The package showed up. It was my stock Miata radio that's more than 35 years old that was modified by Jeff Anderson (RIP) over 25 years ago. I sent it out to have the dodgy channel looked at and to be serviced. It came back with all of the caps and incandescent bulbs replaced (old parts included) as well as a new drive belt for the tape deck. Brandon was impressed with the fact that the tape deck worked at all. Even the lighting was in pretty good shape with just one or two bulbs out. Maybe not totally necessary, but call it preventative maintenance. Brandon couldn't find a problem with the bad channel and it seems to be okay now, which makes me think I had a bad connection at the back of the unit.
The CD player didn't work when I sent it out. Instead of fixing it, he installed a hidden Bluetooth receiver inside the head unit that hijacks the CD input. The lights still work on the player so it looks stock but I no longer need to use my little Bluetooth-FM adapter thing. It looks good. The Jeff Anderson modifications are still in place.
When reinstalling the interior, I wasn't happy with the shift feel due to the new heat insulation being compressed by the center console. I removed one of the pieces and it's better. I'll evaluate again after I get on the road.
Since I had the car on the lift for all the fluids, I decided to swap out those upper shock mounts and front bumpstops. All four mounts had definitely started failing with the rubbing left front being the worst. That's it on the left in the picture, you can tell it's a 1.6 part from the short studs. The other is a slightly slipped 1.8 part. The gap between the top part and the rubber beneath shows the slip, it should be in contact. I've been playing whack a mole with these by taking the best I can find in my parts stash, but they keep continuing to degrade. Now I have four new ones in place.
Interesting detail change between the 1990-93 and 1994-97 units that I'd forgotten about - the spring perch is less aggressively contoured on the early ones.
This will raise the ride height slightly. Once the car is off the lift and settled, I'll take a measurement and see where it sits. It will definitely help with the rubbing - not because the ride height is higher, but because the bumpstop location had moved up with that slipped upper mount and thus maximum compression put the wheel higher up into the wheel well.
