The Mite


Part :53

New Seats, Water Temp Sender and Steering Wheel Spacer

Turning a GM temp sensor down to size I started hooking up the wiring under the hood, from the engine sensors to the Electromotive Tec-2, and ran into a problem. The Miata engine uses metric-threads on the sensors, while the Tec-2 requries sensors from American cars. The water temp sensor is a GM unit with 3/8" pipe threads. The hole in the back of the Miata engine is 12mm X 1.5 thread. The stock Miata sensor also has a different electrical value than the GM unit, so I could not use the sensor that was in the engine. I had two options: remove the housing on the back of the engine, weld a pipe bung in place and screw the Gm sensor in, or see if there's enough metal on the GM sensor to re-thread for 12 by 1.5mm. Here's the sensor in the lathe, turning down to 12mm
Cutting threads in a GM water temp sensor There was plenty of metal on the sensor, so after obtaining the correct diameter, I used my trusty 12 X 1.5mm die and cut new threads on the sensor
Modified GM sensor vs. stock Miata sensor The top is the cut-down GM water temp sensor, and the bottom is the stock Miata
modified GM water temp sensor in place in Mite The modified sensor screws right into place
Racecraft Sprite Seats The seats came in!
installing seat sliders on racecraft seats I attached the supplied sliders
installing slider mechanism And ran a wire from the handle side to the other side to allow release of the locks when sliding the seat
locating seat mounting holes I placed the seats in the car, centered them and needed to locate the mounting holes. A bit of tape under the mounting studs and some pressure on the seat did the trick
Located seat mounting holes Here's the location of the mounting hole. I drilled them out and mounted the seats. The inner mounts landed in the stock Sprite re-inforcement channel under the car.
Racecraft seats in the sprite And here's the seats in the car
racecraft seats in the mite They are pretty comfortable, but man! What a small car!
racecraft seats in the Mite The steering wheel hits my knee when I sit in the car, so my brilliant idea of having the wheel about 3" closer to the dash than stock..well, it wasn't so brilliant.
turning a steering wheel spacer I happened to have a round lump of aluminum laying around that I turned down a bit and put some grooves in, andused it as a spacer between the wheel and the dash.
steering wheel in the Mite It looks almost like it's supposed to be there. And fits well,too.
steering wheel in the mite The wheel, shifter and pedals all feel good!
twisting wilre Back to the wiring. I learned a nifty trick from a stereo shop once: to keep your wires neat and organized, twist bundles together using a drill. Place one end in a vise, the other in a cordless drill and spin away.
twisted wire When you are done, there's a nice, neat bundle.
mite engine wiring Here's where it's at right now.

 

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