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The Spruce Moose Build (ERMAGHERD teh VEE VEE TEES!!1!)

34K views 298 replies 35 participants last post by  Bryan 
#1 ·
Why the name Spruce Moose? I love Mr. Burns and have been a long time Simpsons fan. This is the scene that made me want to call my car the Spruce Moose



On top of that all of our cars are named something to the tune of moose. My daily is Moose Force 1, my dads nc is now called Night Moose, and spruce is a very light weight wood so why not the Spruce Moose.

Hey guys I have a lot to say, but I am getting my bearings here.
The car was initially my dads car and we got it about 8 or 9 years ago. We have done quite a few nice things to the car but it didn't really become nice until the car became mine and I treated it with the love it needed.
I will have to backtrack to get a lot of info to be here.
Here is the most recent adventure.

Now updates for the car. I decided I really did not like the front lip. It was more trouble than it was worth so I am sticking with just the oem front bumper and no lip.

I purchased 2 oem radios with oem cd players and neither of them work. One of these days when i have more time and money I will send them to Jeff Anderson to get them fixed and have him install his aux in mod.
Edit: They have since been sold to MrMustang.

MATG Time

I took the car to get painted locally and told the guy I had a time frame of 3 weeks before miatas at the gap. Days before my day to leave for matg he tells me it wont be done. So I go with my dad to see what the deal is. We try to brainstorm and figure out what to do. One the verge of calling the trip of we decide to go to miatas at the gap in primer. So that is what we did. I figured I have gone with a lot of paint missing before why should this be any different.


We extended the matg trip a little and decided to go backpacking in the mountains for 4 days. We had to pack all of our clothes in that vintage suitcase on my luggage rack. We put the sleeping bags, food, ponchos, tent, hiking clothes, sleeping mattresses... A lot of crap in the trunk of the miata. I was able to figure out a way to bring the external frame backpacks with us. I bungeed them to the rollbar. Amazingly the roof was still able to go up and down.




This pic is right before we set of to go back packing.


Well on the matg trip in a miata run of about 40 people me of all people gets into an accident. Apparently a bear ran down the hill to our left, jumped over the guard rail and rain into the street to hit me. I acted quickly and made sure I was ok to swerve and dodged a head on collision. He managed to head butt my passenger fender spin re head butt my door and run off. (For those worried about the bear he seemed fine and ran off into the woods).

I was not the only person involved in an accident. There was one guy who just bought his miata and clear flew off one section of the mountain. He was ok but his car was totaled. Another couple drove off the side the day before while they were consulting a map. Then on a spirited drive the second day the roads were damp and mini_fd spun. I was maybe 3 cars behind and thankfully a local passing by in his truck pulled him out.


So here is a picture that Bryan took and in the photo you can see where the bear hit me.
It is very hard to tell that there was damage in this photo, but the damage was severe enough where I needed a new fender.



Well I did not let the whole bear thing bring me down so the next day i hung out with some cool people from the forum.

I am the one all the way to the left and my dad is next to me.

Believe it or not but the hiking trip had to be cut short. We strung up the backpacks with the anti bear stuff and everything should have been fine; well apparently the anti bear hook things are not anti chipmunk. One night the chipmunks climbed up and ate a hole through one of the back packs and ate quite a bit of our food. We took precautions for the next night but the same thing happened again. So we gave in and called the trip short.

On the way home the car hit 155,555 miles and also the speedo cable went on my so I had terrible high pitched screaming going on for the 16 hour drive back.




Once I got home I went and purchased a new fender from treasure coast miata and I stripped the car again to go in for paint.
 
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#2 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Yay no more paint falling off when I drive or wash my car.



New r speed door belt line molding.


See I have paint on my trunk.



Well here is my miata at a car show.



I gave the car a good wash and I finally applied my oem sticker I have been hoarding until paint was done.

 
#3 · (Edited)
Re: Spruce Moose

Better updates will be here soon, I am just getting all the info here.

almost a year ago I picked up a racing beat header off of Craigslist for the 1.6. I finally got rid of my exhaust rattles from the heat shield. The guy I bought it from owns a speed shop that sets up spec miatas and the original owner of the exhaust used it for a day and changed his mind for a Springfield.





It was a little bit tough.

Edit: Since this photo I have replaced the broken dipstick.
 
#5 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Just a quick post of what had come in so far. More to come in the next few days.



Gauges came in today and they are already installed. They look awesome, but don't take my word for it, just look at them.

The gauges have an interesting story. They are Smiths gauges. Smiths is a company famous for making gauges on old British Roadsters. They partnered up a long time ago with Rev9 to make an experimental set with a green back light to match the interior color of the Miata lighting. There was not enough interest in the gauge set at the time and they were incredibly expensive as far as miata gauges go so the idea was shelved for a few years. Through some google searching I came across the old blog on their website and inquired about the gauges. Apparently they still had the experimental set on the shelf in their warehouse so I bought them. As far as I know they are the only gauges of their kind.



