Tree + Tire = Fun

I determined some time ago that we needed a tire swing in our back yard, but I was waiting until Hope was old enough to ride it without dying. I'm happy to say, that time has finally come.

Our First Year

Getting ready to ride a water taxi into NY

It is the last day of 2016 and all I can think about is how tomorrow morning I will wake up in my baby's birth-month. My little, tiny, swear I just had her, baby is turning one soon. I have been trying to wrap my brain around it since we entered the end of the year Holiday rush but it just won't sink in, so I woke up inspired to share a little about this first year hoping it would somehow slow time down just a smidgen.

Solar Scrub

Most people think solar panels are completely maintenance free, and they mostly are, but to get the most out of them, they should be occasionally cleaned. I didn't really realize this before I saw Ed Begley Jr. and Bill Nye talk about it.

Anyway, you can see our filthy panels above. That is after five months on the roof.
I chose the laziest method of cleaning possible and just sprayed the panels with water, which seemed to work great.

The cleaning had a measurable impact on the production of the panels. The graph below shows two days before cleaning and two days after cleaning. The panels are producing about one more kWh per day after being cleaned.

Trespassing for Tree Trimming - Redux

Before

As you know, I hate our neighbor's tree.  Despite my, and mother nature's, earlier efforts, it continues to drop foot-destroying seed pods all over our patio.  My dad noticed this and brought down his pole saw so I could cut off some higher branches.

After repairing the saw, I made quick work of the offending branches.  I only had to resort to unsafe tactics to reach a couple of them.

After

Cable Cutting - Pekema Projects on the Road

Before:

This project actually took place back in April, but I didn't take an "After" until recently, so it's getting posted now.
A friend of ours (name withheld for security concerns) lives in a house where two guy-wires for a utility pole were anchored right in the middle of the back yard.  It created a large intrusion in the yard, and the cables were very clearly not accomplishing anything.  They were very slack.
We started the project by trying to dig up the anchor.

After digging quite deep, we realized it went much deeper than we expected, so we switched to Plan B.  That plan was to unbolt the hardware holding the cable, but we didn't have the appropriate tools, so we switched to Plan C, the hacksaw.

Yes, he is standing in the hole.

Despite a dull blade, we made it though the cable.  Once the cables were free of the anchor, we enlarged the hole to the side and bent the anchor over, burying it at least a foot below the surface.
The yard now has much better feng shui.

After.

Yes, we did drape the loose cables into the neighbors yard.  It's the back corner, so it shouldn't bother them.

Incoming!

We are very excited to announce we are expecting our first child*.

Baby P coming January 2016!

*Don't worry, it was planned.

Be sure to watch our new Baby page for updates on growing our human and putting together a nursery.

Fun Frame

Before

Let me start by saying I hate people who drive slowly in the fast lane.  I, however, drive with the flow of traffic, but I often leave a bigger gap in front of me than most.  I do this because I'm a better driver than most.  That reasonable gap, combined with the fact that I'm driving a Prius seems to make the driver behind me extra stupid.  I wanted a way to gently remind people to back off and calm down.  I didn't want to mar the Prius with a bumper sticker, so I started looking for a license plate frame to convey the appropriate message.
Most readily available frames were a little more aggressive than I wanted, with phrases like "The closer you get, the slower I drive" (I don't need any road rage), so I ordered a custom frame from ebay.  I actually got two for $10.  It's a little more in-your-face than I expected due to the text font/size, but I like it.

After

Mounted Mobile

Before

I think this is the first project revolving around our nice car, Gustavo (AKA Gus the Golf).  He's a 2011 Golf TDI with a manual transmission.  It is just about the most Euro car you can buy in America.
This project isn't actually on the car, but an accessory.  I recently learned about the existence of cell phone cradles that mount in a car's CD slot.  Since I don't like the windshield suction cup, dash-top, or vent mounted units, this seemed like the perfect solution, keeping the phone in plain view without blocking the line of sight or breaking fragile vents.  It sits between the two center vents, and only blocks the emergency flasher button, which I don't like looking at anyway.  The big red triangle is just too shouty.
Anyway, I bought one of these mounts and put it in the car.  It is great, except the fastener that spreads the paddles in the CD slot stuck down more than necessary, which blocked part of the infotainment display.  I determined there was some room to improve it.

Before

Before

I did some filing on the plastic bits to slim them down and cut off about six millimeters of the threaded portion of the bolt.  You can see the results below.

After

After

It's still not quite ideal, but it is definitely better.  Overall, I'm very happy with this product and highly recommend it.

Underbody Aero Part 4 (of 5?)

With the size of the front undertray, I was a little worried about underhood temperature and pressure buildup, as I mentioned in my first post.  I decided to go ahead with the hood vents, and of course, I had to do it as cheap as possible.  I started with the "Pep Boys" vents you see above.  They were about $10 and came from Amazon.com.  I was worried they would be really flimsy, but they are actually very stiff, made of nice thick plastic (ABS?).

They are designed to be stuck on a car with double-stick tape, and were clearly not made to do any actual venting, but I had a plan to change all of that.  I started by roughly cutting the vents open with the Dremel.

I then spent an inordinate amount of time manually opening up the holes even more with a file.  I wanted them to be perfect.

Here's a nice before and after shot.

Unfortunately, after finishing the first vent, I had do do the second one.

