Miata

P0012 Number 3

Less than a mile from home on the way to work this morning the CEL came on again. Donna said turn around, so we went back and got in the Purple Whale to finish the commute.

Got home tonight and scanned for the code and it was the ol’ favorite P0012.

Checked a couple other things that I had found on the forum that should be tested to see if they might be the cause. First up was the VVT actuator. Measuring across the coil contacts should yield 6.9-7.9 ohms and it did. Then you pull the actuator loose from the valve cover and apply 12V across the contacts. No matter the polarity, it should fully actuate, and when removed, it should return back – it did. Next thing was the oil line filter and I had to read through several threads mentioning how easy it was to check before I found one that led to its actual location – it was clean as a whistle.

I guess the high detergent oil didn’t do the trick. I’m supposed to change back to regular stuff after a 1,000 miles, but we’ve not driven more than a few hundred so far. I think tomorrow I’ll just go a head and go back to the regular 5-30 Penzoil. Cleared the code and we’ll see how long it takes to show back up again.

P0012

or: “A” Camshaft Position – Timing Over-Retarded (Bank 1) (Powertrain, Generic)

Earlier in the week we were planning on going over to the Augusta Coffee & Cars thing this morning. By yesterday afternoon after the bike ride home from work we had pretty much talked ourselves out of going there. It used to be enough of a drive when it was in Martinez, but now it is in Grovetown and it is 40 miles one way to get there. To make matters worse the trip includes about a dozen miles of Interstate travel. After dinner we came to the decision deadline point and decided we’d go to the June event (check back in a month to see if we make that one.)

So instead of weekly grocery shopping on Friday night we did it this morning. Afterward we went over to a friend’s house for a visit. Besides the amiable chit-chat, I had a small job to do there, putting together the last two chairs of her new patio furniture. That was all that her niece and husband didn’t have time to finish putting together before they left to go back to Indiana. I was amply rewarded for my minimal effort by Jackie buying Donna and my lunch from Jersey Mike’s. Which we enjoyed while sitting at the new table and chairs on her back deck.

A mile or so from Jackie’s house on the way home today the Check Engine Light illuminated again. Car was running just fine, just a light. My guess was it was going to be the same code that prompted the Automotive Workbench the week before. Since that visit and since the usually reliable Emperor has become spastic I decided to buy one of those little Bluetooth OBDII scanners and download a free app for the Kindle Fire. Sure enough, P0012, Cam Position. I had followed the AW guy’s advice, I changed to some new fresh oil last Friday, but I guess that didn’t really solve the issue. So instead of taking the car back to the certified real mechanics, I’ve decided to see about fixing this myself. What the heck, we’ve got a second car to rely on and hopefully I won’t screw this up too bad.

First step was to tap in the hive knowledge that is the Miata Forum. Apparently this issue is not that uncommon and I found numerous threads to read about it there. This failure code, in spite of my disbelief last week when Holley told me about the low oil thing, is directly related to VVT oil starvation issues. The first fix to try is to drain the current oil and replace it with some Rotella T-6 full synthetic oil because of it high detergent content. Drive for about 500-1000 miles and then change back to your regular oil. That is on the agenda for tomorrow.

If that doesn’t work there is supposedly a small mesh screen in the VVT system that can be removed and cleaned which appears to be not too technical of a job. After that, the next step is not for the faint at heart, rebuilding the VVT Actuator, but if you mess that up, lookout as it is a $500 dollar part! Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I suppose before attempting that procedure I should opt for replacing the recently replaced Cam Angle Sensor in case it is bad for a tenth of the cost.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 167

Listening Like It’s 1999

New Old Bose Radio

For the second time in two years I’ve bought a GROM AUX-IN Adapter for the Emperor. “Buy why Brian?”, you’re asking yourself, “Doesn’t your aftermarket Jensen HU play an SD card?”

It did. Well, it probably still does, it just doesn’t do it in the dash of the Miata anymore. The honeymoon with Jensen was short-lived. As a matter of fact it almost ended before it was even installed. One feature it had was pre-amp outputs, which were perfect for interfacing with the existing Bose amps, but they wouldn’t seem to work together. This prompted a trip to the local car audio store for a Scosche line leveler which would take the speaker level outputs and damp them down.

This worked real well and we had music, but I don’t know whether it was the rat’s nest of wiring that this combo created or the cheap Jensen radio, but there was always a high pitched whine in the background that’s sound varied along with the engine RPM. But the real killer was the display. No clock. The OEM radio had the option to always display the time and seeing as neither Donna nor I wear a watch we had become used to taking a quick glance and seeing the time. Oh, the Jensen had a clock, just no way to keep it on at all time. To get it to display the time all you had to do was take your eyes off the road to spot which one of the three buttons to the right of the center knob had the tiny little letters DISP on it and push with your finger. But you had to push it for just the right length of time to get it. Push it for too short a time and it paused the playback. Push it for too long a time and it would mute the sound. Donna never mastered it, so the job fell to me and after two years of practice I had about a 60% success rate of getting right the first time.

