5/9/11 Quick Update

I've been busy with other things lately so I haven't spent as much time as usual in the shop. Between a bachelor party in Chicago one weekend and a major deadline at work, my time has been spent elsewhere lately. Big things are about to start happening in the shop in the next few weeks, so I thought I'd post a quick update before I forget.

I did the final work on the Miata top. I made a strap to pull the lowest strut up when the top is closed. A little addition but it makes a huge difference in the tautness of the top. I'm gonna wait until I get it in a good rain to install the rear carpet, just to make sure there are no leaks.

I made more boxes...

I bled the clutch and brakes on the FZR, with my new handy bleed bottle

And we started tearing down the Porsche.

We also got a big white sectional couch, haha. This week I am gonna finish cutting the bolts on my slab. After that I'm gonna pour concrete to flatten the slab. The plan is to move my Z into the shop for disassembly this weekend.

No Longer Topless:

Now that I have my tools in the shop, I had the correct rivets to continue working on the Miata top. I quickly riveted the two tension cables in the correct location and started reattaching the top to the frame. Once everything was attached and ready to go, I tried to close the top.

I say tried because the top appeared to be much, much to small and would not come close to closing. Frustrated, I started to undo what I had just done to give the canvas a bit more slack. With as much adjustment as I could give it, I buttoned everything up again and.... no dice. The top was nowhere near closing.

Now it was time to look up whether I was missing something. With a quick search on the internet, I discovered that new tops are often hard to close, particularly when they are cold, as mine was.

With this knowledge I loosened the latch bolts, put my gloves on and got ready to force it. After about a half an hour of wrestling with the top, I finally got it closed. The general rule is to let it sit for 3 days in the closed position and it will be ready. For now, I think it looks great.

After that I did some more welding on the boxes, finally figuring out the best settings for the welder and getting the desired "stack of dimes" look on my welds.

Finally I brought some dedicated shop coveralls to the shop so I can come straight from work without worrying about getting my clothes dirty.

It's all coming together.

-W.W. SBSS

Project FZR pt. 2: Pulling the carbs

Yesterday, I intended to finish installing my new top onto the Miata, but found myself foiled by the tiniest of obstacles.

In this case, it was not having the correct size rivet to attach a small cable to the top frame. I had rivets of all shapes and sizes...except the shape and size necessary to attach something to this hole.

Frustrated, I moved on to the FZR. As I said before, the bike ran, but not well. I am pretty sure that the issue is with the carburetors, so I pulled them off the bike to start cleaning them. This was a little easier said than done because of all the cables and linkages attached to them, but cleaning them should be pretty simple now that they're off.

Luckily the diaphragms seemed healthy with no cracks or tears.

Pulling off the float bowl covers I found quite a bit of rusty gas...a pretty sure fire sign that I need to fully disassemble the carbs and boil the bodies, as well as flush out all the fuel lines. More on that tomorrow.

-W.W. SBSS