Whole lotta Miata

[BLINGMW]

Yeah..... There's a reason I got the hardtop.

LAAAAAAME
I'd rather remove the top and carpet from mine and put in some alum seats. :lol:
With seat heaters maybe? :dunno:

[Jake]

Maybe I'll start a group Facebook message when it starts getting colder. I can still play with the E36.

[Senor_Taylor]

Sounds like a plan to me.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Well, 3000 miles in and it has thrown everything I've thrown at it and more. I'm honestly astonished with how much of an absolute peach this car has been for how cheap I bought it. Besides the initial trouble, it hasn't needed anything at all other than me making a battery tie down for it.



So far it has survived the 2 hour trip from Lynchburg, a 4 hour cruise through the mountains, a regular 33 cruise, a trip to Eastside, and dragging my ass to class every morning.

The bad I've found and narrowed it down to:
- Idle is odd. Sometimes will idle at 1200, sometimes at 1000, sometimes at 800 (with the A/C on) and sometimes at 600-700. These all depend on how much draw is on the motor (headlights, brakes depressed, clutch depressed, AC on, etc). It's always a smooth idle, so I'm not really worried except when it dips down to 600. It shakes a little on the initial dip.

Right rear brakes make a noise. It's really annoying and worse when I have a passenger. I think it's just where the rotor is warped badly in one spot and that catches the brake pad every rotation.

Suspension is completely shot. Simple fix = replacing it all.

Overall tightness needs a touch up. Rear window is fogged and it always feels damp inside when it rains. I guess that's just a Miata problem. General noises and squeals from belts/pulleys/etc. Trunk leaks a bit ( a ton ), even though the main trunk seal is good and I've sealed the tail lights. Every thing I put in the trunk smells like gear oil.

General comfort is non-existent. Blown suspension and seats with 0 foam in them are not kind to my already bad back. It really sucks getting in and out of compared to my truck, and scraping on everything from logs to leaves is a pain that I'm not used to yet.


The good: It runs strong (Except for 2 scary hiccups last week which have not returned), doesn't burn ( much ) oil, it handles like a dream, and it starts every morning without a problem. A/C and Heat are strong, speakers are bangin', top latches and seals perfectly, windows work great, clutch bites strongly, tires are very surprisingly good with lateral grip. Not so good when turning and the diff opens, though. It's also fantastic getting over twice the gas mileage my truck gets and it's such a great car to hop in and run around town. I get everywhere so much quicker just because I don't have to crawl through turns and have huge births to maneuver.

Overall a great, fun little car. I'm sure something will break some time, but it's already exceeding all of my expectations I had for it. I've got my money's worth and I haven't even auto-crossed yet. The last couple months with this car have been the best months of my life.

Now, on to the College Solo!

[Jake]

Woo!

My top was never quiiiite water-tight. It might have been for the first few months after I got a new top put on, but any sort of heavy rain or car wash would leave the inside feeling a bit damp. No visible moisture but just "that feeling" in the cabin.

Find some used suspension and RockAuto rotors when you get the cash, that'll be a big help. The seats all kinda suck just from age - you can bolt NB seats in it with no modification if you come across a set. Some say those are more comfortable for tall people, and in general the foam won't be as worn down anyway.

[EclipseTurbno93]

You probably already did this, but have you checked to make sure your drain holes inside the car (they're like on the very far edges of the storage shelf right behind / to the sides of the seat) are clear? I've read people can get flooded trunks if they're clogged. I took some old speaker wire and shoved it down mine and got some dirt and such out

[Senor_Taylor]

I've been meaning to clean my drain hole things, but I've been too lazy.

Jake, my plan really for this car is to do nothing to do it for the foreseeable future. I've gotten tired of living paycheck to paycheck because of car parts. I'll just drive this until it breaks/gets boring. Maybe once I've got a couple thousand in the bank, I might grab a set of $20 rotors, haha.

[Senor_Taylor]

Well, we broke Lucy's corvette, so he's borrowing the otter until we fix it. I guess I'll make him do a write up of his time in it as payment.

