Miata Service

Too Much Blue?

I’m not sure I like the way the all this blue looks, so don’t get to comfortable. OK?

On Tuesday evening I changed the oil on the Miata and rotated the tires. I pulled the right front tire off first so I could get to the oil filter and drain plug. While the dark amber color fluid drained into a plastic pan, I pulled off the right rear and mounted the previous front tire in its place. I rolled each at least a full rotation looking for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing sticking out of either one, but the inside corners of both of them were worn a bit more than the outside. It was getting close to tire shopping time.

When I pulled the right rear I realized it was time to shop now. The inside edge of this tire was almost square from uneven wear. No belt material was showing, but what should have been a smooth circumference was somewhat wavy.

Normally I would spend several hours checking reviews, reading the tires & wheels section of the Miata Forum and searching for deals before getting a new set of tires, but we were taking a weekend trip that started in 48 hours. I needed tires in a hurry and the few times I’ve had to do that it hasn’t always ended well.

I checked the website of the best independent tire dealer in town and they listed a couple of Ultra High Performance Summer tires in my size, including the Yokohama S.Drive which the Emperor already was riding on. It was about 3 minutes until closing time, but the fellow who answered said he could hook me up the next day with a set of the Yoko’s and an alignment.

I hated to do the alignment because there are a new set of shocks and springs in the garage awaiting installation in the next couple weeks and I will have to do another one after that stuff is put on. But it would be kind of stupid to buy new tires and then take a 850 trip with an improper alignment. I’d like to get closer to 25,000 miles on this set instead of just under 21,000 for the current tires.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1493

Motoring Challenge Points 0, Approx Miles Driven 140
Totals So Far: 40 points & 1080 miles

Raggedy Andy

After 7-1/2 years the Emperor’s top is looking a little worse for the wear. When it is down and you look at the window, it appears that the cloth that holds it in place is starting to separate. From the outside it looks just fine though and it is not loose when pressed on. There are several dark stain spots at points where the canvas is stretched tight over the frame. Inside a couple of the stains there are tiny little holes that look like they go all the way through. Even if they do go through, they are so small that they probably wouldn’t leak unless we get caught in a frog strangler. But because we have taken to only driving the Miata on nice days, the likelihood of that happening is slim.

A new top is on the horizon, but I’m waiting until we get the new shocks and springs installed. For that we are just waiting on our turn in the queue at Panic Motorsports. We are near the top, so hopefully it will be next week.

Then will come the top decision; what color and what material? The Emperor came with a tan cloth top from the factory. When that one was replaced in 2008 I went back with a tan cloth top. Because the Miata has become a fair weather ride nowadays I’m thinking that I could save about $125 dollars by going with a vinyl top this time. Trouble with that plan is I’ve seen some older tan vinyl tops and they get dirtier looking easier than the cloth ones (although this might not be a problem for the Emperor because he lives indoors.)

Then there is the black vinyl roof option. Black would not look bad on the car because it was standard on the lower trim levels of the car and I remember seeing a couple back in 2003. And it would give the car a whole new look on the few times the roof is up. Maybe even get some black stripe vinyl and black out the windshield header like Mazda is doing with the 4th generation of the car, that way stifling my desire to but a brand new Miata. 🙂

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1487

O2 Have Had A Lift

Changed out the faulty O2 sensor yesterday and it would have been munch easier if I had my very own lift in the garage, but seeing as we didn’t win the half-billion PowerBall jackpot on Wednesday…

Last Sunday I ordered the sensor and a wrench. PartsGeek shipped the sensor via the USPS from California last Monday. Harbor Freight shipped the wrench via FedEx from California last Wednesday. Friday the sensor arrived on my doorstep, the wrench was still in transit in Clarksville, Arkansas (ETA Thursday the 19th.)

Friday evening when we went out to do our weekly grocery shopping I stopped in at the Advanced Auto that was on the way to Krogers and bought an O2 sensor wrench. There were two kinds on the rack an offset wrench and a socket type, because the socket one was $11 and the offset was $14, and I’m cheap, I bought the socket style. As a side note these are the same two styles available from Harbor Freight, but the socket style from them is two dollars more than the offset wrench, so that is why I have a offset style wrench in Graysville, Alabama as of yesterday.