 
#7 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Then I had to fix my mirrors that the body shop broke. Since I got a nice chrome gas lid why not get a matching set of mirrors that I had been lusting over for a long time.

So I now have these.






Sorry that these photos were taken with a potato. I will get better photos when they are on the car at home.

And here is the mirrors installed.



 
#9 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

I had to add more wood to the Spruce Moose to spruce it up.
This just came in hand made from England. Only took slightly over a month to get the exact wheel I wanted. It is a non dished / flat wheel.



Here is a nice photo of it installed shot from my dslr.
 
#11 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Thanks. What I really love about the wheel is the horn button. It is all billet aluminum and in the center it has a mazda logo to give it that possible oem look. Here is the plastic horn that it came with. I am showing it so you can get a good look of what the button emblem looks like. I was seriously blown away to the point where I think it was modeled after an oem design.

 
#13 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

I had an old build thread but I have not posted in it in a long time and it was mostly filled with questions as to what direction to take my car and me pondering about what to do with a car that was lacking paint. Spruce Moose is all about the miata built for Andy that looks nice and not something that looks like it was a junk yard special.
 
#14 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

My oem nardi teardrop knob I had was a more mahogany color and a very nice person on mazdaroadster was willing to do a straight trade with me so that I could have a knob that matched perfectly with my car. I know it is pretty hard to find the knob and even harder to find someone willing to trade it so thank you very much.
My new to me knob is the one on the left. Old one is on the right.

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr
 
#186 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

My oem nardi teardrop knob I had was a more mahogany color and a very nice person on mazdaroadster was willing to do a straight trade with me so that I could have a knob that matched perfectly with my car. I know it is pretty hard to find the knob and even harder to find someone willing to trade it so thank you very much.
My new to me knob is the one on the left. Old one is on the right.

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr
What size is your steering wheel 13" or 14"?
 
#17 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

I guess I never updated this post with my latest purchase. I got my hands on some checkerboard oem floormats. Sorry for the crappy iphone picture. Better ones will be on the way when I get the car fully prepped for MATG.

Untitled by xbeatles4x, on Flickr
 
#19 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Somehow I missed you at MATG last year. Love how the roadster's coming along! I'll be there again this year. ChrisJuliano, blu92 and I have a cabin with a few other people. We're gonna have some N64 tournaments if you feel like losing at Golden Eye or Smash Bros ;)
 
#21 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

I have been in the off again on again market for a shock tower brace for many years now. The main reason I never got one sooner was because my oem 1992 suspension top hats have the shorter stud length. When I upgraded and went with the fm package I made sure to get some na8 top hats. The reduced length of my oem studs would have prevented me from installing a shock tower brace.

So I picked up an older style flyin miata shock tower brace off of mazdaroadster from Martin. It was pretty dirty, but I was able to clean it up nicely.


It has made quite a nice difference. I would not say just yet if there is any performance gain, but it did fix quite a few rattles and shakes that my car had. It is now quieter in the cabin. I would happily do this mod again. Every other miata I ever get will now have one of these as standard.
 
#22 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Little known secret here. The interior of the Mazda Cosmo 110S and British cars of the era have been a large inspiration in where I want my car to be. I plan on getting some custom made seat skins eventually to emulate this look. I just need to 100% figure out what seats I want.
 
#25 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Thanks to 71/72/73 Bacon I now have a set of oem Jaguar E Type (xke) speaker covers. They look very similar to the miata oem ones except it has a chrome ring around it.

Here is a step by step as to how I accomplished what I did.

Step 1. Remove the speaker covers from the car door panels. My write up is specifically for a 90-93 interior.


Step 2. Remove the grill over the speaker cover panel. To do this I used a small hose pick with a U shape. It popped right off with 0 damage.


Step 3. Measure where you need to drill. Then drill and place the speaker covers in and tighten.


Step 4. After the speaker covers are installed you need to cut off a large portion of the stud. If you do not trim the studs it will punch a nice hole in the speakers. I just used some bolt cutters and some sand paper to sand everything down nicely.

Step 5. Install them in the car and reap the benefits of more shiny chrome.

 
#27 ·
Re: Spruce Moose

Not very much has happened lately. I had an issue with my Smiths gauges. The voltmeter delaminated form the face. i contacted Smiths and they were completely baffled. Apparently I have the only Smiths clock and voltmeter ever made that has a green backlight. They have to re custom make the gauge faces for me.

I finally got some shorty mud flaps and I made an instagram account. It turns out I have had one since Instagram was first released and I did not realize it. At the time I thought it was just some iPhone app to make photos look prettier.


Progress on my build has sort of taken a back seat. I have had other priorities lately and I have been saving as much money as I can to try to fund a new project vehicle that I want.
 
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