tbone heller

I am not quite sure of what you are trying to replace. Is it the core support, apron, or frame rail? It might be worth you time to have the damaged section heated & pulled before it is removed. I found out about this the hard way during a quarter panel replacement on my old 70 Chevelle that had been rear-ended. When I removed the old damaged sections, the whole body of the car went "crazy".

WolfGT

At some point, this car has had a collision. The impact appears to have happened on the front driver side. It distorted the driver side frame rail and the core support across the front was trashed. Then some idiot tried to cover it up by welding in partial inner fender wells but didn't fix the rail or core support. When I bought it, the hood didn't shut right and I didn't figure out what was wrong until I took all the body panels off during deconstruction. It is hard to see in the pictures. But the frame rail is crumpled or dented from a front impact everywhere my finger is pointing.









And here you can see the boogered up welding that someone did trying to cover up the damage (this is on the passenger side).



So I carefully marked the car and the replacement pieces to be cut.

Driver side


Passenger Side


Found a little critter nest inside the passenger frame rail after I cut it.


Here is the driver side cut but still held firmly in place by the K Member


Here is the car and the new piece cut and ready to go in place




And finally tacked into place.


It went really well. It came out level and square. So hopefully everything should bolt right on when I get the new body in. Now I just need to finish weld it and clean it all up. I plan to remove all the seam sealer and weld all the joints next. Then seal it all back up and start to make it pretty.

Add another 5 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 44.5 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

WolfGT

Another great day at the shop. My goal this weekend is to get the front clip welded on solid and ground smooth. Also, strip down the old doors of all extra parts I want to keep and scrap the remains. Today was a great start. First, I needed to get to the shop and pull the trans off the old miata engine because someone was coming to pick it up the engine. Sold ($150.00). Then I got to work welding up the newly spliced front clip. After hours of jumping around to try to keep from overheating any specific spot, I finally finished up.

Here is the driver side all welded up. And for extra strength, I sleeved the frame rail on the driver side. It allowed me to get a really good connection. (yes, I am a horrible welder)




This is a shot of the passenger side with some of the grinding done.



Tomorrow I will get all the grinding done and shoot the seam with some primer to keep it clean. Then I will work on the doors. That shouldn't take long. I might have enough time left to start cleaning out all the seam sealer so I can weld all the seams up front. I also have someone coming by tomorrow to buy the wheels and tires and maybe some other stuff.

Add another 6 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 50.5 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

charchri4

Actually it's not just you, lots of folks have trouble welding on these cars. Whatever the anti-corrosion dip or electroplate process that Mazda does to these cars seems to inhibit welding no matter how good you clean it or how good a welder you are. Your build looks great!

WolfGT

Spent part of the day in the shop. First went over to sell the wheels and tires. Sold $175.00. Then I was going to start grinding the welds I already did, but figured I better do some more welding and then do all the grinding at once. So I attacked the engine bay mods that needed done. I used the templates provided in the Monster kit to mark the cuts.





Then I made the cuts. Wasn't very easy. I needed to use a cut-off wheel, sawzall and a hacksaw to get this accomplished because of the location.



What you see above is how the kits instructions say to leave it and to weld the patches in. But I didn't like the leftover pieces spot welded to the firewall so I used the impact chisel to remove them and then mocked up the patches provided in the kit.





The instructions say that these patches are purely cosmetic and do not need to be welded completely and it says specifically not to weld it to the firewall due to the heat it creates. I assume that part of the instructions are there because it is assuming there is still an interior in the car. So I welded them on good. After a few small seam sealer fires, inside and out, they came out well. I'll grind these after I get all the other welding done.





I then took the doors apart and kept the inside and outside door handles. The rest went in the back of the truck to go to the scrap yard.

It was a fun day. There were instructions and pieces in the kit, but as always, nothing goes as smooth as the instructions say, which I really enjoyed. I liked the challenge. Massaging the metal to make the patches fit just right and cutting smaller patches to fill in the bigger holes. I think it will end up looking pretty good.

Add another 5 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 55.5 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

WolfGT

Time to get back to it. Saturday, I had two items in mind. First to get the welding and grinding done on the front clip and to get the car mobile so I can clean it.

So first I spent a couple hours welding and grinding on the front end fixes/modifications to get it ready for some primer and paint.

