12/23/05 - WOW, it was warm today... in the 70s! The steering wheel hub adapter and quick disconnect came in so it was time to day to take advantage of the beautiful weather and finally install the Momo 78 steering wheel.

The first step was to use a puller and remove the old steering wheel. Once this was done, the clockspring assembly and the plastic piece & spring under it that turned the turn signals off were removed. While all this is out of the car this is the perfect time to kill the steering wheel lock. This is required for Spec Racing. The key was put in the ignition and turned to the ON position (battery was already removed back when I removed the airbag modules) and a hole was drilled into the lock assembly. Once this was done, a sheet metal screw as inserted to hold the components into place to disable the steering wheel lock.

Next the splined adapter is installed on the steering column. Once this is done the steering wheel can then be placed on the car. I'll have to wire up a separate horn button as the hub adapter does not have any wire connections for it and the clockspring was removed.

Here is the wheel - FINALLY in place!

Here is a pic from outside the car. I don't have the plastic trim in place yet in the pic, but it does fit nicely with the trim.

I also decided it was time to take a road trip to the other side of the Metroplex today - to Mazda-Nissan Heaven, a boneyard. I picked up a power window regulator assembly, interior door panel, interior door handle, and a sill plate for the passenger side along with a driver's side seat belt latch assembly and a rear view mirror.

Once home, I started installing things in the dark using a nice little LED flashlight. I took the passenger side window out and then removed the manual window regulator assembly. The replacement power regulator assembly was placed in the door and after a few bits of tinkering to find the right holes to bolt it to it was installed. I cleaned off the hardened grease from the guides and reinstalled the window and then the trim. Since the battery was disconnected, I cheated and used a battery charger to lower and raise the window a few times to test the installation.

The door sill and then the rear view mirror was installed. The door panel will wait for another day. Right now I need to take pictures and wire up both power windows first.

I'll take pics when it's daylight and post them up later.

12/26/05 - Today was wiring day! What a pain... at least it's MUCH easier to do with the knee panel and the steering wheel removed.

The switches for the power windows have 3/16" connections on them so rather than mess with crimping the connectors, I soldered them on the ends of the wire and plugged them into the switches. After that I ran the wires up under the dash on both sides using zip ties and bundling them up with the existing wire harnesses. I then used the existing aftermarket door speaker wires to pull the new wiring through the body panels and into the door.

I wired both sides up the same with respect to wiring colors - when pushing up, hot connected to blue wire which connected to red striped wire on the power window motor. Ground wire was connected to grey which connected to the other wire on the power window motor. The power & ground wires were then connected. Ground went to a ring terminal connector and slid under a screw. The red wire fed into an inline fuse holder and that went into the fuse box. I tried to get a fuse tap to work but it didn't want to cooperate and the power window fuse location did not have the other connector installed in the fuse box. I took a 30A fuse and soldered the fuse tap to it and plugged it into the power window fuse location. Next I put a fuse in the inline holder to finish the wiring.

After all that... I reconnected the battery and turned the key on and tried it out. It's backwards! Up goes down... So I unplugged the connectors on the back of the switch and reversed them to fix it. I dug around the box of screws that came with the car and found the right screws to mount the switch panel and put the center panel back in the dash. Next the knee plate was put back up into place.

The door panel from the wrecking yard was in great shape but the top part of the panel was broken. The plastic got very brittle with age and broke around the screw mounts. I still had the old top part from the car so I mixed & matched and came up with a great looking and very functional door panel. A quick trip to Dollar General for some Duct Tape and the plastic liner on the door was repaired then the door panel installed.

I thought I'd go ahead & fire her up and take her for a hell run to finally get the hydraulic lifters pumped up. They rattled like crazy since the replacement head was chemically cleaned and the lifters were dry. When the car fired up however, I got a pleasant surprise. She was as quiet as a church mouse! I guess the oil just needed time to work some magic with the lifters.

She's looking MUCH better inside now! One of the local DFWMiata.com guys is going to buy the roll bar from the car. This will fund a used crank & oil pump from another one. Those will be put into the spare engine to get it running for "just in case" ;)

Still to do: driver's side seat belt latch, racing seat install, roll cage install, racing harness, and suspension kit.

I'm thinking that as soon as I get the seat belt latch in (probably tomorrow!) I'll be able to go ahead and track the car for practice.

Since I finished up everything in the darkness again there aren't any pictures today... I'll take them soon!