Milestone #1 reached

After having some issues trying to find a place to take the scrap steel from the Miata unibody I stumbled across a great lead (thanks Ken!). The local scrap metal dealer balked when I mentioned it was the shell of an old car, and they directed me to a salvage yard. The salvage yard refused to take it if it didn’t have items of value still attached such as the engine and transmission.

I mentioned my dilemma to a friend at work and he remembered one of our guys was collecting scrap metal on the side. We called him up and he wants it! Here’s proof that you actually can load a Miata into the back of your pickup truck even if it only has a 6’ bed… as long as you take enough off of it and cut the remaining pieces small enough.

The first milestone has officially been reached: the donor car has been stripped, is out of the way, and most all the unnecessary parts have already been sold off!

Ever cut a car in half?

This weekend was a real stress reliever… the old Miata is now largely cut up into smaller easier to carry pieces. Some parts of the process were pretty interesting to say the least, but Stephanie helped me avoid doing anything too amazingly dumb. After mangling one saw blade and breaking the attachment end off another I only have a small amount left to cut up. New blades are now waiting in the garage to finish the project tonight. By midweek I hope to haul off the pieces to the local scrap yard.

My next small diversion will include cutting the rusted section of metal off the bottom of the door on my Cherokee and welding in some fresh metal. The Camaro and Miata will soon be in storage and the Jeep has quite a bit that needs attention prior to winter setting in.

Stripped to the bone!

I took advantage of the perfect weather today and removed everything else from the Miata unibody. Before I cut it up I decided to put an ad on Craigslist to see if any racers want to pick it up for $50; it would at least save me the hassel of cutting it up and moving it! The unibody itself is light enough that my wife and our exchange daughter can each grab a side and pick it up- I'd guess it's around 200 pounds.

I'm getting pretty excited now that the Miata is disappearing. All the work thus far has been preparation for the project which will soon begin in earnest!

Almost ready to cut up the old Miata

More progress has been made on ripping the Miata apart… the gas tank, dash board, and steering column have been removed leaving very little to be done before the body can be cut up and disposed of. Everything has been carefully labeled as it was taken apart which should make trimming the unneeded wires from the harness easier as well as wiring up the Locost in its final stages.

Pulling the gas tank was nerve-wracking affair as it still had about 5 gallons of fuel sloshing around. The dashboard was also a little bit of a trick due to the large number of connectors that needed to be disconnected before it would pull free.

The big disappointment was jumping on eBay to check on prices of airbags and some other typically high value parts and discovering there were many similar parts listed at very low prices! Miata cars and parts are very seasonal. Parts are worth more and are much easier to sell in Spring. Later in the year when spec Miata racing is in season there are a lot of racers buying wrecked Miatas, tearing them apart, and selling off the parts they don’t need. I'm in no particular hurry, so I can wait until the right time to list parts for sale.

All that remains now is the wiring harness, the brake and gas lines, and a few minor items that are easily removed. I’m hoping this weekend gives me a chance to clear the shell out of the garage and move the smaller parts into the basement. Over winter I can spend some time reconditioning some of the parts I’ll need and maybe sell off more of the parts; I’d like to start building the chassis in Spring.