[rherold9]

Lucy in a miata.... hahahahahaha

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[Jake]

I've gotten tired of living paycheck to paycheck because of car parts.

Oh I know that feel. :vomit:

I'd focus on doing whatever you can that's super-cheap and/or free. Cleaning, researching, etc so that when you do have a few bucks to throw at it, you know where the priorities are.

Curious what the idle issue is since it's not very consistent.

What were the scary hiccups?

[Senor_Taylor]

I think the idle is the ISCV .

Scary hiccups was I was on the far side of town and it happened 3 separate times. I would shift into second or third and floor it and there was no power at all. Like 10 horsepower. It was really odd. So odd that it didn't register with my brain.

I clutched in and tried to rev and it would barely rev up. Then it went away. Hasn't done it sense.

I've been driving a ton and went on a cruise since then and its been fine besides a VERY loud after fire after lots of hard driving. So loud that I pulled over to make sure my battery didn't explode.

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[Senor_Taylor]

"Hey, the Miata's been great and the College Solo is coming up, I should put new pads and rotors on it!" - An Idiot (2015)

The brakes have been fine since I put new pads on the rear when I got it. I originally bought new pads and rotors for it when I bought the car, but the NA6 rear pads and rotors I bought did not fit. Then I realized that I had the upgraded NA8 brakes. (REMEMBER THIS.) So, I kept those parts in a box and I've been trying to sell them.

Fast forward to today. Lucy gave me my car back after getting his Vette sorted out, so I skipped class to put on a full set of NA8 brakes. The rears went off nearly without a hitch. The humongous (compared to the stock NA6) rotors and pads went on. I couldn't get the RR piston to retract ALL of the way, but it was all okay. Around this time, Sam Schaidhammer (E46) went into his house (he's my neighbor) and James, Chip, and Matthew showed up with the tools I had let James borrow. As I'm putting the LR wheel on, I notice brake fluid leaking. Eh, whatever, IDGAF.

Now on to the front. After much fighting, I finally got Chip to google how to get the caliper off. I've done the rears a million times adjusting the parking brake, but never the front. (Remember this as well.) I eventually get everything off and I notice the rotor has a HUGE valley in it. I'm saying a mm deep. I look at the brake pad and it's so FUBAR'd it's insane. I handed it to chip and a piece of the pad material fell off.



Then it got worse.

I compare the new NA8 rotor to the rotor on the car... and they're different. The bastard who had this car before me decided to do a big brake mod on the rear... but not the front. Well I've got it all apart, and I'm sure as hell not going to put that pad back on my car. The parts stores are closed and I don't have a parking pass on my car. What to do? "Aha! If these are the stock brakes, I have a set of pads for it!" I still had the ones I originally bought and assumed wouldn't fit because the rears didn't, but I don't have the rotors. At this point, I'm in full "don't give a shit" mode and I slap the new pads on the really ugly rotor and put it back together. Oh well, I paid like $5-$10 for the pads.

Now to the passenger side. The sun is setting and I'm frustrated. This 30 minute job is now at 2 hours. I can't get the piston to retract and my back is hurting. I get James to hold the caliper and I give the piston a good squeeze. I find purchase and it starts to move. Finally! Oh wait... no... what is that? Is that brake fluid coming out of the piston? FML. Still not sure what that means.

Okay, let's just get this shit back together and see if the car still stops. Okay, kind of. The brakes feel more spongey than before, but smoother. Nothing is warped and it doesn't make noises or pull to one side. Thank goodness. I didn't like the spongey feeling so I drive Jame's beautiful NB to feel what good brakes feel like. What a mistake. I hadn't realized how complete shit my car was because I've never driven a nice Miata. Riding in the leather clad NB interior with a hard top. The wooden shifter and the race beat intake. HHNNGG.

So Matthew and I get in mine and James is in his and we go out to the middle of nowhere and bed the brakes. I'd never done this before, but I get the hang of it and we're going to town on them. All was well until one particularly hard stop (tires are amazingly grippy for $40 a piece) and I see a red glow and sparks shooting from my front left wheel. Oh god, the smell, and so much smoke. That was fun. Oh, and my car makes a clunking noise when I turn right now. Never did that before. Great.

