Step 1 – Removing the Old Upper Ball Joints:

The first step is to drive out the old ball joints. You might be able to do this with a hammer, but a press will make sort work of it.

Step 2 – New Ball Joints vs. Old Ball Joints:

As you can see our old ball joints were toast. Rather than purchasing new upper control arms, we ordered a set of V8 Roadsters Upper Ball Joints. These things are sweet! The look to be much better made than the OEM Mazda ball joint.

Step 3 – So What Makes Them so Bad Ass?

Several things actually.

• First: they are a much better design than the stock Miata ball joints.
• Second: they should last the entire life of the car if you keep them properly maintained
• Third: you can adjust the lash on the ball joint
• Fourth: they can be greased as needed
• Fifth: A set of two will cost you less than one new control arm from Mazda
• Sixth: the new style press in like the OEM Mazda ball joints did.

Step 4 – Press in the Ball Joint Housing:

So the first step it is to press in the housing. We used a hydraulic press, but i’m sure you could rig up something with a c-clamp that would do the job just fine.

Once we pressed in the housing we took a flat head screw driver and beat in the control arm flange on 4 sides to help ensure the ball joint housing stays seated. There is a groove just above the ridges on the ball joint where crontrol arm flange can get a good bite. Some folks put a couple of tack welds here instead.

All we are trying to do here is make sure the housing does not come unseated from the control arm during hard driving like you’d expirence on a track day since the upper ball joints were never ment to be replaced.

Step 5 – Ball Joint Insertion:

That sounded way dirtier than I originally intended… my inner 13 year old is pleased…

Put the rubber dust cup on the bottom and drop the ball stud in from the top.

Step 6 – Screw on the Cap:

Using a 3/4 socket. Don’t over torque this bad boy and be sure to use a bit of anti-seize on the threads. We will torque to spec once the control arm is on the car and we have filled it with Super Grease using the supplied Zerk Fitting.

Step 7 - Lock Washer and Snap Ring:

Once every thing is greased and torqued to spec, drop the lock washer in place and then follow that up with the snap ring.

When you pack it with grease, it will only take or or 2 pumps on the grease gun. There is no place for excess grease to escape so the grease gun will jam on the fitting if you get over zelous… ask me how I know…

Also work the ball stud around before you bolt it to the up right to ensure the bottom of the ball is well lubricated.

Next time we put everything back under the car including our shiny new Flying Miata V-Maxx suspension!

Step 1 – The Scrub Down:

We’re going to start by giving everything we are going to be reusing a good scrub down. A Parts washer would be great, but I don’t have one so I’ve found that Dawn’s foaming soap works wonders on getting old grease off parts as well as off of you. A scrub brush and a pressure washer really helps too. Though I don’t reccomend taking the pressure washer to your own hide.

Step 2 – Removing the Old Bushings:

This can be a nightmare if you don’t have the right tools. Turns out a quick trip to your local hardware store will procure the necessary 3ft lenght of all thread, hand full of fender washers and several nut’s that you’ll need. As a famous little green space muppet would say “Size matters not”. Just make sure the all thread will fit inside the bushing.

To make this work you just grab a couple of random deep well sockets from your tool box and assemble your new tool as shown.

Note: On the socket side use two nuts to ensure they won’t spin down the all thread. You want the wrench side to be the side that moves.

Step 3 – Bushing Removal Part 2:

So by now you’ve figure out that our backwoods bushing puller will only remove one bushing at a time. The other bushing is still stuck in the control arm.

To get the other one out you need to disassemble the tool and change one of the random deep well sockets to a random big ass deep well socket. Make sure the socket is large enough to clear the entire bushing and rest only on the surrounding metal. It also needs to be deep enough to contain most of the bushing as it gets pressed out.

It should look something like the above photo when reassembled.

Wash, rinse, repeat until all bushing have been removed.

Note: Don’t forget the bushing in the rear uprights!

Step 4 – Clean Up:

So now that all the bushing popped out with out a single hitch thanks to our fablious backwood bushing puller… yeah right that will never happen…

So now that we’ve cussed and cajoled all those bushings out. It’s time to break out the die grinders and go to town cleaning up the control arms, make sure you get all the old rubber that fused to the bushing pockets cleaned out, otherwise the new bushing’s won’t want to go in.

Step 5 – Rust and Grime:

So now it’s time to grab another die grinder and a wire brush or sponge stone and power off 20 years of rust and grime to prep everything for paint.

Step 6 – Paint:

Spray bomb time! This was shot after 1 coat. We endend up putting 3 coats down before we were satisified.

Step 7  - Bits and Pieces:

So here’s what you’ll need to install the prothane bushings. Ignore the parts on the left we’ll get to those in a bit.

To start you’ll want to go through your Prothane Bushing boxes and sort out which sleeves go with what bushings and where they go on which control arm. They all look the same and it’s quite confusing to try and figure it out on the fly.

