JoshuaM's Midnight Blue NB8B

[ManiacLachy]

That is pretty damn cool, thank you! I really like the feel of it, and the small M logo. But it's a little too wordy, I might just go Mazda or Mazdaspeed.

I think v3 or v4 from your mock ups for your car.

Was good meeting and chatting with you yesterday ;)

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[Juicy HiC]

Definitely looks good

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[Nevyn72]

3 is my pick, the nice little 'up-tick' at the trailing edge compliments the curvature of the fender over the rear wheel beautifully!

[joshuam]

I have been a bit quiet but have been getting stuff done….

So the weekend before last I did the soft top install. I knew that it was going to take a while, but 2.5 days was much longer than expected! My old top was perfect when I went and inspected the car in March, but having only done 3000km in the past 3 years, it was only a few weeks of daily use before it fell apart. The vinyl is just rotten, all the rubber seals are wrecked and the stitching was falling to bits inside…. Repairing definitely wasn’t an option.











I bought a Robbins Streamline replacement top in the Stayfast Canvas. This should be quite a premium top; look good, be quieter inside and last well. I was tempted to play it safe and get black, but I don’t plan on having any other black accents on the car, so I went with a dark blue to complement the paint. I bought it from a seller in the USA and had it shipped here through the eBay Global Shipping program. It ended up costing just over $900 (when the dollar was at around 0.73).

The first day (afternoon) we got the frame out of the car and stripped the old vinyl off the frame. Spent a LONG time cleaning the drains… they were both completely blocked…. It took several goes of hot water and poking and prodding to just get a thin wire through the passenger one.





The second morning we had a look at the frame and found a few rust spots on it. I don’t plan to ever have this soft top out of the car again, so we got out the grinder and cleaned them up, treated the rust, then primer and a quick coat of black spray-paint.



Second afternoon was installing the Robbins soft top on the frame. We took everything inside to make it easier and followed the instructions step by step. This would have been easier if the instructions included all of the steps! Argh! Because of that, we wasted a lot of time trying to run tension cables through just after we had riveted the canvas over the mounting points. Also had to go out and find a suitable contact adhesive.



On the third day (long weekend) we put the assembled top back into the car. It was a 33 degree day so we gave in and set up a gazebo It was quite fiddly getting it all back together. My driver’s side latch broke too when stretching the canvas shut (always very hard when they are new) which was quite annoying.





I didn’t put the interior trims back in (except for the seats ) because I wanted to make sure that everything stayed dry after a few days of normal use, and the material hadn’t quite stretched in the right places (more later). So I was roof-up for a week (drivers latch wired shut ) whilst the material stretched into shape.




This weekend I almost made it to dodgy day out at Magpie’s place, but a friend ended up coming over instead and we just played MX5s in my driveway (sorry guys, next time!). It was time for my car to get some low back.

I hate raising/lowering my coilovers (have to unbolt and twist the whole bottom section on the Tein Flex), and I was lucky enough to have my good friend Richard ‘volunteer’ for the job

Whilst he was doing that I had a go at a quick headlight restoration on his car using baking powder made into a paste and then some fibreglass polish. Before and after (the driver’s side was worse originally);



We had my wheels off anyway, and Richard wanted to see what white wheels would be like on his green (he has stock NB8B 16” wheels like mine had);





As soon as Bathurst finished on Sunday I went out and spent a couple of hours playing with the tension on the roof before I reinstalled all the interior bits and gave my car a wash. Then I spent an hour pulling the dash cluster out of my sisters Barina SRi because of a flickering bulb (Opels are a pain to pull apart!) and then gave it a good wash too (The first wipe of her car put more dirt on my cloth than my whole car.... including the wheels).

By this stage it was about 11pm and I headed out to get a few quick pics to show of the low and new roof. I set myself a 5 min radius to find somewhere new to take some night shots and this is what I came up with;





White wheels on a dark car are really hard to photograph at night!!! It wasn’t long there before I got kicked out by security wanting to chain up the car park so commuters don’t use it in the morning (next to a bus station). It was already after midnight so I gave up on flashes and just pulled into somewhere with a big floodlight and took a couple of quick shots from the rear;







That last photos shows the biggest problem I am having with the top. I’m not sure why, but it doesn’t feel square. The passenger side is MUCH less tight on those rear corners near the straps (the whole way up)… this is also leading to a gap between the fabric and the edge the black edging. With this how it is, instead of the bulk of the water flowing off over the edge of the roof down into the door openings to drain off, it all flows down into the rain rails and has to go down the tiny drains. Also, it will only be a matter of days before my drains are clogged if all the leaves can go straight down when I’m parked.

