Miata Service

Laborious Day

Monday was Labor Day and the Valve Store was taking a holiday, so I didn’t have to work, but I did do some Miata work. I was a few hundred miles past oil change and tire rotation time, so in the morning when Donna went off to the gym, I jacked up the CTBNL and went to crawling around under it.

First I took off all the tires and rolled them to their new locations. When rolling the left front to the back I noticed that there was a lot of wear on the tire’s inside edge compared to the tire that just came from there. The tires on the right both looked evenly worn and good for several thousand more miles. The left front was not that bad and could go that long. The now left rear has probably only got a couple months to go before crisis time.

So now I’m tire shopping. Really, really love the Toyo R1R and have sworn that when the time came I would replace them with the same. Now, when it comes time, I start to doubt that declaration. There are 8 results when you search for summer tires in 195/50×15 tires on the TireRack.com. I have personal experience with 3 of them and experience with a newer model of tire that replaced one I previously owned.

I have to say the Toyo R1R are the best of the lot, but they are the most expensive tire of the four at $125 each. My second choice is the newer Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R. I ran several sets of the Potenza RE-11’s on the ’95 Miata and was very happy with them. They are $9 cheaper than the Toyos and there is even a current rebate deal that would take the price down to around $100 each. But, the tires are the noisiest of the group in reviews and they have a fairly stiff sidewall which won’t mix as well with the stiffer suspension of the CTBNL.

The cheapest of the bunch is the Yokohama S.drive’s, they were the last tire we had on the Emperor and they handled well, but were the noisiest tire that I can remember having on a Miata. The BFGoodrich g-Force Sport COMP-2 were the tires on the Emperor just before the S.drives and I don’t really remember them, but I must not have liked them much because I didn’t buy another set when it came time to replace them.

After trying, and failing, at really talking myself out of buying the Toyos, I’m a cheapskate at heart and will probably end up with the Bridgestones. First I need to get an alignment…

65,000 Oil Changes

Changed the oil and rotated the tires on the CTBNL this evening. I like to do this bit of routine maintenance every 5,000 miles because the nice round number makes it easy to remember. It takes about an hour and a half from start to finish and acts, like washing and waxing, as a bonding agent between a man and his car.

The first step in the procedure is to back the Purple Whale out from under the awning so I can use that for my wrenching under. As I rolled back I noticed the odometer reading was 650004. The last time we drove the Sonata was to work on Tuesday, so the 65k milestone was crossed about halfway home on that day.

Somewhere Along Randy’s Route

Went for a little walk in Hitchcock Woods early this morning. It was quite peaceful, the only sounds, besides saying hello to a couple of dog walkers, was the random dripping of moisture off the trees because of the fog.

I finally popped off the door card of the passenger side to see about the slow window movement. Turns out the guide bushing was fine. It was just the original, 14-year old grease, in the tracks had gunked up in places. So I cleaned the track and the bushing and sprayed some silicone on both items and put it all back together. But the silicone stuff I used was too liquid, I’m really supposed to have semi solid grease-like stuff. I think I’ll save the driver’s door and a re-greasing of the passenger side until the MMC’s Tech Day this spring.

Maybe I can sell the bushings for enough to pay for the right lubricant…

How Did We Do ????

About a week ago I got an email from my buddy Frank at CroftgateUSA. Today’s post title was the entirety of the body of that email. I wrote back to say that I hadn’t used either of the products yet. Last week it pretty much rained the whole time and this week is supposed to be a repeat, so on what was to be the only marginally nice weather day in a fortnight, Saturday I washed the Miata. I started in the usual way with a soapy bucket of water, a fresh water hose rinse and drying with a squeegee and several towels.

Then I broke out the special sauce and followed the instructions on the spray bottle: spray on surface, spray on microfiber towel, wipe surface with towel, then buff with separate microfiber towel. I will have to admit that the matte stripes do look cleaner and nicer. Whether that is placebo effect or an actual difference, I don’t know…anyway, we’ll see how it works. Especially how it handles beading water on paint.

I’m gathering the makings of the glove box light. The little LEDs are in hand and the switch is on its way. Figuring where to mount what and wiring it up, well those details are sketchy at the moment.