Here is a look at one of the seams


And here is a shot of the mods with a little primer on them.


My next step is to prep and prime the entire engine bay but before I can do that, I need to clean it. I pressure washed it once before, but that was just a preliminary wash and the firewall and engine bay was not completely empty so there is still a bunch of crud in there. But to be able to pressure wash it, it needs to be mobile. So, I commenced to build a cart for the car so I could roll it outside. I looked around and found a bunch of scrap. I built this cart totally from stuff I had laying around the shop. I thought it through and figured it would be nice to have the car high in the air to work comfortably on the body and also underneath. So I built a cart 2 feet high. But I forgot to take into account the height of the casters. Woops. So the cart is about 6" taller than I was planning, but it works.

Now, I hate to document my stupidity, but oh well. The two pictures below are classified as "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!".

I now needed to get the car up in the air high enough to get it on the cart. It was just me and all I had was two floor jacks. Let the stupidity begin.





Believe it or not, it was actually pretty stable. I was rather surprised how sturdy it sat while going through that process. But even saying that, I will come up with a better way to get it up and down from now on.

Here it is on the cart ready to go outside.


I was planning on doing all the cleaning yesterday, but it was in the 30's. It will be up in the 50's tomorrow. I plan on continuing then.

I have been in limbo for a bit but it's now time to get rolling. There will be some significant progress over the next two months.

Add another 5 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 60.5 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

charchri4

I love it! Insane yes and you are quite lucky but you got it up there!

I'm loving your build and really appreciate the posts. It was very inspiring the way you didn't break stride when you found the frame damage. I think I would have thrown in the towel with that...

You are a fine fabricator Greg and you are going to have a great car when you are done!

WolfGT

Another day at it. It was in the mid 50's today, so I figured I better go and do all the pressure washing while it was somewhat warm. I don't think it will be that way much more. So I went and cleaned every inch of the miata. The cart made it really easy to roll it around. I used the pressure washer, a bunch of Greased Lightning, a small stiff brush and 3 green pads. It's just amazing how much better the car feels now that all that grime is gone. This car had serious power steering and oil leaks. So it was really bad.

I then moved on to some body work while the car dries. The passenger side rocker needed put back together. Earlier in this thread you will remember I cut out a good piece of the rocker because it was badly dented. I cut the piece out, massaged it back into shape and today I welded it back in.

Here is a pic of the first set of tacks.


And here it is all welded in.


Next time I'm in the shop, I'll grind that all down and remove the rest of the stone chip from the rockers. Then I will move to the passenger rear corner and get that repair out of the way. Once that is done, it's time to start sanding, priming and painting (engine bay, wheel wells, interior and trunk). I want to get all the body work done before I take it back off the cart. It is really nice being able to sit on the stool and work. I plan on hitting the shop every other day from now on. Should kick this project into gear.

Add another 5 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 65.5 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

rhjr

This is a big help for those of us that are about to get started on our Miata's. With Martins conversion manual and all of your pictures it adds a lot of confidence to the cuts.
Thanks for the help

Dick

WolfGT

Dick, Glad to be of assistance and look forward to seeing your build. I'm no mechanic either, I actually work on computers for a living. So don't be intimidated. As with anything in life, just approach it with the attitude to learn and you'll make it through sooner or later.

WolfGT

This week was a total pain in my butt and work ruined my plan to work on the car every other day. I was at the office until after 9pm every night except last night. So, today I took a half day and went to the shop.

First, I needed to take some pictures of the trans, diff and springs for a potential buyer that has been asking for pics for weeks.

Then I pulled the bellhousing out of the mustang to see if it was going to work with the new trans. I didn't think it would, but needed to check. It didn't. So, I got on the phone with Summit Racing and we worked to find one that would work. I needed one that would accept the T-5 that I bought that was the right depth, accept the hydraulic slave cylinder for the clutch, fit around my centerforce flywheel (157 tooth) and clutch assembly and mount to the 302. Well, after the tech did the research, we only found one that met all those requirements and it was $566! Wasn't expecting that, but it is a really nice race quality bellhousing. So at least I won't have to change it later. Ordered it so I can test fit the engine and trans. I need to "massage" the transmission tunnel but don't want to over do it. So I'm going to slide the assembly in and then make the mods.

