153,000 Tiny Air Bubbles
Instead of our usual bike ride and breakfast at Ridgecrest, we made a bagel run to Lexington this morning. Certainly not by bike, that’s over a hundred miles, we took the Emperor. On the way back, somewhere west of Red Bank, but not as far as Boiling Springs, let’s call it White Knoll, the Miata exceeded 153,000 miles since manufacture.
The new 4th generation Miata is going to have its A-pillars and windshield header be a gloss black, no matter what color the car is. The designers and/or Mazda marketing have stated the reason for this is to make the car appear visibly lower. That’s their story anyway. They aren’t the first to think of this idea either, the Honda S2000 came from the factory that way. And few folks on the Miata.net Forums have already done it on all three of the previous generations on their own. From the pictures I’ve seen, I don’t know about lower, but it does make the car look slightly different.
So after we got back from Lexington I bought a $20 stripe kit from Advance Auto and spent the rest of the morning into early afternoon carefully trimming and squeegeeing 153,000 tiny air bubbles out of one of the two 12′ stripes to do this to the Emperor. I can definitely see why it would cost a 3 to 4 grand to wrap a car and have it done right. I think this little project came out pretty decent for a first-timer, but hate to try anything more complex. The effect is subtle because of the car’s already dark color. Pictures tomorrow.
If anyone wants the other 12′ stripe it’s yours for the asking.
Listening Like It’s 1999
For the second time in two years I’ve bought a GROM AUX-IN Adapter for the Emperor. “Buy why Brian?”, you’re asking yourself, “Doesn’t your aftermarket Jensen HU play an SD card?”
It did. Well, it probably still does, it just doesn’t do it in the dash of the Miata anymore. The honeymoon with Jensen was short-lived. As a matter of fact it almost ended before it was even installed. One feature it had was pre-amp outputs, which were perfect for interfacing with the existing Bose amps, but they wouldn’t seem to work together. This prompted a trip to the local car audio store for a Scosche line leveler which would take the speaker level outputs and damp them down.
This worked real well and we had music, but I don’t know whether it was the rat’s nest of wiring that this combo created or the cheap Jensen radio, but there was always a high pitched whine in the background that’s sound varied along with the engine RPM. But the real killer was the display. No clock. The OEM radio had the option to always display the time and seeing as neither Donna nor I wear a watch we had become used to taking a quick glance and seeing the time. Oh, the Jensen had a clock, just no way to keep it on at all time. To get it to display the time all you had to do was take your eyes off the road to spot which one of the three buttons to the right of the center knob had the tiny little letters DISP on it and push with your finger. But you had to push it for just the right length of time to get it. Push it for too short a time and it paused the playback. Push it for too long a time and it would mute the sound. Donna never mastered it, so the job fell to me and after two years of practice I had about a 60% success rate of getting right the first time.
I’ve been looking for a replacement Bose radio on eBay for several months. Trouble is that The Emperor’s style radio was only available in the years 2002 & 2003 on the LS model. The 2004 & 2005 radios would work, but they had silver faces which would look a little odd in the car. They looked OK in the 04/05 cars because Mazda changed the whole center stack trim to silver faced stuff. I missed out on one unit that was Buy It Now for $100 by stewing in indecision a couple hours. Then a couple weeks ago one came up for $150 But It Now, but I didn’t want to spend that much. I bid $100. It went for $135 plus shipping to some one else. After work on Tuesday I noticed one come up for $59 + $15 for shipping. I bought it.
The only downside to this buy was it didn’t have the little black trim pieces that flank the radio and hide the removal holes. Who knows where I’ll be able to find those, but I’m willing to overlook those minor gaps because all I have to do is glance down and there the time will be.
Oh, the title, it refers to the cassette player that is at the bottom of the radio. It was an option, you could have added a mini-disc player or an MP3 player, but someone actually paid extra for a cassette deck.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 19
Bank’s Lake National Wildlife Refuge
Lake number 9 of the 12 needed for the Moss Motoring Challenge turns out to be Banks Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The entry form calls for Sign Required and I’m betting quite a few will take the easy way out and just photograph a sign. Not us, we want to be able to see both the sign and the body of water it is calling out. You might be surprised just how difficult this is.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 17
Fireworks!