Here's where the trickery begins.  instead of just sticking the vents on the hood and having them stick up, I planned to flip them over so they would actually go down into the hood, so the only part on top of the hood would be the flange.  That meant I had to remove the pre-installed double-stick tape.  Under that I discovered some molding markings that would have to be sanded off.

After even more manual labor, here's the finished product compared to the original.  I decided I wanted to go with a "brushed plastic" look, even though that's not really a thing.

After finishing the second vent, it was time for the moment of truth--cutting holes in the hood of the car.  This was a tough step for me, because I'm reluctant to make non-reversible changes, but I decided to go for it.

The fist cut was hard, but I did it.  At this point I'm committed.  You can see some of the bracing was in the way.

I trimmed the bracing to optimize the fit, including the addition of speed holes.

One hole down, one to go.

The hardest part was getting the second hole symmetric with the first.

Before attaching the vents, I wanted to give them a subtle curve to match that of the hood.

You can judge for yourself if I got them straight.  I think it's close enough, if you squint and tilt your head just right.  At this point the vents are just sitting in the holes but I will glue them in soon.  It seems to be a success.  When driving, I can see heat waves wafting up through the holes.

Absent ABS

Before

Anti-lock brakes are one of a car's most basic safety features, so naturally, I decided to remove them from the Miata.  This is not without precedent.  Many Miatas didn't come with ABS, and most of them have avoided skidding off the road.  I also don't plan on driving the Miata in adverse conditions, so it shouldn't be too big an issue.  I'm not sure I've ever activated ABS in the real world in any car I've driven, plus I've been trained to maximize braking without it.  Finally, the "three channel" ABS in the Miata is a very early system, which is not terribly effective.  Most importantly, it's heavy, so it had to go.
The ABS hydraulic unit is basically a big chunk of metal, weighing the car down.

Before

I was able to replace that giant hunk of metal with a tee and a union.  Some bending of the lines was required.  The tee is for the front brakes and the union is for the rear.  The line routing is much more complicated than it needs to be, but I was able to avoid having to cut any lines and make new flares.
The bracket that held the ABS unit also held the fuse box, but it was too heavy to leave in there, so the fuse box is now secured with a zip tie.

After

I took this opportunity to also replace the stock proportioning valve with an adjustable one.  If you're not familiar, the proportioning valve determines how much braking power goes to the front vs. rear wheels.  The stock proportioning valve has a fixed distribution of braking force, which is fine for a stock vehicle, but the moment you make significant changes to the car, that balance is probably no longer appropriate.

Before

To replace the stock valve, I used a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve with adapters to work with the metric brake lines and a union.  The way this proportioning valve works is to simply limit the braking force to the rear wheels.  I will need to dial it in to the right balance, but I should be able to get better braking.  A little bending/rerouting was required, but nothing major.  I even managed to mount the new valve using the old hardware.

After

After the main hydraulics were buttoned up, it was time to bleed the system.  I probably didn't need to bleed all four corners, but I figured I might as well, and I needed to access all four wheels anyway to remove the ABS wheel speed sensors.

Rear wheel speed sensor.

Check out the quality hole Mazda drilled for the sensor wire.

Almost round.

 The wire routing was very secure, but it had to go.

I stole a piece of tubing from work to make the brake bleeding much cleaner. I just need to remember not to drink this particular bottle of "wine."

The final piece to remove was the ABS control unit.  Contrary to what the service manual says, the box is located behind the passenger seat, next to the engine control unit.  It is important not to remove the wrong one.

Here's everything I removed, which weighed 19 lbs, 11 oz. (3.25 lbs of which was the wheel speed sensors--dreaded unsprung weight)  I did have to install some new parts, so I will estimate the Weight Savings:  19 lbs.

I took the car for a test drive and confirmed the ABS is gone, confusing some pedestrians in the process.  They couldn't figure out why someone was locking up the wheels for no apparent reason.
I also confirmed there are no leaks in the plumbing, which was a pleasant surprise (I will admit I discovered one leak while bleeding the system, but it was just a fitting I didn't fully tighten on the new tee).  Now all I need to do is figure out the brake bias and I will be set.  The only question is where to do that?

Adios, Airbag

Before

Now that the passenger seat has a four point harness, the airbad on that side of the vehicle isn't so helpful.  Not to mention the fact that I'm not even sure the passenger airbag would work since the driver side airbag was already gone and the airbag light on the dash was blinking.

Removing the actual airbag was pretty simple.  There are four bolts above where the glove box sits, and those are the only thing holding the airbag in.  After the bolts were out, the shockingly large and heavy airbag unit slid right out.

After

I cut/unbolted the cover panel from the rest of the unit and I plan to reinstall it with a hinge, which will give me a makeshift glove box.  That will come in handy since I removed the official glove box.

Since all the airbags were gone, I could remove the crash sensors as well.  There are four of them, but I could only reach the three in the front end of the vehicle.  The last one is behind the dash.
The surprisingly heavy sensors are well protected behind two covers.

Cover 1

Cover 2

Crash sensor.

After unbolting the sensor, I got to remove the poorly run wiring as well, which was quite satisfying.  The connectors attaching the sensors were a bit of a pain, but I got them.

Here's everything that came off, including the airbag control module from under the driver side dashboard.

Weight Savings:  13 lbs, 8 oz.