God speed, bud! I look forward to the reanimation of this little Mazda.
God speed, bud! I look forward to the reanimation of this little Mazda.
My brother had a NA Miata and a Protege. Both were sold.
Now he has a turbocharged NC Miata used as a track car, though it's not as much in use these days. And he has a RX-8 with a Chevy 3.6 V6 swap for a daily that replaced a GTI that had VW type issues. His wife also got a CX-30 recently.
Agree about the n52 being more difficult to work on. It seems like everything they did there blocks stuff.
On the flip side it might be one of the most reliable modern German motors. They are tanks and super light!
Either we’re just incredibly unlucky, or warped valve covers are an issue on the N52. Between the X3 and my old man’s E60 I think we’ve had to replace 3 VCs. Oh and the E60 has horrible lifter tick, luckily the E83 doesn’t. It’s a buttery smooth driving engine though.
Congrats, on the new adoption! Thanks for taking us along with the revival. I'm looking forward to updates.
She's home!
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First let me say parking garages were absolutely not designed for what we did today, but this deck was definitely one of the few decks I've been in that we could've pulled it off. Alas, we got it out of the deck without damaging any vehicles or structures. Thankfully we only encountered one other car driving in the garage and it was an ND Miata that had no issue squeezing past us. A couple of the city streets were tight with parallel parked cars and impatient drivers, but all things considered it wasn't as bad as I had mentally prepared myself for.
Bringing in a car from another country. Retrieving a dead car from an underground garage with a rusty ass Silverado and $35 Uhaul dolly. I'm starting to wonder if I'm destined to acquire cars in weird ways.
Narrator: it wasn't the fuel pump.
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Yep, so that's the oil pan. And yep, that's a bigass hole in it. Sigh... My friend hit a big pot hole and didn't make the connection that it might've been the cause of her no-start.
Trying not to judge, trying not to judge, trying not to judge
There's no skid plates on this model under the engine, but there is a protective shield that saved the AC compressor/belt/pulley as evidenced by the big scuff on the edge of the shield.
Fortunately
(a) I'm in no rush on this thing
(b) an oil pan is $29 at LKQ once either a CX-7 or another 2.3L Mz3 hits the lot
(c) dropping the pan is an absolute joke compared to the E46
(d) there's no rigid gasket like the BMWs, just Permatex which I already have
(e) my friend was less than half a mile from her garage when it happened
(f) there was a shitload of oil on the ground once we pushed it from the parking spot, so it definitely didn't run dry
(g) she only tried cranking it once, so I'm hopeful the internals are okay
Anyway, that's the initial prognosis. The car is rough around the edges, but that's okay because this was never going to be a quick project.
Ouch, that must’ve been one nasty hit. But glad it’s not too difficult of a job to it back up and running.
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+1
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Well, I’m an idiot who can’t read a parts compatibility chart. The CX7 oil pan is the same as the Mazdaspeed 3, not the regular Mazda 3. It’s all the same 2.3L block, but the AC compressor is in a different location on the turbocharged cars so the pan has different contours. The Pull-a-Part one city over had a pair of 2.3L Mz3s in their yard so I ran over there this afternoon before they closed. One of them had a big scuff in the exact same place as the hole in my oil pan, so they’re definitely vulnerable. The other one had a grenaded engine but the pan was intact so I rolled the dice.
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The exploded rod left lots of little metal fragments and took a small gouge out. I used a wire wheel to de-burr the gouge and it’s now nice and smooth. Didn’t get a picture of it cleaned up because my hands were gross, but I was impressed with the results.
When I dropped the crack pan I was pleasantly surprised at the cleanliness inside. My friend definitely stuck to the recommended oil change intervals.
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And the bottom of the engine was equally clean.
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The new pan in installed, and I’m waiting 24hrs for the RTV to fully set. I’ll add oil tomorrow night, check for leaks on Thursday morning and give it the first test.
The car, however, is not quite as tidy as the inside of the engine.
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I’ve never had to use degreaser on wheels before, but they were so filthy the grime literally gummed up when I tried running a soapy sponge across.
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They eventually cleaned up fairly well, all things considered, but they’re all very curbed and have some paint chipping here and there. I’ll try to get them *more* presentable, and address the chips with materials I already have so they don’t get worse. But I’m not going to worry about anything major until these tires are shot…which could be a while based on the tread depth.
I have the majority of the car’s interior in my living room right now. I’m going to be cleaning everything as thoroughly as possible, shampooing the carpets and seats, etc.
I can’t even begin to speculate when was the last time this car saw a vacuum…