Finally (maybe not) Re-assembling Sam’s Miata
This has been a slower than expected project, starting with the spun rod bearings. From there I’ve had setbacks getting rid of metal flakes, wrong parts, etc. Next time I’ll just assume the entire engine is toast and go from there. Optimism just caused time loss.
Did a light polish on the block surface to ensure a good head seal. 1200 grit with light oil.
Damn Bearing Chunks
Kept finding them everywhere…. Time to take apart the head.
It was very very annoying to keep finding metal flakes. I ended up taking apart the entire valvetrain, leading to a full disassembly. Here are a handful of the head rebuild. Nothing too exciting, but I did use my custom valve removal tool. Made from a pair of C-clamps welded onto a 1'“ square tube. Uses a modified socket, allowing smooth valve compression and controlled removal of keepers.
More annoyances
Turns out the incorrect oil pump o-ring was sent to us. Clearly not going to fit, but might be a bit of foreshadowing about seals and oil pumps….
After a quick email to the vendor they sent the correct one. Thanks Miatamecca for the great customer service making it right!
Cleaning Fuel Injectors
Ran them through the ultrasonic cleaner soaked in fuel. Should get rid of any little gunk in them. Not quite as good as running them through with solvent, but still better than nothing.
Perfect Torque Wrench!
Won this little guy at a recent bicycle convention and knew it would be useful for something asides from the bike. Turns out it is perfect for valve cover bolts (43-79 lb-in). TOPEAK Torq Stick 4-20 Nm
Very solid ‘click’ action which is more of a cam over movement. Great feeling and motion. Gave me great confidence when assembling these tiny bolts known to snap.
Installation Day
Everything went smooth, dropped in the engine and transmission. Thanks to Ben for the help dealing with the last greasy parts under the car. Nothing too concerning until we tried to start.
Problem #1
Dead battery. Amateur hour. Easy fix, just pull over my miata and jump this dead one. Cool. Moving forward.
Problem #2
Spins freely. Too freely… Something is timed wrong or we have a major problem with all the valves. A bit of investigation under the valve cover and we found the issue. This engine has the exhintake mod, meaning they took an exhaust cam, cut off the end, drilled a new pin in the cam sprocket to retime it correctly. I installed not noticing the modified cam shaft. After removing the sprocket and keying it correctly, retime the engine, re-clean the valve cover and torque down. And it started! No not really….
Problem #3
Now we aren’t sure what is wrong, but the engine sounds correct. I.e. there is now compression. Quick thinking from Sam and we found the fuel lines were swapped. Easy fixed. Now it finally started and was alive?
Problem #4
While idling there was a loud ping and ding..ding..ding noise. Immediately shut it off. Turns out we (I) forgot to tighten down the water pump pulley and it decided to leave. Quick correction and we were running again. Night is starting to grow late.
Problem #5
Making lots of noise. Left it to run for awhile. Get some oil up to the hydraulic lifters. After 30-60 seconds it quieted down a bit, but was still making the wrong noises so we shut it down. Double checking oil levels, they are good. Restarted and watched to see 0 oil pressure, the car has had issues with oil pressure gauges and so we assumed all was fine. Let it run a bit longer, it didn’t quiet down….
Problem #5A
Next morning I took another look, started an idled for a brief bit. Still making a racket. Now I finally broke out my analog oil pressure gauge. It read 0 psi. Fun times and this explains the noises. Running with no oil on bearings. Shit. Shit. Shit. What went wrong???
Guess I get to undo all the work from yesterday. Pulling the engine and popping open the oil pan to understand what went wrong. Let’s get to it tomorrow after I let the failure subside.
Next Day
Pulling apart everything and found my failure. I misaligned the oil pick up gasket. Thus sucking air and no pressure for the engine. Huge mistake on my part. Now to order new bearings and front/rear seals. The main bearings actually look okay with a few small nicks. Rod bearings for #1, #2, and #3 all are smeared. No spun bearings, but I hope the crank doesn’t need to be machined down another 0.010”. I cannot find that bearing size in stock. Here’s to hoping the crank just needs a polish, but we know how that worked out last time. For now I ordered parts and will await the crank shops verdict.
