Miata Service

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

MMC Tech Day

Tech Day
The Emperor with his hood up prior to getting his fix, Rudy’s Mazdaspeed Miata and some joker’s car with a Ferrari body kit.*

Today was the annual Miata Club Tech Day where some of us head over to Kurt’s Garage-mahal and do some maintenance type stuff, that some could do in their own garage (not me), but would rather have help, have someone kibitz over their shoulders or just have an audience. Some show up to offer to help or to just hang around and talk Miatas or just cars. There were doughnuts in the morning and lunch was going to be wrangled later.

While I was there changing out my leaking valve cover gasket, there was Dave’s car in one bay getting a timing belt changed and Stacey’s car was getting an oil change and tire rotation. Clunk & Thunk doing a bunch of helping and doing and there were at least three other guys just hanging about.

*It is an actual mid 80’s Ferrari 328GTS and is Kurt’s latest toy. We tried to talk him into letting us each take a spin around the block, but he wasn’t going for it.

See You in 2026

On Sunday the Emperor got an oil change and as always, I rotated his tires as well. When I checked over the right rear tire before putting it back on the front, I spotted something shiny, looked like some sort of a spike. I didn’t want to pull it out for fear that it would go flat, so I decided to take it to a LTS to let them pull it out.

I tossed the tire in the trunk of the Sonata and headed over to a small shop around the corner. They were of course closed, so I tried a second locally owned store not too much further away. They too were closed on Sunday. This left me no other option but to pay a visit to the big name brand chain place that had I swore never to visit again after they scratched the heck out of my aftermarket rims installing tires on the previous Miata.

I rolled the tire up to the desk and asked the guy behind the cash register if could they fix it. The fellow asked if I’d been there before and I said sure, but a long time ago. So I gave him my phone number and he asked, “Brian?” I said, “Yep, I guess I’m still in there.” “When was the last time I was here?” “2002,” he replied.

He said, “I’ll have to get someone to see if it can be fixed.” And about that time some moke who worked there was passing by on his way somewhere, so the fellow asked him. This guy eyeballed the tire and said, “I don’t think that goes all the way through.” He spun 180° and went back to get a pair of pliers. Then straddling the tire, grabbed the spike and pulled. He was right, it didn’t go all the way through. It was a small screw embedded in a tire block almost perpendicular to the tire. It looked like a spike because the screw had been worn in half so I was seeing almost a cross section of it.

The guy in the work shirt with his name over the pocket handed me the screw piece, slipped the pliers into his back pocket and continued in the direction he was headed before we interrupted him. I looked over at the cashier and asked, “What do I owe you?” He said, “Nothing, don’t worry about it, we’ll get you next time”

I said, “Thanks. See you in 2026.”

The Emperor’s Triumphant Return

Picked up the Miata from Panic Motorsports today. Drove all the way home and then later back out for a Kroger run and it never stumbled once. I am now learning to use the clutch like a normal person again.

The fix, a used set of spark plug wires…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1304

41,000 Something Or Others

I apologize, I usually have some sort of cute total of something that may or may not have happened on the day when a car in possession passes through a thousand mile increment, but today I have none. Today after work Donna and I drove both cars to West Columbia and passing through Wagener on the drive there the Purple Whale ticked past the 41,000 mile mark.

The Emperor is going to a warrior’s retreat and hanging with a bunch of Miata race cars for the next few days. The folks at Panic Motorsports have agreed to see if they can get rid of his annoying 1st gear standing start random stumble.

I can’t swear to it, but this little foible seemed to start not long after the 125,000 mile major service about 2-1/2 years ago. At first it was very random, it didn’t seem to matter whether the weather was hot or cold, if it was day or night or even if the car was warmed up or not, but its happening was few and far between. Then the Sonata joined the family and the Miata got driven less, so the little stumble was even less frequent. As time progressed it became more frequent in rearing its ugly head, I became more adept at sensing its arrival and compensating by slipping the clutch and goosing the gas to to avoid bucking at standing starts. I started considering the stumble part of the car’s patina, a bit of character that is the hallmark of owning a true sports car.

For the last few months it was still random, but it was much more frequent, so I finally opted to have an expert look at it. A couple of weeks ago I called Steve at Panic and worked out a time that was amenable to the both of us and of course, since then, the Emperor has been acting up less. Only happened a couple of times on the Savannah trip this weekend and only once today, at the DD drive thru, but it still needed looking at, so look here.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1303

Shifter Feel

Shifter Boot PartsThe other weekend when I had the Emperor’s center console off working on relocating the cigarette lighter 12V Power Outlet I noticed that the internal rubber shifter boot (#13) was all torn. This is what separates the outside from the inside and when it is torn it lets in a lot of heat from the transmission. You would think I would have noticed sooner, but the inside of a Miata can be warm to begin with, I live where it is kinda hot and it has probably been torn for awhile so I was used to it.

When the top rubber piece is ripped, more than likely the rubber part of the lower boot (#14) is shot as well. The lower one covers the opening on the top of the transmission keeping junk out of and gear oil in the turret where the shift lever enters. I ordered up some replacements.

Sunday afternoon I put them in. It took about an hour and most of that was trying to get the old hardened rubber bits off the the shift lever. The upper boot had sort of melded around the fatter part of the shifter (about D-cell diameter) so there was a lot of prying and tugging involved. The lower boot was rock solid and I could barely cut it with a razor knife from the smaller diameter (index finger sized) part below the fat part. Here is a photo of a shifter with the lower boot still on:
OEM Shfter

It’s after cutting off the lower boot that you realize to get the new one on, that little hole in the rubber part will have to do a big stretch to get over the fat part of the lever. Well, a little personal lubricant made short work of that job and it was actually harder sliding on the upper boot and it had a nice big hole.

Now that everything is all back together the shifts have a different feel. They still have that short precise throw, but putting it into 1st or 3rd gear you get a little push back from the now complete rubber boot. I wonder if I’ll notice when the rubber fails and rips?