Michigan Rotary Club

Another track weekend down, and the oil/misfire issues that I saw last year did not recur. The catch can remained dry the whole time, oil consumption was about 3/4 liter per day, and from the driver's seat everything worked perfectly. I worked on trail braking a lot, and experimented with different lines and corner entry techniques throughout the weekend. Not sure if I got any faster, but I definitely got more confident with the car in different scenarios and improved my trail braking control. There was another guy there with a nice looking MBM FD - single turbo, V-mount radiator and IC that seemed to be running well by the end of the weekend. He may show up on the board here in the near future too.

Still need to process the videos and flip them around, but there were some great sunsets for pictures.

I don’t think a rebuild kit will do it. I sent it to a rebuilder and received a call today stating the pump was junk😩

I have a rebuild kit for 2nd gen power steering pump.

After spending nearly the past year apart.  I finally have Kamiko back and running.  I rebuilt half the transmission, replaced the original clutch, resealed all oil surfaces, fixed a differential seal leak, replaced 60+ vaccum lines, had the doors repainted, installed a completely new exhaust and some other minor things fixed.

I have taken her on two shakedown cruises which is as many cruises i had done last year before pulling her apart.  She runs great.  I'm loving it.  I need to finish the wet sanding of the doors and she will be done for the time being.

Well, I've been driving Vera a lot through the pandemic - for about 6 months over the fall and winter she was the only one of the fleet on active insurance. Still doesn't mean very many miles since I'm not regularly driving to work at this point, but the snow tires over the winter made her a blast!

Unfortunately, winter driving brings salt, and salt is the bane of any 2000's Mazda's chassis. It also looks like there was some sort of damage on the driver's side rocker - there were a few spots where it looked like dent-pulling wires were welded on and used (two of which rusted through and made holes), bondo all along the panel and in front of the rear wheel well, even filling in holes used to secure some of the trim, which was glued on to the paint instead, and all sorts of mismatched and semi-broken trim clips along that side. Oh well... rust repair was not what I planned on doing this last week, but if I'm going to be doing it, I may as well personalize the car a bit more in the process.

Anyway, there was a lot of work with sandpaper and a wire wheel, then masking off the top of the car, followed by two coats of rust inhibitor primer, three of a rubberized underbody coating, and three of the same shade of green used on the winter wheels (it took 3 coats to look even over the rough underbody coat). Overall though, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.