This may be a little ridiculous - a $2018 challenge oddessey

Well, were NOT going to be pro-rating color and clear. At this point im hoping I don’t have to buy more.

But, its time to post some paint pictures. Brads brain tumor removal was successful, and he’s healing well. His wife’s emergency shoulder rebuild is done, girlscout cookie season has passed, and other life on life’s terms things have been gotten through.

Friday, we taped the car, touched up a few pinholes, wiped it down, and ate dinner

IMG_20250203_120033 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

IMG_20250203_120033 (2) by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

IMG_20250203_120033 (3) by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250321_194301 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

Saturday, he shot it in color.

Previously, we had gotten front and rear bumpers, side skirts, lip, fenders, door handles, and gas door all done

image000005 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

image000004 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

IMG_20241226_170205 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

IMG_20250115_165042 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

So, now that the tease is done, we got a little carried away with engine bay paint. We decided to do the frame rails, jambs, etc with a good coat of color and clear. Ill cut in with black to make it all nicely defined when I drop the front and rear cradles for cleaning and painting.

But holy crap, I’m happy with how its all turning out

20250323_192037 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250323_192043 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250323_191940 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250323_191948 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250323_191957 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250323_192011 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20250323_192022 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

Love the green! What color is that?

2001 miata se brg

It does neat stuff in light

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

Wow!

That looks amazing!  Great work !

Beautiful! BRG for the win!

Looking fantastic! 2001 BRG is a favorite of mine as well, you planning on a differnt color around the windshield?

In reply to David_H :

Yessir. Semigloss black to match the vent window trim and the black cloth top. I'm probably going to do the hard top in semi-gloss black as well

Woohooo! That looks great

Berk yeah that looks great dude!

Already started cleaning up the underside and putting in the weld nuts. I'll get the welding done before the challenge assuming I don't run out of shielding gas, but not grinding, paintwork and seam sealer. Or pictures. 

I'm REALLY rusty with a welder. And thin sheet that's been ground/rusty/undeciated/previously welded/berkeleyed with has never been my strong suit anyway. 

a wise man once said that a grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't. 

He forgot our lord and savior seam sealer. 

got it home. And scrubbed down. 

Then, ceramicoated the jambs and engine bay twice. Figured that it'll help reduce the chances of overspray sticking, or droplets when I paint the interior and trunk sheetmetal. 

Figure I'll do all that prior to touching up the underside and subframes and gas tank. Then I can start reassembley. 

However, I needed SOMETHING for my mental health this weekend. Something to go in the right direction. 

So I used my thread chasers on the studs, cleaned up the rear impact beam and brackets, pulled out some nice m8 nuts, pulled the body plugs from the parts car, and installed a part. 

Pulled the spare driveshaft out of the parts pile that came with the red car. Driveshaft in that car is garbage, and I want to change it before blowing it apart. Its developed a heavy smoking problem and misfire, but a LOT of that seemed to be cured with fresh plugs in the new flyin miata reccomended part number. 

Im still not convinced I didn't hurt it with my no wastegate runs. 

But, im a "God's sense of humor" moment, im cutting open the still packaged in mailing box driveshaft and hs motorsports card falls out. 

He's my local parts guy that I get a lot of misc stuff and information from. He's right up the road about 20 minutes. 

So I picked up a driveshaft from him via svrex in Alabama!I actually laughed out loud. 

Hey man! Sent you a PM just after the challenge.  Not sure if you saw it.

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

That's a riot!

Progress, better than Congress

Its more mockup for motivation, but man I'm happy with it!!

Gotta finish some grinding, seam sealing, and painting. Then, clean shop. A lot. Blow green car apart and actually start putting stuff together for real. 

And just about anything is better than congress  love my country. Hate my government  

Got the exhaust dropped tonight, and the driveshaft swapped in the parts car. Smoke test yet before another road test. See if ive actually hurt it or not....

Cat has..... interesting stuff on the inlet side. And the exhaust has seen many better days, but I think it's mostly usable for now. Minus the muffler and maybe the cat. 

Took exhaust off to change driveshaft. Noted the above converter oddness. 

its really rough. I think I can salvage most of it, and reuse it. At least for challenge purposes. I don't know of its stock style catback, or different due to turbo. Anyone able to eyeball and tell me?

I also took the car for a run with the fresh plugs, unstopped exhaust. Smoking seems to be gone, and theres WAYY more power. Still a lot of stumbling and banging and such, but i expect vacuum leaks, dirty oxygen sensors, old gas, single drive cycle ecu, etc all play a part here. 

It blows the tires off through fourth now though. 

Anyone want a gallon of the blue on the decklid?

Shop cleanup day, and pressure wash the property weekend. Since all the cody parts were in the shed in the way of the pressure washer, easiest way to keep them out of harms way was to mount them up.

It all comes back apart, but damn im excited!!!

Dusterbd13 said:

It blows the tires off through fourth now though. 

 

Oh Boy !  This is gonna be FUN !

Indy - Guy said:

Dusterbd13 said:

It blows the tires off through fourth now though. 

 

Oh Boy !  This is gonna be FUN !

Definitely feels way faster than the duster,  which until now has been the fastest car I've ever owned. I'm interested to see how this thing behaves with fresh gas and properly sorted out. I have a feeling I make crap my own pants at some point which is honestly kind of my entire goal

gas tanks coming out next. 

Then I can clean and paint the underside and hang fuel and brake lines. 

Im also finishing bodywork on the hardtop and redoing the passengers door.

Hopefully all three are done ish this weekend. 

The 320 grit i thought i had is actually 40. 

So, bodywork is stalled for the weekend. 

Plenty of other things need doing.