"Aremmes" (aremmes)
03/27/2019 at 12:00 • Filed to: wrenching weekend, miata, suspensionolopnik
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"Aremmes" (aremmes)
03/27/2019 at 12:00 • Filed to: wrenching weekend, miata, suspensionolopnik | 4
| 6 |
NA and NB Miatas have a reputation for being easy to work on, and in most cases the reputation is well earned. A product of 1980s engineering, with simple and generally solid construction, they hardly changed mechanically from 1989 all the way up to 2005 when the NC arrived on the market sporting a platform partly derived from the RX-8. As a casual wrencher with a small assortment of tools and no access to a garage in which to work, I’ve had relatively good luck doing my own work on my car. Sometimes, though, the car throws me a curve ball for which I’m not prepared. Even the small things. Specially the small things.
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! I left off where I finished replacing the rear shock absorbers and springs, which went swimmingly. After that victory, I believed that the front suspension would prove just as easy. So it happened that the next day I set out to fish the tools out of the basement trunk and tackle the front axle. Alas, I would not have a repeat the very next day.
Things went normally from the start. I lifted the front onto jackstands, removed the wheels, removed the lock nuts, and gave the sway bar end links a taste of cutting wheel. Here’s where I ran into the first issue, since the lower end of the end link sits adjacent to the shock tube, so I couldn’t take the grinder to it and remove the end link entirely. No biggie, I had the upper end detached from the sway bar, so I could leave the end link there and cut it off later.
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Next up, I proceeded to detach the ball joints from the hub carrier to make removal of the shock easier. Except that I didn’t. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but the short of it is that the cotter pins on the castle nuts had been wedged in entirely, leaving nothing from where to pull them. I couldn’t even fit a pick through the eye as they were pushed in so far inside the castle nut. This was all true for the lower ball joints on both sides, while later I found that the cotter pins on the upper ball joints were in a better position. I didn’t notice this until later, after I pulled a drastic move — I took the spring compressors to the springs, while the shock and spring were still in the car.
And guess what, it worked! After a lot of tightening with the adjustable wrench (there was no space for a socket wrench), I compressed the springs enough that I could swing the control arms down enough to swing the shock/spring assembly and pull it out.
Some here might interject and say that there are easier methods, like removing the long bolt holding the upper control arm to the subframe. There is !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , in fact. There’s a problem with that, though: the long bolt is not as accessible as the ball joints. It requires removal of the under tray and the sway bar in order to reach the bolt and clear space for it when removed. And I’m a lazy bastard working on a car in a parking lot.
Anyway, front left shock was now out, around 4pm on Sunday. I took out the remains of the sway bar end link, disassembled the old shock, and took the top hat to assemble the new shock and spring. To my surprise, the bump stop and spring here, while chewed up, still seemed functional.
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With the new shock put together it was time to put it back in. Except that I didn’t. It was just a bit longer than the old assembly so where the old parts cleared just barely the new ones would not fit, not even with my cheaty dumb spring compressor ways. This is were I found that the upper ball joint’s cotter pin could be removed easily, but I had already burned through daylight and needed to wrap up for the night and continue next weekend.
Pretending to be just another car in the parking lot, never mind the jack stands.
The following Saturday didn’t didn’t see much progress due to family things, but I did get the upper ball joints popped off, and I took the time to replace the old ripped boots with Energy Suspension boots. Nothing fancy, just a cheap band-aid alternative to replacing the control arm entirely.
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Sunday rolled in with much warmer temperatures, and it couldn’t have been better. I struggled initially to get the front left shock in with the upper control arm still not giving enough clearance, but my neighbor stopped by and gave me a hand holding the suspension down while I routed the assembly into place. Success! After fastening the top hat and reattaching the knuckle and sway bar, it was ready to go. An hour and a half later, I had the front right corner all wrapped up as well. Nice.
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So how does it ride? Exactly as I expected. It’s firm but not jarring. It rolls in corners but in a predictable fashion that allows me to gauge weight transfer without much thought. It’s no longer hitting the bump stops on every rut, expansion joint, or paint stripe. When we went on a test ride, my son commented “It’s so smooth! I can’t feel anything!” Previously it had some rattly knocking noises coming from the front suspension, but those are now gone and replaced with cowl shake due to not having a front shock tower brace. That’ll likely be my next little project. Probably a roll bar too.
The car has settled down a bit in the past few days. On Sunday evening the fender gap stood at 2
¼ inches (57
mm), while now it’s just over two inches (51 mm). I don’t think it’ll settle down much more given that I used
stock height springs, but that’s fine with me. I just now have to schedule an alignment, and it
should be good to go.
Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> Aremmes
03/27/2019 at 12:29 |
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You are insane to not do the long bolt method!! I had absolutely zero issues doing coilovers on my Miata by doing it that way. It was all just standard unbolting stuff and hoping the death sticks didnt fall off and murder me. I had never done any suspension work on a car and the car is more rust than metal. So I expected it to be near impossible but I finished the whole thing in a long day. The hardest part was getting the damn rears height adjusted correctly. I couldnt adjust them on the car due to interference with the control arms so I had to get it perfect and then install and reinstall them 3 or 4 times.
I see you also have the start of subframe rust down there. It is rather annoying to deal with and is almost always terminal. Mine is worse though and hasnt fallen apart yet so you should be alright. Id look into coating it or something though, maybe slow down the process while you still have plenty of metal there.
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Aremmes
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
03/27/2019 at 12:58 |
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Hah! I figured someone would ding me on not using the long bolt method. Since you mention rust, I should mention that the sway bar brackets on my car are rather rusted out, so doing the long bolt method would’ve likely required new brackets, for which I had not prepared and I’d rather postpone that until I replace the sway bars and/ or the bushings .
As for the rust, I’ll look into using rust converter around the underside, which should at least buy me some time before the car needs new subframes or a trip to the boneyard.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> Aremmes
03/27/2019 at 13:14 |
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Yours dont even look bad right now. Mine were worse when I bought the car and are 1000x worse right now. But even so, I have seen EVEN worse than that online in the horror story threads. So its definitely “acceptable” as is. I have to see once I get my engine out if its worth shoving the engine back in after repairing it. If the whole car falls apart while removing the engine, I wouldnt be incredibly surprised lol.
And yeah doing the front sway bar was an important part of my suspension mod anyways so it was coming off no matter what. Somehow that bracket area is not rusted on my car although the stock end links were permanently fused to the stock sway bar. I paid a shop to remove the damn thing because I was so fed up with it. Thankfully I havent had to ever take it apart again.
arl
> Aremmes
03/27/2019 at 13:27 |
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Nice work. Glad you got it all back together!
Future Heap Owner
> Aremmes
03/27/2019 at 20:05 |
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E xcellent writeup, thank you for sharing ! Good work on the wrenching, too. Suspension work is something I haven’t tackled yet, but I’m pretty sure my truck needs new tie rod ends...
Eury - AFRICA TWIN!!!!!!!
> Aremmes
03/28/2019 at 07:57 |
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You need to pick up a decent impact wrench. One of the LBJs on my 4Runner had a similar shitty cotter pin situation. A few ugga-duggas and the pin snapped off and progress continued.