200K Refresh

For a few years now I'd been planning on doing a bit of a refresh on my '93 Miata after it reached 200k miles. It badly needs a new soft top (still the original factory top) and I also wanted to add a Torsen and a few other nice upgrades. I've been slowly accumulating the parts over a couple years.

It had also been developing an annoying oil leak which was slowly getting worse. For a while it had the usual CAS leak that most Miatas have at some point. I managed to stop that one but the drops on the garage floor kept coming. At this point I believe it must be from the rear main seal, having seemingly eliminated all other possibilities. Eventually the leak became so bad that it left a trail of drops on the driveway so I stopped driving it entirely. It has about 195k miles... so I'm a bit short of the original 200k target but it's time to fix things. This page documents some pics of the process.


It's time for the engine to come out:

Look how filthy that transmission is from the oil leaks!

Below two views of the engine + trans, port and starboard:

Another view of a very dirty transmission:


Contrary to popular belief the PPF is actually aluminum, not dirt, oil & grime (pic after cleaning it!):

Here is what a 200K clutch looks like (looks almost new to me!):

Some miscelaneous pics of engine parts for fun:

Interesting view from the front of the car:

The only real problem I've found so far is that the bolt on the rear driver side lower arm that connects it to the upright (hub assembly) has hopelessly rusted/welded itselt onto the A-arm itself. No amount of force has been able to budge it... The arm & hub should be able to rotate on that bolt so they're free to move with respect to each other. The only rotation available here was the flex of the rubber bushing.

A touch of color for the transmission tunnel:

A colorful butterfly!


More to come...



jyri@virkki.com
Last modified: Sun Jun 1 21:36:28 2008