I'm kind of doing this backwards since I already created 2 threads (that wasn't very polite of me), so I'm here to introduce myself. A little bit about me- I'm and x-wrench turner, shop foreman, and shop manager in the automotive and heavy truck fields, but have been out of those for about 10 years. This means I may be one step higher in knowledge than a dumb-a**, but not by much. What little knowledge I can remember, I'm willing to share with you kind folks. I currently have too many projects going on, if you know what I mean. So having this forum to help me through this car project is greatly appreciated.
Last summer I bought this 82' Spider.
In the garage with the Miata that I finished last spring.
It is for the most part pretty clean. The only rust I was able to find so far was about 5 pin holes in the floor at the back of the passenger seat right side glide mount. This was cause by a small rip in the roof and the moisture/water pooling in this area from what I can see. Mechanically the previous owner did some repairs that lets just say weren't correct and it need a radiator. It also had a really loud tranny whine in all gears and it would pop out of 5th gear on initial engagement, it would also grind a little on re-engagement of 5th after it would pop out. Also the clutch will shudder when engaging from a stop after warm. I replaced the tranny lube with the correct GL-1 lube and 90% of the shifting 5th gear/whining problem went away. The previous owner told me he had replaced the clutch, but by the visually shoddy work he did elsewhere on the car my guess is the clutch shudder is caused by him replacing the clutch and pressure plate assemblies only and not re-surfacing a warped flywheel or the clutch disc may have a broken spring in it. We'll see when I get it apart.
This car will basically get totally restored but in sections in a time frame of about 2 years. This year the interior and motors/tranny are getting done. Next year, paint and suspension. I think....
I'll try and do some updates as time allows.
Thanks Everyone
(PS- can someone explain to me why my photo are getting cut off on the right side, I've resized them to less than 750 width)
(ps2- I finally figured it out) Thanks Guys
