The stainless frankenstien bolts and chrome door handles looked so good against the dark blue color that I had to add another touch of chrome, an aftermarket fuel door. Since I drive her like a race car, it seemed appropriate.
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I also prefer to ride with the top down, but on 100 degree days, the sun can bee too much. So my husband bought me a bikini top for Christmas. Rally Girl loved her new summer look.
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The bikini provides almost as much wind as going topless, but protects the occupants from the sun.
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The bikini top is custom made to fit the rollbar in the car. We purchased ours from Project-G to match her canvas top.
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I can't wait to go driving in her during the summer.
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We've been seeing larger and larger oil puddles underneath and the transmission has lost the synchros from first to second and second to third. My son had located a slightly used engine with 96K five years back. Time to rebuild it while I can still drive on the current engine.
And since it is 2021, I'm not driving much due to the COVID restrictions that are still in place. So this is a good time to do this major overhaul.
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The replacement engine only has 94K on the odometer, unlike Rally Girl's current 260K. But it needs freshening up.
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Time to crack it open though and make sure it doesn't need machine work.
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To see what the replacement engine might need, we started stripping it down. First off was the intake so that we could see the dual cams. Nothing bad here.
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So we pulled the head to inspect the pistons. There is some carbon build up on the top of the pistons, but nothing bad.
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One concern is the rust on the cylinder wall.
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Once the pistons were cleaned up, they looked ok.
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There is a bit of pitting in the cylinder wall. We may have a little blow-by on this cylinder
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The timing cover and waterpump. We will replace the waterpump, but we need to clean up the timing cover.
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The inside of the oilpan doesn't look bad either. No shiny metal flake, which is never a good thing to see.
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The inside of the intake. It will be cleaned up as well.
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A pile of parts waiting to be cleaned up and reinstalled.
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Miata engines are black from the factory, so we went back stock. We installed new gaskets and seals as we put the engine back together.
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Black isn't my favorite color, but it is easy to touch up on an engine.
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I still need to clean up the replacement trans. We hope it is in better condition than my current, slowing dieing one.
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Kurt powder coated the valve cover, then hand painted in the letters.
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Ready to remove the leaking engine and almost dead transmission from Rally Girl. She is supposed to have a synchronized transmission, but the synchros are gone from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears, as well as reverse.
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The engine has lift points welded onto it to make this easier right from the factory.
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Yep, she was leaking fluids in several spots.
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This is one of the motor mounts, completely sheared in two. She had developed a very scary clunk when I applied the brakes when going backwards. We are hoping this is the clunk since we haven't found anything else.
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One pile of parts to clean up and put back in with the engine. We will replaces much of the rubber, since it is all apart.
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The motor was removed from my Miata. Time to prepare for painting the engine bay.
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The rust was probably caused by a leaky brake or clutch master cylinder.
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I scraped all the years of oil caked gunk off the cross member, anti-sway bar, and steering rack. The cross member and anti-sway bar will be painted with POR 15.
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For anyone disassembling an engine bay of a modern car with the intent to put it back together, pictures are invaluable. The shop manual does do not give the routing of all the hoses, wires, and cables that modern engines require. During the reassembly of the engine bay, I was constantly referring to several pictures, zooming in to see details.
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Yes, you can tag and label all the wires and hoses, but unless you are very thorough and draw the routing diagram on the tag, pictures are extremely useful. Most of the modern engines have special plugs for each circuit that are keyed to only connect one way, which almost eliminates the need for tags. Almost.
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The hood latch assembly. We debated about removing or just painting around and finally opted for just taping off and painting around. This is a daily driver, not a show car restoration.
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Our latest rescue dog, a beagle we named Roo, insisted on inspecting my progress on Rally Girl.
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He was very thorough in his inspection and came at it from all directions.
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The transmission and AC lines on the passenger frame rail. This really shows the original red Rally Girl was from the factory.
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The driver side frame rail does not have as much clipped to it.
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With the brake and clutch master cylinders removed, you can see the rust in this corner. This was scraped clean, then treated to prevent further rust.
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One mostly stripped engine bay. Notice the black on the firewall. I'm not sure what kind of paint was used here, but it released every time I touched it.
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Just a few more bits to go.
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Time to attack the black on the firewall. A little bit of brakeleen removed the failing black paint.
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Once the engine bay was completely stripped, we used a new technique for taping off the wiring that we did not remove as it went through the fireway. Kurt had heard about this method from a professional, so we tried it. Take inexpensive aluminium foil and wrap that around the wiring. It is easier to work with than paper and stays better when crimped to itself, no tape needed. Unless you poke a hole in it or use several pieces to make it easier to manage. Then we use plastic to drape and tape of the rest of the car. I don't think we have ever taped off quicker.
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Three coats of her blue pearl paint followed by two coats of clear and we are good to go. We didn't care whether it was dry or had runs since most of it is covered by the components and this is a daily driver.
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Clear coated and untaped, ready for reassembly. That took longer than expected.
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Once the engine bay components were all back in, time to install the rebuilt engine. We had a few problems and evidently Miata transmission do not like being jostled when outside the car because she was stuck in reverse, but we quickly found the solution for that on the Internet.
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One completely resprayed engine bay, complete with rebuilt engine and transmission.
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