I spent a couple of hours on Sunday redoing the tension on the bolts that hold on the base of the roof to try and distribute the tension better. I did it the Robbins way, and a few different custom methods which managed to reduce it (to what you see in the pic) but it is still an issue. Going to get in touch with the supplier to see if they have any suggestions before I try and rig up an extra support to hold the canvas out to the rim.

Another gripe I have with the Robbins top is the quality of the rear 'glass'. We did the roof install onto the frame indoors on some clean lino. I was generally pretty careful to have the tracing paper under it, but when you are flipping it back and forth you sometimes forget. I have a few decently noticable scratches in the middle of the 'glass' from it rubbing the lino under its own weight (no pressure). You will notice the quotes on glass because no proper glass product I have ever dealt with is that prone to damage.... it is supposed to be hard wearing.

In any case, after a week with the top stuck up I really enjoyed driving home topless the last 2 nights!!!

[ManiacLachy]

Good stuff, Josh! Good on you for not going with the standard black top, the blue looks great on your car. Those tops do look like a right royale PIA though to install.

[SileNceR]

How is the sound with it up? Earlier in your post you indicated it would be quieter than the vinyl roof, is this the case? It's probably hard to compare directly with your own car due to the tears but what about compared to your friend's green one?

[joshuam]

Good stuff, Josh! Good on you for not going with the standard black top, the blue looks great on your car. Those tops do look like a right royale PIA though to install.

Thanks I wasn't too sure when I first put it on, but I think it ads a touch of class.... which is amusing right next to bright white wheels

How is the sound with it up? Earlier in your post you indicated it would be quieter than the vinyl roof, is this the case? It's probably hard to compare directly with your own car due to the tears but what about compared to your friend's green one?

I have had the tears in the roof almost the whole time I have owned the car, so it is hard to judge. From what I can remember it doesn't really sound quieter. I do have the 4.1 gears installed though which ads engine noise. I hadn't thought of a back to back comparison with Richard's car.... he just went to 4.1 gears too so it will be a fair test. I'll give it a try next time we are out somewhere

[SileNceR]

Using a DB meter on your smart phone might be a worthwhile way of testing too, rather than the rather subjective method of just using your ears.

[joshuam]

Using a DB meter on your smart phone might be a worthwhile way of testing too, rather than the rather subjective method of just using your ears.

Yup, all over it! Although I generally don't like using them because they aren't that accurate

Richard came over to pick up my old speed sender today to try and make 1 from 2 using the gear wheel from a mechanical drive NA, and whilst he was here we went out and did a quick test.

We went to the highway, jumped in one car, got to just under 100 and held the clutch in to get rid of as many other variables as possible (radio, fans etc were off). Got off at the next exit and tried with the other car. The read outs on the app were virtually identical. I think the vinyl one was peaking fractionally higher (1db) but the average would have been the same, and that was certinaly within the margin of error of the phone and weather seals, different tire noise etc. They didn't sound notably different at all.

One thing Richard did note the second he got in was that it felt much cooler with the cloth instead of his with the vinyl, but that was just an observation.



I sent an email to the supplier of my top last night with a couple of photos showing the gap and asked if they had experienced anything like it before and if they had any recommendations. They replied promptly and appeared eager to assist, asking for some more pics inside and out to show the problem and they would talk to the engineers at Robbins to see what they think. Here are a couple showing the difference in water runoff because the material doesn't come up to the rim;








On another note; Richard finally made an account! (And a garage thread Here) So I can stop posting WTBs every time he needs something!

[pursuit170]

On another note; Richard finally made an account! (And a garage thread Here) So I can stop posting WTBs every time he needs something!

Yay

[joshuam]

On another note; Richard finally made an account! (And a garage thread Here) So I can stop posting WTBs every time he needs something!

Yay

^^^ And Richard is clearly not used to forums (I'm pretty sure SileNceR didn't say that )

[joshuam]

I sold some old Celica parts to somebody who lives in Maleny.... he paid a delivered price so I figured I'd take a run up Mt Mee and deliver them personally! (Mountain run with somebody else paying for fuel, yes please )



Now stuck at uni working on my thesis project

[tomli123001]

Car looks really clean and nice.
I like Maleny area a lot before, until there was a slow truck or SUV in front.

[joshuam]

Just bought timk's old SE muffler with a custom tip suited for N/A car without the rear lip from Kirk (Although I was a bit disappointed with the style of the tip.... I don't mind a little bling ). Won't have time to get it on for another week or so.



Also forgot to mention with the last photos that when we lowered it back down I took it to Accurate Suspension for a wheel alignment which really made it come alive too!

Other than that nothing happening.... final weeks of my engineering degree so been a bit crazy

[SileNceR]

Ah, pity it doesn't have a mazdaspeed tip!