Nowak1981

Managed to get out to the garage. It's still freaken 20 degrees outside. I'm getting sick of this cold weather. I got the hood and fenders off. Then continued on to the air cleaner and cruise. I disconnected the power steering and drained it along with the coolant.





While was taking off the front bumper I noticed some crash bars with some bolts to nowhere. Can anyone tell me what the four larger bolts on the top and bottom of the crash bar?




And finally as I was disassembling the other side. I think it found the site of a small fender bender. There was no evidence on the outside, but something definitely got hit over here. Luckily I don't think it is anything critical.

Nowak1981

I think the plan tomarrow is to start labeling everything as best I can. I'd like to be able to remove the radiator and condenser unit . I will prolly remove the sway bar and possibly the rack and pinion.

tbone heller

The most difficult part for me was bringing myself to make the first cut. After that, it was sort of therapeutically stimulating hacking away at a perfectly good car. LOL!

Nowak1981

I think the hardest part for me will be putting it back together,.. I dunno if I'll ever get enough money together to buy the big ticket items. I'm still searching a z28 that I can get for next to nothing...let alone just trying to buy the kits. It'll be fun thou.

Nowak1981

Got out to the garage and did some more dismantling. Got the radiator, ac condenser, the steering rack out. Got some wiring out of the way. I'm surprised at how easy this car is coming apart, I haven't broken a sweat removing a single bolt.

I think next time I will try and remove the exhaust and the driveshaft, as well as anything else on the bottom side of the car. At this rate I'll be ready for a donor camaro real soon. I just hope I can scrounge up enough money to get one. I don't want to have to wait til next tax season...

tbone heller

You are making quick work of that! I waited to dismantle mine until I had a pile of new and/or rebuilt/reconditioned parts & a stack of money sitting in the garage. I figured I would spend my time on the engine, transmission,& rear differential rebuilding. If I lost interest in the project, it would be easier to sell a running, complete car than a pile of stuff.

Nowak1981

I'm kinda hoping someone sees something here that they want to buy! I
Most of the crap will end up on craigslist or something

tbone heller

I sold off a lot of my stuff, but it did not fetch much money. After what did not sell sat around in the garage for 5 years, I hauled it to R-Speed & donated it.

charchri4

I found craigslist very effective at selling both camaro and miata parts. If you are not greedy things move fast and buyers don't nit pick. You might want to post a wanted ad on craigslist, LS1tech and some other Fbody forums to find a donor. I found a really good one there when I was looking last year.

Great job at taking photos they will prove to be your best friend when putting her back together. Be sure and label everything! Treat it like you are leaving a trail for someone else to put it back together because essentially that is what will happen. Trust nothing to memory!

I wondered what those 4 bolts to nowhere are too and took them out at one point hoping the crash bar would come off but no luck.

Great build and thanks for doing such a fine build thread!

5.0MX5

Most may be able to remember where bolts go, months after they're removed. Me not so much. I either put em back in place, or in zip lock baggies with yellow sticky s identifying where they go, or just write on the bag with permanent marker.

Good progress and Good Luck. It'll be worthit.

Nowak1981

thats what i have been doing, most of the bolts end up back where i pulled them from, a few ended up in bags, and few i just left out cause i knew they will never make it back to the car.

Nowak1981

Got a little more work done today. Got the exhaust down. But Mazda in its infinite wisdom decided to put the o2 connector inside the car where I can't currently get to it.....

I also ended up having to drop the entire front crossmember with the engine and transmission, which is fine. I was expecting to pull it out the top with the tranny. But this works too.

I went down to harbor freight and picked up a cheap movers car so I can set the drivetrain on it and use the hoist to lift the front of the car up high enough to roll it out.

Once I get the drivetrain out of the way, I need to clean up a few more things out of the engine bay, and then I think I'll start on the interior.

Nowak1981

Spent another couple hours out in the garage. Managed to completely remove the drivetrain. I then proceeded to disassemble the power plant frame and remove the transmission from the engine. Not a lot done, but just a little closer.







I'm gonna throw this up on Craigslist and see if I can get any takers.







I still need to finish tear the ppf apart. But at least it's out of the way.




