The Rotten Banana- Over a decade in the making

[Titus]

The harness work under the dash didn’t end up being so bad. It was time consuming work that left my fingers sticky and sore, but I managed to get all of the unneeded Mazda wires that go to the passanger side completely removed from the harness. What was left was rapped up and reattached to the firewall.



Before reinstalling the dash, I disassembled the 3 hvac boxes, cleaned them, and applied new weather stripping. The AC box was the worst of them.



Once they were reinstalled, the dash went back in and I gave it another startup test to make sure it still ran after surgery. All was good, so now I can move forward with final passanger side engine bay wiring wrapping and routing.

[Titus]

I got the passenger side engine bay wiring wrapped this weekend, along with reinstalling the headlights, fans, and radiator overflow. The oem overflow is nasty looking. It will do for now, but I am looking at aftermarket options. If I can’t find anything I like, I may just get a new oem one.

[RustRat]

About the overflow tank, as I happen to have this conversation with @harryb about a week ago, there are some things you can do.

1. Oem plastic tank.
2. aftermarket metal tank (like Moroso)
3. You can get a universal expansion tank from ebay or your local parts store, in the shape of a soda bottle, and mount it vertical next to your radiator with some brackets.

I'll can provide some links, if you want me to.

[Titus]

3. You can get a universal expansion tank from ebay or your local parts store, in the shape of a soda bottle, and mount it vertical next to your radiator with some brackets.

I'll can provide some links, if you want me to.

I have been looking at the universals a little, but so far I have not seen any good documentation of universal installs in a Miata. If you have any links to anything like that, I would love to see them.

[Titus]

I am behind on my write-ups, but got a few things written up last night.

Sway bar reinstall

Even after a good cleaning, my 13 year old Flyin Miata front sway bar is looking pretty sad.



What should have been a 5 minute step in my reassembly turned in to hours. Even though I thought I had done a good job bagging and labeling bolts, I just could not find 2 of the end link bolts. After a few hours of searching everywhere, I remembered that I had a set of end links in a box of parts from a 96m I parted out years ago. I pull them out and find they still had the nuts and bolts attached to them. 5 minutes later and the sway bar was back in the car.



It is hard to tell from the pic, but it clears the pulleys by a good 3/4″.

[Titus]

Throttle cable modification

The throttle cable needs some mods to work. First is the throttle body side.



You need to cut off both the rubber piece, and the metal bushing that slides in to it.

Once those are out of the way, it bolts right up.



With this done, you quickly realize the cable is about 3 inches too long, and you really only have about +/- 3/4″ adjustment. This is caused by the mounting point being closer to the Acura throttle body than the Miata throttle body.

Unless you have the skills to do the fancy barrel cable ends like used at the throttle body end, you need to shorten the cable from the peddle end. This means you first need to remove it from the car, which is a real pain. The stupid firewall clip is my worst enemy. It may be marginally easier with the dash out, but I have reinstalled the dash twice so I was not going there. The only advice I can give is letting you know that there are 4 clipping points that need to be compressed at once, all from the inside of the car. 2 on top that you push down and 2 on bottom that you push up.

Once out, I cut off the amount needed and followed a write-up I found on line for making a new solder ball. It involved first sticking the old ball into playdough to make a mold.



It was then removed and the cable was slid in to place.



No pictures of the solder melt because I don’t have enough hands, but I basically filled the hole with liquid flux and then hit it with a torch while feeding 5050 lead solder in. In the write-up I was following, it said the playdough wouldn’t burn, but mine looked like a toasted marshmallow in seconds. Might be because I was using a hotter torch? Regardless, it worked.



After a little cleanup on the grinder, the ball fit right in to the plastic retainer. It also is on there very securely.



A few minutes later it was in the car and working perfectly, and I was off to the next item on my list.

[MLambert19]

Thanks for this! I may have to do similar to get my Jenvey setup working, so this was extremely helpful!

[Titus]

Glad to help!