Miata Success!
This car finally lost the war and I was able to get it running and driving with no leaks and oil in all the right places. So happy to finally see this car back driving and able to head home.
Round 2 Rebuild - Failure is always an option
Cleaning Parts Again
I feel like I am getting extremely efficient at this whole process. First break out the gasket scraper (plastic) to knock of big chunks, then use a brass brush in the parts washer to remove all gasket material. Followed by the final step to clean off all the oil/grease with parts washer and rinse.
In the meantime I dropped the crank off to be re-polished. I got lucky and just needed a polish. Otherwise I would have lost the last of my sanity…
Hey look! It’s in!
Not taking any chances and filling up with break in oil, no Rotella yet!
Don’t fret, there is something going to go wrong…
Here comes the failure
Happily filling up the fluids and heard Ben mention it is leaking. Again the water pump decided to leak… Clearly I was struggling with this as it was the third time installing the same part and hoping it would seal.
After this I decided to remove the “problem”. This was satisfying even if it was me failing as properly sealing things.
Ben had a spare water pump and seals so we threw it on. Problem hopefully solved.
After a few more hours patiently waiting for the water pump gasket material to set. No more taking chances, but also not waiting for a full cure of 24 hours. We finally started it up and had solid oil pressure. If you wonder how I knew this….I installed my analog, known working, oil pressure gauge. Then routed it through the hood and zip tied to the windshield wiper. We had a solid 40+ psi at initial idle.
Time for the first test drive. Ran down the freeway and made a loop at various RPM and speed while keeping it below 4k. All good.
Noticed a small leak upon returning home and realized it was merely the oil gauge threads, a little more torque and it was fixed.
Take it easy Sam I’ll see you in a week or two for my gauge!
