Beading Floors And Misc

This past week time was spent trying out a newly purchased beading tool. Being able to bead looked like fun and with so much of the rear floor needing reworked it seemed like a good time.

Also done this week was the Miata narrowed subframe needed opened up a bit where the differential pokes out. As the differential tapered back it was hitting on the subframe. With the frame narrower it shouldn't need so much structure there anyway. Cut it back a bit and welded it in. In that pic you can see some of the new floor that's been beaded.

Also tossed in a side view of the car with the subframe temporarily bolted in. Lots more structure to rework but getting farther.

Old Suspension Out.

 Cleaned out the back of the car, put it back up on it's stands and got to work with the angle grinder and plasma torch.

Cut a hole large enough in the floor to put in the Miata narrowed subframe. Then cut out the old suspension! 

Out with the old 

in with the new.....

Test fitted the new suspension with the wheel on. Looks like I got the width right where I was wanting it. Now to weld it all in.

Possible Rear Disk Brake Conversion :-)

 This week we finished up the temporary hose routing then tried to start the engine. Sadly it was complaining of some error and wouldn't even engage the starter. Strange as we had this setup working before and only removed wires that weren't connected to anything. After much time reading diagrams and checking thing and changing some coding back to automatic transmission we were able to get the error to go away. Unfortunately the battery is dying so I need to replace that before going farther.

Also on Saturday we brought in the floor from one of the scrapped GT6's. I kept it for the purpose of testing new suspension fitting. It's very liberating to be able to cut without worry that it's not the "right" place. And after I cut and fit it, sure enough, I could see a better spot to cut. So nice to have a practice run.

Overall it's not looking bad. Looks like I need to enlarge the suspension/axle tunnel 3-4" forward. I'll try to move the rear suspension cross brace forward a couple inches to avoid cutting the rear of the suspension tunnel on the actual car. Would like to get my differential to see how it fits in first (Waiting on the salvage yard). Then there is the integrating this part into the Triumph frame. Always more to do.

Radiator Hoses - Possible New Rear Suspension?

One night I decided to modify some suspension parts I bought for the project quite a long time ago. Was kind of a whim thing to work on this now and especially with so little planning but it looks like it might have turned out. Narrowed it 8 7/8 inches. Time will tell if this is a good amount or not. It's just tacked together so it is easy enough to change.

 This week was spent fitting radiator hoses. Bought a bunch of 90 degree elbows, misc hoses and an aluminum tube. Starting to fit it all to the motor. Used the simple wire crimper method to bead the end of the tube. No pictures but there's plenty on the web. Right now I'm skipping connecting up the heater and some of that misc. I can do that later. Waiting on some caps to cap off the unused ports.