fully disengage. 

Slapped in a used clutch and flywheel I had laying around and got to bed around 3:30... But it's working now, I drove it to work today and yesterday. Slight vibration, hoping to take a look at that soon.

Civic truck is in the old garage, kinda in the way. Planning to trailer it to the new house tonight so it can sit out of the way. It'll be a while till I have time to get back to work on it. Supposed to to tires and maybe an alignment on my brother's RX-7 tonight. He just did all new suspension bushings, coilovers, and some other goodies. 

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

I noticed the wires were separated a bit and when I moved the wire to look closer the insulation just disintegrated... Needless to say, a new cord is in place.

 

Damn man! That could've burnt the whole place down! 

In reply to iansane :

Yeah, I'm glad I caught it. I should reiterate, it wasn't THAT bad until I bent it looking at it. It was obviously still in need of replacement regardless. The fund of an oven from the 60's... Hahaha

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

Then Monday on my way home from work, as I am downshifting on the off ramp the car won't go into gear... Stop, try again, etc, etc. With the car off it's fine, I'm wondering if the clutch hydraulics went out, but the pedal still felt almost normal. 

Tried a master and slave cylinder from the local parts store and then determined that wasn't it. Pulled the trans out and, do you see what I see?

So yeah, the spring from the pressure place somehow popped out, then where it was stuck was not allowing the clutch to fully disengage. 

Slapped in a used clutch and flywheel I had laying around and got to bed around 3:30... But it's working now, I drove it to work today and yesterday. Slight vibration, hoping to take a look at that soon.

 

Civic truck is in the old garage, kinda in the way. Planning to trailer it to the new house tonight so it can sit out of the way. It'll be a while till I have time to get back to work on it. Supposed to to tires and maybe an alignment on my brother's RX-7 tonight. He just did all new suspension bushings, coilovers, and some other goodies. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has seen this happen before.  My spring was able to fall in and out of the opening so the clutch would only disengage if the stars aligned.  Such an odd one to diagnose.

In reply to Nitroracer (Forum Supporter) :

Never seen that happen before. If it was any other car, I probably would've hated diagnosing it because I would've avoided pulling the transmission as long as possible. In the Miata, I've pulled enough I figured might as well. 

Also, I tried to PM you off of one of your other threads. Not sure if you got that but, you can call/text me at: twosix7-nineoh8-six7two5

Came into a lucky deal on a water softener for the house. UV light should be arriving this week and then my water should be about set. I am going to get the next step higher pressure switch for the pump too. 

It's been another minute since I updated, so here's what's new on the house. 

Took the dining room from this:

To this:

Obviously still needs the cleanup phase, but the main work is done. That floor is going to stay for now, and will get a floating floor eventually. The boards are just too rough to refinish I think. 

Got some of our favorite Barrina LEDs up in the basement and garage. 

Also we got the brush pile burnt, as seen from approximately a half mile away. :)

As for car updates, Carlisle Import and Performance is coming up, four weeks from today actually. I plan to take Motley to do some drifting and some autocross, it is the one event I want to make sure to get to this year even with all the house stuff going on. So last week I took it back to my old garage to get some work done. 

The pre-Carlisle list is long, but the first one I wanted to knock out so that I knew I wasn't looking at something bigger was my oil leak. If I left the car idle for 5 minutes there'd be a puddle of oil underneath. It was dripping from the seam between the engine and transmission, so I pulled the transmission to take a look. 

I didn't think the rear main was the culprit because it was a brand new seal...

So I looked higher up...

Cam sensor...

So yeah, pulled the transmission for a ~$2 O ring that takes about 5 minutes to install. (FEL-PRO #35608)

Oh well, fortunately the oil leak wasn't something more major, and the transmission R&R didn't really take that long. 

With the oil leak fixed I pulled in the NB and removed the lift kit to put it back to "summer mode", and removed the hydraulic handbrake and dual caliper mounts to put onto Motley. 

As I said, the to-do list is long, but I am working on it. Unfortunately I won't have much time till next week to continue, but that's life. 

I am part way through installing some cut knuckles to increase my steering angle for drifting. I'll get a side by side once done, but for reference, here is full lock completely stock. I also have rack spacers and am swapping in a power steering rack for ease of steering. 

Did some traveling over the weekend. Me and my wife had tickets for last August to see Lady A at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and they got postponed. I was hoping to make more of a trip of it, but with everything else right now we made it a quick trip. 

