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You ARE a deformed thread conical locknut!

-dave " " hempy

Wish I'd said that!

Geeze!

Tough crowd!

I can take it. I think.....

All you Don Rickles wanna-be's please stand up.

My colleagues get a kick out of my suspension using weld "bungs", "rod" ends, and "jam" nuts.

Another colleague recommended that I look up shoulder bolts for this kind of connection. I think I'm going to go this way, because then I won't have to access the top of the foot from inside the transmission tunnel. Then the shoulder will provide the bolt stretch needed to keep it in place. I'll probably douse the thing in Loctite as well.

I welded half the fuel tank last night. Those baffles suck to weld. It won't be my most pretty welding job ever, but it'll hold liquid.

Well, I got some parts from McMaster Carr and Aircraft Spruce this week. Specifically, some more weld bungs (0.065" and 0.095" for the upper front control arms). I got a couple shoulder bolts of different lengths for the transmission mount. We'll see which one is more appropriate. From Aircraft Spruce, I got all my AN bolts and nuts for the suspension joints and also 1000 rivets (hey, I'll need them at some point and it didn't add to the shipping cost).

Here's a pic of the suspension joint with all of the hardware. I'm going to source some washers that are a little thicker for the real deal, but this was good enough for the picture. Those AN bolts are super slick - no wiggle at all. I calculated that the joint group in the photo costs ~$22.50, so x16 gives me $360 in hardware and brackets. It was budgeted, though.

I ordered my fuel sender: WEMA was having a sale, and their tube-style level senders are super customizable in length. I bought a 9.5" long one, which leaves the required 0.75" space at the bottom to make sure it doesn't hit anything. Only $50!

Still making progress on the fuel tank. I'll post pics in the next couple days once I've got it somewhat finished.

McMaster has a pretty nice selection of precise thickness washers that are perfect for the task (I think they technically classify them as shims). I used quite a few still ones in 1/16" and 1/8" thickness on my car for the same purpose. If I remember correctly they are pretty reasonably priced as well.

If I did it again I'd seriously consider holding them in place with a carefully placed tack or two. It would make future dis-assembly and assembly a little easier.

Take a look at the motion of the rod end relative to the bracket walls as it travels thru the full range of motion. Depending on your mounting of the brackets and the construction of your control arms, you may find that washers as spacers may not work. I ended up using some spacers from Kinetics and purchasing the equivalent sized tubing and made some of my own. This allows full range of motion.

You may also find that using grade 3 (or lower) coarse bolts will help you thru the many times the suspension will be on and off the car during the fab work. Save the AN stuff for final assy. Another $20 of hardware added to your build? Yes, but well worth it in saved time and frustration.

Yo Dave,

I finally got around to figuring something out for that foot. I was going to go with the large PPF block, but it was a pain to think about how I was supposed to access those fasteners if I had to remove the transmission. I think this is an okay solution--I can get to it just from below, too.

A coworker recommended me a shoulder bolt, so I could torque that to the transmission foot tab, but still have a stud to put bushings around. I got one from McMaster Carr.

From top to bottom in the picture:

1. Nut-3/8" (will be welded to tab)
2. Washer-3/8" (will be removed when nut is welded)
3. Transmission foot tab
4. Washer-3/8" (for shoulder bolt to sit on)
5. Bushing-Upper
6. Plate-Chassis,11ga
7. Bushing-Lower
8. Washer-1/2"
9. Bolt-Shoulder,1/2" dia,1.25" long

It provides about as much compliance as I want. It's pretty stiff, but still allows about as much flex and movement as the engine mounts. The nut isn't sitting quite flat--I need to grind the tab down where I sawed off the pre-existing 12mm weld nut. I need to now find an appropriate height to mount the chassis plate at, and I think I also need to move the lower right transmission tunnel tube, because the bushings crash into it on the side--I could just trim the lower bushing to size, too. That sounds like an easier solution.

I'm getting work done on my suspension and fuel tank setup.

Fuel Pump
I made a mount ring for the Miata fuel pump assembly. I was planning on putting it underneath the fuel tank surface, but the fuel pump assembly has a lip that descends past the accompanying gasket. So, the mount ring will go on top with a gasket underneath to get required space. I'm going to install screws/bolts from the bottom, and thread into the mount ring. The threads will be longer and stick up through the pump assembly plate, and I'll tighten nuts down on it.

Q: Can tighten a fastener "twice", as in the above?

Fuel Level Sensor/Sender
I found a suitable fuel level sensor assembly from WEMA USA. (http://www.wemausa.com/tank-sensors/det ... ensors.htm). They're half the price of a comparable unit from Summit or Jegs. I bought the accompanying under-ring, too. Still need to buy a hole saw kit for the hole, though.

Fuel Filler
I'm trying to figure out how this whole thing works. Because this tank will be lower in the chassis, I'd like a remote fuel filler cap in the rear of the car, or on the top, in a corner, perhaps.

I've found a few components that I think might work. For the tank side (2" vs. 1.5"):


or



For the filler side, there are different cap styles. I'm planning on using the Miata's charcoal canister and emissions controls systems.

