Archive for February 2010

I haven’t posted for a few days but I’ve been busy working in the garage nonetheless.  I managed to finish the rear control arms and shock mounts this weekend, and set about finishing the front control arms.  I started with the lower ones since they’re harder than the tops.  I was a little dismayed to realize that the lower ball joint that the miata uses has an M12 (12 mm) bolt, and the closest drill size I have is 1/2″.. I could order a 12mm bolt, and also a metric step bit (what I use instead of a reamer), but I ended up deciding to go with the 1/2″ bit, as 12mm is 0.472″, so less than 0.015″ space on either side of the bolt.  The hole in the stock control arms is roughly 0.485″ anyways, and also the ball joint is statically mounted, i.e. the bolts don’t move at all (as with a shock mount, for example), and I believe the main if not only force applied to the bolts will be tension, not shear stress.  If I change my mind about it I could always drill out the ball joint to 1/2″ and use SAE bolts.. we’ll see.

Oh, and on a side note, I ordered a bunch of parts last night.  I had to restrain myself from ordering more, but I need to pace myself in that regard.

I’ve been a bit behind on my pictures, so here is the latest progress.  Both rear lower control arms are done, the rear uppers are coming along (just have a pic of the jig, but the steel is cut and they’re ready for welding), and also I’ve got pictures of the completed garage upgrades.. cabinets, drawers, sliding doors, etc.

I also want to mention that lately I’ve been receiving good help from my dad and my cousin Shane, they’ve both helped with working on the control arms in the past few days or so and its made things go a lot faster.

I know I just posted yesterday, and no I still don’t have any pictures, but I just wanted to post that I completed one of the eight control arms last night. I’ve been building this car off and on, mostly off, for a little over two years now, and its been a while since I’ve made decent progress on it, so working on the car 4 days in a row, and no break in that trend in sight, is extremely exciting to me. In the past I’ve usually managed to get a couple weeks of solid work in and then go for a couple months without touching it, but that’s usually because something comes up, like my on the side jobs get really hectic, or school gets crazy, etc. Right now I’m just working this semester until May, and have no other obligations, so in theory I ought to be able to get 12 or so more solid weeks of work in on the car. Fingers crossed, anyways. Okay I’m going to really try to get some pics this weekend, I promise. And I need to update my “Garage” page too, now that my shop is finally done! So much to do, so little time..

-Jeff “Making good progress again” Tougas

Quick update sans pics (sorry!). This weekend I finished the garage, meaning I now have cabinet doors under the workbench, on the shelving on the side of the workbench, and sliding doors covering the shelves on the side of the garage. I also have more drawers installed in the drilling station. This is a fantastic development because it means I can start spending all my garage time on the car!

Sunday I managed to re-visit my rear suspension geometry, finalize it, and design the upper and lower control arms. Then Monday and last night I worked on building jigs and started actually constructing the control arms. With any luck, I’ll have all of the rear control arms built and installed on the car by end of Saturday, and with another week I’ll have the front suspension done as well. I’m so excited at the thought of actually bolting a wheel onto the car, and making such good progress.. Hopefully I can keep up this pace for the next several weeks.

Pics to follow in the coming days.