First Post, Want Miata Friends and Tech Helpers

[The Rainman]

Hey thar...

My name is Randy Flowers (aka 'The Rainman, that was my nickname for years before i had an autistic daughter). I grew up watching my dad flag 1960s races at Green Valley racetrack, and fell in love with the little english sports cars. My first car was a TR4 (also powder blue, see below) and i this is my 2nd Miata (the first was lost in the 2001 crash and my divorce). I live in Plano near I75...

I love the little sports cars, but no one ever took the time to teach me the basics of car maintenance (i am a little on the autistic spectrum myself, and need someone to actually teach me the first time i do something new, then i write down the steps and the next time i know how to do it)...

I have the ONLY powder blue miata in the world that i am aware of (took a 95 black and painted the outer part 60s powder blue and also the door sills, etc, it looks factory, but left the underside of the hood, etc black)...

It has been setup (took off turbo it came with, rebuilt engine, etc etc) with Trackdog here in Dallas. It came with tons of goodies when i bought it, everything from harddog rollbar to fatcat suspension, etc etc...

I am looking for friends to hang out with and take Miata drives with, AND also looking for help (guru guidance) for someone to teach me (with patience) the basics of how to maintain the car in top condition properly. I am not a mechanic, and don't want to learn how to replace the fuel injection system or anything like that, but do want help in all the basic things that need to be done, when to do them, what to look for, how to actually do them, etc (and also others to share weird noises or concerns with when they come up)...right now, Trackdog is my only help, and they are great, but i am a single dad with two daughters and one of them is autistic, so money is tight, and i need to be able to do all the basics myself.

I want to drive this car (as my ONLY car by the way, it's my everyday driver) into the gasoline sunset, but in order to do that, i need to take my mechanic skills from a 1 to a 3 or 4 at least! Plus, i just want other miata guys to do stuff with...:)

Posting this on the tech forum too...:)

PS: How do you attach a pic of your car if the pic is not on a website?

Randy Flowers
:)

[The Rainman]

Hey thar...

Posted this on the intro forum but thought i would post here also...:)

My name is Randy Flowers (aka 'The Rainman, that was my nickname for years before i had an autistic daughter). I grew up watching my dad flag 1960s races at Green Valley racetrack, and fell in love with the little english sports cars. My first car was a TR4 (also powder blue, see below) and i this is my 2nd Miata (the first was lost in the 2001 crash and my divorce). I live in Plano near I75...

I love the little sports cars, but no one ever took the time to teach me the basics of car maintenance (i am a little on the autistic spectrum myself, and need someone to actually teach me the first time i do something new, then i write down the steps and the next time i know how to do it)...

I have the ONLY powder blue miata in the world that i am aware of (took a 95 black and painted the outer part 60s powder blue and also the door sills, etc, it looks factory, but left the underside of the hood, etc black)...

It has been setup (took off turbo it came with, rebuilt engine, etc etc) with Trackdog here in Dallas. It came with tons of goodies when i bought it, everything from harddog rollbar to fatcat suspension, etc etc...

I am looking for friends to hang out with and take Miata drives with, AND also looking for help (guru guidance) for someone to teach me (with patience) the basics of how to maintain the car in top condition properly. I am not a mechanic, and don't want to learn how to replace the fuel injection system or anything like that, but do want help in all the basic things that need to be done, when to do them, what to look for, how to actually do them, etc (and also others to share weird noises or concerns with when they come up)...right now, Trackdog is my only help, and they are great, but i am a single dad with two daughters and one of them is autistic, so money is tight, and i need to be able to do all the basics myself.

I want to drive this car (as my ONLY car by the way, it's my everyday driver) into the gasoline sunset, but in order to do that, i need to take my mechanic skills from a 1 to a 3 or 4 at least! Plus, i just want other miata guys to do stuff with...:)

PS: How do you attach a pic of your car if the pic is not on a website?

Randy Flowers
:)

[bgeorge]

Welcome!

[Rogue]

Welcome….
Here is the TR-250 I restored for a customer back in 1994, and I drove MGB's for 12 years before the Miata's

Headed to Mardi Gras '95

[MC70]

TR-4s are my all time favorites. I also have a soft spot for MGs (chrome bumper Bs and As). I am dragging my basket case '64 Sunbeam Alpine home before too long.

[MadMonkey]

Welcome!

PS: How do you attach a pic of your car if the pic is not on a website?

Randy Flowers
:)

I use several sites, but the lesser-known ones tend to disappear every year or two. This is my current favorite:

http://postimage.org/

Upload there, then click Direct Link which copies the image's location to your clipboard, then use the Insert Image button here (looks like a little photo) and paste the address into it. Easy as pie once you do it a few times.

More well-known sites are Photobucket, Imgur, Flickr, etc.

[driftdevil]

Welcome, lots of good peeps on here.

[Rogue]

Welcome, lots of good peeps on here.

Who you calling a Peep?

[sammm]

Welcome aboard!

[effse7en]

Welcome!

To attach a picture, go to imgur.com, and on the top right, click the part that says "computer" under "Upload Images", find your picture on the computer, click on it, click upload, and it will upload. When it is done, it will give you a bunch of codes to link the picture somewhere. You're going to want the second one down on the right column that says "BBCode (message boards and forums)". It looks like this: [ IMG ]http://i.imgur.com/1Ps1PJg.jpg[ / IMG ] just without the spaces in the IMG tags. Copy and paste that code into your post.

[Sharpie]

Welcome to all of this. I taught Au kids for 11 years. I'd like to get back to it. I enjoyed it.

How does a 2 seater work as your only car with 2 girls?

[driftdevil]

Who you calling a Peep?

Would you rather be a pink bunny? :P

[The Rainman]

Thanks for the welcome...:) Posted some pics of my car now, here they are...i love the old 60s look (looks like my old TR4)

http://s26.postimage.org/uqxn6gcxh/Miata_Side_1.jpg
http://s26.postimage.org/ah0brbbsl/Miata_Front_1.jpg
http://s26.postimage.org/or9w2ss51/zeekke_079.jpg

[The Rainman]

Hmmm...how do you post a big pic like the TR4 above?

These came in as pure links and the pics are really tiny...

Randy
:)

[The Rainman]

Cool on the teaching autistic kids...my oldest 18 year old doesn't live with me anymore, so i can handle just 2 seats 99% of the time...i DO have a Ford Focus but am about to sell it...

Randy
:)

[The Rainman]

Here is my Miata...:)

[The Rainman]

I used imgur, but when i pasted the URL in there, the pics are really small, not sure why...did it with post image.com also, same result...hmm...

Still, you can see the car...:)

Randy
:)

[The Rainman]

There we go, bigger now...:)

[The Rainman]

[The Rainman]