When we got home I went out in the garage and pulled the Miata out of the garage and pulled right back in aiming to park it towards the right side of our little one car garage to give the hydraulic jack better access to the driver’s side of the car. To get to the electrical connector inside the car for the sensor you need to remove the driver’s seat and pull back the two sections of carpet under and behind it. In preparation for Saturday I pulled out the seat, easy peazy, 4 bolts and the seatbelt electrical plug, then jacked up the side of the car as far as the jack would go to place a couple of stands under the car. I then crawled under and squirted penetrating oil on some bracket bolts and the sensor to ensure their easy removal tomorrow.

After lunch on Saturday I figured it was about time to do some actual work on the Emperor, so I started with the easy thing first, disconnecting the 4-prong electrical plug to the sensor. I flipped up the back piece of carpet, but when I tried to pry up the piece on the floor I couldn’t get it peeled back enough to get to the connector. I unsnapped the sill plate to get some slack in the carpet, but that wasn’t much help. Next step was to remove the center console so there would be more unrestricted pressure on the carpet.

Calling what lines the interior of this generation of the Miata carpet is exceedingly charitable. What it is is 1/16th of an inch thick plastic with the pliability of cardboard and a slightly fuzzy side up.

Once I got the carpet pulled back I still couldn’t see the connector. Because of this unfortunate downpour incident the 1/2 thick fiber padding that used to be under here was replaced with a nicely sealed covering of foil backed bubble insulation that needed to be carefully un-taped to gain access. Finally, there is the connector, but how does it separate? I pulled and pushed. I tried to both lift and push down on what I thought was the release tab, but it remained stubbornly joined together. I poked at both ends with a little screw driver and finally I managed to get it apart.

Now for the hard part. Crawling under the car I used the 10mm socket to remove the two brackets that keep the sensor wire in place and away from the exhaust. I twirled the wire through a spring-like contraption that further served the same purpose. All that was left to do was place my nifty O2 sensor socket on the sensor and…crap. I could get the socket on the sensor, but the PPF was in the way of putting the handle on the socket. I tried putting the short extension on it, but that was too long by an inch or so to allow the handle to get on it.

Fortunately the drive to Advanced Auto and the wait on a Saturday afternoon to exchange the socket plus three bucks for the offset wrench was short, so I was back under the Miata in about 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes later I was jacking the car down. Five minutes later the driver’s seat was in and I started it up. I ran horribly at first and I had to back it out into the driveway because of the smoke generated from burning off the penetrating oil. By the time I finished putting away the rest of the tools and swept out the garage, the Emperor had warmed up and was purring away with an unilluminated Check Engine light.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1463

P0037

Lizard

Faulty Heated Oxygen Sensor (H2OS) Bank 1 Sensor 2

The nice young man at Advanced Auto down the street used his nifty OBDII scanner to read the code which caused the Check Engine light that short circuited our plans to drive the Emperor to Florida. The Miata is an inline 4 cylinder engine, so Bank 1 is the only possible option, Sensor 2 meant it is the downstream sensor, AKA the one after the catalytic converter.

I searched the Miata.net Forums for what this all meant for me. Sensor 2 just monitors the effectiveness of the cat and if you live in a non-Smog Check state it is not a real problem because the data is not used in changing any ignition parameters. You could just not fix it and leave the Check Engine light illuminated all the time, but the downside to that is you could throw another possibly important code and not know it. I’m going to be a good boy and fix it.

From reading the forum it seems like I might even be able to do the repair myself, so I ordered a new sensor from Parts Geek, $80 plus $9 for shipping. According to hive memory of the forum I’ll also need a O2 Sensor wrench to get this thing out, so I ordered one of them from Harbor Freight, $6 plus $7 for shipping.

Why, oh, why would I spend more for shipping than I did for the tool? The closest Harbor Freight is in Augusta and it would cost more in gas and aggravation to go get it when the postman will bring it right to my door. I suppose I could have borrowed one from a MMC member, but this way I’ll have the wrench when I need to replace the front sensor. Which would invariably have happened right after I returned the borrowed wrench.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1462

53,000 Things It Could Be

Yesterday we filled up the Miata with gas. I came home and checked all the other owner serviceable fluid levels, they were all nominal. I washed the windows inside and out. We are headed down to Florida for the Celebration of Life for Sandy. The Miata was our transport of choice so we could score some more Motoring Challenge points.

