Took Friday off last week to do two major things; 1) Fix the power steering leak in my daily (1995 Mazda Miata M Edition) as well as replace the AC components, and 2)get the engine completed in Jake. Unfortunately I was only able to finalize one of them due to the weather. Ended up pushing the Miata into the garage as far as I could so I could finish that work.
Fought me the whole way, but now I'm not leaving my mark in power steering fluid everywhere, and I've got ac, so it was worth it.
As for Jake; I was able to get the belt put on, clean up the clutch rod ends, get the clutch engagement bar installed somewhat, get the window gaskets installed on the drivers door, get antifreeze in the radiator, and get a meager start on the exhaust. Oh, and got it started.
Here's the clutch rod after cleaning.
Installed easily, and got that all hooked up. I will have to revisit the clutch engagement bar, because it's just a bit too long, and it's actually impacting the rear exhaust stud just a tad. Not a biggie, but if I can't get it machined I'll have to build another one.
Next I tackled the antifreeze.......that was a BEAR. I was not able to get the petcock to stop leaking, and ended up wasting 2 whole gallons of antifreeze. Three trips to the parts store to get the right size, and finally got some antifreeze in the stupid thing.
Then I tackled the window rubber. It was gone.....it was so hard and brittle I had to just break it out. Came out in pieces.
Some more of the telltale signs of Jake's original hue.
The vent window rubber had to be scraped out.
The rear glass runner was pretty rusted up. Decided to blast that, and put some paint on it.
After a few minutes in the highly modified HF blast cabinet:
Pretty pleased with that. Was not able to find any black paint (I know where it went; son's choice of colors for his engine just happened to be black), so brown is the color of the day, boys and girls.