Step 8 – Super Lube!!!

No this isn’t for use in the bedroom. It’s slicker than greased owl shit and sticks to everything. Wear gloves when messing with this stuff it does not wash off easily. Prothane includes a couple of packs in each box. We ordered a tube for a grease gun from Jegs as well.

Note the siping inside the bushing. This is intended to fill with Super Grease when you slide the bushing over the sleeve.

Step 9 – Sleeve -> Bushing -> Control Arm:

Cover the outside of the bushing with more Super Grease and insert the whole shebang in to the appropriate control arm.

Since we are using polybushings and plenty of lube, everything should slide in by hand provided you took the time to clean out the pockets on the control arms ahead of time. If by chance one or two are a tight fit you can use a c-clamp to press them into place.

Note: DO NOT install the sleeve yet. We will do that bit later.

Step 10 – Drilling for the Zerk Fittings:

Wait… what?

Zerk fittings? For like a grease gun?

Yup exactly. I know it’s kind of old school but it works. Unless you are in to vintage cars or work around farm equipment you probably have never used one of these.

Step 11 – Tap for the Zerk Fittings:

The next step is to tap for the Zerk’s threads. Also check to make sure the hole was drilled all the way though one side of the bushing. Otherwise the sleeve will not say lubed. The idea is to create a passage for the grease gun to force the Super Grease all the way down to the sipes in the bushings we showed you earlier.

Step 12 – The Right Zerk Fitting:

Zerk fitting will allow us to keep our poly bushings well lubed with Super Grease, that way they will never squeak or fuse to the control arms and bind up. The teflon tape you see on the threads of the zerk fitting is simply acting as a weak thread locker to ensure the fittings don’t vibrate loose.

Step 13 – Wash Rinse Repeat:

And that’s all there is to it. Now you just have a couple dozen left to do!

A couple of parting word of advice…

In order to make use of the Zerk fittings you’ve got to make sure you can get access to them. That’s why we have a plethora of diffrent Zerk Fittings we bought to choose from.

So before you start drilling holes, check to make sure you’ll have plenty of clearence for the fitting during suspension travel. And that you can get access to it with a grease gun. This is espically important on the rear upper control arms.

Don’t forget to lube up and insert the sleeves after you install the Zerk fitting

Step 1 – Let It Marinade:

Before we can get started with tearing down Project Miata’s suspension we’ve got to tackle 20+ years for rust and neglect. Since your suspension spends a lot of its time exposed to the elements you can pretty much expect every single nut and bolt to be seized tight with corrosion.

The best tool we’ve found for dealing with corrosion is good old Liquid Wrench. So go ahead and give everything a good soaking of Magic in a Can, then order a pizza and turn on your favorite game. This stuff needs to soak for a few hours.

Step 2 – Those Pesky Tie Rod Ends:

No matter how much you whack them with a hammer or beat them with a pickle fork they just won’t turn loose. Happily there’€™s a fix for that! But first remove the cotter pin and castle nut.

Step 3 – Ball Joint Separator:

This nifty little tool is only $10 or $15 at Harbor Freight. Simply slide the split jaws between the ball joint and place the hook on top of the threaded taper. Then crank down on the tool’s threaded rod. As the tool applies pressure to the ball joint it will pop loose and with a bit of luck it won’t even damage the rubber boot. In our case we aren’t reusing any suspension bits so these are getting trashed anyway.

**Note: Don’t forget to lube the threaded rod on the Ball Joint Separator or you may strip the threads.

You can get the tool here: http://www.harborfreight.com/3-4-quarter-inch-forged-ball-point-joint-separator-99849.html

Step 4 – Pulling Cotter Pins and Conquering Castles: 

Now that the tire rod end is loose from the front hub we’€™ve got plenty of room to work. Go ahead and remove the cotter pin and castle nut from both the upper and lower ball joint.

Step 5 – Popping the Upper and Lower Ball Joints:

Time to make use of that nifty ball joint separator again. We need to pop both the upper and lower ball joints. These ball joints will have more tension in them than the tie rod end did, so keep and eye out for flying bits when they finally do pop. They also make a quite satisfying KUPUNG! noise when they cut loose that’s loud enough to frighten the wee out of small children.

Step 6 – Set the Hub Aside:

Provided the hub didn’€™t go flying across the room when you popped the last ball joint.  Go ahead and set it aside as we will be reusing it since the wheel bearings are still good. (And before you say anything I know the brakes are just hanging loose on the old rubber brake lines. And yes I am aware that this is not the correct way to do things. They *SHOULD* be tied up. However these brakes and brake lines will not be used on this car. As discussed earlier we’€™ll be putting on the brakes from the crispy car, with new braided stainless steel lines.)

Step 7 – Removing the Sway Bar End Links:

The sway bar end links have defiantly seen better days. It’s probably a good idea to let these have a good long soak in Liquid Wrench before trying to break the bolts loose.