So check this out. It was about 32 degrees outside. I was wearing rubber gloves and when I took them off to finish for the day, and they were steaming. Pretty cool.

Nowak1981

Engine sold today! I'm now 400$ richer. And closer to my goal!

Nowak1981

I managed to get out the garage today. Since I went back to working on the graveyard shift, I've been doing nothing but sleeping...it sucks..but someone has to do it.

I was planning on working the on rear end but I forgot about the o2 sensor I still needed to disconnect so I decided to work on the interior.

After I got the seats out I was left with some nice surprises. I guess I can't complain too much. The body is in great shape. This stuff is replaceable pretty easily.



I did find a bunch of gold jewelry and a ton of change.



It took me a little while to get the center console out, I didn't want to break anything but I managed to find the screws behind the vents.

I disconnected everything at the steering column, as well as the two bolts on each side of the dash as well as the four bolts holding the center. I should be close to getting the dash out, but I imagine that I am still missing some hidden screws.

One piece at a time. It will come together eventually.





Maybe someone can point out which bolts I'm missing.

Thanks!

charchri4

Your photos are not loading for me today but go to a parts store and get a haynes or chiltons manual. It has all those details in it and is the best 20 bucks of the build you will ever spend. I've about worn mine out! BTW when you get a wrecked Camaro or whatever jump on ebay and find the factory manuals for that too. You won't need 80% of what is in those books but man that 20% is a lifesaver especially in the wiring!

Nowak1981

I already bought a Haynes, I should prolly look at it.

As for the pics, photobucket has a bandwidth limit on embedded pictures which resets every 30 days. I tried looking for a different photo carrier that would do the similar thing, but no luck. They should be up any day now.

Nowak1981

Workin on the car some more this weekend. Couldn't sleep for crap, seems like I'm always tired. I actually got quite a bit done regardless, hopefully I'll get some better sleep tonight.

I got the dash out of the car. I had read that this was not a terrible process, and I was quite delighted it took so little effort to get out.

I decided that I would remove the brake lines and the abs. I figure for my first build, simplicity is my friend. I can always add stuff later. I also removed the computer and abs module as well as the pedal assembly, heater core and a/c box.

I also finish gutting the interior and removed the top. It was trashed anyway so it's sitting outside behind the garage. If all goes according to plan, I won't need another one anyway.

Then I moved on to the rear end assembly. I started by disconnecting the emergency brake cables, and then I remove the cross member bolts, and then I removed the shock mount bolts inside the car last.

I need to remove some more wiring, the rubber noise barrier on the firewall. I'm also gonn drop the fuel tank and drain it into my lawn mower. When I had the pump out it, look pretty clean but had a little bit of sediment that should prolly get cleaned out.

I will get pics up later, i have change some settings in photo bucket and I'm too tired to think right now

Here are some pics i promised.





Found some more body damage, hopefully i can get this fixed.

Nowak1981

Didn't get to do a whole lot this week. I disassembled the front crossmember. And started on the rear. The plan is to blow everything apart clean, paint, replace and replate all the parts to go back on the car. I have a decent glass bead blaster at work the does wonders








I got a little over zealous with the hammer during disassembly, at the time I wasn't worried about it becuase I had every intention of replacing the upper ball joint. Turns out, you can't....well you can, but it requires buying some from v8roadsters. And if I'm gonna do that I might as well buy the whole arm.

Not that I mind, but I was looking to buy them at a later date.




The caliper cleaned up really nice. I'll just have to get the bolts replated with zinc so everything will look nice and shiny and proper.

There is a place here in town the specializes in zinc plating, I'm gonna send a few bags their way and see how they turn out.



I got a nice couple coats of engine enamel on there. And I have rebuild kits for the calipers on the way. I suppose that would make these the first parts I've bought for this car.

charchri4

Damn 2 am sorry to hear that. I've spent a few nights like that in the shop too and I feel for you. Everything looks great in your build! Great to see you being so thorough on it. I didn't even look at my 180,00 mile ball joints or brakes! Any closer to a donor car?

Nowak1981

I work third shift, and there isn't a whole lot for me to do except a few chores, and cleaning parts. So at least it's not all bad.

