The 1% turned out to be the fact I forgot to tighten the lower alternator bolt:

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Took it on a drone trip to a local park.

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I put about 2 gas tanks through it around town with 0 issues, put it away sometime in November.

Then, here in Ohio we had a weird singular warm Wednesday in February so I took her out for a good evening drive:

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Came home to a puddle of coolant right under the weep hole of the trans... Considering I run 70/30 and we had a couple really cold days I jumped to freeze plug at the back of the head. AKA engine out again.

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I did diagnosis the right way though. Turns out the lower bolt on the reroute got loose and the reroute was leaking onto the trans. Fixed in an afternoon. Then took her back out for some photos

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iPhone photos hit different.

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I had a week between the end of the semester and when I start another summer Co-op. So I did what I do best; grind away at a major project(s) for 10hrs a day for a week making an absolute mess along the way and testing how many cups of coffee I can consume without ill effect.

This time its FINALLY time to swap the dashboard. As simple as "swap" sounds, there's of course so much more to this.

Step 1: old dash out (the easiest part)

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Step 2: Dash in right?

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Wasn't that easy

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After flocking I noticed some pegs were broken and made an effort to fix them

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Speaking of flock, they still look great even after a year of sitting in the garage

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Also had to fix a crack in the glovebox

Thats plastic weld I swear

The dash pull revealed that I was missing the HVAC clamps and I was probably losing a lot of air to it just blasting around the passenger footwell.

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Nothing duct tape cant fix. I ordered some clamps and they arrived just in time to install before I put the dash in.

Stealing an idea from Adam/ Revlimiter I also wanted to use mesh to protect the defrost vents.

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Wonder how well this will stay in place when driving...

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Nice.

Since my original VIN tag says AIRBAG but I have no airbags, and I wanted to do something special.

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Hand-stamped vin plate. Thats all the internet will see of this though. You'll have to see it in person for the end results.

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I bought a used RevLimiter switch panel and sanded/polished the backing plate.

Also, since the NA8 glovebox lock mechanism is totally different to the NA6 version I had to manually re-pin the lock cylinder of the NA6 mech to work with my key. That was annoyingly tedious.

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Refurbed the knee panel, this thing was super crusty before. Wire wheel and paint go a long way.

I then decided to try my hand at Auto Upholstery. I bought pre-made leather pieces from RedLine leather about 5 years ago a month after I got my first Miata. Yes, I was planning this swap from day 1.

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Corner piece turned out quite nice I think.

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Trying to keep the seam straight across the pad, and level.

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The shakey midnight mockup pic lol.

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HVAC mockup

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I bought this fancy Retrosound hideaway antenna about the same time I bought the leather bits for the first Miata. The mega plan. Funny, I wanted a Retrosound radio back then but changed my mind.

Its powered/ amplified? Basically its an active antenna and can get pretty good reception even inside a dash. I stuck it to the underside of the top.

Enough messing about with accessories, its real install time.

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Aaaaand all buttoned up.

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I love my interior.

Until next time!