I’ve been looking for a replacement Bose radio on eBay for several months. Trouble is that The Emperor’s style radio was only available in the years 2002 & 2003 on the LS model. The 2004 & 2005 radios would work, but they had silver faces which would look a little odd in the car. They looked OK in the 04/05 cars because Mazda changed the whole center stack trim to silver faced stuff. I missed out on one unit that was Buy It Now for $100 by stewing in indecision a couple hours. Then a couple weeks ago one came up for $150 But It Now, but I didn’t want to spend that much. I bid $100. It went for $135 plus shipping to some one else. After work on Tuesday I noticed one come up for $59 + $15 for shipping. I bought it.

The only downside to this buy was it didn’t have the little black trim pieces that flank the radio and hide the removal holes. Who knows where I’ll be able to find those, but I’m willing to overlook those minor gaps because all I have to do is glance down and there the time will be.

Oh, the title, it refers to the cassette player that is at the bottom of the radio. It was an option, you could have added a mini-disc player or an MP3 player, but someone actually paid extra for a cassette deck.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 19

Miata Profile Icon

NB Miata Profile Picture

For the longest time I have been using a Mad Men style profile picture for my user login on Win7, both at home and at work, but after viewing those line art ND Miata images from the electronic owners manual I posted the other day, I thought maybe Mr. Miata should have a Miata as his profile picture.

I couldn’t use one of those as I don’t have a 4th gen car, but I did have a plain line art image of a NA (1st gen) that I made when the MMC was thinking of redoing the club logo. I re-colored it to resemble the previously owned Laguna Blue car and used it for a day. Didn’t feel right, so I made up one of the NB2 (face-lifted 2nd gen) an colored it in like the Emperor.

Here are large white versions of each generation for you to color and use as your own: – NA – NB2 – if you don’t have a paint type program, special requests accepted.

What’s That Sound?

We did some local running around on Saturday morning and on the way home we could both heard a weird sound once we got to stop and the Miata was idling. It wasn’t a rattle, but more a grumble. As we parked in the garage, the close quarters made the sound really noticeable. I thought it sounded bearing-ish, not main bearing, but maybe something in the valve train.

We started talking about what to do. I definitely didn’t want to drive it somewhere to have it looked at and my shop of choice would be Panic Motorsports about 50 miles away. They aren’t open on Saturday’s so I left a message to have them call me back when they get in.

Now, how do I get the car there. I called a local towing company and got an estimate; $240. Wow, seems high, but might be cheap if I try and drive the 50 miles and the car dies part way because then I still have a tow bill and maybe then a more serious issue. Next was to call a couple folks in the Miata club that have trailers for their racing machines and see if gas and dinner would be enough for one of them to get me there.

Call number one was a no go, not that the price was wrong, but they were heading out of town for a couple weeks on Monday. The second call was a little different. I didn’t get a definite no, but the days available for the trip were very limited. But Kurt volunteered to drive over from Augusta and take a listen to the sound to see I even needed the tow or it might be OK to drive it to the shop.

When he got here I started it up and before the engine could get too warm he laid hands on several placed to see if he could feel any weird vibrations. Feeling nothing, he then told me he wished he had brought over his mechanic’s stethoscope that he had just bought on a whim recently from Harbor Freight. Did I have one? I think he knew that was a rhetorical question when he asked it, given his knowledge of my auto wrenching capabilities (very little), but it was worth a shot, I might have won one in a raffle. He asked if I had any tygon tubing. “Nope,” I reply, “the closest to any tubing I’ve got is this extra piece of washing machine hose. So, using this poor substitute for the real this, Kurt announced that he was pretty sure that it is the bearing in the water pump making the growling noise. It didn’t sound too bad and I probably could drive it the 50 miles.

Both Donna and I agree, better safe than sorry, so we will probably have it towed. No sense in tempting fate. Now I’m just waiting on a call back from Steve at Panic.

Mountain Getaway

Hiwassee Reservoir

Made a trip into the NC/TN mountains this weekend. We were celebrating my birthday, our anniversary and on a recon mission for an MMC trip up here in November. Total distance traveled between 7:00 AM Friday morning and 1:00 PM Sunday afternoon was 760 miles. I drove every one of them and enjoyed the heck out of myself. We bought premium gas 4 times in that time (if you count the fill up before we left), 2 in the NC mountains with an average cost of $3.89 and 2 in SC midlands with an average cost $3.39. For the trip the Emperor got a little over 28 miles to the gallon, which ain’t half bad considering that about 2/3rds of the driving was spent in 2nd and 3rd gear at 3500 to 4500 RPM being flung around turns.

