Miata Service

Patched Hat

Spent a couple hours in downtown Augusta this afternoon. The Emperor was getting his hat repaired. On Monday we made a quick run to Jones St and Remond’s Upholstery to get an idea on what needed to be done about the delamination of the top’s fabric behind the passenger seat. Randy thought they he could do a fix that might get me another year before I had to replace the whole thing. He needed more time than any of us had that night so we made arrangements to return today.

Because he was who I bought the top from and did the install, he felt that I should have gotten more than 2.5 years out of it before it failed, so he offered to fix it for nothing. Because he wouldn’t take any money, Donna decided to bake him some of her famous chocolate chip cookies as payment. He glued a large piece of fabric over the tear area, covering it entirely, and extending it beyond where either of the top bows might move over during transitions. The fabric he used was a little “slipperier” than the top’s current lining. To make it even he did the same to the non-ripped driver’s side too. You can hardly pick out the repair work unless you know what you are looking for.

We dropped off the car and the dozen cookies and walked a few blocks south to the Mellow Mushroom for lunch. Afterward we walked along the Riverwalk. We were going to do some caching and attempted an Earthcache along the Riverwalk, but one of the requirements was a picture of us at GZ and the camera was in the trunk back at the upholstery shop. We tried one more, but because of where it was and the logs of those before us, we didn’t try very hard before giving up.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 979

Dam

Donna and I piled into Joan’s car this morning and drove back to up to the Modoc Trail in McCormick County to find the one that got away last weekend. We had received an unsolicited hint from the CO after he read our DNF log. We might have just chalked this cache up to a loss and moved on, but this is the first stage of a multi with about 16 stages that takes you on a tour all around the state of South Carolina. We figure we have lived here long enough that just maybe it is time for us to explore the place a bit and see what this state has to offer.*

*Imagine this sentence rendered in the sarcasm font.

The hint turned out to be no help because it told us to look somewhere we had already looked, but we had to give it try anyway. Seeing as we drove all that way and came up empty handed we tried a couple more caches over by Thurmond Dam. The first one we looked for was listed as kid friendly, so we figured we shouldn’t have any trouble with it. Wrong, apparently it was adult un-friendly as we came up empty handed.

There was one other cache, a short three stage multi, that was also on the South Carolina side of the base of the dam. Stage 1 was easy, but at stage two you needed to get a date that was to be found on top of a stone column for the coords for Stage 3. Unfortunately there was no plaque on top, just a metal lid with a padlock covering the column. We got the north coordinates by counting the flood gates, but still needed the two digits of a day in July 1980 to add to the last three digits in the Stage 1 west coordinates to get the final stage’s west coords. Being patriotic Americans we started by plugging in the number generated by using July 4, 1980. That took us to the middle of the parking area for a boat ramp. Hmmm, no good. So I created a waypoint for the first of July and then another for the 31st. Because we had the north coordinates the cache had to lie somewhere on a line between July 1st’s waypoint and the 31st’s waypoint. Knowing that, and reading the clue, it allowed us to make the find, with Joan making the actual grab. Time constraints sent us home after this so we could up our Find/DNF ratio.

This afternoon the Emperor got a transfusion and had his socks swapped with his gloves (oils change and tire rotation.)

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 956

Sunday Afternoon In The Driveway

Changed the oil and rotated the tires on the Emperor this afternoon. I used the California Duster to remove the road fur from yesterday’s trip and washed all the windows. Sprayed a little Quick Detailer in places to get off some random gunk and treated the tires so they shine. Even vacuumed the interior.

As long as we are doing the Georgia State Park Challenge we might as well do the the GA County and GA Delorme Challenges as well. There are 42 State Park caches, 159 counties and 59 map pages, but you really need 63 caches because this challenge requires you to find a cache on the page inserts too. That would be 264 unique finds, so unlike in South Carolina we are going to take the easy route, any cache found, can and will be, used towards multiple Challenges. So right now we have 4 State Parks, 19 counties and 17 pages.

On yesterday’s trip there were several caches along our route we didn’t even try for because of time and motivational issues and there was one in particular that I’m glad we didn’t get, Cache Across America – Georgia. That’s right, a challenge with the requirement to find a cache in all 50 states and not just any cache, but the 50 picked out just for it.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 893

BANG!

This morning as I opened the garage door there occurred a loud BANG! Over my head the garage door spring banged into the support bracket. I was headed out to wash the car, but instead I made a trip to Home Depot. Bought new springs and a couple of new eye bolts. I really needed just one to replace the one that got mangled when the spring smashed into it, but figured why should one new spring be jealous of the other over an old eye bolt.

Inside the box with the springs were two long pieces of wire that were probably there as some sort of safety thing, but the instructions on the box didn’t really spell out how they were to be used. I installed the new springs and because they were a little shorter that the current ones I had to adjust the cables a little. It wasn’t until then that I figured out how the cables worked. Trouble was to install the safety cables I would need to totally disassemble what I had just completed. That was not going to happen. I may have to engineer something to retro fit the safety wires. I got lucky this time because I didn’t have the safety wires and the spring broke on the end it did. If it had busted on the eye bolt end and not the pulley end it might have hit the door and bounced around instead of just slamming into the support.

