Awesome shot!

This is why I hate phones without a replaceable battery. Sigh.

So before giving up and buying new parts, I decided to take one more crack at getting them apart. A friend of mine (former SAE master dealer mechanic) recommended trying a decent air hammer, which gave me an excuse to buy a new tool. :)

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0001.jpg

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0002.jpg

Put the upright in the vise, turn the compressor on, don hearing & eye protection, and bang bang bang. Drove the axle right out.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0005.jpg

The axle threads are fucked, but at least I get to reuse the upright, so that's half the battle.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0003.jpg

When I did the ABS swap, I installed the axles, hubs, & uprights off the donor car, and put my original axles in the shed. I pulled one out and popped the axle out with minor tapping. Alas, it appears that in 1998 Mazda made ABS axles and non-ABS axles, and they have different diameter ends, so there is no way to press a tone ring onto those non-ABS axles. Nobody had one in stock, so I had to order one. I threw the non-ABS axle into the car just so that I could put it on its wheels though. Hm, looks like the ride heights need a bit of adjusting. :)

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0006.jpg

(that's just whatever 949 set the Xida perches to when assembling them).

--Ian

But wait, there's more!

Previously, I was running a set of offset FUCA delrin bushings from ISC in order to gain the camber I needed, but along with the swap to the new poly + oilite bushings, I'm going from offset FUCAs back to centered ones, and installing a set of the new upgraded ELBJs instead. So I tackled swapping those.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0007.jpg

80+ lb-ft of torque on that ball joint tool and it's not budging. Doh. Time for Mr Ingersoll again. I love this tool:

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0009.jpg

Flop the arm around to get the old bushings out.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0011.jpg

They put up a fight, but Mr Ingersoll taught them a lesson.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0012.jpg

That's the nasty silicone grease all over them. I hate that stuff. It's sticky, nasty, soap doesn't touch it, non-chlorinated brake cleaner (acetone) doesn't touch it, simple green barely touches it. Something I learned recently, though, is that you *can* get chlorinated brake cleaner in California, it's just that they have to call it alternator cleaner instead. And it just makes the silicone grease melt away. :)

New bushings installed.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0013.jpg

Time to put stuff back together!

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0014.jpg

Speaking of new tools, I love this one too:

http://www.codrus.com/miata/rear-hub...hub-1-0010.jpg

And that's all the pictures. One side done, took 4 hours, ugh. Good thing I pay the bills as a software guy, not a mechanic. :) The other one shouldn't take as long, though. A few lessons learned -- go straight to the air hammer instead of screwing around with the press. Also, new ball joints are WAY stiffer than old ones, and they don't flop around easily. This means it would have been a whole lot easier to put back together if I had bolted the ELBJ to the lower arm first instead of putting the taper into the upright.

Still need to do the other corner, then rough in the toe (that one wheel is massively toed in right now), rough in the ride heights and end link lengths, then take it to get aligned. Track day at Thunderhill in less than a month.

--Ian

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed the pair of magnaflow mufflers on the bench. Those aren't for the Miata, they're for my mechanic-friend's Audi, a 2002 C5 S6 that he just got done swapping out the automatic for an 01E manual out of an S4. It's the 4.2L V8, but the one with the front-mounted timing belt, not the rear-mounted chain that everyone on the Internet loves to hate. The stock exhaust on that car is very sedate, you can barely hear it. Once the Miata suspension is done and it's off the lift, we'll be fixing that. :)

http://www.codrus.com/cars/misc/c5-s6-1.jpg

--Ian

Very nice! I'd be tempted to take a hone and some sandpaper to the mating surfaces to make sure that's not a problem in the future. Is that an appropriate location for anti-seize compound?

I'm curious, how much compressor do you have at home? I've been thinking about air tools more and more here recently, but unsure if I have enough air to make it worth while.

Also, do a search for Advance Auto here on the forum with regards to ABS ring axles. There seems to be some level of success ordering them with a coupon plus free shipping. I believe they also offer a lifetime warranty? It's been a while since I looked.

I'm not sure how I'd put sandpaper on the axle splines, due to the shape. I did clean the rust out the grooves with a screwdriver tip and coat them in moly grease before reassembling though. My original axles came out of the uprights with just a couple light taps, even though they've been in there for a decade or more -- the moly grease from the shop that did the bearing swap on the car back then was still in evidence.

I have a Craftsman 33 gallon, 6.5 cfm compressor that runs on 110v. It'll only do about 75% duty cycle on a die grinder/cutoff wheel, but everything else it does just fine at -- my only real complaint with it is that it's really freaking loud. I'm keeping an eye open to upgrade it, looking for something quieter that'll run on the 220v outlet I installed for it in the new garage.

