In my last vlog I mentioned my clutch problems. Basically it's like the clutch was never engaging. Trying to put it in any gear when running was basically like trying to put it in gear without using the clutch. 

As I mentioned last week, Project NB was really starting to come together. The motor is in and the fuel pump made it run. I set about doing my clutch adjustment, but even with a new slave cylinder and clutch line and doing all the pedal adjustment and bleeding the hell out of the system, it won't go into any gear with the engine running. I'm going to try to get it on the lift tomorrow and figure out just what the hell is going on. 

It runs under it's own power! I still need to install the new clutch slave cylinder and bleed the clutch system, and I'm still waiting on a replacement radiator since the one I got from Rockauto leaks, but I got the DW300 fuel pump installed today and finally cranked the damn car up. 

I should get the clutch stuff done by this weekend but the radiator won't be here until Monday. I might can fill the leaky radiator up with water and take it around the block, we'll see how brave I feel when the time comes, but all that really matters is it's a real live running car. I didn't even mess up the timing belt or anything! 

So this Saturday I had the Miata almost put together and a shop with nothing really to do. I decided it was time to get it running. 

I put the car on the lift, installed the lower radiator hose, put the mid pipe on the exhaust so I could install and plug in the catalytic converter, tightened a few accessories up that I couldn't easily get to from above, and plugged in the oil pressure sending unit (when I finally figured out what the hell that weird little connector went to). 

Just a small update this week, mostly rambling about progress on Project NB. The next one should feature Project NB actually moving under it's own power. 

I should have already had this done, but it's been a busy week. I have it ready to go next week. All accessories are on, all belts are on the accessories, and the wiring harness is back in and most everything is plugged in. All of my coolant hoses are on the motor, including the pain in the ass hose that lives at the back of the head for the SuperMiata coolant reroute, and all vacuum lines except a couple that plug into the intake pipe are back on. Exhaust manifold is also back on. The only thing left to do is wait for some lift time, put the downpipe on so I can plug in the O2 sensor, and do the multi-step, ass-ache-sounding clutch bleed/pedal adjustment for the FM happy meal clutch. SO CLOSE BROS. 

I got it bolted to the mounts and to the transmission last Saturday, and all this week I've been tinkering in my spare time. I also noticed that I left a part of the power steering bracket was left on the old motor, and I turned it in as a core (damn $500 core charge!), so I had to order one on eBay. I do have the exhaust manifold, AC Compressor, and alternator on, so hopefully tomorrow I can adjust the clutch up, throw the downpipe on, and at least fire it up for a minute or two. Still needs cooling but I'm not putting that back on until everything is checked out because it's so much easier to work without the radiator and fans in the way. Anyway, have some picture! 

I have to admit, this was a total impulse purchase. As you might imagine, I drive a lot of different cars. Most everything I buy from the auction gets driven home at least once before it's put up for sale. I don't like selling a car only for the buyer to discover some little issue that I could have easily repaired had I noticed it. 

Anyway, because of that, and my addiction to podcasts, I REQUIRE a good bluetooth to Aux adapter. Something I can throw in any car with an aux in and have music and podcasts from my phone. I have been using the Anker Roav F0 since May, and while it does have some benefits (mainly it has an FM transmitter in case I buy something without an aux port), it's been acting weird lately. It seems like it's not making a good bluetooth connection even though it's like 24" away from the phone. I'll be driving and suddenly my podcast or music will start to sound like a phone call when you're down to one bar, breaking up and losing half of the audio at random. It's infuriating!

The auction yard Hyundai had a pretty gross rear seat cushion. Best I can guess, someone let their kid live back there and never cleaned it. It looked and smelled pretty rough. I pulled it out after I put the door on and stuffed it in the back of my beater Prius (Where I learned of it unpleasant smell btw), and took it to my house to use my upholstery cleaner on it. I did a video of the cleaning mostly as an excuse to use my Hero 8 Black to do a time lapse. Still, pretty neat to see it go from absolutely disgusting to, well, to kinda passable, but still. Here's the video. 

I'm a car dealer mostly for the family rental fleet business, but I also buy stuff on the side to resell. I picked this thing up at auction a couple of weeks ago and just got around to messing with it. Gonna try to make it a decent little beater again then it can go on to be someone's first car. 

I purchased it with some heavy damage to one of the back doors, but lucked out with a same colored door in a local junkyard. Yesterday I put it on and figured I would try out the Hero 8's timewarp mode. This was honestly super easy as the car has manual locks, manual windows, and no speakers in the rear doors, so basically four bolts hold the door on. 

It's currently getting that flat tire repaired over at the tire shop, then I'll throw a new battery in it and replace the bumper cover this weekend. That should be about it, and it can go be someone's cheap first car or something and I can spend the money that I get from it to buy something dumb like standalone for the green Miata. 

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Like for real for real. I got my pilot bearing installed, got my flywheel bolted up, got my clutch disk and flex plate on. I just need lift time, and I should get that next week.

Now I need to decide on a car play head unit, because I can’t go back to not having it. I’ll do a ton of research this weekend and post up what I decide on.

So yeah, I put my flywheel on earlier this week and went to go install the pressure plate and clutch today and got the feeling that something is missing. I quickly realized I should probably install the pilot bearing in the center of the flywheel. I tried to gently tap it in with the flywheel in place but I abandoned that idea pretty quickly, pulled the flywheel back off and pressed it in. I feel like a total moron, but at least I realized it before I put the motor in.

Much better. Now let’s get this clutch on and get this damn motor in. I want to drive my NB.

It was raining buckets this morning as I drove it in and it didn't leak a single drop. Getting the new top to latch was quite a chore. I finally accomplished it by letting the car sit in the sun all day with the top "up" to stretch it out, then turning the heat on high for about 20 minutes to make it more pliable, then Daisy basically laid on top of the roof to push it down will I pulled it forward and latched it. Once one side was finally latched the other went pretty easily. I'm going to leave it latched for at least a couple of weeks to let it get nice and stretched before I even attempt to put the top down again. 

On the plus side, the cheapest Miata top on amazon is actually pretty damn good. It fits correctly, it seems to be made of exactly the same material as the factory top, and at the time I bought it, it was $159 with free shipping with Prime. I really have zero complaints. If you want a cheap NA top, go buy it...but maybe wait until it's warmer to put it on if you want to be able to actually close it. 

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It was surprisingly not bad at all considering it was my first soft top install and I used literally the cheapest Miata top on amazon.  The top came off pretty easily, the B pillar clips were a massive ass ache and drilling out the rivets is always exciting, but overall it worked out fine. 

Putting the new top on was a little bit more challenging but still totally doable. The main issue was trying to get the tension cables and B pillars on correctly, we finally figured out that you need to fold the top up to make those easy. I managed to salvage the existing rain rail. Now it's just sitting in the garage with weights on the roof to stretch it out so it can close. Naturally it got cold as soon as we decided to do the top. 

Here's a video of the install process, but it's definitely not comprehensive. It should still you a good idea of how it goes though. 

I got the fender on last weekend and drove it on the little a bit, just enough in fact to determine that the brakes were not in good shape, and there's no way in hell I was going to drive it off the lot at all. 

Now all I have left to do is install the comically cheap convertible top I purchased on amazon. I'll make sure to do a video of that, since I've never done a convertible top before. I'm also going to do it at home so I can do some heavy drinking if it's as annoying as I think it will be. Here's a quick video of the car in it's current state.