We stayed in a one bedroom cabin at a place called Fontana Village and had a mostly great time. The only real fault we found with the place is that you are a captive audience restaurant-wise because the nearest place to eat is Robbinsville, 22 twisty mountain miles away and what they have there really isn’t anything worth going for. As such, dining at one of the two open restaurants on the grounds can set you back a pretty penny. On Saturday morning the breakfast buffet at the Mountain View was our only option and at twelve bucks a person (total bill with tax & tip; $29) it was not as good as the $7.95 one at a Golden Corral in Aiken, just served from nicer containers. Dinner at the Wildwood Grill on Saturday night was $40 for 2 hamburgers a beer and a glass of wine. But now that we know there were serious about the fully equipped kitchen in the cabin, next time we are bringing our own (well as least as much as we can carry in the Miata.)

The photo above is of the Hiwassee Reservoir taken at the overlook of the Hiwassee Dam on at about the mid-point of the loop planned for the Saturday drive when we take the Miata Club to Deals Gap. This is the same loop as we did 2 years ago, but we are hoping the weather in November this year will be a lot more like our weather this weekend and not anything like the cold and wet of the 2011 trip.

This afternoon the Emperor got a well deserved bath while I ignored NFL football and its effect on my fantasy football team. I may not watch any games next week either, if that is what it takes, because the football Purple Whales are winning 118 to 106 and I still have one guy playing tonight and my opponent has nobody left to play at all.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, up once more, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1261

The Sounds Of Silence

The only radio we listen to in the Miata is from RadioParadise.com. OK, occasionally on a Saturday morning I’ll tune to an NPR station to catch some classic Click & Clack, but 99.9% is an MP3 ripped from an internet stream and burned to a CD. Ten of those CDs sit inside a cartridge housed inside a Sony Disc Changer that is tucked into one corner of the trunk. It has been that way for the 9-1/2 years the Emperor has been in the family. This same changer even predates the Emperor for a couple years prior it sat inside the spare tire of the trunk of our previous Miata With No Name.

Recently this unit has been randomly powering off leaving nothing but static emanating from the speakers. I’ve checked all the connections and they all seem sound, wiggling any of them (especially the power cable to the changer) will not make it hiccup, once or twice a ride it will cut out for anywhere from a few seconds to around a minute. Annoying to say the least. Last week I decided to do something about it.

I ordered a GROM AUX-IN Adapter that that allows the use of an iPod and plugs into the back of the Miata’s head unit where the OEM Mazda disc changer would have went. We happen to have a 4Gig Nano that only gets used one or twice a year when Donna and I fly in an airplane, the rest of time it sits in a charger waiting patiently, this will give it reason to get excited for each new day.

The adapter arrived in the mailbox on Monday, so naturally the rest of the day was spent ripping out the Sony Disc Changer, reclaiming 5% of the Miata’s tiny trunk space. Then I needed to remove the OEM radio to get at the connector on the back. Using instructions found in the Miata.net Garage I made my removal tools from a coat hanger, but no amount of pushing/pulling/squeezing/ wiggling would get it to come out. After 20 minutes, a couple of cuts, several bruises and a blood blister on my left index finger I gave up. I guess I might have to breakdown and buy 2 sets of the official removal tools. I had disconnected the battery to take out the CD Changer, so I hooked it back up and set the time on the clock and even loaded a couple of the local radio stations as presets.

Tuesday morning when I got in the car to drive it to work the radio didn’t come on! Pushed the power button and it just bounced back at me, no click. The display didn’t even light up with the clock. There wasn’t any faceplate illumination either. Didn’t have time to do any troubleshooting, so we took the Sonata to work.

At work I called a couple auto parts stores to see if they had any of the removal tools and struck out. Then I tried a local car audio place and the guy there said just bring in the car and I’ll pop it out for you. After work I went there and lickity split he had the unit loose. Amazing what the proper tool for the proper job will do. I thanked him and came home. The radio fuse was fine. I pulled the head unit out and disconnected the harness. Got out my trusty Radio Shack Multimeter and with with the pin out diagram for connecter (thanks again m.net garage) checked for 12 volts. Unfortunately I had the correct voltage at the correct pins. I say unfortunately because that meant the radio was dead.

Hooked the radio back up, slid it back into the dash, buttoned it up so the interior looks good and wishfully tried the power button again (still didn’t work.) Now comes decision time, try and locate a very scarce used Miata Bose head unit keeping AUX-IN box or return the AUX-IN box and just buy a new aftermarket head unit with the iPod function already built in. Until a decision is made it’ll be kind of quiet in the Emperor’s cockpit.

The sound of silence will not be as hard to get used to as it will be to not see the time on the radio display…