Will my car continue to have brakes? Will it burst into flames? Will I careen into a playground and lodge my car on a teeter totter? Find next time on "Mystery Car: The tale of $2000"

[Sully]

Probably shouldn't have bed them in till you got new rotors. And you didn't say, at least I didn't see. What happened to the leaking fluid in the back? Is the front still leaking?

[95SVTCobra]

There was much cursing to be heard throughout the Copper parking lot. One of the better quotes of the night was after Taylor had spent like 5 minutes trying to get this one bolt to thread into the caliper, and finally decided to look at it. "This HAS to be the right bolt (very frustrated, almost willing the bolt to work)" pulls it out to take a look at it "oh maybe it isn't" :lol: :lol: :lol:. Probably the most painful thing was that it was really only a 1-2 person job, and the rest of the time we were talking about our bad brake experiences, which in hindsight probably didn't help :dunno:.

[Senor_Taylor]

The front didn't leak anymore that we could see, and neither did the rear. I'm not really sure what was going on.

[*insertusernamehere*]

There was much cursing to be heard throughout the Copper parking lot. One of the better quotes of the night was after Taylor had spent like 5 minutes trying to get this one bolt to thread into the caliper, and finally decided to look at it. "This HAS to be the right bolt (very frustrated, almost willing the bolt to work)" pulls it out to take a look at it "oh maybe it isn't" :lol: :lol: :lol:. Probably the most painful thing was that it was really only a 1-2 person job, and the rest of the time we were talking about our bad brake experiences, which in hindsight probably didn't help :dunno:.

"WHAT THE FUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKK"
"WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?!?!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH" *shaking fists in air*
"THIS IS SO STUPID FUCK THIS DAMN CAR I'M NEVER WORKING ON A CAR AGAIN"

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: It's alright, man. I was equally if not more frustrated working on the E36. You don't even know... :vomit:

[Jake]

"This HAS to be the right bolt (very frustrated, almost willing the bolt to work)" pulls it out to take a look at it "oh maybe it isn't" :lol: :lol: :lol:.

Hahah, I've done that so many times.

Eventually you realize that spending $3 on a box of sandwich-sized Ziplock bags from the grocery store is a great idea, as is a Sharpie to label them

Glad you were at least able to get things back together, Taylor. Is the plan to eventually do NA8 front brakes as well? Pretty odd that a past owner just threw NA8 rears on it, but hey, maybe a caliper seized and that's what the PO had laying around at the time.

Sounds like you need to figure out why the fluid is leaking, too - is it coming out of the seal for the piston or elsewhere? The good news is that reman calipers are $Cheap if you look around. Joey had to get a set of fronts for his '90 and paid like $22 for a reman set on eBay.

Also, bleeding the brakes, even with cheapass fluid from AutoZone, will make them feel significantly better.

[WRXtranceformed]

This thread is kind of like an episode of Dr. Phil where the wife keeps coming back to the cheating husband.

[SlimKlim]

God I miss parts prices for that thing. Paying $80 for a complete clutch kit was just insanity.

Glad to hear the current students are carrying on the proud tradition of biting off more than they can chew in the wrong parking lot at the wrong time with the wrong tools and parts. :lol:

[Senor_Taylor]

If I do replace the front calipers, I'll swap in NA8 calipers and brackets. I'm keep an eye on them to see if they leak anymore. They don't seem to be, at least not quick enough to leave any kind of wetness on the ground. Basically when I used my channel locks to push in the brake pad (with the bleed screw wide open and the master cylinder uncapped), fluid gushed out around the pad. The fluid had come out around the actual piston itself.

I'll need to bleed the brakes, but i didn't feel it was necessary since I did a full system bleed when I bought it.

Also, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought "Did I ever torque down the front right lugs?" I use a torque wrench on everything, meticulously. I'm not sure how I did it, but in the hurry to get it back together in the dark, I didn't torque down those lugs. I pulled a Ryan. I'll report back later to see if that fixed the clunking noise when I turn right.

Either way, I'm having more fun in MM this year than ever since I have a car now. It's been a blast.