The reason I was opening the garage door was to go out and change the Emperor’s oil and rotate his tires which I now proceeded to do, just a couple hours later. While I had the car up on jack stands with the wheels off, I did a couple of maintenance items. I have had a high pitched chirping noise that was only noticeable in the early morning when driving through our quiet neighborhood. It would totally disappear when I pushed in the clutch pedal. The most common cause of this is the clutch actuating fork vibrating against the slave cylinder’s operating rod. The cure for this to slap a bunch of grease on the fork where the rod hits it. Luckily I had some bicycle wheel bearing grease in the cabinet that fit the bill. The other thing was to check and see if the brake slider pins needed lubricating.

Last year when I had the stuck pin someone at work recommended using a copper based lubricant instead of the usual tube of whatever that you get at the auto parts store. I checked with the hive knowledge of the Miata.net forums and while I didn’t get a unanimous opinion that it was a great idea, I didn’t get enough negative comments to rule it out, so I decided to run a test, one side got the usual lube and the other got the copper stuff. Today when I checked them one side was fine, but the other was stuck pretty good. Guess which one was bad? Go ahead guess. Right, the one where I used the non-traditional copper based anti-seize lube. I could back out one pin by twisting and pulling. The other was going to need more persuasion, so I unbolted the bracket and locked in the bench vise. I grabbed an open ended wrench and a hammer and started to tap on the wrench to force the pin out. After about 3 or 4 taps is wasn’t moving, so I decided to hit it a bit harder when BANG! I hit my thumb. I did a little dance accompanied by some vocals before returning to the task where I did get finally get the pin out. I now have a pencil eraser sized black spot on my left thumbnail.

One pin was pretty scarred up and the hole in the caliber bracket the pin slides into wouldn’t come clean either. To fix this I cleaned up the easy to remove pin, a pin I had extra from last year’s brake job and I re-used last year’s bad bracket (which had been cleaned up and saw a brief stint as a napkin holder.) After getting everything all buttoned up I made a tour of the neighborhood to test out the brakes, they worked just fine. I am going to take the scarred up pin and bracket into work and drop them on the desk of the fellow who suggested the copper lubricant…

To finish off the Emperor’s spa day I gave him a bath and an interior vacuuming tonight.

I bet you’re wondering how we did geocaching today. We didn’t have a single DNF, of course we didn’t have a single find either because after our extreme up and down days on Saturday and Sunday we figured a day off might be good for our mental health.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 717

Carriage Ride

We were 5 of 7 in geocaching this morning. This afternoon I finally did change the oil and rotate the tires on the Emperor. While I was at it I gave him a bath too. He got quite dirty yesterday when Donna had me drive up and down the local dirt roads trying to catch a glimpse of horse drawn carriages.

Before yesterday’s running of the first “jewel” of Aiken’s Triple Crown (the flat races) there was supposed to be a carriage parade. Seeing as we were not interested in the races and too cheap to spend the $10 a piece to get in and watch the actual parade, we guessed at the start point and cruised the dirt roads looking for it. Alas, there was no external parade, the carriages came to the horse track in there own good time. We stopped near the entrance where Donna jumped out to take a couple photos of the two carriages already inside the grounds and then we drove down a rutty, muddy road looking for more. we did find two more making their way to the track, including these two ladies all dressed in purple.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 557

Back Pads

This was our Friday afternoon off and I put it to good use by replacing the back brake pads on the Emperor. Donna put it to good use by having the time to try out a shrimp salad recipe she saw on a Barefoot Contessa cooking show.

I spent the evening plotting out caches along routes for the two statewide challenges we are doing. Now we just have to hope that on Sunday we don’t get the 60% chance of rain, but fall into the 40% no rain range. And she spent the evening watching Food TV looking for other meals to try out in case we fall into the 60%.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 392

Well, That's Interesting

I bought the Samsung HTIB today and when I got it home it talked to the TV just fine. I can now turn on the surround sound system, leave it on, set it to D-IN and the TV remote controls the volume…apparently this is a standard function of the HDMI interface and each manufacturer calls it something different.

On a slightly different note, when I reset the TV to factory defaults the other day, I let it auto tune in all the channels it could find. It found some digital channels along with the regular ones. Most of the channels come back as “scrambled” and show nothing, but the music channels, they come in just fine. I wonder if Atlantic Broadband knows this?

Changed the Emperor’s oil and rotated his tires today. While I had the back wheels off I relubed the slider pins on the discs brakes. I had been getting a slight moaning sound when backing up right after coming to a stop. The right rear top pin was getting kind of rusty, but it cleaned up good, so I hope i won’t be sounding like I’m running over cats anymore. Oh, and the back pads were getting real thin, gonna have to replace them sooner than I thought.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 382