Step 8 – A Broken Bolt:

Of course you could just grab a bigger breaker bar like we did. Which as you have probably already figured out led to the inevitable… we twisted the bolt in half.

Step 9 - Disconnecting the Sway Bar:

Since the lower bolt broke, we’ll leave the end link connected to the lower control arm for the time being and disconnect the sway bar with the upper end link bolt.

Step 10 – Unbolting the Lower Ball Joint and Shock Mount:

Only Three bolts left before the lower control arm will swing free on the alignment bolts. Start by pulling the long bolt on the lower ball joint. In our case we found after we removed the nut, that the shaft of the bolt was seized tight to the lower ball joint it’€™s self. It took some gentle persuasion with a breaker bar and a whole lot of Liquid Wrench to get it to break free. Once you have the bolt turning. Put your impact gun on the bolt and spin it for about 2 minutes. This will break loose all the corrosion and you should be able to safely drive it out with a hammer without mushrooming the threads of the bolt.

Once that’€™s done unbolt the shock which will give you access to the short bolt holding the tail of the lower ball joint to the control arm.

Step 11 – Removing the Upper Control Arm:

Removing the upper control arm is quite simple just removing the long bolt holding it in place. (As a side note is you are replacing your shocks and springs all you need to do is remove this bolt. The entire front suspension will swing away and you can pull out the shock assembly. This is what is referred to as the €œ”long bolt method”.€)

Step 12 – Dropping the Shock Assembly:

Only two 12mm flanged nuts hold the shock top hat in place. Well, err in our case only one is still attached. It appears as if someone went all gorilla on one of them and broke it. Regardless undo the flange nuts and the entire shock assembly will drop out.

Step 13 – Rear Alignment Bolt:

This bolt is tucked up tight to the bottom of the fire wall / wheel well area so it’s a pain to break the nut loose with a socket, but a wrench may round the head off. Be prepared to cuss an engineer on this one.

Step 14 – Front Alignment Bolt:

This should be the last bolt holding the lower control arm in place so be prepared to catch it when it falls.

Step 15 – That Damned Sway Bar End Link:

And no amount of liquid wrench, or persuasion with the impact gun will budget it. This calls for drastic measures…

Step 16 – Let There Be Sparks:

Ah I love the smell of air tools in the morning! …Or late at night as the case may be… Since we’re not going to use the stock swaybar end links there’s no reason to fight that broken bolt. We ended up having to cut both of the end links loose.

Step 17 – These Boots Ain’t Made for Walking:

Grab your trusty pliers and remove the clamps holding the dust boot on the inner tie rod. Then just slip the boot right off the shaft… yeah right. Nothing’s that easy on a 20 year old hunk of junk like Project Miata. Get ready to pull like crazy and bust your knuckles when that boot finally pops loose.

Step 18 – Removing the Inner Tire Rod:

There’s a washer hold this thing in place. The ears of said washer are bent down over the flat spots on the ball join. Take a long screw driver and a hammer and go to town on those bad boys. Once you’ve driven all 4 ears back just unscrew the inner tie rod using a large adjustable wrench on the now exposed flat spots… and then call your local Mazda dealer to order a set of $9.00 (each) washers to replace the ones you just mangled.

Step 19 – Remove the Rear Brakes:

It’s a fairly simple process. See those two big holes? Pull the bolts that go in them. The caliper will lift right off the rotor. Use zip ties to hold it out of the way. Don’t just let it hang like we did. The rotor will probably be rusted tight. Check out our break removal write up to see the various methods we used to remove it.

Step 20 – Removing the Rear End Links:

A breaker bar will become your new favorite tool. Use it and a wrench pinned agianst the spring to break the bolt loose. If you are replacing the while sway bar and end link like we are then don’t bother with the upper nut and bolt.

Step 21 – The Rear Sway Bar Mounts Are Shot:

This is a great shot of why we are replacing all the bushings on Project Miata. This one has deterriorated so much that it’s no longer in contact with the bar… just look at the gap! Not to mention how bad its crumbling.

After removing the bolts holding in both mounts the rear sway bar should come free. Toss it on the scrap pile.

Step 22 – Removing Lower Upright Bolt:

The lower upright bolt is most likely rusted in place. And impact gun will be your best bet to get it loose. What we found works best is the break the nut loose with your trusty breaker bar. Then grab a 2 or 3 foot long cheater pipe (a thick walled peice of tube or pipe you can slide over the end of your breaker bar for more leverage) and move your breaker bar to the head of the bolt. Using the cheater pipe / breaker bar combo get you and a fat friend to pull on the pipe and eventually the bolt will begin to spin.

At this point grab the air gun. Continue to use the air gun to spin the bolt for about 15 minutes alternating directions. This will polish off the majority of the rust hold it in palce.