On the way down Friday we saw some cool cars in a caravan. Between dad and the unicorn sighting thread they were determined to be TVRs. 

Also on the way down, well a bit out of the way, we stopped at this Birch Knob Observation Tower. We had seen it online and decided to check it out. The last 5 miles of the drive was a gravel road. It was worth the trip though, the views were great. You could see 6 states from the top of it. 

The Ryman Auditorium, original home of the Grand Ol Opry, was a neat venue for sure. 

Terrible picture, but Lady A was great. 

Got back Sunday night and back to work this week. 

Last night I did get some time on Motley Miata. 

Aerocatch hood latches are done. Honestly, they're kinda a pain to install. If I didn't have them already I would have done a DIY hood pin and called it good. 

Also installed a new rear brake caliper for the hydro handbrake. Unfortunately a bleeder snapped and I was unsuccessful in removing it. 

I mocked up the power steering pump and measured for a belt. 

Also my MaxChineseRods coilovers came in... and one shock is leaking fluid already... 

Going to contact them shortly and see what they can do for me. I really don't plan to do much more than an event or two this year with the car, so if they can get me through this year and next I'll be happy. Guess we'll see. 

Little bit of progress last night. Got the power steering rack mounted. Not plumbed yet, the belt I ordered was not correct. 

Did a rough toe alignment do I could see the before and after steering angle. 

Stock:

After installing the cut knuckles and 5mm of rack spacers. 

Then putting on a 1" wheel spacer to stop it from rubbing. 

Now, all of those pictures are with the car in the air, so between the weight of the car and the lowering with the coilovers I'm not sure what it will look like in the end, but it is a definite improvement. TBD, I may still extend my lower control arms 1" for more camber. Need to try and figure out if that will improve or degrade clearance/rubbing. 

Moving along, slowly but surely... 

Driver's seat and harness are in place.

Passenger seat and factory seatbelt are in place. 

Hydro handbrake is bled. 

Wiring is in progress. 

The "rear harness" for the fuel pump and tail lights I kept from the Miata harness. I have since eliminated all excess wires, and verified what colors go where. So now I have brake lights, and my rear marker lights are hooked up. Got my starter button, fuel pump switch, and turn signal switch mounted in the dash. Figured out my wiring for the turn signals. 

Next will be running wires for the front lights, then cleaning up the engine harness. The ECU harness is excessively long since the factory mounting location is behind the passenger seat, but I have it mounted in the dash. I am also planning to do Calvin's DIY rev limiter. More on that later. 

Here's a picture of the mess:

Lighting is all done. Headlights, turn signals, brake lights, running lights. All nice and pretty clean. 

Going to try and get the engine harness side cleaned up later today. 

Wiring is done! 

For now at least. It's all cleaned up enough. Gauge cluster in place, working tach, fuel, coolant temp. Speedo I need to find a cable for. Oil pressure gauge isn't working. 

Might add proper oil and coolant temp gauges later. 

If my replacement shock comes in today I should be able to align the car and re-bleed brakes and go for a ride. 

The only major thing left then before Carlisle will be to make some bumpers/bash bars. 

My replacement Max Chinese Rods damper came in yesterday since one of them was leaking upon arrival. They sent the wrong one, the new one is longer than the original by ~1/2". I made it work, but I'm going to give them another call. I didn't have super high expectations, they'll do for now. 

Anyway, got that on and got the car aligned and took it for a drive! It's feeling pretty good! The main thing I learned from the drive is that I need to massage my front fenders to accommodate the chunkier tires being spaced out 1". It was rubbing a lot on bumps. 

My whiteboard list of remaining items is pretty small now:

• Fab Bumpers/Bash Bars (Waiting on a call from the metal supplier.)
• Speedometer Cable (Thought I had a spare, but I don't know where...)
• Firewall grommet. (Need something for the hole the starter cable and a couple sensor wires go through.)
• Bleed Hydro Handbrake (Again. Bled once last night, but it feels like it needs another bleed.)
• Massage Fenders
• Seat Padding.

So really, she's good to go as is, the fenders are the biggest item left. I am still on the fence about extending my lower control arms up front for more camber. I have -3* right now. The guy I got the cut knuckles front extended his and is at -9*... Seems excessive, but I really don't know what is most ideal for a drift Miata. Leaning towards keeping it as is.

Since I didn't take pictures last night, here's a meme I relate to: