Miata Service

Warm Sunday

For the first time this year we went for a bike ride. Fifteen miles and by the time we were done we were glad to get off the thing. Amazing how easily you fall out of shape if you don’t do it often enough. If Donna and I actually verbalized, or in some other way memorialized, our New Year’s resolutions, every year this one would be right up there at the top – Bike Ride More Often.

This afternoon I took advantage of the warm weather to do a little Miata service. I changed the oil & filter at the 52,788 mile mark. Remind me to never buy a Pure One filter for the Miata again. One thing is that the filter wrench doesn’t fit it, but more importantly and maybe it was just this one, but it didn’t have the little rubber gasket that seals it to the engine block. This is something you don’t want to find out like I did either, after you have drained all the oil out of the engine in the only car you own. Makes it kind of hard to take it back to the parts store and complain. Fortunately for me the gasket from the Fram filter I took off, was an exact replacement for the missing one. I definitely have to go back to buying a six pack of OEM filters from a dealer.

The Emperor also got his monthly bath. When I looked in the car wash bucket I realized I was out of car wash soap. I didn’t feel like driving somewhere to pick some up, so I substituted. No I didn’t use dish soap, I know that it is too harsh and will remove all your wax. I used clothes detergent. Yeah, it probably is even worse for the finish of the car, but I was desperate and I was sure it would be OK for the cloth convertible top. At least I didn’t use Rose Petal scented bubble we have in the house, although in hindsight…

Started up, went down, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 19

Following A Path To Enlightenment

The PathYesterday morning when I fired up the car in the garage I could see that one of the fog lights, AKA DRLs, was out. On the way home from work we stopped at the local auto parts store and bought a new bulb. At first I thought, to be safe, I should change out both bulbs under the theory that if one goes the other can’t be far behind. Then I referred to the wealth of knowledge that only the internet could house, the blog known as “Life of Brian.” In July of 2005 I changed just the left fog light bulb and now a year and a half later the right one bit the dust. A decision was made to go ahead and replace just the bulb that burnt out.

Changing the bulb is the not so simple matter of jacking up the front of the car, removing the front wheel, removing a 10mm bolt, taking out 5 weird plastic screw/snap fasteners and bending back the fender liner. Then you unsnap a spring clip, twist to unfasten the bulb base from the housing, unclick the wiring harness connector so you can get the base & bulb out where you can see it and pull the bulb out of the base. reverse everything you just did the put it all back together. It takes about an hour. So if you had the dealer do it, it would set you back about $75. That’s just the labor, they would add about another $20 for the six dollar bulb…

Yesterday I wrote about my leave covered yard, today I posted a picture depicting just that. Yesterday I changed a fog light bulb in the car, today I posted about that. I guess I figured if that whole non-linear story telling thing worked for Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, why not for me here?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 496

POS Racing Fan Club

POSAfter breakfast in the condo Donna and I drove over to Roebling Road Raceway outside of Savannah, GA to see a couple of friends race in an SCCA Solo1 event.

John is a heck of a driver that I hate following through the twisty roads on MMC events, because I know if I try and keep up with him I’ll end up getting in trouble. On the road he drives with what seems like abandon, but he always keeps in on the pavement. On the track he is a terror and usually once an event he manages to find the dirt, but he still has wrapped up first place in the southeast region in the CSP class. The car he drives, and consequently the race team, was christened by his wife the day he brought the well used red early model Miata home from the dealer, POS (and I’m betting you can figure what those three initials stand for.) After these last few years POS now has an alternate nickname, the Money Pit. Hey, it keeps John off the streets, literally.

Today when we got to the track John made me an honorary pit crew member by giving me a ball cap embroidered with the words POS Racing and a small red Miata complete with his car number in the white meatball on the door. I’m not sure if you get to pick your own number, but John’s is 54 and I wonder if it has anything to do with his propensity to leave the track and Officers Toody & Muldoon.

When we got back from watching racing this afternoon I changed the oil and rotated the tires on the Emperor. At 48,840 the car was about at the halfway point between Mazda’s recommended service points of 45,000 and 52,500.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 446

All Jacked Up & No Place To Go

All Jacked UpWe did a little jean shopping this morning followed by a lunch ribs at Tony Roma’s. This afternoon was spent changing the oil and rotating the tires.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 350

Happy Father’s Day

My father wasn’t much of a presence and I’m not one at all, so today is pretty much just another Sunday.