Now is when you will discover that the bolt is inevidably bent. Place a block of wood over the threaded end of the bolt and use a bfh to gently whack the hell out of it until the bolt comes free.

This will be a pain in the ass. You will more than likely need to replace the bolt as it is probably bent. You will kick the cat, cuss the dog and be in general quite irritable after comming in contact with this bolt. You have been warned.

Step 23 – That Cursed Nut:

So dumb ass… er… I mean engineer at Mazda decided to use a caputured nut on the other end of the bolt used to attach the shock to the lower control arm. If you are lucky that nut wont break loose from it’s rusted tack welds when you crank on the bolt with your breaker bar.

After cursing the aforementioned engineer’s maternal lineage for several hours as we tried every way under the sun to get a wrench on that cursed nut. We finally hit upon the idea of just drilling a hole on the oppsite side of the control arm and using a socket on a long extention and a second break bar to hold the nut in place while we cranked on the bolt.

This works like a champ and is much much better that hacking up the bottom of your control arm to get a wrench on there. (This was the most common suggeston we found across the miata forums and definatly not something we’d reccomend.)

Step 24 – Upper Upright Bolt:

(Be you can’t say that ten times fast.) This one is easy. Grab your sockets and go to town.

Step 25 -Free at Last!:

Well almost. First we have to dive in to the trunk. But before we do that notice that we’ve left the bolt connecting the lower control arm and the shock in place for the moment. This will help keep everything steady while you take the upright bolts out. You can remove it after the top hat nuts are take care of.

Step 26 – Getting Access to the Rear Top Hats:

First open the trunk, it will make this part decidedly easier. On the driver’s side you will see a black panel. Unbolt the 4 10mm bolts.  On the passanger side you’ll need to remove the spare tire. (And yes those are shotgun shells in my trunk. What did you expect I do live in Texas afterall )

Step 27 – Into the Dark Cavern:

On both the passanger’s and driver’s side of the trunk there is a tunnel. In these tiny dark and cramped tunnels you’ll find the top hat’s of the shocks poking through. The passanger side is easy. the driver’s side however is burried up behind the fuel filler lines.

Step 28 – Removing the Lower Control Arm:

All that’s left to remove the lower control arm is unbolting the alignment bolts. A smart man will use a screw driver to score an alignment mark on each bolt’s face so you can get things close to realigned when it get’s reassembled. I however am not a smart man…

Step 29 – Removing the Upper Control Arm:

These are the last two bolts we have to remove. But there is a trick that will make it easier to do.

Step 30 – Accessing the Rear Upper Control Arm Bolts:

Mazda has kindly cut access holes on each side of the upper control arm. All you need is a a long extention and a couple of breaker bars.

Step 31 – What’s Left Hanging in the Rear:

The hard part is over with. We’re leaving the rear hub’s and brakes hanging. And since we are replacing the calipers and brake lines so there’s no need for us to tie them up properly.

Step 32 – Somebody Forgot the Front Sway Bar:

That’s it folks. We’re done. Time to pop the top on and cold one and inspect our handy work… and realise that some dumb ass forgot to unbolt the front sway bar… /sigh

Next up we start the restoration process. We’re going to clean up and repaint the parts we are going to use and replace everything else.

Step 1 – Stripping off the Rust:

Our Harddog Duce bar originally came powdercoated black. However the powder coat was destoryed in the make of Project Miata: The Extra Crispy Edition. We decided to salvage the bar for use in the current car as there was no real damage done to it.

But before we can put it in the car we’ve got to get it cleaned up and looking as good as new. And the first step is to sand all the rust off that has accumulated over the past few months of it sitting around the garage in bare steel. Some 80 grit makes quick work of this chore.

Step 2 – The Wipe Down:

The next step is to wipe all the contaminats off the bar to ensure good paint adhesion. We used a little denatured alcohol and Duplicolor’s Prep-Spray to make sure the surface was squeaky clean.

Step 3 – Priming:

Priming is essential to a good paint job. Primers have a higher build than paint and the cover better are are formulated to stick to bare metal where as print is NOT. So we hit our Harddog Duce roll bar with two coats of Dupli Color’s Self Etching Primer and let it dry over night.

Etching Primer might seem like over kill since out 80 grit sand paper left plenty of tooth on the bare steel of our roll bar, but I’ve always had great results with etching primers.

Step 4 – Its Chrome Baby!… Or is it?:

After letting the primer dry over night. We hit the bar with two more coats of Duplicolor’s Automotive Metallic Chrome paint. And the bar looks great! It really has that old school hot rod look now. Fitting since Project Miata was inspired by Carroll Shelby’s famous 427 Cobra’s

I know what you’re thinking. “Wait a second… How’d you get the bar in the car?!” Well to see that you’ll have to subscribe and read the next couple of articles. For now you’ll just have to be satisfied with this teaser shot.

