The Slow Lane

It’s finally back on the road!! After a whole month on jack stands. The only part missing was the one outer tie rod end. I bought it from Mazda Motorsports with my newly opened account. I also picked up some rod end sway bar end links from Mazdaspeed since my old ones were all rusty, especially the bolts. So I put them on as well. Then I put the wheels on and took it for a test drive. Well the test drive didn’t last for long. At first I thought it was just rust knocking off of the brake rotors. But the vibration quickly became severe. I nursed the car around the block and back in the driveway. the vibration was coming from the right front, like the brake bad was sticking in spots. Upon taking the wheel off everything looked OK, except that it was clear that the brake rotor was rubbing on the caliper bracket. It took me a little bit of looking around to realize the rotor was not seated square on the hub. I took the rotor off and the only thing out of place was a small knob of metal on the underside of the rotor. It turned out to be rust that was built up. It self destructed with some contact from a sanding disk on my drill. With the brakes all back together and on another test drive everything was OK now. In fact the car felt good. It was not as harsh over bumps as I had imagined. Of course I had the shocks set to almost the lowest settings. I didn’t want to push the handling. It was just a shakedown run to make sure everything was OK. The next day Irene brought me up and we drove the car home.

There was still a lot to do. I noticed that the rear end was leaking and could not get the fill plug out. It almost looked as is someone had put some sealant on the threads. IT was a matter of time before the rear end drains itself and blows up. It was already making a noise on coasting. Needless to say I didn’t drive it much. And we discovered that one of the rear brake pads was down to nothing while one was at full. Plus now one of the front rotors has a “flatspot” to it, which caused a vibration. The next step was to take it for an alignment. No problems there, though I was worried that the front alignment bolts, which we didn’t get to replace would brake. They didn’t. I was prepared, having new ones on hand. But that would have made the alignment go longer and cost more. I got a fairly aggressive alignment, but is fairly stock for an STS2 Miata. All the specs were gleaned from various message boards and from Andy Hollis’ GRM blog (check my blogroll). The specs are -2.2° camber in the front, which is about as much as you can get when you max out the caster, -2.5° camber in the rear. 1/8″ toe out in the front and 1/8″ toe in in the rear. The first autocross with all of these changes would be the next day. The report on that later.

Over the next week my task was to find those elusive castle nuts. Luckily for me, that week my Mazda Motorsports account was opened. Mazda offers racers a special motorsports account where they can get OEM parts at a discount. You have to prove that you have raced twice a year. It’s a great thing and other manufactures should take note of it. They had the castle nuts! I was thrilled. I decided to pick up some new boots for the upper ball joints and tie rod ends since they were badly torn. They were not that expensive either. I wanted to replace the lower ball joints since they take a lot of the suspension load and those boots were ripped also. I figured I would have to do it later do to money constraints. But new lower ball joints were only $36 from Mazda. So I picked them up too! The parts arrived promptly via 2nd day express which was only a few dollars more than ground! Thing were going all too good. So the next Saturday once again I trekked up to Allentown to work on the car.

First thing to do was to separate the tie rod ends. This was not so easy. I used a pitman arm puller to pop the tie rod out of the front upright as I have done many times before. The right one went easily but on the left one the puller slipped off and messed up some of the threads on the stud. Ugggghhhh. Then I could not release the lock nuts and spin the tie rods off the inner tie rods. We had to use heat here again and eventually both broke free. The lower ball joints came off and went on with out too much trouble. Thanks gosh. So then we moved on to replacing the boots. We started with the tie rod that had the damaged threads. You can’t remove the upper ball joints, they are pressed into the upper a-arms. Good thing we did that b/c once we ripped what we could of the boot off we could not get the bottom most of the boot free. We tried prying with small screw drivers and little dentist pick looking things. Steve got the idea that maybe we could burn the rest of the rubber off. We did, after cooking some (probably most) of the grease out of the joint. Once all the rubber was gone we found a steel ring that was embedded in the boot. It was this ring that held the boot on the joint!

