After letting the Raid foggers do their thing all night, we went out and took the tarps off so we could let the car air out and then see what we had to work with.
The odor from the foggers was still pretty strong as we started working. The interior was gross. Most of the carpet was soggy, and there was standing water in the driver's footwell. There were a lot of leaves, spiderwebs, dirt, and random trash left by the previous owner. There was also some money and an iPod that we found next to the passenger seat.
Always thought owning a Miata made in '89 would be cool.
Even though it's old, with 100k on the clock it's still just a baby.
Under the hood was basically the same story; thick cobwebs everywhere and lots of leaves and surface rust.
This is where the giant spider was spotted, but no sign of it today.
The clutch fluid reservoir was basically dry. Could something this simple be the reason the car was abandoned?
The first order of business was to remove the bra.
Unfortunately under the bra we found a really bad repaint, and a bumper with the characteristic license plate dimple.
Poor bumper.
Then we started to pull apart the interior. The plan is to strip out everything, then determine what will clean up, and what will need to be replaced. Reuben has a strange fascination with head rest speakers, so the first thing he did was unzip the headrests. I was surprised to find these after market speakers in there.
Next I pulled off the speaker covers from the door, and was even more surprised to see the top notch install job they had done on these speakers that were too small for the openings.
After that I removed the rear plastics, carpet, and package tray panel. After seeing all the moisture and rust elsewhere in the car I expected this area to be pretty bad. I was surprised to see it was relatively clean and rust free.
Reuben sprayed some WD-40 in the lock and after wiggling the key back and forth for a few seconds I got the trunk open. Found all kinds of goodies here. Antifreeze, which I put into the radiator, an old shirt, a CD changer, a mouse nest, some CDs, a wireless keyboard, and a soggy Haynes manual (I could have used one of those). Under all that was an inch or so of standing water. I pulled the carpet out to try and clean up.
I ended up rounding off a couple bolts trying to get the seats out. Went to Napa and picked up a set of these and the last 2 bolts came right out.
I took all the carpets that I had removed, all of them but the main one, and hosed them off real good in the driveway. I was surprised to see how well they cleaned up just from that. With a good shampooing I think they'll be salvageable. Gave the car a quick wash too. Then I dropped the battery off at Vatozone to get charged and tested. Turns out it was toast, but they gave me a $5 gift card for recycling it. #winning Came back home and pulled the battery out my daily Miata and put it in the project. The engine turned over but wouldn't fire up. I noticed the gas gauge was on E, so I had Reuben swing by and get some gas for the car. We put the gas in and tried to start it again, and it fired right up! So much win! All it needed was a battery and some gas.
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Xida CS | Hard Dog | Corn*s | Bride | Joyfast | Carbing | Beatrush | 6UL | KG Works | Square-Top Manifold | BP5A Cam | Daily/CSP build
Originally Posted by tsingson