Then I began to grind my welds from the rocker repair. (I just got it looking decent, when it comes time to do the body kit I will come back to this and clean it up since it will require a bit of filler) Once they were mostly ground down, I stripped all the stone chip from the passenger side. Cleaned and primed the entire area.



That took longer then I expected, so I didn't do the other side yet. I jumped to another job, the rear quarter damage on the passenger side. Besides the obvious damage, there were some spots that were spider cracking through the paint. So I figured since I had the stripping wheel out, I'll see what is under there. Oh my. I guess with the shape of the front, I should have expected it. There was a butt load of bondo under the paint. It just kept going. So, after coating the shop with a nice generous layer of filler dust, I stopped to think this one through. I may just leave this corner for the body shop. We'll see. Here is the corner.



Then I decided it was time to start cleaning up the random rust on the interior. I started with the driver side. There wasn't anything really bad. But it is pretty weird how this car rusts. It's not like just plain surface rust. It's like the rust starts from inside the metal and blistered out until it came out. I chipped away the blisters and used a wire brush to clean the loose pieces. Then vacuumed up all the crap and wiped the area with mineral spirits. Once I was satisfied, I hit all the rusty areas with a rust treatment (the black colored areas).

before


after


Then to the passenger side. Overall, this side was better. But in the footwell, there is a bracket that the panel bolts to for the computer. That thing was total rust.



Amazingly, with the wire brush and some strong penetrate, I was able to get the nuts off without breaking anything. I was very surprised. I took it to the blasting cabinet and cleaned it up. Hit it with the rust treatment and then primer.



Then took care of the rest of the floor.



I then went to work on the engine bay. I took the time to completely remove all clips and brackets. This took a while. Then I used the wire wheel and wire brush to clean any area that had loose paint or rust and hit all the welds again. There were some major leaks in this engine bay and it looks like the brake booster was one of them. The area up in the corner by the firewall right under where the brake booster sits was rusty and the paint was half eaten away. I stripped that area bare. Then vacuum and cleaned these areas. I hit the rusty areas with rust treatment and the welds with primer. Now the engine bay is 4 colors .... nice.



Tomorrow I will take care of the stone chip on the driver side and finish cleaning and priming the engine bay to start. I may move to the trunk but we will see.

Add another 5.5 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 71 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

tbone heller

Great progress!!
What was so unique about the bellhousing? The input shaft on a t-5 can be easily changed to one of a different spline count or length to meet your goals. These shafts are very inexpensive. The t-5 was used in many applications from the "big 3". If you plan on using a scatter shield, you may have to cut the bottom lip off of it because it will be much lower than the oil pan.

5.0MX5

Just an fyi, I'm running (as do all I'm aware of) the stock 90 Mustang 5.0 bellhousing. No problems.

Also just as tbone said, lot's of possibilities with the T5 input shaft. I'm in the middle of doing a light weight freshen up on a Non WorldClass (NWC) T5 that's going into my soon to be daily driven 1951 3/4 ton Chevy truck. I didn't know much about these before diving into fixing a tranny that had been junked out. Lots of good info out there Mr. Google can find including some good youtube how to videos. If you consider changing input shafts, be sure it's for the same gear ratio or you can have lots of gear noise from mismatched gears leading to serious damage.

There should be a tag on your transmission that's the key to ratios 1st through 5th.

Good luck. Ron

WolfGT

I started looking for one myself and had a really hard time. I think the issue is that this engine, flywheel and clutch was built years ago for my 68 mustang to mate up to the origninal 3 speed. I bought this T-5 so the input shaft would mate with the original 10 spline crank. The flywheel is a centerforce 157 tooth and the clutch to go with it 10.5". Could I have changed the shaft? Probably, but I just bought that trans, I really don't want to tear into it right out of the box. I called Summit and they looked for something to fit my specs and this is what they came up with.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/qti-rm-6060/overview/

It's a pretty impressive piece. I don't think I'll be dissappointed.

WolfGT

I was at the shop most of the day today (9 hours), but got seriously side tracked. I spent most of the day putting up a new light (because the one that was there never worked) and putting in a couple new outlets (because I kept popping the breaker). Now I can actually see what I'm doing and will no longer have power issues. Yay! It was time well spent. Then I spent the last two hours removing the stone chip from the driver side and priming it. I forgot what a mess that process produced, I should have done it along with the other side. But here is the final product for now.



