And was I ever in need! It was run 2 on the 19th — you know, the massive screamer SPDA course — and I was entering the final third of the course, starting to accelerate out of the right hand carousel turn, when there was a bang and a dragging, followed by smoke out of Ginger’s right front wheel well. My heart sank, but I thought… it’s a flat. I was right, but only partially…

Course Map

Turns out, one of the bolts holding the caliper mounting bracket had come loose and the other had sheared off, allowing the caliper to wedge itself into the rim, gouging and puncturing it, which caused the loss of pressure. Brake fluid was dripping and everything was very, very hot. Eventually, with the help of the marshalls and the SPDA organizer group, as well as a donated ziptie, we got the spare on, and Ginger drove off the course under her own power.

Back in the paddock, it seemed the situation could be resolved with a couple of new bolts, but alas, every shop from Belleville to Kingston could get all the callipers you could ever need on Monday. Rob, seeing I only had one complete run, let me take his sweet NA out. My head was messed, I spun twice, thanked him and said, “No more driving for me.”

So, Ginger spent the night at the airfield under the watchful eye of the security guards and we hatched a towing plan to get her back home. Ralf, the fantastic service manager at Carling Avenue Canadian Tire and amazing driver, was central to this plan. He was coming the next day with Bill R’s Toyota MR1.5 on Bill’s trailer. He immediately agreed to tow Ginger home if we could line-up a trailer.

U-Haul was the first try, but their hours of operation would wreck Ralf’s day of autox. That’s where the Brunner clan comes in: they had a big trailer and no car. That meant they could take Bill’s car and let Ralf and I use Bill’s trailer. This let me drive with a somewhat clear head, which was good as I was driving the MR1.5 and could barely reach the controls when at speed. Thank you, Bill. I’m sorry I wasn’t all there, but the chance to drive it was greatly appreciated.

The day wrapped up and we confronted the next challenge: get a low-clearance miata onto the very high trailer. Again, another autoxer came to the rescue with some extra long ramps. The drive home was smooth, interrupted by dinner and a coffee/gas stop, both of which were characterized by great conversations and laughs.

We eventually got to my place and used the slope in the road to unload Ginger with the standard short-ramps. Ralf drove her neatly into the garage so I could start work at my leisure and then took the trailer to a storage point before continuing his journey to Wendover. I call him Saint-Ralf now.

With me through it all, good ol’ condor888000.

Damage Assessment:
- 15×9 bronze rim – done, replacement ordered
- front caliper — survived
- uppper control arm — done, replacement to be installed
- SS brake line — survived

Luckily, my work agenda was free on Monday and I was able to take the day off, get the car assembled enough to go to Ralf at CT Carling and, with the use of my parents’ Vera Cruz, get Bill’s trailer to him in Gananoque.

Overall:
I love skiing, but I hate most skiers. I love autox and love most autoxers.

I thought the air was gone, but the pedal was still pretty long and not very confidence inspring as there was very little room for modulation. There was still a little too much pad drag, but at least the e-brake worked!

This morning, we got up and took Ginger to the Auto Dentist to address a paint chip on her left rear fender. While Ginger was there, we dropped-off the core to Mike at No Limits and asked about bleeding options. He suggested a vacum bleeder from Princess Auto, so we swung by there on the way home and picked one up — it was $30 off, too.

It took me a whiel to figure out, but once I grasped that grease over all the joints works to seal those joints, the little vacum pump did the job. The amount of air was astonishing so much so that I was sucking nothing but air for about 10 minutes from the driver side rear (farthest from the master cylinder). The other three corners weren’t as bad, but the fronts had WAY more than I expected. Now, the pedal feels the way it should — better than stock with the stainless lines. I then adjusted the rear callipers to get rid of the pad drag.

To celebrate, we went for a late afternoon drive through the backroads out to Cumberland Village. Ped drove the entire time. Several times I had to remind her about the speed limit and I had tell her to stop racing these kids from a series of stop signs. She also appears to be addicted to the sound of the turbo spooling-up. I think her indoctrination is moving along well.

Tomorrow, I’ll probably assess the complexity of the turbo timer install and maybe get a start on it.

After a few posts on mazda-speed.com, otttawamazda.ca, and mco.org, I decided to test a theory. I wondered if the gear was just unable to overcome the force exerted by the hydraulics and that by continuning the unscrew the adjuster, I had decoupled it from the piston and made it little more than a stop that limiting the calliper’s inward travel.

Testing this theory would require a calliper compression tool so that meant a trip to Princess Auto, but they were all out. Luckily, condor888000 called from becks’s house to arrange to drop-off my electric impact gun. Since becks had a compression tool, I asked condor888000 to bring it over with him, which he did.

Upon applying a small amount of pressure to the piston, it retracted smoothly until it hit the gear again. At that point, I back out the gear some more and the piston went farther. Now, I don’t know this proves my theory, but it certainly indicates that my adjuster gears are not physically linked to the piston in a screw type arrangement. Whether this is how it supposed to be, or if its an indication that something has come undone inside the calliper is another matter.

At any rate, the pads, rotor, and calliper are now living happily together and awaiting my making the final adjustments to the pad-rotor clearance and the emergency brake. Other than that, the service brakes (the brake pedal), seem to work as expected. condor888000 was helpful in doing a final bleed on all four callipers.

Fracis is coming over today to help me with the roll bar install prep and to use my gear to change over his tires from winter to summer. After we’re done that, we’ll probably fire Ginger up and see how the brakes feel, but that’ll require reinstalling the seats. Stay tuned.