Hopefully someone will learn from this. You can pry the boot right off by getting a very small, thin screwdriver under this metal ring and prying it off. Then you just need a big socket to press the the new boot on! Once you know how it works it is pretty easy. Since I messed up the threads on the tie rod and cooked a bunch of the grease out I figured I should replace it. I really thought I was going to get the car together this week. The front suspension got put together with the exception of the one tie rod end. I also replaced the stock front sway bar with a hollow Racing Beat bar I picked up. With the Racing Beat bar it is recommended that you also install the reinforcing kit they sell. The bar being as stiff as it is can bend the stock mounts. The the reinforcing bars are a little tough to get in b/c of the space constraints. And one straddles a power steering line making that one tougher. I had to grind a corner off that one to make it fit right. After that was done the bar went in slowly but surely. The long bolts take a while to thread in. Once everything was tight I noticed the brackets around the sway bar were not flush against the subframe and the bar was tough to turn by hand. This is typical of this bar. This means it is binding some. The easiest fix is to put some washers under the brackets. Or you can shave the bushings. I’d rather go the washer route but don’t feel like taking the thing all back apart so I leave it like that for now. Next week all I need to do it put the tie rod on and the tires back on and she can drive!

So during the next week my task was to find replacements for everything that broke. The castle nuts for the front upper ball joints, some new nuts and bolts for the rear shocks, and the alignment bolts for the rear. Sounds easy enough right? I started to realize the castle nuts would be a problem. I used my tap and die set to size the threads. It was M12×1.25. That is a very fine thread for an M12. Last weekend while at Sears Hardware near Irene’s Dad’s I looked for the castle nut. They didn’t have any. But the hardware selection wasn’t as nice as the one near my apartment. The Sears Hardware near me is awesome. They have had just about everything I needed when I needed something. Bailed me out plenty of times. They did have an M12×1.25 castle nut but it was too tall. The slots for the cotter pin would end up below the send of the stud and the hole for the pin would be covered up. I actually needed a slotted nut as opposed to a castle nut as I found out (yes there is a difference!). I was able to find the bolts for the rear shocks there however. I had to use a flanged cap screw b/c the hex on a regular hex cap screw would be too big for the slot in the control arm where the socket goes in. They has some some flanged nuts with a 17mm hex as well. Perfect! I tried PepBoys and Autozone for the castle nuts with no result. It was a long shot but I tried. Doing a search on the internet I found out that Motormite sells castle nuts in their HELP! line. But not the size I needed.

Irene happened to be ordering a new clutch for her Miata from Young Mazda. Young gives LVMOC members a discount. Great! I can piggyback my parts on her order. I double checked real quick the price on the alignment bolts b/c I new I could get them for a good price from Trussville Mazda, who has a big online business. They were the same price. I asked her to order the upper ball joint castle nuts as well. OK so everything looks good so far. We get up to the dealer Saturday morning with not too much time to spare before they close. We get all the parts and head back to Irene’s Dad’s place. When I get there, to my horror, the castle nuts are the wrong size! They are obviously for the lower ball joints. All we can do is work on the rear.

Irene’s Dad was keen to help again and while we were driving up and stopping at the dealership he power washed the rear suspension assemblies and painted the control arms and uprights with a flat black paint! Awesome. The rear shocks & coilovers went together and along with the new shock bolts and alignment bolts both sides of the rear suspension went in without anymore drama. I got everything torqued down to spec. Since I couldn’t work on the front I used the extra time to remove the rear sway bar as I did not anticipate needing it for most surfaces & courses. No fasteners broke, but the ones holding the end links on were trashed after taking them apart. Luckily the studs that hold the sway bar bracket against the frame were in better shape. Not great, but re-usable. I cleaned them up by running a tap over them and then called it a day. Another weekend and the car was not finished. But at least I got to enjoy my Sunday not under the car.