Note: We’ve had a bit of an issue with getting Duplicolor’s chrome paint to stick. The shiny rubs off leaving a dull grey behind. We are currently working with Duplicolor to figure out where we went wrong.

 Project Miata 2.0 Has Arrived!

Finally! After 2 Months of searching we have found the PERFECT replacement for Project Miata: Extra Crispy Edition. It’s a Lipstick Red 1990 Mazda Miata, with a Hard Top, and outside of some cosmetic woes, it’s in cherry condition.

Project Miata 2.0: Rear 3/4 View

That antenna is going to have to go. Straight out the 80′s.

Project Miata 2.0 Raisin’ Da Hood

Here’s hoping we don’t find a deal killer under there.

Project Miata 2.0: Engine Bay

Project Miata 2.0′s engine bay is squeeky clean. Not bad for a car with over 213,000 miles on the clock.

Project Miata 2.0: Interior Shot

Project Miata 2.0′s interior is in geat shape overall. (Don’t mind the obligitory cigarette burn on the seat. They’ll be getting swapped out anyway)

So what are we planning to do with Project Miata now that we have a perfectly good car to work with? First we’re going to tear in to the rusting hulk that is the original Project Miata for any salvageable parts we can use on the new car. Then we’ll be throwing an all new fully adjustable suspension  at Project Miata, and getting the interior up to snuff because cigarette burnt seats and 20+ year old shocks just ain’t going to cut it. Go a head hit that subscribe button and follow along as we tear in to Project Miata and take this quintessential girls car and turn it in to the ultimate street rod.

Removing the Brakes: Step 1 – Unbolting the Calipers: First things first, take a moment to realize just how nasty the undercarriage of a 20 year old car can be. Then grab your trusty set of sockets and get to pulling the top caliper mounting bolt.

Removing the Brakes: Step 2 - Finish Unbolting the Front Caliper: By removing the lower caliper bolt

Removing the Brakes: Step 3 – Remove the Front Brake Caliper: Once both caliper mounting bolts are removed, pull the caliper off the rotor…and then promptly remember that you should have removed the brake line from the caliper before you unbolted it. DOH!

Removing the Brakes: Step 4 – Removing the Front Brake Line:  Remove the brake line caliper fitting and allow the brake line to drain into a catch pan. You do have a catch pan right? Now we can remove the the front caliper.

Removing the Brakes: Step 5 – Disconnecting the Flex Line from the Hard Line: using a FLARE NUT WRENCH break loose the hard line fitting. At this point, I switch to a standard box end wrench to continue removing the fitting. You may want to use a little penetrating lube like Liquid Wrench to help as well. Whatever you do, you MUST use a FLARE NUT WRENCH to break the fitting loose. The fittings are typically brass and will round off if you use a typical box end wrench to break them loose.

Once you have removed the fitting use a pair of pliers or the claw end of a hammer to remove the retainer clip.The soft line should fall free at this time.

Removing the Brakes: Step 6 – Removing the Rear Brake Line: In an effort to avoid looking like a total idiot we’ll pull the rear brake line first this time around and let it drain in to the catch pan.
Removing the Brakes: Step 7 – Time to Pull the Rear Caliper: Unlike the front calipers, the rears are not self adjusting, so they are a bit more challenging to remove. However we’ll still start the same way as the fronts, by unbolting the calipers from their mounting brackets.

Removing the Brakes: Step 8 – Remove the Bottom Rear Caliper Bolt: Now you can pull the bottom bolt as well. At this point the caliper may or may not detach from the rotor.

Removing the Brakes: Step 9 – Retracting the Rear Caliper: Remove this bolt located behind the e-brake cable. It serves as a cap screw for a 4mm hex bolt that is used to retract the caliper. Back off on the hex bolt located under the cap screw. This should allow you to remove the rear brake from the rotor.

Removing the Brakes: Step 10 – Disconnecting the E-Brake Cable: Loosen the two nuts that sandwich the bracket the e-brake cable passes though, then pull the cable along with the nuts out of the bracket. Then disconnect the e-brake cable from the movable arm used to engage the brake caliper mechanically.

Removing the Brakes: Step 11 –  Disconnecting the Flex Line from the Rear Hard Line: Grab your flare nut wrench. You do have a FLARE NUT WRENCH don’t you? Use your flare nut wrench to disconnect the brass fitting located on the hardline side of this bracket located at the top of the fender well.

*Note you may need to use a penetrating lube like Liquid Wrench to help break the hardline fitting loose.

Once the fitting is disconnected grab you pliers and slide out the metal retaining clip holding the softline in place. (Keep this retaining clip. You WILL need it later.) Remove the soft line and set it aside.

Removing the Brakes: Step 12 – Talk About Filthy: These things are NASTY! But we’ll take care of that in a minute. First off it’s time to pull the pads and hardware out of the caliper. There are alot of little pieces so keep track of them!