One of the categories this year is Moss Motors Distributors. One point each for the first three and two points for numbers 4 & 5. There happens to be two of the distributors on the same street in Stuart which is the next town over from where we are going to be. Plus we had in mind a certain place just off I-75 in Micanopy, Florida for our Adult Playground Destination – Cafe RisquĂ©!

After a few minutes creatively loading the trunk of the Emperor with probably more stuff than we really needed for a 4 day trip, I backed out of the garage and headed down the road. Three houses away I noticed a pretty orange symbol mid-dash that was unfamiliar…
check-engine-light_8D0206E867F895F0

Pulled over, shut the car off, then started it back up. The check engine light stayed on, so we u-turned back home. Unloaded everything from the trunk and cockpit, tossed it all in the respective places in the Sonata. Then added some more stuff, because we could, and got back on the road. Total lost time 5 minutes.

The light could mean any of 53,000 things could be wrong, from major to minor, but no sense taking any chances. I’ll get the code read at the corner auto parts store when we get back to see what it says. I have been watching all chatter about the new Miata over on the Miata Forum with a gleam in my eye recently, much the chagrin of the family CFO, and she even went so far as to suggest that this light might a subtle ploy towards getting one. She told me to forget about it, even if we need a whole engine, we’ll be getting that before we take up car payments again.

About 5 miles north of Statesboro, GA the Purple Whale passed through the 53,000 mile mark.

The Emperor Returns

I finally had a chance to go get the Miata back from Panic Motorsports yesterday. About a month ago when coming back from some around town errands in the Miata it started making some ugly groaning/growling noises under the hood. A fellow MMC member came over and listened (thanks Kurt) and figured it was the water pump. Kurt was right. The water pump that I had prophylactically changed at 120,000 miles when the timing belt was changed, failed after 20,000.

Not only did it fail extremely prematurely, but it did so in a weird manner. Steve emailed me a photo of what it looked like inside the pump housing and asked what I was putting in the cooling system because it looked like there was green baby poop in there. He’d never seen anything like that before. And when I told him I put nothing but 50/50 antifreeze in there he had no explanation for the sludge.

Both cars in the livery needed washing. The Purple Whale from the trip to Florida and back and the Emperor from sitting outside for the last 10 days or so. Because of someone’s idea of saving time and the tilt of the planet’s axis, the sun sets pretty early this time of year leaving little time after work, so the Miata by virtue of being smaller, got the bath tonight. The Sonata might just get run through a car wash because by the weekend, when there is more time, it will be too cold for doing it by hand.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1429

Just Can’t Stop

In a Barn

After racking up about 560 miles on Saturday and Sunday chasing Motoring Challenges today we promised to just take it easy and not drive too far. And we didn’t. Our neighbor across the street is the wife of a local horse trainer, so when I saw her outside this afternoon I asked if she could find me a barn. When I explained what for for, she had just what I needed right up the street.

Because the Miata is only a two-seater I could only take her and not my usual photographer, so Vicky agreed to take the pictures. While we were messing around in the horse district I mentioned I also needed a horse track photo, so we went over to the Aiken Training Track. She suggested maybe parking on the track right in front of the gates and I thought that was an awesome idea. But as we got on some of the dirt approaching the track we could feel how soft and deep it was, so opted out on trying to drive on the track. It would have been extremely embarrassing to have to have some horses pull the Miata out of getting stuck. So I pulled up next to the rail on the grass. As it turns out the Horse Track photo required a sign, so good thing we didn’t get stuck for nothing. Maybe I will use the picture for a Sneak Peek entry.

The Purple Whale got a nice wash this afternoon and I gave The Emperor a sponge bath (AKA Mequier’s Quick Detailer) too. I also changed the Miata’s oil, after all with all this Motoring Challenge stuff we have traveled nearly 4,000 miles in the last couple weeks.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1362