To Err is... frequent?

Errorville

So one sub-project of the overall project was de-powering the steering rack. This is a popular mod for regular Miatas as well as Miata-based kit cars. Precise steering is more fun for a sports car than mushy steering - and at 300kg lighter than a Miata, the Replicar really doesn't need power steering. Not to mention the desirability of deleting an accessory pump and its belt and all its hoses and fittings, all of which are potential places from which fluids can leak.

Steps include draining all the power steering fluid out of the rack and plugging all the holes - I just cut the steel hoses off the fittings then brazed them closed. They don't have to hold pressure any more; just keep the dirt out. 

See the two semicircles in the lower right of the above picture?

In their original intact fully circular form, they are responsible for separating the right and left sides of the rack, to maintain the fluid pressure differential that makes the steering power assisted. If you don't have the fluid pressure, it just creates drag inside the housing. So cut grooves on both sides with the death wheel (above left) then strike with a chisel to break it off (above right). 

Finally, the upper and lower halves of the pinion are connected with splines - but instead of fitting precisely as splines usually do, these splines are sloppy. It's the "slop" that sends the pressure to one side or the other for power assisted steering. But a sloppy pinion is just what we're trying to get away from here, so the upper and lower halves of the pinion need to be welded or brazed together (see the gold-tinted ring encircling the pinion about midway). 

Grease the parts and reassemble into the de-rusted and painted housing and you have... a left hand drive steering rack that won't work on this car.

Yep. I had three steering racks in my garage, only one of which came from the UK in the same crate with my Replicar parts - and I just spent all that time and effort depowering the wrong one. So, that's a re-do (re-do almost done, in fact).

Then some bling, when the wire wheels arrived. I found a source for actual center lock wire wheels that are reasonably affordable, are not a leading cause of Death By Bling, and the correct size and offset for this project. I will need some hub centric adapters and other bits and pieces, but I think this will all work out and they sure are pretty:

Then annoyingly when I bolted on the right rear (the one above), the brakes locked up and wouldn't budge. After some investigation, I discovered the below:

The rotor (grey-ish thing) is crammed hard up against the brake caliper hanger (black thing). Doesn't want to turn like that. Spent about half a day trying to figure out why it came out like this - in other words, what I had done wrong.

Turns out, the problem is not operator error in this case. The correct caliper hanger is on the left. The one causing all the problems is on the right, and it's obviously a lot thicker (taller from this angle). I knew there were two kinds of brake caliper hangers - 1990-1997 and 1999-2005. I'm using all 1999 parts, and the one on the left (that came off the working side of the car) is correct for 1999. The big chunky one on the right is not 1990-1997 - and it's obviously not 99-05. So what is it? I am not sure. There are rumors of a heavy duty "sport brakes" option. But somehow, Autozone got hold of the wrong caliper hanger and used it in rebuilding a 99-05 caliper, then sold it to me as a '99. So, exchange for the correct caliper and repeat the painting process, reinstall, and then finally I've got brakes on all four corners that should work.

From Errorville to Progress City

In the USA, the last weekend in May is a 3-day weekend with Monday off in observance of Memorial Day. The Sunday before Memorial Day is the traditional day we run the Indianapolis 500 - so Kansas City Ed was in town for the festivities. Actually, KC Ed goes to every Memorial Day weekend race except the 500 - which means he sees more fun racing and spends about $500 less, as well as about 6 hours less walking from parking to the Speedway and then back again. Ed is wise in the ways of auto racing, obviously. In fact he was a dirt track driver some 50ish years ago and he's one of those guys who can build or fix just about anything.

So KC Ed graciously spent the better part of a day helping me re-assemble my power plant skate. Turns out this was very well timed, because the skate re-assembly had some wrasslin' jobs as well as several steps where it's very helpful to have four hands and the ability to see both sides of things that are not transparent.

Here is another example of how confusing things can get, and how the assumption that I must have screwed up is not always applicable. I went through my nuts and bolts collection from disassembling the donor car several times and could not for the life of me find the correct fasteners to attach the drive shaft flange to the differential. So a trip to the hardware store to buy $12 worth of nuts bolts and washers - and only then did I realize, of course I don't have this hardware because the driveshaft and the differential were not the ones I took off the donor car - and they require different size nuts and bolts than the 1999 variant. So, yeah, the reason I kept finding four nuts bolts and washers and kept thinking they looked almost right, but too small, is because they came off a different power train that takes similar but smaller hardware. 

So here's the upshot: power plant skate ready to go and looking pretty nice. As a progress check, let's look turn back the clock.

The above picture was taken December 30. Precisely five months and an untold number of chores and sub-projects later, et voila: