TAIL OF THE DRAGON, CHEROHALA SKYWAY

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All kinds of Awesome on these two roads!

Returning from a week of study near Crossville Tennessee, I picked up my "nephew-in-law" in Knoxville and headed down the Alcoa highway for the Dragon on Friday afternoon. It was my first visit there. For any who are sadly uninformed, the Tail of the Dragon is an eleven-mile stretch of US Highway 129 south of Knoxville, as it approaches and finally crosses the North Carolina line at Deals Gap. Those incredible 11 miles are blessed with 318 wondrous curves and turns. The mountain road is a mecca for bikers and sports car enthusiasts alike, though the bikers clearly outnumber the rest of us.

It’s a great road for sport, mainly (obviously) due to its twists and turns, but also since there are no side roads from which unsuspecting cars might enter the highway, and because everyone on the road knows it’s used for sport, which means everyone is driving with the knowledge that a car or bike is likely to be flying around the next curve. Predictability, and the awareness not to venture across the yellow line, makes for a good degree of safety.

Diving into hairpin turns and accelerating out: pure bliss. Exactly what Mazda designed this car for (unfortunately this is best seen in the long video I can't seem to upload). Watching the sport bikers dragging their knees on the curves, and keeping pace with them: more bliss. It’s easy to find videos of cars driving the Dragon faster than I did (my runs are better described as merely “spirited” than truly “fast”), but during my 3 runs it was only bikers (and only a few of them) that outpaced me. I’m sure on other days I’d see faster cars there.

A couple of my videos, but not the one with the best hairpins and best driving
That one is too long for YouTube or Blogger to accept :(





I made my third and final run on Saturday, as I couldn’t resist taking this route home to middle Georgia, even though it would add 2 or 3 hours to the journey. Another good run, and exiting the Tail of the Dragon I continued on 129 southward, seeking the Cherohala Skyway which I had seen mentioned on some Dragon sites.

The Cherohala runs east/west, crossing the mountains to connect Robbinsville NC to Tellico Plains TN. Like the Tail of the Dragon, it’s park land, so there are no homes and businesses, and only the rare side road leading to hiking trails etc. It differs from the Dragon, in that it lacks the hairpin turns and concentration of really tight curves. But curves it has, some of them long sweeping curves, as it takes you along the tops of the mountains, offering views that can only be described as spectacular. Truly a Skyway. The run is 35-50 miles long, depending on what you call the endpoints. With its proximity to the Dragon, there are bikers and the occasional sports car enjoying the opportunity for speed in non-linear form. Best of all, even though it was a Saturday, there was little traffic.

Cherohala Skyway
It looks like my trips to Maryland and Pennsylvania will be longer in the future. They’ll now include a detour via the Cherohala and the Dragon, probably every time. Well, every time I’m in the Miata. Maybe not so much, if I’m in the Rodeo. :)

SMOOTHER SHIFTING

Earlier this year I removed the console and shift lever to replace a torn shift lever boot, and to remount the bushing on the bottom end of the shift lever (incorporating a washer to prevent the bushing from detaching itself again - I was happy to see today that the washer has done its job well). While I was in there that earlier day, the ball at the bottom end of the shift lever got cleaned of its grease; while a little bit remained, it has probably been lacking some smoothness ever since. So today I took it all apart again, and lubed up the ball and bushing with a spray can of white lithium grease. Much faster disassembly and reassembly this time, after having done it once before. And the shifting seems to be smoother and more accurate! :)

(odometer 23,265)

OIL CHANGE #4 AND TIRE ROTATION #1

I've waited a bit longer than I wanted for my current oil change and tire rotation, but just finished them both, with the odometer reading 22,570. That's 4639 miles since my last change of the Mobil 1 synthetic. Of course folks say you can go 5000 miles with synthetic anyway, but I don't want to make that a habit. As for the tires, it comes to 6007 miles between originally mounting these tires and this first rotation. But it was not without drama. On the third wheel, I broke the locking lug nut key.

locking lug nut:locking lug nut KEY:
I'm not going to record here the depth of my stupidity at that third wheel, which resulted in the ruined key - though I will say the piece of the lug nut key that takes all the pressure was made of plastic(??!!). Got out the original accessory papers that came with the car, and had a new key FedExed to me overnight from the company that made them, and finished the rotation.

STRIP WASH - CLAY - WAX, and PICS FROM FLORIDA BACKROADS

It was time for a general clean-up, before traveling to the Florida College Lectures last week. I addressed the paint finish first...

First step: strip the old wax from the finish by washing it with Dawn liquid dishwashing detergent. Second step: clay the car to remove fine, embedded dirt particles that normal washing can never ever get (never used a clay bar? see this discussion). I use "MOTHERS California Gold Clay Bar Paint Saving System." I HIGHLY recommend using a clay bar on your paint. It went much faster than it went the first time (last May?), since the first time was less than a year ago. And then third, fresh new wax:



Then I moved to the interior with my bottle of Armor All: not an overdone wet shine, but just the nice clean sheen of a new interior. The neglected area behind the seats -the windblocker and the rest of the area where the top folds down- benefitted especially. And man, the combined result of all the general clean up was sweet!

