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PostPosted: August 27, 2012, 12:14 am 
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Location: East st Paul, Mb
Briggs wrote:
Just went through and read everything. Glad to see you got it running. Love the attention to detail and craftsmanship that you have put into the build.

I'm in the design process right now with my build. How wide is your tranny tunnel, and how many inches do you have on each side to fit your seats?

Thanks for the kind words. The tunnel is 6" leaving 17" on each side.

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PostPosted: August 27, 2012, 5:59 pm 
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cboettch wrote:
Briggs wrote:
Just went through and read everything. Glad to see you got it running. Love the attention to detail and craftsmanship that you have put into the build.

I'm in the design process right now with my build. How wide is your tranny tunnel, and how many inches do you have on each side to fit your seats?

Thanks for the kind words. The tunnel is 6" leaving 17" on each side.


That is what I like to hear. I was doing some reading, people saying their tunnel is 10" I'm thinking that leaves no room even in a +442. So with a +442 you would have 19" on each side? With yours will a 17" seat actually be able to fit in there?

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PostPosted: August 28, 2012, 7:09 pm 
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Quote:
So with a +442 you would have 19" on each side?

Sure. Might want to check Mr. Rogers build to reference a +442 and Kirkey seat.
Quote:
With yours will a 17" seat actually be able to fit in there?

Depends on the seat. Using Kirkey again for a reference. Some are the same width at the front, as the hip size, and others are wider. Either way its gonna be mighty tight (does not acount for belt mounts). And although I have researched it some, I'm probably not the best source of information for this question, because, as you can see I currently have a factory Miata seat in place.

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PostPosted: August 29, 2012, 2:01 am 
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Location: Tracy, Ca
Kirkey Intermediate Road Race seat. 17" is 18 wide, 16" is 17 wide plus cover.
As a example 34" waist no problem with 16" seat still can bend the sides in a bit.


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PostPosted: August 22, 2013, 10:43 pm 
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Dadgum! It's good to be back in the garage, working on the locost. Ok, its been a year since my last update. but I can explain. I haven’t actually got a whole lot done on the car really given its been a year (I’ve only really been back working on the car that last couple of weeks), but my dear ol’dad keeps telling me ‘you should update your build log, because people want to here what you have to say’ :roll: . Ahhh, my dad, he’s good man, and I love him. So, for you dad here it is. Be forewarned most of this is much ado about nothing. Kind of a Seinfeld post. If yer looking for a glimmer of progress, kindly skip to the end.

Ok, this time last year I had just had the car running. It allowed me to check my fuel and cooling systems. It was the last thing I had planned to do before tearing the car apart to catch up on finishing work on the frame. Now, we (um, ya, that would be my wife and I) had been looking for a new home, and this was taking my time and attention. Well we finally found a house in mid October. This was good, with a possession date of mid December just in time for Christmas. Um, this seemed like a good Idea at the time, ya know, Christmas in the new house. Less so in reality. Meh! This of course meant we had we sell our current residence, now! That meant getting the driveway cleared off for pictures the following week. Cleared of what you say?! Well, I’ll tell ya.