Removing the Brakes: Step 13 – Inspecting the Brake Hardware and Pads: Now that we have all the bits and pieces it’s time to give things the once over. All the brake hardware for one front caliper is shown here. Keep an eye out for an uneven pad wear, as it may indicate a sticking slider pin.

You also want to check over the hardware and springs to make sure there are not cracks and odd wear patterns. You can reuse your brake hardware, but it’s super cheap to replace, so I’d recommend you replace everything when you swap pads. Keep your old parts though as you may need them if you loose something.

Removing the Brakes: Step 14 – Getting Jiggy with the Brake Cleaner: So break out that trusty can of brake cleaner, grab a couple of wire brushes, an old shop rag and go to town. You’ll be scrubbing for awhile especially if your calipers are as dirty as mine were. Just take your time and get them sqeaky clean otherwise the caliper paint won’t stick.

Removing the Brakes: Step 15 – Cleaning and Expecting the Rear Caliper - The rear caliper is completely different from the front. There is only 2 brake shims in the hardware pack and one spring. As you can see the M spring is missing.

Again take your time with the cleaning and remove all of the dirt and grim to insure the caliper paint will stick.

Removing the Brakes: Step 16 – New Caliper? Looks like it. It seems this caliper was replaced at some point as it looked to be a bit newer than the front caliper once it was all cleaned up.

Removing the Brakes: Step 17 – Liquid Wrench. Magic in a Can: Grab that can of Liquid Wrench off the shelf because you’re going to need it for the next step.

Removing the Brakes: Step 18 - Braking the Rotors Loose: More than likely the rotors will be stuck fast to the hubs with rust and corrosion. That’s not a problem because there’s a fix for that. Soak the back of the rotor with Liquid Wrench. Let the rotor soak. Then grab a bolt that fits in the threaded hole in the rotor face. As you crank the bolt in to the face of the rotor it will press against the hub and separate the rotor and hub.

Note: Don’t have a spare bolt laying around in the right size? Not a problem. Mazda’s got you covered. The bolt that holds the jack in place in the trunk fits perfectly. It’s almost like they knew you’d need it.

Removing the Brakes: Step 19 – Inspecting the Brake Rotors: As you can see you’ll need to let the Liquid Wrench soak for a good long while. In our case several hours. Once the rotors are off, look for any grooving or uneven wear patterns. If you find any of the above or if your rotors are warped, you’ll either want to have your rotors turned or in the case of the Miata, get new ones since it’s cheaper than having them turned.

That’s it. The calipers and rotors have been removed and cleaned up and they’re ready for painting and reinstallation. Care to hazard a guess what the next installment will be?

So that’s it. We’re all done for now. It’s time for a cold beer, and the we get to do this all again on the other side. Next time we’ll be painting the calipers and stuffing in a new set of Hawk HP+ Pads.

1. Project Miata burnt down on Hwy 19, not Hillcrest Drive.
2. The Nearest cross street was Church Street, not Airport Road.
3. Mazda did not make a 1987 Miata.
4. Project Miata was in no way shape or form blue. Nor has it ever been blue at any previous time during it’s life. It was brilliant shade of Lipstick Red.
5. Come on really? I’m a dude. Not a girl. Not even close. I’m fat. I’m bald. And in no way feminine.

I don’t think this report could have many more errors. They;re running out of blanks… #fail Sad thing is now I have to try and get them to fix it so I can give it to the insurance company.

So this is the first sight I see pulling in to my day job at JCLOutdoors. Holy damn my car got cooked!

Hopefully we can salvage some usable parts of this bad boy.

Look at that gaping hole on the passanger side of the hood! Near as I can tell it it got extra hot in this area since it was directly over the fuel lines.

Amazingly enough the headlights are still intact. Slightly blackened but probably functional if you could get them out of the housing. Now they even have that smoked looked!

Blistered paint on the hood. Guess that means there’s not going to be much left under it.

Looks pretty well intact. However anything that could burn did.

Looks like a bad Salvador Dali painting from this angle.

The strut tower brace might be salvageable. It looks pretty straight

Here lies whats left of the new brake and clutch master cylinders I had just installed.

This is the fuse box..er.. well it used to be. Now it’s just a pile of slag.

Timing belt looks good!  It’s not even singed. Just replaced it to, along with the water pump. They don’t even have 200 miles on them yet.

The a/c compressor looks just like it did before the fire. It’s completely untouched. It’s like the fire randomly left some parts undamaged.

And then there’s the interior. Rest assured the fire left no stone unturned here. Every last bit of anything even remotely flammable was reduced to ashes.

Trust me, you do NOT want to be in a car when it catches fire.

My Hard Dog Duce roll bar is still there just  minus the powder coat and cool Hard Dog stickers. Suprisingly enough it’s not the slightest bit deformed. I figured this though would be all warped from the heat.