Tomorrow I plan on prepping and priming the engine bay so it will be one color finally. And then move to on to the rear end. I figure that would be a good place to work while the car is so far in the air. I need to disassemble the rear subframe and get the new diff mounted up so I can weld in the new brace. Then take it all out, clean and paint it.

Add another 2 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 73 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

WolfGT

It rained all day today. I figured that would be a good time to be in the shop. But it was so humid the entire shop was just wet. The floor was wet and the ceiling was dripping just from the moisture in the air. At least is wasn't cold. I started by prepping the engine bay and cowl for paint. I used a prep disk on my little air powered sander (3" disks) and a hand full of green scouring pads. Hit any rusty spots with the rust treatment as I went. Then vacuumed up the mess and hit the area with compressed air to get rid of any dust. Then wiped the area with mineral spirits. Masked off the windshield and surrounding areas. Here it is before primer.





And after the first coat





It looked even better after the second coat, but I didn't take any pictures. I don't think it would have looked any different in pictures. I then pulled the rear subframe into the shop so I could pull it apart. I took a ton of pictures to help me remember how everything goes. Here is a pic of what it looks like right out of the car.



And then after some work .... an exploded view, lol.



After a couple days in the shop, I was ready to call it a day. But I figured I might as well end the weekend on a high note with a nice shiny new part. So I pulled the new diff into the shop.



And then the new mounting brackets mocked into the subframe (The subframe is upside-down in these pics)







It was nice seeing one of the new pieces finally in the picture. I will burn in the bracket next time. I spent a lot of time thinking about the whole picture today. My issue is the body work and when to get it done. Since I sold the wheels and tires, the only way to get it to the body shop is my little cart. Because I can't buy new wheels and tires until the body work is done because I won't be able to know what will fit until the new wheel wells are done. So, I do believe the next time I'm in the shop (tuesday), I will modify the cart to sit lower and reinforce it so it can travel without failing. While I have the car off the cart, I will fit the engine and trans so I can modify the tunnel. The new bellhousing is supposed to be here on Tuesday (SummitRacing is awesome). I will be ordering all the body stuff in the first week of January. I will fill my time with other tasks until then. There is plenty to do.

Add another 5 hours of my time to the clock.

My Time: 78 hours
Friends & Family: 6 hours
Paid labor: $0 (this number does not include the mods made by Monster Miata)

tbone heller

Get a set of the poly rear differential mount bushings while they are easy to install. They helped the wheel-hop issue I had. Be sure to remove the plastic clips that hold the brake line to the rear sub-frame before you weld on the front support. They will melt.

WolfGT

Awesome, thanks for the tips. For the bushings, are these what you are talking about?

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/en...FcZZ7Aod8X4ARg

WolfGT

Or, just get the entire set since I was planning on replacing them all anyway.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/en...102g/overview/

WolfGT

I thought about it for a bit and I am going to get the full set of tubular control arms from v8roadsters which come with their own bushings. So there is no need for me to get that kit. I ordered a set of poly diff mount bushings from Flyinmiata.

Flyin' Miata : Chassis : Bushings : Polyurethane differential bushings

tbone heller

The bushings will have to be "machined" to fit. That is the fun part. I will see if I can locate some info. for you.

tbone heller

machining poly diff bushings - MX-5 Miata Forum

WolfGT

Oh, great.

WolfGT

Opinions please.

I'm sure you have noticed that I didn't go through all the trouble of removing all the seam sealer on the shock towers and weld up all the seams. After doing a bunch of reading I felt at the time that adding a support to the outside (like frog legs or v8roadsters version) and then a strut tower brace between the two would be sufficient. But I am second guessing myself. At the moment, I could easily mask off the rest of the engine bay and take care of this, but is it worth it? or are the braces good enough?

Oh, and while I'm worried about this, I am also really excited about a new part I'm in the process of procuring. I'll keep it a secret until it shows up. May be a month or so, but man I can't wait.

Currently sitting at the office on Christmas Eve, waiting for my bellhousing to show up on the Fedex truck. I guess this is one package I should have sent to the house.

WolfGT

Geez, after sitting here half the day waiting on UPS, it finally showed up. I thought they were going to be here early, so I got here at 9am, they showed at 1pm. I guess I was a little off. Now with half the day gone, I doubt I will even get to it today. GRRRRR