Back in mid September, nearly two years to the day after I bought my donor, this got dropped off on my driveway, literally.
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A little battered and bruised sure, but it ran and was $480 delivered with only 110,000 km. I don't have any real use for it at the moment but I simply could not resist. My wife was,of course, less than impressed(muttered some about me having a problem).So where the 1st donor was carefully dissected over 2.5 months, I only had 2.5 days to get D2 (donor 2 ) off the driveway. As you can see I the garage was rather full, so I got to do this outside, in the rain (remember its October, brrr). This chassis did not leave in, as dignified a manor as my 1st, but it did fit in 4x8 trailer, kinda.
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There, drive way was cleared, pictures were taken, and the house sold in 4 hours. Fantastic, lets move on (and we did).
Oh ya, not actually working on the car gave me opportunity to buy stuff (idle hands thing), and I thought, since were moving, it would be a good time to pick up a shiny new 5 hp, 60 gallon compressor (and a snow blower), so I would have more big heavy items to move to the new house.
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Alright, into the new, bigger garage, hooray (My wife was happy thinking with a triple garage , she could finally park inside again, silly :P ). Unfortunately, it was not insulated, and -30’C season.
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So insulating the garage along with new doors was the first order of business. Decided I did not want to use my 220v construction heater any longer after reading too many horror stories about them melting down, so I picked up this 45,000 BTU Reznor. Brand new, for under $400. It was part of a sale of damaged unit but didn't have amark on it :yay: .
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What I thought (hoped?) would be a simple plumbing job for the gas into the garage (our gas line terminates to our furnace and hot water tank behind the garage in the basement), was, ah, not. Turns out the 1” gas line was maxed out, with the the gas stove, and fireplace also attached to it. So a new line had to run from the main hook up all the way on the other side of the house. Big, big thanks to our new neighbor, Roberta! Oh so cozy now. Also ran cable and set up for 220V for the welder and compressor. That’s how ever as far as I got in the garage as the next several months involved other projects in and around the house, making it a home, which I won’t bore you with (if I haven't already).
Back in the garage in July, ran over 50’ of copper line around the garage to remove moisture from the airline, and finally hauled everything back out of the basement, and got things organized so I could focus attention on the Lo7us (see we’re get’n there).
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First thing was clean up, as my once shiny frame had grown some brown over the winter (had a lot of moisture in the garage when mudding and painting in the winter) ugh. This has turned out to be somewhat wasted effort, as the now unprotected steel is quite vulnerable to the O2. Really need to get it painted soon. Though the many hours spent cleaning it up with an air grinder proved my airline set up to be quite effective at removing moisture.
Then proceeded to work on the finish welding I eluded to way back. Suspension, brackets, steering rack mounts. steering supports, and so on.
As I would be cutting sheets for the floor, firewall etc, picked up another toy, err, tool. A plasma cutter. Actually a 3 in 1 so I can learn to Tig. Sure is a nice tool, cuts like dream. Cut all my plates for the engine bay and floor in no time at all.
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Finally, after much reading and deliberation as to how to do it, added my floor. It’s the same 18ga as my tank. It turned out really well. I welded the entire perimeter on the outside leaving a good half inch to fold the panels under so I would not have to drill/rivet through both. then stitched the inner tubes.
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It feels a bit like I’m going backwards with the bare frame but it is good to be back in the garage working on the se7en.
Cheers dad


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PostPosted: August 23, 2013, 10:46 am 
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Location: Charlotte, NC
Oh you are going to love that welder. Learning to TIG is not an easy task but it is so much fun. I'm envious of your garage but not the cold. Haha. Here in NC it may reach 15 degrees F. Doesn't snow that often either.

By all means show off your garage "mods". If I owned the house I'm in my garage would be kickass. Keep up the work and listen to your dad. Lol. I'm sure I'm speaking for most, we love updates. :)

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PostPosted: September 20, 2013, 11:22 pm 
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Location: East st Paul, Mb
So went int the garage after work this evening to work on brake lines when my daughter came into the garage saying she wanted to help work on the car. She'll be 3 next week :thmbsup: .
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Needles to say I had a geat time but got little done. Here's what I have done in the past month.

Continuing on with what in my mind was finish welding. Welded up my front suspension. Added the bottom rear corners, side panels, and shock bracket supports. Also made up seat rail mounts for the sliders. Welded up the roll bar witch will bolt inalong with the rear fender arches
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PostPosted: October 21, 2013, 10:05 am 
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Time for an update, as stuff has been done.
Ran all my brake lines. I had initially used the factory brake lines just to get an idea of where thay needed to go. I could have made some of them work but with all the new bends they didn't look very nice. Even though I have a flair tool (cheap) and I had bought a coil of brake line when I pick up my fuel line, I just didn't feel like fiddling with flairs only to fine they leak. So bought lengths of line with the flairs already done. I now have a working clutch and a hard brake pedal (The clutch line in the pic below is still factory and will need to be replaced with a shorter line).
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I had been trying to find a spot for a front antiroll bar. Again the factory Miata bar. I have seen some put them in a modified form in the front, but with my fan behind my rad and my shocks pushed out to the ends of the lower arms there was just too much going on in this patch of real-estate to make that happen. So I mounted them from the back, underneath, through arm. this worked out real well (read- it fits) with Jack's arms. The only thing I had to do was shorten the links as they ended up below the wheel rim when full length. The rear is still to be done, but it's straight forward.
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It has a face! Made up some headlight mounts and it looks much happier now.
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Oh Joy, Oh Joy, my coil overs have arrived!!!
And on the car they went!
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Next up were seat belts. I had be a banging my head on this for a while. I need to have belts specifically with CMVSS 209 compliance for the street and I was having trouble finding a solution for the factory Miata belts that didn't interfere with the roll bar (trying reeeal hard to stick with the one donor ideal). Free space is becoming a limited commodity in this book frame. CMVSS 209 compliant lap belts are available but just don't cut it I think. All my searching on the sight and other sources (fleabay, summit etc) for 3 point belts got me know where. The Belts Chuck found http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14651&p=157046&hilit=3+point+belts#p157046 and is using are tagged 'conforms to SAE J386 and FMVSS', but not specifically to 209. So these may pass.
Any way, the long and the long of is I thunked some more, and I found a spot for the Miata belts. Basically set them up as they are in the donor car (Hmmn, sound less brilliant when I put it that way). They don't interfere with the suspension. I'll just have to box them in to keep dirt out. Yippie!
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Made up a bracket for the throttle cable last night so time to tackle the wiring harness :roll: .


