From the ashes... What did you do to your roadster today?

Discussion about MX5s, Roadsters & Miatas, not directly fitting into one of the categories below. Please keep it on topic.

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MrGrey
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From the ashes... What did you do to your roadster today?

Post by MrGrey » Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:49 pm

Ok, considering the old thread got locked quite a while ago due to it being 60-70 pages long (and no other reason other than the threads length) I figure a good way to start the new year would be a return of a very popular thread. Hopefully this will free up the general thread for more general stuff whilst giving all the funky DIY stuff we do a place to reside.

Because these threads make for great rainy day reading, if at all possible or relevant, please post pictures as I find its nice to see what other people are working with.

With that being said, today I fit a towbar and made some trim to go around the towbar and around the exhaust out of some aluminum treadplate (painted with heat resistant black paint) and the result turned out quite good.
They are held in place with 3m double sided tape and rivets and I used some silicon RTV around the exhaust trim to tidy up the gaps due to the trims oddball shape

Image

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Angreal
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Post by Angreal » Wed Jan 01, 2014 2:31 am

completely upgrade the drive train :-D
Last edited by Angreal on Wed Jan 01, 2014 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

4A-GE
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Post by 4A-GE » Wed Jan 01, 2014 11:45 am

Put a space saver on because puncture. :(
Pulled out the buggered headrest speakers - Should be off to jaycar for replacements when they open and I can borrow mummy's card.

Will be pulling out the old stereo at some stage too, so I've got more places to put things. Anyone with things I should know about the surgery please let me know!

Image

Also, where can I get the cup holder ashtray thing? I'm often pretty good at whorey DIY, but this is a particularly nice interior that could do without my home-making touches.

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While it's a shitty day I'll be sorting out a couple guitars for a bloke I know. :D

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Post by 4A-GE » Wed Jan 01, 2014 11:45 am

Put a space saver on because puncture. :(
Pulled out the buggered headrest speakers - Should be off to jaycar for replacements when they open and I can borrow mummy's card.

Will be pulling out the old stereo at some stage too, so I've got more places to put things. Anyone with things I should know about the surgery please let me know!

Image

Also, where can I get the cup holder ashtray thing? I'm often pretty good at whorey DIY, but this is a particularly nice interior that could do without my home-making touches.

Image


While it's a shitty day I'll be sorting out a couple guitars for a bloke I know. :D

BRM
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Post by BRM » Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:14 pm

Finally gotaround to putting my new front lip on my car the other day.
Gonna bang out some molds with chris and make a bunch

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Post by 4A-GE » Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:46 pm

Today I pulled out the old headrest speaker inserts, articulately butchered some of the foam, and stuck in a pair of fusion 4" speakers per side. Pretty happy; props to Mr Grey for posting the article about it in that other thread I'm too lazy to link to.

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Post by MrGrey » Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:27 pm

Today has been one of those days where things just don't work out quite as I planned. I dried plastidipping my hardtop today and although the finish was ok, at any point where the plastidip touched RTV silicone it would not bind and start retracting. This was un fortunate and unacceptable when painting a red roof black, so I peeled it off and decided to bite the bullet and paint the hardtop with enamel satin black. I also put on some vinyl on the strip at the top of the boot so that I would have a continuous black line.

This is a pic of the hardtop with 3 coats of plastidip... one can really doesn't cut it, for a better finish you really want 5 or so consistent layers
Image


This is from after i said bugger it and sanded the roof and gave it a lick of enamel paint... I will do a few more coats yet. Oh, and look how domesticated I am, doing my washing and stuff (yes, seat covers count as domestic housework in my books)
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These next two are just of the vinyl application process. I realize I didn't line up the pattern of the vinyl, but it was an offcut and I had to have it that way to avoid a small tear.
Image
Image

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Post by 4A-GE » Sat Jan 04, 2014 5:28 pm

Tore my old radio out and couldn't find a pockety thing that fits... Grr. Also got bored so I flushed out the radiator and got new glycol mix in the thing.