It is not all fun and games here at LOB HQ though, the CTBNL is afflicted with what every Miata of a certain age gets, slow power or hard to crank windows. Mazda in their effort to save weight or money or both sourced a plastic window bushing guide with a useful life of 8 years or 10,000 ups or downs. Now you can get these same guides on the aftermarket made from Delrin which will outlive the car. I’ve got a set on the way from Rspeed and might be just the rainy weekend project.

Weekend Round Up

Saturday the CTBNL got an oil change and tire rotation at 49,149 miles.
Saturday the Purple Whale got a bath and a massage at Lulu’s.

Sunday the Miata stayed home and the Sonata went geocaching.
Sunday the fantasy football team named after the Sonata went down for the fifth time this season.

Hindsight Is 20/20 (Part IV) Third Time’s A Charm

Read Part I, Part II and Part III first.

Thursday after work when we arrived at the glass shop there wasn’t a silver Miata sitting outside waiting. While one of us was saying out loud, “Uh, oh, that’s not good.” The other one was simultaneously thinking the very same thing. As I open the front door I can see through into the shop floor and the guy waving us back. Donna and I go through the second door and see the CTBNL in the middle of the shop. They are just finishing up.

Owner guy says, “I put those rubber pieces on the blocks and you can see how everything is tight.” So I reach over and peel back the gasket at the top and sure enough it feels just like the one on the Emperor did when I blacked out the windshield surround. He then points over to a small bench that has a windshield face down on it. “I went ahead and bought a new windshield to put on your car.”1 “If you know someone who needs one, I’ll make them a good deal on a used one.2” Then, “They’re just finishing up, so give us a minute and we’ll bring it around front to you.”

Donna reluctantly leaves me behind and drives home in the Sonata. After a few minutes I hear a Miata fire up and circle the building. I step outside and there are two strips of blue tape across the upper corners of the windshield. Owner guy asks if I’m going right home or do I think I’ll be driving it around. “Two miles home is all,” I tell him. He says, “If you were going to drive a bit I’d put the tape all around, but this’ll hold you for just that.” I think for a second and say, “Why don’t we just go ahead and tape around the whole thing. Just to be safe.”

Because we rode the tandem to work on Friday I didn’t even pull the blue tape off until Saturday morning and with a couple of drives on Saturday plus a short one today, so far so good.

In hindsight, maybe we should have learned to live with that little divot.

Hindsight Is 20/20 (Part III) But Weirdly Distracting

Read Part I and Part II first.

Wednesday morning I carefully peel off the blue painter’s tape. The windshield still looks a little low, but the gasket fills the gap in the corners. Donna took the afternoon off, so I took her home and drove back to work uneventfully, if you don’t count the weird look out the back through the magnifying squared off mirror.

After work about a mile from the Valve Store, on my way to the glass shop, I start to hear a slight whistle. What the heck could that be? Then I notice a thin line of black peek above the windshield header on the passenger side. As I’m cruising along at 45 MPH the line turns into a loop growing in size and starting to flap around like one of those inflatable wacky waving arm tube men, now, with whistling sounds. As I slow while approaching a stoplight, the flapping and whistling decreases until at around 20 MPH it stops. But of course as soon as I get back above 20 it starts all over again. To limit the distraction, after I’ve shifted into 3rd I drive along with my right hand up above the header holding down the gasket. I have no idea if that looks even remotely normal, but at least the whistling is stopped.

When I enter the shop, a fellow I haven’t seen before (the owner?) is there and he greets me with, “How you doing?” “Not good,” I reply, “My windshield still isn’t right.” He picks up a box and says, “I can fix that, got your new mirror right here.” I tell him, “That’s just the half of it. Come outside, I’ll show you.” He takes one look at the car and says, “The gasket has come unstuck. We’ve had a rash of that happen lately. Its the cheap glue they’re putting on them now.”

Now that the gasket is out of the channel I can see that the glass itself is still a 1/4 inch low all around the top, so I ask owner guy, “Is this the right piece of glass? When I blacked out the windshield surround on my previous similar car I had a hard time getting the vinyl under the gasket here at the top glass because it was way up here.” “Or considering your little mirror trick,” I say, “Maybe you lost the two blocks that support the bottom of the glass and put something else in there.” “Oh no,” he says, “Those two are in there. What I’ll have do is pull the window back off and cut a 1/4″ thick piece of rubber to place on top of them to lift the glass.” “Can you leave the car with us?”

So for the second time in three nights the CTBNL spends the night in the shop at B & B Glass.

to be continued…