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PostPosted: October 22, 2013, 11:34 pm 
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So this is what I finished up today (started stripping them a couple of moths ago). Kind of therapeutic work. They turned out real nice IMHO (better than I expected). Gives an idea of the color scheme for the car (along with, I'm thinking, a splash of Nimbus grey). I think the two tone will look good w/ the cycle fenders as you can se both sides of the wheel. Though keeping brake dust off the orange is going to be :ack: :BH:. Polished the lips using the '2nd gear Tanner method'. Now I can finally throw the boots on that have been quietly, drying out, in a dark room in the basement (so they can continue to dry out on the rims :roll: ).
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PostPosted: October 23, 2013, 11:55 am 
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Very nice job on the wheels, Chris. The satin black looks like a factory job.
What did you use for stripping and painting? I've used Automotive & Aircraft Paint stripper, but I can't get it to cut through the plastic (?) paint down to the aluminum.
Thanks,

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PostPosted: October 23, 2013, 9:28 pm 
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Thanks Martin. Here is what I used, purchased at Home depot. It's still nearly 3/4 full after 2 applications on 5 wheels (could have bought the small can). Nasty, nasty stuff. Dissolves Nitrile gloves, skin. As Keith notes, it does leave some flecks in the pores.The second pic is the matt clear I used. Didn't want a gloss finish on the black but also didn't want the finish to be too flat and pick up dirt.
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PostPosted: November 28, 2013, 10:41 am 
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Best looking stock miata wheels I have ever seen. Lovin the color scheme.

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PostPosted: January 4, 2014, 10:38 pm 
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Firstly thank you Briggs.
As previously stated, the wiring harness was next. This turned out to be a mostly straight forward task. The time I took labeling everything on the harness when I disassembled the donor was now paying dividends.
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.
In the next pic you'll se a beehive marker light modified to accept a dual filament bulb. so it is now a park/signal/DRL light.
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100_6922.JPG
I then installed the scuttle and nose, using Jack's Dzus kits. Both the fibergalss bits and the dzus kits were a joy to work with. Next up was the windshield. Again from Jack and another nice piece. I found a shop that was able to cut my glass with the nessasary branding.
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Now that the winshield was in the next logical step was the wiper system. As much as I wanted to use the miata setup (in keeping with the single donor rule), I abandoned the idea as it would have required a whole lot of modifying, and after reading up on the british cable system many are using from MGs, etc, this just seemed the way to go. i was fourtunate enough to come apon not one but two complete wiper systems. One with a two speed motor and one with a one speed.
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Unfortunatly I was not able to get the two speed motor functioning properly. Which was disappointing given Hempy's plug n' play experience. In the end I cobled the miata's motor with the drive from the two speed wiper. I now have a fully functional wiper system.
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Exhaust is also complete. The muffler is from an Aprilia.
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I have also started wittling away at the fenders and dash. Plan now is to begin tearing it down for the last time (picking off odds and ends as I go), Clean up the frame (again), paint it, and being final reassembly. Looking foward to this!

Ok, just looked at my to do list and I'm not sure I can use the term 'final reassembly' just yet.


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PostPosted: January 19, 2014, 12:03 am 
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So Back to this again! A bare frame. I gotta say, it was a bit tough (mentally) tear it right down again.
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Meh :roll: .
So clean it up, again, primed
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and painted.
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Build log http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=12374
Completed build showcase http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=16865


Last edited by cboettch on November 18, 2015, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 19, 2014, 10:30 am 
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Looks great Chris!

I like the way you've integrated the oem belt system. Read those labels on the back of the belts near the fabric pouch. These belts meet FMV209 only when installed in a miata and the airbag system is installed. If you don't have any airbags and you want the belts to be useful, the pouch and rip stitching that holds the folds together should be carefully removed without damaging the belt. There is a cheap little tool called a stitch ripper available at stores like Joanns, Walmart if they sell fabric, hobby lobby, etc.

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