So after a few weeks of my Miata hanging out at my mechanics, not being fixed, they finally got around to working on it. Apparently the thermostat gasket was leaking and everything else in the cooling system passed the cooling system pressure check.
For those of you just joining us, I had replaced the t-stat and t-stat gasket three days before brining it to the garage, and the coolant leak I asked them to fix involved a leak around the intake manifold gasket. :hmm: They said the intake gasket was fine... 😕
All that nonsense aside I decided that I'd just put it to sleep for the winter and deal with it in the spring. So JLee and I headed out to the garage to pick it up and store it in a barn. He had just last weekend upgraded the turbo on his FXT and was running a Cobb Stage II 93+ tune, which is epic scooby win :awe:. This plays into the story a little bit later, so pay attention.
So, we get to the garage, I get the Miata started and warm it up a little bit. Add fuel stabilizer, fill up the tank, all that good stuff. We get to the barn and I try to inch the Miata in. Apparently summer performance tires and a six-puck clutch in a 2100lb RWD car doesn't get a whole lot of traction. It was slipping and sliding trying to get up and over a small snow/ice covered incline up the barn.
JLee has the great idea of a running start. Don't worry, he'll help push it in too. So I back up a bit, and get a running start... [cut scene] If you remember the exhaust on my miata is a custom setup with the outlet just in front of the rear wheel, below an already reduced ride-height... [/cut scene] So as the rear axle gets into the barn there's a horrendous screech, clang, and then a very nasty scraping noise as I pull completely into the bay. Guess who wins when an exhaust system fights with the sill plate on a barn? Yeah... it ripped off my exhaust system from the down-pipe back... thankfully from the down-pipe back it was only held on with a few hangers and a clamped fitting, so the clamp just came apart and I dragged the exhaust on the hangers, no serious damage.
So I pop the hood to put fogging oil in the cylinders for the winter and would you look at that... a dirty shop rag sitting in the engine bay... and, what is this? The handle from one of those mirror-on-a-stick things... and? Orly? Look at that... the hose clamp from the cold pipe to the intake manifold is not even there. I wonder... yep... the inter-cooler is just kind of loose... hanging there by one bolt and the friction of the cold pipe fitting. 😱D:😱😡 If I had hit boost on the drive home it would have been good-bye hot pipe, cold pipe, and inter-cooler leaving me stranded on the side of the road with a few hundred bucks of wrecked parts and an un-drivable car. My family has always had good luck with this garage... but this bullshit is enough for me to never go back there again.
Well, anyway, we got the cylinders coated with fogging oil, and left. We decided it was too cold, late, and we didn't have the right tools (an allen wrench) to pull the turbo for its winter rebuild. I'll get it on the next weekend I have a free minute.
Very near the end of our adventure JLee romped on 2nd gear, because, well, a VF39 turbo in a scooby is awesome... except when it is followed by a nice metallic *bang* and the dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree. The added boost combined with a slight misfit with the intercooler was enough for the cold pipe fitting on JLee's intercooler to blow apart. He correctly diagnosed the problem before swerving violently into a parking lot so we could fix it. It went like this:
Yep it's the cold pipe.
Can you get it back on?
Yeah, but I need to tighten the hose clamp again.
Got any screw drivers?
Nope, and the sockets we brought are too big...
Let me see if my keys will work... nope too think.
Maybe this wire from a road flare stand will work... too flimsy...
I'll check my pockets for some change, maybe I have a dime or... EUREKA! NAIL CLIPPERS!! :awe:
So very carefully we tightened down the hose clamp with some nail clippers and drove home being VERY careful not to hit boost.
Once back at JLee's place we celebrated with a judicious combination of bacon cheese burgers, beer, crown royal whiskey, and the American Top Gear spin-off in HD (which isn't bad if you don't expect it to be like the UK version).Not a bad ending.
BTW: the Cobra helicopter pilot has some serious skills.
For those of you just joining us, I had replaced the t-stat and t-stat gasket three days before brining it to the garage, and the coolant leak I asked them to fix involved a leak around the intake manifold gasket. :hmm: They said the intake gasket was fine... 😕
All that nonsense aside I decided that I'd just put it to sleep for the winter and deal with it in the spring. So JLee and I headed out to the garage to pick it up and store it in a barn. He had just last weekend upgraded the turbo on his FXT and was running a Cobb Stage II 93+ tune, which is epic scooby win :awe:. This plays into the story a little bit later, so pay attention.
So, we get to the garage, I get the Miata started and warm it up a little bit. Add fuel stabilizer, fill up the tank, all that good stuff. We get to the barn and I try to inch the Miata in. Apparently summer performance tires and a six-puck clutch in a 2100lb RWD car doesn't get a whole lot of traction. It was slipping and sliding trying to get up and over a small snow/ice covered incline up the barn.
JLee has the great idea of a running start. Don't worry, he'll help push it in too. So I back up a bit, and get a running start... [cut scene] If you remember the exhaust on my miata is a custom setup with the outlet just in front of the rear wheel, below an already reduced ride-height... [/cut scene] So as the rear axle gets into the barn there's a horrendous screech, clang, and then a very nasty scraping noise as I pull completely into the bay. Guess who wins when an exhaust system fights with the sill plate on a barn? Yeah... it ripped off my exhaust system from the down-pipe back... thankfully from the down-pipe back it was only held on with a few hangers and a clamped fitting, so the clamp just came apart and I dragged the exhaust on the hangers, no serious damage.
So I pop the hood to put fogging oil in the cylinders for the winter and would you look at that... a dirty shop rag sitting in the engine bay... and, what is this? The handle from one of those mirror-on-a-stick things... and? Orly? Look at that... the hose clamp from the cold pipe to the intake manifold is not even there. I wonder... yep... the inter-cooler is just kind of loose... hanging there by one bolt and the friction of the cold pipe fitting. 😱D:😱😡 If I had hit boost on the drive home it would have been good-bye hot pipe, cold pipe, and inter-cooler leaving me stranded on the side of the road with a few hundred bucks of wrecked parts and an un-drivable car. My family has always had good luck with this garage... but this bullshit is enough for me to never go back there again.
Well, anyway, we got the cylinders coated with fogging oil, and left. We decided it was too cold, late, and we didn't have the right tools (an allen wrench) to pull the turbo for its winter rebuild. I'll get it on the next weekend I have a free minute.
Very near the end of our adventure JLee romped on 2nd gear, because, well, a VF39 turbo in a scooby is awesome... except when it is followed by a nice metallic *bang* and the dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree. The added boost combined with a slight misfit with the intercooler was enough for the cold pipe fitting on JLee's intercooler to blow apart. He correctly diagnosed the problem before swerving violently into a parking lot so we could fix it. It went like this:
Yep it's the cold pipe.
Can you get it back on?
Yeah, but I need to tighten the hose clamp again.
Got any screw drivers?
Nope, and the sockets we brought are too big...
Let me see if my keys will work... nope too think.
Maybe this wire from a road flare stand will work... too flimsy...
I'll check my pockets for some change, maybe I have a dime or... EUREKA! NAIL CLIPPERS!! :awe:
So very carefully we tightened down the hose clamp with some nail clippers and drove home being VERY careful not to hit boost.
Once back at JLee's place we celebrated with a judicious combination of bacon cheese burgers, beer, crown royal whiskey, and the American Top Gear spin-off in HD (which isn't bad if you don't expect it to be like the UK version).Not a bad ending.
BTW: the Cobra helicopter pilot has some serious skills.