On planning this weekend’s loop I ended us up on Saturday the 4th in the town of Waycross, GA. Kind of had to stop here because the distance from home was too far away to push it to finish up and it would leave Sunday the shortest mileage day which would get us home at a decent time.
Waycross had a Holiday Inn Express that we could stay at for free using our points And as a bonus, the hotel was under a mile from Memorial Stadium, where the city was having a concert and then later fireworks, in case we wanted to walk over closer to see them.
When I made the reservation I filled out the comments section with my usual “Top floor and away from the elevator/ice machine.” When checking in I asked what floor were we on and the person checking us in said, “Third.” I asked, “Nothing left on the fourth.” She claimed that they didn’t get my comments and there were a couple family reunions staying at the hotel that had blocked off a bunch of rooms. The CSR was really nice and helpful. She worked a little magic because we are Priority Club members and upgraded our room to a king suite that was open on the top floor.
Not only did we end up on the top floor where we wanted, but we lucked out and ended up on the side of the hotel that looked out towards where they were going to shoot off the fireworks. It was great, no heat, no humidity, no crowds of people and no mosquitoes. The only thing we missed out on was the synchronization of the boom and flashes.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 14
Not As Noisy
Yesterday’s bouncing bolt was not the only thing the Emperor tried to eat on the drive home. For the second time in the last two months the mouth of the Miata has swallowed a bird.
This time Donna was at the wheel and I didn’t even notice the impact at all. We were heading north on US301 and quickly running out of Georgia when she calmly mentions, “I just hit a bird.” Sure enough after we crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina we stopped to change drivers and discovered a decent size female cardinal plastered against the mesh grill.
Donna pointed out that this bird was likely bigger than the one I hit in May. “OK,” I said, “You win the biggest bird trophy, but I’m still ahead 2 to 1 in quantity standings.”
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 12
This Come Off Of The Emperor?
About 50 miles from home, half way between No & Where, there came a bang and a loud clattering from under the Emperor.
Donna: What was that!?!
Me: Ran over something.
Donna: Something fall off?
Me: Dunno.
Donna: Think we should check?
Me: Guess so.
So I pull a u-turn and about a 100 feet back is a big bolt smack in between the yellow lines. I continue past a bit and pull another u-turn. Stopping in mid lane I get out and pick up the bolt. Yikes! It’s hot. And it has a very thin coating of something that looks like anti-seize compound. Now is it hot because it just came off our car or a car not too far ahead of us or because it is 95° out and laying on a dark surface? Time-wise I can narrow it down only to it has been on the road since after the last thunderstorm here because otherwise the fluid on it would have washed off.
I pull the car off the road onto the shoulder and crawl around a bit underneath looking around at the suspension because that is the last thing that was worked on. I also take a peak at the brake calipers as it almost looks like a slider pin, but see nothing amiss. Might be off the PPF as that was probably loosened or removed for the recent clutch change, but I can’t get that far under there to see.
We get back in the car and slowly start back down the road. I get it up to about 15 MPH and hit the brakes hard and the car responds as it should, with a sudden stop. I then wig/wag down the road like a race car driver warming his tires on the pace lap and the Miata dances back and forth with no drama. But we are both a little spooked, so I drive home at the speed limit with both hands on the wheel.
When we got home I jacked up the car about 12″ off the ground and put all 4 jack stands under it. Looked at everything I could possibly see and there was nothing missing on the PPF or nothing absent at any of the suspension connections. Must be someone else’s bolt.
I swear I did not see anything on the road in front of me before the sudden noises1, so I’m guessing it was there already and I scooped it up with a tire and bounced it back and forth between the car and road a bit before ejecting it out the back.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 10
Totals So Far: 75 points & 2945 miles