It’s amazing how fast unpainted steel will rust. It’s only been 3 days since Project Miata went up in a blaze of glory.

The wheels are are virtually unscathed. Which is a good thing, since these damned things are expensive and OZ no longer produces the superlegerra anyway so they would be hard to replace.

Looks like the calipers and pads will be salvageable, the shiny new stainless steel brakes lines are toast though.

Hey look I found a bit of shiny paint! I can see me! The back end of the car looks to be in really good shape considering the gas tank blew up. And look at the tires. They aren’t even blistered. I completely expected them to be puddles of melted rubber, not completely intact and holding air.

All the glass in the car is gone. And I don’t mean it shattered to pieces and it’s laying on the floor. Nope, it’s flat gone!

There was a solid chunk of alumnium sitting on top of that shifter lever. Wonder where the hell it went to… You can also see whats’s left of the aftermarket radio and dvd player / lcd screen the previous owner had installed.

At some point in time this car was equipped with the highly sought after red leather seats from a 1993 LE Miata. Now it’s just a pair of rust seat frames. I cannot get over the amount of rust that showed up already! Seriously this car had no rust on it 3 days ago!

You can also see that that is nothing left of the doors accept the latches and door skins.

So that’s all that’s left of Project Miata. The fire pretty much consumed everything combustible. Now it’s time to start the rebuilding process. Kind of hard to believe that just over a week ago this thing was sitting on jack stands in my garage getting a complete overhaul on everything except the wiring harness… now I really wish I would have replace that too…

Where do we go from here? Well thanks to all the support we are getting from all of our followers through Motorama Live!’s Save Project Miata Fund. We’ll definately be completing this project. This is a major set back, but we’re getting alot of support from our fans out there so we’re going to find a new Project Miata, salvage as much as we can from Project Miata: The Extra Crispy Edition, and keep on building Project Miata the way we’ve envisioned it.

With one major change. Because of all the support we are getting from our followers, we’re going to let you guys help decide the direction Project Miata is going to go. After all a good chunk of this project is being made possible from the contributions of our followers to Motorama Live!’s Save Project Miata Fund. So we want to make sure you guys are as involved in the build process as possible. Our contributors will get a say in everything from what parts we use in the build to what color we paint Project Miata, and even what to name the Car Care 101 mascot. So if you’re interested in helping us get Project Miata rolling again, we’ll have more info on how you can contribute in either parts, money, time, or tools to the Save Project Maita Foundation very soon.

When I was driving home from work last Thursday the check engine light came on. My immediate response was, “Oh crap another sensor went out.” As the car was running fine I made the executive decision that, that sensor whatever it may be, could wait until I got home.

As I turns out, that was the wrong answer. Not 3 seconds later smoke started pouring out from behind the dash. My first though was that there was a massive oil leak hitting the headers or something like that, however that theory was shortly debunked by headlights dimming out and the engine starting to sputter.

“Oh shit! It’s an electrical short!” I dove hard on the wonderfully grabby Hawk HP+  brakes I was going to tell you about today, and hauled the Miata down to a screeching halt in no time flat. Once stopped, I killed the engine as fast as I could. Since the car was stopped, there was no air flow in the cockpit so I got a face full of acrid smoke and immediately went all lightheaded and nauseous, so I grabbed my backpack full of camera gear and my cell phone and rolled out of the car. I spent the next few minutes vomiting my guts up on the side of the road.

Once I could get back on my feet, I ran to the trunk of the car to disconnect the battery. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Mazda Miata, the battery is located in the trunk from the manufacturer.) Alas, it was too late to save Project Miata, the underside of the dash had caught fire and there was no way to put it out. I tried calling 911 to get the fire department out there ASAP, but when the dash shorted out my phone was hooked up and charging so it went all stupid and wouldn’t let me dial out.

I finally got someone to stop, but by then the entire car was engulfed in flames. The driver let me borrow his cell phone while his wife called 911 on her phone. I was trying to dial my wife when all of a sudden this guy shoves the hell out of me and knocks me ass over teakettle off the guardrail. I landed flat on my back and I see him jumping over the guard rail after me. Apparently just in time to dive out of the way as a red Mustang comes barreling down the shoulder of the road. Turns out the guy had seen the damned rubbernecking Mustang driver run off the road as he was watching my car burn. He managed to shove me out of the way just in time. I don’t know this dude’s name but I defiantely owe the man more than a few beers.

The cops finally showed up and the first thing they do is run my driver’s license to see if I have a warrant. Got to have our priorities straight you know. Then they got the road shut down in both directions, and the fire department proceeded to start putting out the bon fire that had been Project Miata. But not before the gas tank blew up though. Right as they were getting the hoses hooked up there was a loud basso BA BOOOOM. Followed by a big ass mushroom cloud. If you look close in the photo you can see two fire fighters standing next to the car as the gas tank catches fire. I’ve never seen grown men run so fast. Granted I’d have been running just as fast. That was a HUGE ball of fire.