The donor car is still a ways off, I got nailed by my insurance company for not having some railing on the back of the house, so I have to fix that.. On top of that my eBay crap isn't selling so well this month. That pretty much funds this project. I have a couple weapons that I need to try and sell as well as one of my escorts, those will put a nice chunk of change into my pocket.

I had been considering buying a crate motor. The though was that, any used motor and transmission will need to gone through, after replacing everything that needs it, you could end up at the same cost. That part is still a ways off though.

charchri4

For that it's worth I had way more luck selling on forums and craigslist than I did on ebay. Cheaper too.

Not so sure I am with you on the crate idea. Lots of LS1s running around with 200K+ miles on them that are in fine shape. But yeah it is a crap shoot for sure.

Nowak1981

I got my first goodie bags of parts, rebuild kits for the calipers. Less then $40 for all four corners is certainly a lot better then buying reman ones. At the very least if I never get around to installing the rebuilt calipers they should be a lot easier to sell.



Blasted a few more parts, the caliper bracket and the spindle for the left side.





And finally after spending a few hours blasting and painting the lower control arm, I decided that I didn't like the gloss black I put on it, so I shot some semi gloss that I used for the dust shield on it. The results were surprising to say the least

Gloss black


Semi gloss


The two paints were the same brand of engine enamel, but once I shot the semigloss, the paint reacted very poorly with the gloss. I mean it literally crazed all the way through to the metal.

So lesson learned....

With that, I threw it back in the blaster to start over. I was quite surprised at how difficult it was to remove this paint. I'm gonna have to get the paint stripper out, there is just no saving this.

charchri4

I had the fancy VHF roll bar paint lift like that too and it was a nightmare. You have to watch spray cans because some are thinned with thinner and some with acetone and the acetone ones will lift thinner paint every time. The other problem with aerosols is they have crap in them for propellant and to extend shelf life that dosn't do you any favors.

So with that I changed to real paint with a catalyst hardener and found out everything is better about doing it that way over spray cans. I spent some time on hotrodders.com and found out what those guys use for stuff like this and it really works. And the secret weapon is tractor paint...

I found you can get a detail HF paint gun for 15 bucks and a gallon of John Deere semi gloss black tractor paint for $24. I am using an epoxy primer from summit racing that is expensive but amazing stuff but primer is not required for this paint. The JD paint looks great and is as tuff as nails too - pretty much just like tractor paint! I have shot both blitz black and semi gloss and like the semi gloss better. It is probably what I am going to paint my entire car with in a few weeks unless I turn over a rock and find 500 bucks for paint.

http://www.shopgreendealer.com/John-...3-TY25632.html

Nowak1981

I'm having pretty good luck with the rattle cans, I can't paint or do body work to Save my life, but I've been getting decent with the cans. I barely do one part a night as it is, so it makes it easier for me to clean up.

I tried taking apart the rear end last weekend, it's just be in a pain in my *** to pull apart. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. I couldn't get the spindle nut off so I brought it to work with me so I could put a torch to it.

That failed. After several attempts to heat and try and break the nut loose. I gave up. I resigned to cutting the nut off. I have to get new axles anyway, so what do I care if they get messed up....

After about an hour of cutting and trying to break it with an air hammer, I finally got the nut off. But not without cutting into the hub.....

Oh well, new hubs are like $10 at rock auto, no big deal.





Now came time to pull the wheel bearing out....turns out that wanted to fight me too.... We have a 2 ton press, but with the dust shield, it was impossible to get it solid so I could press it out.


I tried putting it in a vice and using the air hammer to pound the hub out, but that didn't do squat.

I really hate how I can't unbolt these shields like I could with the front. With that I just shoved the whole thing under the press and bent the crap out of it til the hub came out and I could remove what was left.

Then came the circ clip. The some more pressing and out came the bearing...

At this point I'm tired and frustrated so no pictures on that ordeal...

While I was working on that I sprayed the one crontrol arm I painted with stripper and let it sit while I worked on the hub.

Last thing I did tonight was clean and blast the control arm so it will be ready for a shot of paint tomorrow...