Man, I have a simple and reliable car, what do I do... :roll:

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Post by MrGrey » Sat Jan 04, 2014 7:55 pm

another day, another mod....
I got frustrated with the uselessness of the oem ashtray so glued foam in place, and cut/drilled/shaped it with a holesaw and a craft knife. I am now in the finishing stage where I use no-more-gaps to fill things in and give the final shape (I used a flexible rubber polymer so that I would have a little bit of give and flex)

once it has set, it should look ok with a lick of black paint.

here it is with the front angled cellphone holder looking ok while I carve out the cup holder bit.
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most of the shaping is done, now its sanding and filling time before painting.
Image

a test fit to make sure all is snug :wink:
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Post by Snapfrozen » Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:12 pm

Fibreglass mould and go into production. I'd pay decent money for that

MrGrey
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Post by MrGrey » Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:47 pm

My fibreglass work would not be up to standard I feel. However, you do raise a good point so I have emailed Marc at carbonmiata with the concept and pics so maybe he may like the idea and make something nice.

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Post by siren676 » Sun Jan 05, 2014 12:01 am

Looks good MrGrey, one thing i'd recommend is to get one of those non-slip rubber pads/squares to put in the phone part to stop your phone from flying around on hard cornering
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Post by MrGrey » Sun Jan 05, 2014 3:33 am

Good point Siren, I left the center patch bare and hopefully the matte paint combined with the rubberized base will be enough to keep the cellphone stationary. Well, its 3:30am, I couldn't sleep so I finished off the ashtray mod. Its not as good as a professionally shaped one, but I am happy enough with the result.

Image

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Post by Snapfrozen » Sun Jan 05, 2014 6:40 am

What would you charge to butcher mine and send me that back? Looks epic.

4A-GE
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Post by 4A-GE » Sun Jan 05, 2014 10:37 am

Snapfrozen wrote:What would you charge to butcher mine and send me that back? Looks epic.
I'm in!

Edit:
But now I'm torn cuz I've found this one too.
http://www.mx5mart.co.nz/db.cgi?db=mart ... records2=1

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Post by Angreal » Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:43 am

I used to have an MX5mart cupholder and then I ended up doing the nb dash swap which comes with a cup holder. Both have the problem of placing the cup right behind the gearstick but the mx doesn't exactly give you space to begin with

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Post by CordedBowl » Sun Jan 05, 2014 12:11 pm

Angreal wrote:I used to have an MX5mart cupholder and then I ended up doing the nb dash swap which comes with a cup holder. Both have the problem of placing the cup right behind the gearstick but the mx doesn't exactly give you space to begin with
Thank you for this useful insight!

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Post by 4A-GE » Sun Jan 05, 2014 3:07 pm

Hmm, could we mount fold-down ones on the doors?

I found a mostly suitable radio pockety thing and stuck it in. Pics in my thread.

evel
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Post by evel » Sun Jan 05, 2014 3:30 pm

Think the best one iv seen so far was a dude used the screw on the side of the center console by the shifter and just pushed the screw with a big ass washer thru a stubby holder and screwed it in

said screw indicated by arrow.
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Post by DeeCee » Sun Jan 05, 2014 4:13 pm

Back to the original subject - took off the hard top (for the first time since i brought the car) and cleaned up the soft top in readiness for a few top down drives.
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Post by MrGrey » Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:53 pm

I'd love to help out guys but I only had a small amount of foam, but the basic concept of it is pretty simple. if it helps, I used a 76mm holesaw to do the top hole.

Well, I am steadily running out of affordable/practical mods to do at the moment, but here is today's efforts. I am waiting on the final coat to dry on the hardtop.... its not in the same ballpark as a professional job, but it should look good enough. :)
Image

and I finally got around to wiring up my trailer plug. I initially was going to make a bridge between the plugs but that was far to complicated so I instead just chose to keep it simple and lego block it. Rather than having the plug on the outside to slowly corrode in the elements, I instead chose to keep it in the boot as the frequency I will use it will be low. (I'd just hang out the boot when using it.
Image

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Post by MrGrey » Tue Jan 07, 2014 5:07 pm

I don't really consider this an 'epic load' as using a trailer is cheating (which is why I am posting this here instead of the other thread, but I picked up a manual conversion today. I know that I will need a driveshaft but otherwise it looks like everything I need is there. As a bonus the seller threw in a radiator and the subframe bracing :) woot!

Image

Image

Image

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Post by siren676 » Tue Jan 07, 2014 7:07 pm

Subframe bracing?

Today i installed some new hardtop window seals so i can park my car outside again. Next thing on to do list is raise it to around 295mm hub-arch, get an alignment and then cert :D
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BRM
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Post by BRM » Tue Jan 07, 2014 7:42 pm

I have a drive shaft.

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Post by 4A-GE » Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:24 pm

+10 man points to mr grey. :lol:

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