En route to Tampa, I ditched the Interstate in favor of the back roads of rural north Florida...and had the camera along for some pictures. Just north of I-10, I got off I-75 at Exit 439 for a route I had already planned out. I chose roads that missed towns for the most part, and which had curves when possible. Not that there are many curvy roads in flat, flat Florida. A few miles south of Fort White the road crosses the Santa Fe River: a beautiful little river and photo spot. Toward the southern end of my route it was pretty much impossible to avoid cities like Dunellon, Hernando, and Inverness. I rejoined I-75 at Exit 314. The backroads detour, with photography stops, added about an hour and a half to what would have been maybe an hour and forty on the interstate.



Above, and the next few photos:
At the Hwy 47 crossing of the Santa Fe River, south of Fort White





Above and below, in Bronson: These two houses were on a very short street called Main Ave., just off the main road Hathaway, and appeared to be preserved rather than currently lived in. Just thought they made a nice backdrop.

SHIFT LEVER: TWO ISSUES RESOLVED

Working the gears in this car has been pure pleasure compared to the other sticks I've driven, so much better than my 5-speed Camry for example. But a couple things weren't quite right.

1. When one of the guys at a Miata shop drove my car months ago, he knew by the sound that the shift boot seal was torn - that's the smaller and lower of the two boots under the decorative leather boot. As far as I know, a torn seal doesn't cause any likely problems in shifting or transmission performance since it's under a second boot, but it can certainly stand being replaced.

I've removed the console;
the upper boot lies in the passenger footwell;
the lower boot ("shift boot seal") is still in place, at the bottom of the shift lever.
2. At the bottom of the shift lever is a bushing. It's been somewhat common on Miatae for that bushing to come off and rest at the bottom of the turret in which the shift lever stands. When it comes off, the shifting feels notchy: finding the next gear doesn't have a real smooth feel. I had read about this on the Mazda-speed forum, and about a solution as well. While my Miata transmission shifts better than any stick I've owned, and while the actual shifting of the lever also feels better than any of those others, I could feel that notchiness.

The torn shift boot seal;
the white bushing that had fallen off, now back in place.
So last week I used a great how-to on the forum to guide me through removing the console etc., and upper shift boot, and confirmed that the lower boot seal was indeed torn. I ordered a new shift boot seal from Jason at Montgomery Mazda in Charlotte NC (half the price quoted by my nearest Mazda dealer). Today it arrived, and I went to Lowes and bought a 3/8" washer. Removed the shift lever, and sure enough, that bushing I mentioned above was just resting in the bottom of the turret rather than on the shift lever. Put it back in place, and removed the old shift boot seal and put the new one on. The 3/8 washer is to keep the bushing from falling off again: placing it in the bottom of the turret, under the bushing, does the job.

Put it all back together, and SWEET!! -the notchiness is gone, and the shifting is better than ever. I love this car. Cost for the boot seal, shipping, and washer: $30.73.


The car is still under warranty, but I wanted to do this myself. First, I'm sure they wouldn't put the washer in there even if I asked them to, and second I just don't want dealers touching my car if I don't know enough about them to trust them...and I haven't had occasion yet to have to get acquainted with any Mazda service guys. Well, not here anyway. The service manager in Joliet IL was great with my MX-6 some years ago...but that's a few states away.

OIL CHANGE #3

Haven't been careful about documenting my oil changes. Time for reform. Changed it today, @ 17,931 miles. That's the third change since buying the car with just under 7000 miles on it: once at a 15-minute joint, once when I added the oil filter relocation kit, and today.

Last time and this time (and into the foreseeable future), I'm using Mobil 1 synthetic 10W-30, and Mobil 1 filter. Instead of the Mazda prescribed filter size, I'm using the filter prescribed for the Mazda Millenia. Same diameter, but longer. More capacity can't be worse, and I figure it's better. Mobil 1's number for the filter is M1-110.

CLOSE CALL

I bought this car, planning to keep it for decades. It's the first car I've really loved in quite a while. I care for it well, and I want it to remain unmolested --except for the tasteful mods I'll carefully make-- throughout its life.

Yesterday, I pulled up in the Checkers drive-thru (although food is usually persona non grata in this car). In front of me is one of those uber big pickup trucks. He decides he wants to leave and starts moving in reverse. I gave the horn a quick blast but he's still moving -slowly, thankfully- so I lay on the horn without let-up. I've considered this scenario before, and thought that I would react quickly to throw mine in reverse and get out of the way instead of just laying on the horn -- in reality, my mind wouldn't allow me to focus on anything that might distract from sounding that horn as loud as I could, I had to stop that truck!! Interesting how the mind works. Anyway, he had to be within a couple inches of crushing my hood with his bumper when he finally heard my horn and stopped. Leaned out his window (my left side was farther left than his), and said, "Sorry - I didn't see your little car." Man. In the future, that scenario will be on my mind more regularly, and reverse will be at hand.