It took about 30 or 40 minutes for the fire department to get the fire put out. During this time the police officer asked me what towing company I wanted to use. I didn’t want to hire a towing company. I wanted to load my car up on the 32ft flat bed we’ve got at the shop and tow it home that way. Turns out, in the state of Texas, if your fuel tank ruptures you have to call a wrecker. Supposedly they are responsible for cleaning up the fuel spill. I contested that there wasn’t any spilled fuel it all went up in a giant cloud of smoke. Of course the police officer didn’t see it my way. So $250 later my car is on a flat bed belong to Wyatt’s Towing in Sulphur Springs, Texas. I highly recommend you avoid these people at all costs. They towed my car 3.5 miles and charged me $250.  That’s $71.43 per mile!!!!!!! Highway robbery. And they didn’t even tie my car down when they put it on the flat bed.

During this time I posted the above photos to twitter. The next thing I know our followers had started the Save Project Miata Foundation, and by 11:30 am they had already raised several hundred dollars for the cause. As well as many more who have pledged to help out with parts, time and tools. Our followers rock. I didn’t realize how invested they are with our show until now. Completely awesome. If you’d like you can read the ongoing conversation about Project Miata and the SPMF here: http://twitter.com/#!/search/projectmiata or here: http://twitter.com/#!/search/saveprojectmiata. (For those of you who may not be familiar with twitter, you start at the bottom and read up. Little bit weird but that’s the way it works.)

Many thanks to the folks over at Motorama Live! for putting the Save Project Miata Foundation together. We’ll have a sponsors page up shortly with more info on all those who have helped out. We really do appreciate the support.

Our current status has us waiting in a holding pattern. I have yet to see Project Miata in the daylight as it’s sitting over an hour away. We’ll see how extensive the damage is when I get to work on Monday.

Painting Rotors: Step 1 – Masking: Begin by carefully masking off the braking surface of each rotor. Here I used 1/2″ masking tape to create the edges and filled in the large areas with 2″ painters tape.

Painting Rotors: Step 2 – Trim Masking Tape: Now grab the trusty x-acto knife and trim the excess masking tape away from the rotor to get a good clean paint edge.

Painting Rotors: Step 3 – Prepping the Surface for Paint: Time to brake out that handy dandy CRC Brake Cleaner and a clean, preferably new, shop rag and go to town cleaning all the surfaces to be painted. Be sure to spray the brake cleaner on the rag, not the rotors as the excess could cause the masking tape to relase.

Painting Rotors: Step 4 – Cleanliness is next to Godliness: As you can see, just because the surface looks clean doesn’t mean it is clean. Manufacturers will typically add a protectant to the surface to keep things from rusting during shipping and storage. Add to that the fact that human hands are greasy as hell and you tend to leave finger prints everywhere which need to be removed as any finger prints will cause the paint not to adhere properly. Be sure to wipe down every surface you intend to paint.

Painting Rotors: Step 5 – Time to Paint: Now it’s time to break out the Dupli – Color Cerapic Caliper Paint. Don’t forget to shake that can like a maraca in a mariachi band.

Painting Rotors: Step 6 – Saftey First! This stuff is strong! And you definitely do not want to breath in the dust. So grab a dust mask and spray in a well ventilated area!

Painting Rotors: Step 7 – Painting the Rotors: Hold the can 6″ –  8″ away from the painting surface. Spray in broad overlapping strokes. Start with the back side. Be sure to spray the edges as well. Let the paint dry for about 15 – 20 minutes. Or you can use a heat gun like I did to speed up the flashing process. Flip the rotors over and spray the front side.

*Note: the reason you start with the back of the rotors is so when you turn them over the rotor will rest on the masked off braking surface and protect the still hardening paint on the inside of the rotor hat.

Painting Rotors: Step 8 – Unmasking: After you let the rotor hats dry for 15 minutes, it’s time to pull the masking tape off. When you pull off the tape pull it at a 45 degree angle from the tape edge. This will give you the cleanest lines.

Painting Rotors: Step 9 – Baking and I Don’t Mean Brownies: This step just expedites the curing process. Set your oven on 300 degrees. Place your rotors in the oven. Let bake for 1 hour. Have a beer, or two, hell three even. You deserve it the project is done. After 1 hour turn the oven off and let stand to cool for 30 minutes. Serve with a side of horseradish for best results.

*Note: The baking process gives off fumes from the uncured paint. Best to do this when the wife is not at home or you may have some explaining to do.

We’ll that’s it for our first project. While these rotor’s are cooling I’ll be getting started on the next step, pulling the old nasty brakes off Project Miata to get them cleaned up and painted so they look as good as our shiny new rotors. If you found this post helpful please be sure and share this post with all your friends. We’d greatly appreciate it. And if you’ve got any questions about this build leave us a comment in the box below.