build diary

August 16, 2004: Much better.
The combination of the brazing and some epoxy (okay, JB Weld) with lots of curing time has fixed the radiator. The adjusted throttle has made the car far, far more drivable - it had a terrible light throttle snatch before that has gone away. With the new transmission with synchro on 2nd, it's now a well-mannered little car just like a Miata should be. The exhaust fit better when I reinstalled it (I have no idea why) so it's quieter now although it still makes highly entertaining noises. A less entertaining noise is the buzzing from where the #4 header tube hits the bodywork - a bit of trimming is required.

In terms of the instruments, some quick probing hasn't given me any clues. The speedo cable snapped about 10 miles after installation due to a nasty tight bend in the cable. That's going to be difficult to avoid given the packaging. The oil pressure gauge and tacho are the two that interest me more though. I'll try to work that out this week. I'm leaving the car at the Flyin' Miata shop because I won't have plates again until Wednesday night. Most of the work remaining is just fettling although it might be good to have a wind deflector of some sort - passengers seem to mention that a lot.

Eric has asked for more photos of the car. I'm constantly taking photos of it because I still can't believe it's out on the road - so if there's anything that you want to see in particular let me know either via email or the guestbook. One comment from Bill is that it's more orange in person than in the photos. I have a tendency to show the yellow highlight in the photos but most of the time it looks like the basic orange you see in photo 438.

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