Cool electric car decals

Been looking for some good EV stickers for my electric Miata, but all the stickers I found were from the 90's and quite dull.

One winter I came across some cool lightning bolt graphics at a ski shop. Comes out they were from Electric Sunglasses. A little research and I found some stickers that clearly said "electric", were cool and didn't break the bank.

  

If you want to get some for yourself, just send me a comment and I'll pass along the URL.

Miata "hood" alignment

I see a lot of Miata's with hood problems - or at least that's how they look. You know the ones, where the hood sticks up higher than the pop up headlights. I always wondered how the hood got that far out of alignment, but that's not what's rong at all.
After doing a lot of under hood work I found my car exhibited the same hood issue. But I wuickly found out that it wasn't the hood at all, just the headlight covers...

 There isn't any bracing in the back of the Miata headlight covers. Any pressure will cause them to bend down creating what looks like a hood alignment problem. Luckily, the fix is really simple...

Prop open the hood, grab a rag and "love up" the underside of the headlight covers. Apply a little upward pressure as you rub across the width of the cover. Don't pull hard, just  gently pressure is all it needs.

 In no time your headlight covers will be back where they belong and your hood will fit like new.

$8 Fix for a faded Miata bumper

If you have an early Miata with original paint, chances are the front bumper has faded. You have probably read about different polishes or treatments that should work, but none worked on my car. Here's how the nose used to look - tired and faded...

Then I got the idea that what was really wrong was that the clear coat was gone. I tried a little cear touch up paint to test the ides, and it worked! I went to the local auto parts store and bought a can of Duplicolor clear for $8. I masked off the metal work, so that only the rubber bumper was exposed and laid down 3 coats of clear before the can gave out.
Here is the result:

 

After a couple of days, I rubbed it in with some polishing compound to bring out the shine and there you have it. No need for an expensive paint job and no more embarrassing faded nose - and for only $8!

Miata can't shift into reverse?

About a year ago, I was driving my '92 Miata and I couldn't find reverse gear. I made a couple of simple fixes and, so far, I haven't had any trouble with reverse since.

Here's a tip or two if you find you can't get your Miata into reverse:

If you have trouble shifting into reverse with the clutch fully engaged, try giving the car a little throttle while you release the clutch AND pull the shifter into reverse.  You may feel the gears start to grind a bit, but it will often slip into gear.

If that doesn't work, you can replace the reverse light switch and replace your transmission fluid with synthetic. I'm not sure which of these made the biggest impact since I did them the same day, but neither of them are expensive or hard to do.

• Replace the reverse light switch  Reverse lights are often a trouble spot for NA Miata's. Either the switch fails or the connectors  to the switch work their way loose. The reverse switch can also become stuck which may prevent you from shifting into reverse. This may have been the problem with my car, since the shaft was hard to depress and felt like it was worn into place. It's really not too difficult to replace the switch itself, though make sure you reinstall your old washer. Without it the switch will protrude into the transmission a little too far making matters worse!. Replacing the switch isn't hard, but connecting the switch it IS. The wiring is on top of the transmission (!) making it quite a chore to connect. Luckily, they aren't polarized, so either wire on the harness can go to either wire on the switch - but that's small consolation.
  Check out the red wires on the left side of the transmission in this picture from Hakuna Miata. They head up and over the transmission to the right side where they are connected to the harness. Fun eh? As an added safety measure, I would recommend taping these connectors with some duct tape after they're connected. You don't want to do this again...
  
  
• Replace your transmission fluid with synthetic. Synthetic oil is much slipperier then the run of the mill stuff, which makes the transmission easier to shift and could improve your mileage as well. You'll want to refill the transmission with the car level so that you can get an accurate read on how much synthetic is in the gear box. Jack up both ends of your car and make sure you have enough room to work. You can get synthetic at most car parts stores for under $10, and while you are there you may need to pick up a couple of other things
  - My filter plug used a square drive - which was not in my toolbox - so add that to your shopping list if you don't have one.
  - Spray solvent.  My filler plug would not come out for anything and the usual WD-40 did nothing. Comes out the last person to open it (or maybe it was the factory?) gooped it up with a lot of thread lock. A little spray solvent did the trick.
  - A fluid pump.  You'll need a pump to get the fluid in the transmission, since the filler is too close to the tunnel for the bottle to fit.
  - The Synthetic transmission oil. The manual says 2.1 quarts are needed, but I used a little less than 2 and spilled a bit as well. 

After I made these simple changes, shifting was noticeably improved.  And in the past year, I never had a problem shifting into reverse again. Hope it works for you.