I wound up ordering an axle from Mazdacomp -- not necessarily the cheapest way out, but quick and easy. Should be here tomorrow. Savington recommended The Driveshaft Shop | Home page, but I didn't really want to spend $850 on a pair of axles right now.

--Ian

New axle went in without any hiccups.

With that done I set the basic ride heights (4.5/4.75) and did a "not stupid" alignment on the car. The ELBJs push the wheels out far enough that it was toed in something like 2 inches! There are barely enough threads on the tie rod ends for it. Then I took it to a friend for a real alignment & cornerweighting.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/mia...y2018-0001.jpg

With full tank of gas and hard top, no driver. Oink oink. (Cross was 50.1% with me in the car)

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/mia...y2018-0002.jpg

--Ian

So yesterday I hauled it up to Thunderhill for a Droids-n-Friends track day.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/dnf...-2018-0001.jpg

Beautiful day, about 80, which is very mild for Thunderhill in May.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/dnf...-2018-0002.jpg

Alas, all did not go well. Took it out for the first session and the vibration-on-right-handers was back. It had done this at a couple events last year, I'd originally thought it was wheel bearing problems, but after swapping one in the paddock last fall it was still there, so that clearly wasn't it. Then I found the mangled bushing, thought that was probably the cause, and replaced those over the winter. Well, clearly not, because it was still doing it.

So I brought the car and looked it over. Oops, something's been rubbing.

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/dnf...-2018-0003.jpg

So over the winter I replaced all of the suspension bushings, and converted from using offset FUCA bushings to the new revised ELBJs for additional camber up front. This pushed the wheel further outboard than it had been before. Additionally, I also upgraded from the TSE gen1 11.75 setup to the gen2, which moves the rotor and caliper inboard and to gain additional clearance between the caliper and the wheel. Gen1s needed a 5mm spacer up front, gen2s do not, but I had left the spacer on. The total of all of this meant that the tire was now rubbing on the bracket where the fender attaches to the front bumper, and it managed to carve through to the cord. So that tire is done. That was driver front -- passenger front was OK.

Moving the rotor inboard also decreases the clearance between it and the tie rod end. I'd done some surgery/hammering on the singular brake duct bracket to try to address that before I got there, but apparently not enough, so I hacked it up some more as well. Put it all back together, swapped my backup tires onto the car, and made it out for the 3rd session (had missed the 2nd one while wrenching). 2 laps in and the vibration was still there. Brought it in and looked things over -- nothing obvious, but I wasn't up for spending another hour or two fighting with it so I threw it in the trailer and towed it home.

You know, everyone talks about how much turbo Miatas break at the track, but what's really annoying is that (with the obvious exception of the transmission), most of the problems I've been having aren't fundamentally drivetrain related.

--Ian

Well your drivetrain making 3x the stock horsepower surely can't help.

The car is just fine in street driving, I drove it around a bunch the last couple weeks. The vibration only shows up when loaded up to track levels.

--Ian

Need some faster streets.

Says the man with how many tickets? :)

--Ian

currently down to 2.

Bear Creek as well if you can catch it at the right time.

Maybe I'm just too old, but no, I don't drive that hard on the street. Too much traffic, too many bicyclists, too many cops. I enjoy a spirited drive in the mountains, but at 8/10ths, with enough grip left over so that if I come around a blind corner to find a motorcycle has crossed the double yellow into my lane I can avoid him.

8/10ths isn't fast enough to exercise this.

--Ian

Understandable, seen too many accidents up in our mountains and had friends total cars up there. After a few autoxs and now trackdays I have little desire to go push it on the public roads.

So today I took the shock out, put the control arms back together, and moved the wheel through its arc. Learned a few things:

- The wheel is definitely hitting the brake duct when compressed and turning. It's very obvious how it's clearanced itself. :) 3" ducts really don't fit.

- If the suspension compresses far enough with the spacer installed, it's definitely possible to hit the bumper-to-fender bracket with it. Looking at motion ratios, I'd guess this is with the bumpstop compressed half an inch or so. It looks like it might be possible even without the spacer, but not sure.

No spacer:

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/tir...ender-0001.jpg

With spacer:

http://www.codrus.com/miata/fm2r/tir...ender-0002.jpg

You can see that the bracket has been bent downwards by the tire rubbing on it. That's only happened on the driver's side, not the passenger side, even though Thunderhill is a counter-clockwise circuit. Left side is 100 pounds heavier, maybe that's why?

Also, it looks like the WG dump pipe has been rubbing on the motor mount. That's a strong candidate for the vibration I've been feeling -- need to loosen everything up there and see if I can increase clearance.

--Ian

I really dont think thats the source of the vibration. When I first installed my 245s at Laguna, I was cutting up my tires pretty good on that tab and I didn't feel any vibrations.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2585829927.jpg