Donna and I did take advantage of the nicer morning weather and go for a short walk in Hitchcock Woods. I took the camera and snapped a couple of uninspired images. I realized that I had started a gallery for one image from the woods per month and I was a couple months behind. I posted a shot from today and because May was a total wash out due to weather and chemo, I added a May photo from last year. Sorry, but the thumbnails in the gallery are still not working, so I’ll just link you right to today’s image: Palmetto Ride.

I did spend a little quality time with the closest thing I have to a son, the Emperor. Pulled the vampire teeth back out of the mouth as they had served their purpose. Changed the oil as it had served its purpose for the last 3000+ miles. I usually rotate the tires at this point, but these are only a couple hundred miles into their lives so I left them on their respective corners. I did take them off the car though. The center caps were starting to turn yellow, so I repainted them with some Duplicolor silver wheel paint. This was a known issue with these center caps, as in 1998 when they first appeared on the Miata, there was an undocumented TSB as the caps were turning yellow within a few months. I know the history of these wheels and they were replaced under warranty way back in late 1998. So the replacements have held up pretty well, needing retouching only after close to 8 years.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 210

The Emperor’s New Shoes

In spite of their past mistakes, I went over the my LTS and had new Toyos installed on the car. Except for a brief interlude of the OEM Turdenzas on the Emperor when it was new, the last three sets of Miata tires have been Toyo T1-S’s in 195/50 x 15. An excellent summer tire with tons of grip, wet and dry, fairly light weight and pretty affordable. The T1-S is no longer made and has been replaced by the T1-R.

With the new tire purchase I decided to try and kill a couple of birds with the one stone of a set of T1-R’s in 205/50 x 15. The 205 is the width of the tire in millimeters and the 50 is the sidewall height expressed as a percentage of the width, so this means that the tire should appear to fill the wheel well better with its .2 inch taller sidewall. Second, according to the Miata.net tire size calculator, my speedometer will now read 1.7% low. This is a good thing because the stock speedometer appears to be almost 7% high right now and a little compensation the other way will help make it more accurate.

The LTS was busy and they told me it might be an hour and a half before they would have my car done. No problem I told them, I brought a book. True to their word, it took almost exactly that long. When I handed them the keys I reminded them the torque spec for the lug-nuts was 75 ft/lbs and asked them to at least start the lug-nuts by hand before they impacted them on because last time they stripped one of my studs. To which the guy behind the counter replied, “When you do as many tires as we do you are bound to strip a few.” Jeez, nice attitude.

When I got home the first thing I did was check the torque and it seemed about right as I loosened them all, at least I didn’t need a breaker bar to get them off. I then re-torqued all 16 to 75 ft/lbs. Next up I checked the tire pressure. The door jab sticker says that Mazda recommends that they be inflated to 26 p.s.i. I’m guessing they inflated them by counting off so many seconds, one Mississippi, two Mississippi…because the pressure ranged from a low of 34 p.s.i. to a high of 42. I used to run 29 p.s.i. in the T1-S’s, but these are supposed to have a slightly stiffer sidewall so I took them all down to 26 and we see how they feel. While I was doing tire things, I decided, what the heck, to go ahead and clean the tire installer’s greasy hand prints off my wheels. I don’t even want to get into the whole leaving the thin foil tire label on the treads so that they would slowly flake off leaving a trail right to my driveway from the store.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 194

Tires Balanced

We don’t get the Miata on an Interstate much and the last few times we did it showed some tire shimmy at 60MPH and again around 80 or so. Rotating the tires didn’t eliminate it totally, but did change its feel and speed of appearance. Seeing as we are doing a road trip this weekend that will encompass a good chunk of interstate I went to a different LTS and had the tires balanced. The Miata is fairly sensitive to balance issues because of the light weight wheel/tire combination and taught suspension. I’ll let you know how they did.

When I had the ticket written up I left a big hint that the torque spec for my lug nuts was 75 ft/lbs. I had tried that tact with the last place, but they didn’t get the hint (which is one of the reasons I’m at some place new.) These guys did good on this account as I checked when I got home in the driveway and the lug nuts were easily removable with the regular lug wrench. I then retorqued them back down to 75 ft/lbs.

They did made a weak attempt to sell me some new tires before balancing. The Toyos are nearly worn out, but I think I have another month on them. They were installed in October of 2004 when the car had a touch over 16,000 and we are fast approaching 40,000. That would mean I would get a respectable 25k miles on the set with this weekend’s trip and another 30 days of local travel.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 160