Q:What do I need?
Do I need a vented fuel cap?
Is that easier than venting the fuel tank somehow else?
Can I bend this fuel hose to get between the filler and the tank flange, or do I need a hard tube to make a bend in between?

It's an older picture of my fuel tank, but here it is in position. I've got the sender hole cut out now, as well as the hole for the fuel pump. I still need a filler neck and vent neck attached, but that'll get there sometime soon, hopefully. I made little cradles for the fuel tank on the bottom, I'm not sure how I'll mount it on top, but I'll figure that one out soon--about the same time as the filler neck, probably.

I started welding and grinding welds on the bottom of the car to prepare for attaching the floor - 20ga steel. I still need to run the floor panels through a bead roller to give it some stiffness, but that would require me to know where my cross beams would go. It turns out that the B1 tube (at the bottom of the rear bulkhead) got super distorted from all the tubes welded on to it. It's not straight at all anymore!

I'm also giving wiring a go. I didn't label stuff as I pulled it out of the car, so I have to do that a posteriori, but it's not too bad. I think I've identified most of the important connectors from the wiring diagram in the Haynes manual. Now just to cull the excess circuits (air bags, pop-up headlamp motors, etc).

Progress is being made.

Matt!

Looking Good! Might just have to cruise back there when mines done and we'll take a blat out to Lincoln City or Astoria!

Keep up the great work!

KS

I think I've done most of the wiring harness labeling, sorting and culling that I can do without the harness in the car. That'll require a lot more work before I can throw things into the chassis to test out. I was going to follow Skou's advice and get the NB electronic speed sensor, so I sourced one of those from a junkyard: way cheaper than new!

I essentially kept everything powertrain-related, and everything that's controlled with the steering column stalks. Other than that, I deleted: defogger, heater, blower, A/C, power mirrors, power windows, airbags, etc.

I think the next wiring task will be to detangle the ball of wires now that the convolute isn't holding everything together.

Gauges: Speedometers and tachometers are offered in 3 3/8" or 4" sizes. Is 4" too big? I'm tenatively looking at the VDO Vision set--8,000rpm tachometer and 120mph speedometer. I found a calculator online, and guesstimated at drag coefficients and power, and it looks like I'll be drag-limited to 113mph (totally fine by me).

Gauges have been ordered!

VDO Vision, 4" Speedometer and Tachometer, because they didn't have an 8,000rpm 3 3/8" Tachometer available.

Gauges Model No.
437-155 -- Speedometer
333-160 -- Tachometer
350-1042 - Oil Press (with sender)
310-1052 - Water Temp (with sender)
332-103 -- Volts
301-105 -- Fuel
370-155 -- Clock

I ordered through egauges.com, which included free shipping, and ended up being $80 and $140 cheaper than Summit and Jegs, respectively.

Structurally, I started welding my control arms up--getting the weld bungs attached. A coworker has been giving me lessons on proper fabrication techniques and how to actually build things precisely. I'm definitely not used to doing things "the right way" when it comes to actually making physical parts.

Electrically: I was identifying connectors and wires because I forgot to do that when I removed the harness from the car. Every piece of electrical tape or convolute I removed made the bundle more and more of a mess. As I started removing circuits that I didn't need, it was interesting to follow a wire through a million loops around other wires.

I got some advice from a co-worker who does this for our trucks, and he was very helpful as far as how one bundles up wires, how to properly tape things and what tools to use. I took a weekend to tape up everything and figure out how things were supposed to be routed.

It was funny, because for a long time, I thought that Mazda had an inline connector that connected into the same harness. It was only after a lot of organization that I realized that it was a different harness--the rear harness for taillights, fuel tank, etc. Before it was so jumbled up, it just looked like a part of the main harness.

Now that it's more organized, I think it'll be a slightly more pleasant experience to lay the harness over my car when I get to that point to connect up all the modules and sensors.

My gauges arrived, too! Not the clearest of pictures, but it shows the gauges. I ordered them from eGauges.com because it was significantly less expensive than Summit or Jegs. It ended up being about $375 with free shipping.

They're the VDO Vision line. Fairly straightforward and easy to read. Nothing to bling-y about them. The clock has a slightly different bezel, but the "correct" bezel one was $90 more expensive, for some unknown reason. I wanted the 3.375" Tachometer and Speedo, but they didn't have an 8,000rpm tachometer in that size, so I stepped it up to 4". They're big, but I think it'll work out. I might have to put them in the center of the dashboard, rather than centered on the driver, but we'll get to that when we get to that.

I wasn't sure what senders were on my engine for water temp and oil pressure, so I just ordered the sender kits with the gauges. I tried to figure it out before I bought the gauges to make sure they were the right resistance ranges, but I couldn't get a straight answer out of the internet.

For anyone's interest, here're the model numbers for each gauge.

Gauges Model No.
Speedometer 437-155
Tachometer 333-160
Oil Press. 350-1042 - with sender and metric thread kit
Water Temp 310-1052 - with sender and metric thread kit
Volts 332-103
Fuel 301-105
Clock 370-155