Miata Service

Bucky’s Back Baby

Bucky’s Back Baby


 
He has been over at the Mazda dealer having his clutch made all new. He was gone for 3 weeks and a week and a half of that was waiting on the machine shop to resurface the flywheel. Besides the clutch work they fixed a couple issues that FTW tuning missed when they had the car refurbishing all the fluids and rubber belts. First up was they missed the clutch fluid, they also missed a small rodent’s nest underneath the plastic cover where the windshield wipers hide. They didn’t change spark plugs, I didn’t think of it to ask, and had I done that they may have found that the wiring harness that plugs into the coil packs had broken tabs that might have allowed them back out due to vibration. I had them change out the two short spark plug wires that bridge from the 2 coil packs that sit on one plug to go to the other plugs. Lastly, I had them re-chase the threads in one of the passenger seat’s mounting rail that was stripped out. I only found this out when I pulled the seats to get under the carpet to really clean the interior.

I have a couple of maintenance items that I need to address. The turn signal and wiper stalks are creaky sounding in use, so I’ve ordered so dielectric grease to make them smooth and quiet again. The other I haven’t dug into yet, but the driver’s side rearview mirror doesn’t move with the switch. Might be something spontaneously unplugged itself or the mirror internals are broke. Something for me to look at this weekend when the weather gets back into the 80s.

I’ve one more modification I want to put on the car, side stripes in a color that closely approximates the bronze wheels. I have an appointment with the DMV on the 7th of August and PDX Wraps is practically next door, so maybe when I’m done trying to get the car titled and registered I can drop it off for some stripes.

Miatas Servicing

Yesterday afternoon I drove the Blue Miata over to Tonkin Mazda to get its 15k mile service. Because I got an oil change just before I left my Service Advisor was a little surprised that I was back with such a high mileage figure. 🙂

Today it was the Black Miata’s turn. This service is going to take a bit longer than yesterday’s 2 hour time frame. It’s getting a new clutch disc – Bucky Earns His Name

Flapping Flag Poles

It snowed this morning and then a little more in the afternoon. What was worse than the snow was the winds. They gusted to over 50 MPH and it actually dislodged the decorative seasonal flag pole on the front porch post. Ripped the 2 wood screws right out and dumped the flag and pole on the ground.

The small American flag on another post was still attached, but it stripped the gear area that held it up at a 45° angle so it drooped to less than horizontal. I think I’ll get another mount for the American flag and maybe just leave the seasonal flag one off and just donate those flags to Goodwill.

They are calling for some more snow tomorrow morning and then looking out in the future, it seems this may be our last snow of the season. Fingers Crossed.

Yesterday I got my first of two free oil changes on the New Miata. It had a whopping 2500 miles on the odometer. Here is a photo of the car sitting outside the dealer’s service area.

Baby It Was Cold Inside

Not in the house, even though the morning temps are now consistently in the upper 30s to very low 40s, but inside the engine of the Miata. A couple weeks ago, possibly on the last trip to pick up a pizza, I thought that the temp gage was very slow moving and as I got close to home the Check Engine light came on.

I loaded a car scanner app on the phone that reads codes, plugged in the Bluetooth OBDII dongle and got back – P0128. This indicates that the “coolant temperature is below the thermostat regulating temperature” and the most likely culprit is a stuck open thermostat. This causes your coolant to be always directed through the radiator keeping the engine cooler than it is supposed to be. It could be a few other things, but predominantly it is a bad thermostat.

I read a few posts on the Miata.net forums and the repair is spoken of as being simple enough. I then watched a couple of YouTube videos, including one entitled “changing a Miata thermostat in 7 minutes, but I’m getting to the point in my life where I’d rather pay to let the pros do it. I called my local go to shop and they were scheduling appointments 2 weeks out. Yesterday was the CTBNL’s day.

As Threatened

I did change the oil in the Miata today. When I pulled out the dipstick, before I started it up to back it out into the driveway, the oil level read full and it looked pretty clean, but I went ahead and drained it anyway to make room for the new.

That drained oil was put in the car last June at 79,300-ish miles on the odometer. The time before that, I did it the driveway here in June of 2020 with 77,500-ish miles on the odometer. The time before that was in Aiken when the 75,000 mile service was done in July of 2019.

Because it looks like the CTBNL is going to be on a yearly oil change schedule, this time I bought a synthetic blend instead of the usual straight dino oil. I’m going to start with the blend before I put full synthetic in it as a test. Because the last time I tried full synthetic in the previous Miata it started to leave spots on the garage floor. This is because synthetic is thinner and will find places to sneak out easier than the old school oil. Admittedly the previous car had a lot more miles on it than the almost 81k this car has.

1.8 miles of around the block.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 23

 

Impeding Oil Change

The Miata is way due for an oil change. As a matter of fact we are about 2 weeks shy of a year since the oil has been drained out of it. Back then it was done not in my driveway into a collection pan, but along Hwy 140 south of town, in the parking area of a fuel refilling station and on the flat bed of a tow truck.

That length of time shouldn’t be too much of an issue as the car has probably been a total of 1,500 miles since then. And I have tried to go for a drive once a week bringing the car up to operating temperature for a good 15-20 minutes.

Right now I’m shooting for this Saturday or Sunday because the weather is going to be at least in the upper sixties and sunny. The last few days it has been cold and snowy. Not too cold for the snow to accumulate any, it just melted on contact with the ground, but not the kind of weather to lay under a car and change the oil.

11.5 miles of around town running.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 22

 

The Prodigal Miata Returns

The CTBNL is back in the garage tonight after exactly a month in the car hospital.

Knew it was going to be soon because I got a call from Emmett’s yesterday, they wanted to know where the key for the aftermarket lug nuts was. This afternoon at about 2:30 they called again to say I could come pickup the car.

They had to put the car on a battery charger because it wouldn’t start for them yesterday (that’ll happen when The car sits for nearly a month.) So, today when we paid the tab they left it running outside for me and suggested we take for a bit of a drive on the way home.

When I got in the car the windows were filthy. Kind of to be expected because it was parked outside while waiting to be worked on. But not only was the outside dirty, but the inside was almost worse (how that happens I don’t want to know.)

We caravanned home and I left the car running while I cleaned the windows so we could go for a couple dozen mile trip.

It does seem like they wiped the back of the car clean of all the vaporized oil, but I don’t think they cleaned the undercarriage because when we did park in the garage after our short drive, you could smell burnt oil. I will give the Miata a bath tomorrow, but I’m not sure how I will get the chassis de-oiled.