Day Seven - Reference shots and heater hoses

Not a whole lot done today. Just took more reference shots of wires and hoses. Trying to figure out what I need to disconnect and take enough pictures to refer back to when I put this thing back together.

Down the area behind the intake manifold.

Disconnected the heater hoses from the firewall. Had to be extra careful not to damage them after what I read about the difficulty in removing these.

The down pipe of the exhaust which is looming.

Wires behind the coil pack

Day Five - On a roll

So dedicated the entire Saturday to dismantling parts to get the engine ready for pulling. I'm planning on pulling both the engine and the transmission, even though the transmission should be fine. I've heard that it's easier to get the transmission off when everything it outside of the car. Makes sense and since this is an education, might as well learn as much as I can.

Before doing any more part removal, I needed to take care of the fuel lines and relieving any pressure in the lines. I'm doing all this work in my garage that has a water heater in the corner and the thought of gasoline spilling everywhere made me nervous. I want to heed all the warnings I've read about this. So, I buttoned up some of the parts I took off and pulled the car out of the garage into the driveway. While it was outside, I took the opportunity to try and clean of some of the crud in the engine bay. Nothing too extensive.

With that done I had to pull the fuel pump relay, open the gas cap and crank the engine a few times until it stalled. I was also a bit apprehensive about this, because of the state of the engine with the knocking and all. Was I going to be doing even more damage? Well, it already doesn't work so onward. Curiously enough, I don't recall hearing any of the knocking. I gave it a few cranks until is stopped. Waited a few minutes. Did it again for good measure and called it done. I'll find out when I try to pull the fuel lines. Images of gas squirting all over the place went through my mind. As it turned out, I was worrying over nothing. After making a detour to the local Autozone to pick up a disconnect tool, the line came off easily and without any spillage. With no return line to have to deal with, I plugged up one of the ends with a rubber stopper and the other with a bolt.

Fuel line disconnected!

With my son's help, we pushed the car back into the garage so I could continue. And so began the labeling of the wiring harness. While I was at the store, I picked up some masking tape and started to label the connectors and taking more pictures. Note to self: Don't try to peel off masking tape with your latex gloves on. It's just an exercise in frustration.

The wiring harness pulled back out of the way.

Guess I didn't really *need* to disconnect this hose, but looks pretty gunky here.

Next on the list is pulling off the power steering pump and wiring it away. This is so I don't have to disconnect any of the power steering hoses which would be an unnecessary pain. The same will go for the air conditioning compressor when I get to that point. Don't want to make more work than is necessary. And I really don't need another possible failure point.

Next to go was the alternator. I replaced the alternator about a year ago, so I was a little familiar with it. One thing I remembered I had to do was remove the intake manifold bracket which is in the way of the attachment bolt. All of the cleaning I did earlier was for naught when dealing with the underside here. It was completely filled with grime and crud.

Crud down there easier to see sans alternator

After a little cleaning. Much better!

Next to come off was the exhaust manifold shroud. Bolts were pretty rusty from the looks of them. One of them felt stiffer as I loosened it. Crap! Twisted the head off. This will be fun getting out. Ugh!

Hmmm, time to use that screw extractor set I have

I wasn't quite sure what this black crud was. I think it was some chunks of silicone sealant mixed with some left over water when I rinsed off the engine earlier. Looked horrible when I removed the shield. Heh.

Day Four -- The radiator goes...snap!

Today I wanted to do something easy to help me see more of the engine compartment. I do a fair amount of just staring at the thing, studying all the parts and trying to get as familiar as I can with the engine and its parts. Pictures and diagrams are one thing, but actually seeing and touching the real components can't be beat. Unless, of course, you happen to break them in the process. More on that later. Removing the radiator seemed like an easy enough task to tackle with the last bits of the weekend remaining.

The first thing to do was to remove the splash guard below the engine compartment. It's not really needed to drain or remove the radiator, but it's going to go anyway and removing it now will just make the rest of the job easier. I've done this before when I made a repair to it some months ago. The plastic must have hit something and tore, leaving a section dangling. I fixed it my taping it together with some Gorilla Tape. It worked surprisingly well. It was still together!

Draining the coolant wasn't difficult. The hardest part was collecting the used one gallon milk jugs to store the  coolant (and other fluids) before taking them to the hazardous waste disposal site. :P Looking at the coolant drain made it look like my car was urinating. Heh. With the fluid drained, time to go after the hoses while the drainage tub was still underneath.

Hmmm, I think I'm going to need another one of those.

Well, it looked sturdy enough, but when I went to remove the top radiator hose I realized just how brittle the top had become. I never seemed to have any problems with the radiator save for some slight leakage near the radiator cap. Our mechanic said to just keep an eye on it. Obviously, having not touched the hoses until today, (ever?) I couldn't tell how precarious the whole thing was. It didn't take much force to break. Later I read that this is pretty common for Miata radiators and that some had failed earlier than this one. This is the same original radiator and it lasted 147K miles. OK, add this to the list of follow-up parts to get. I read that all aluminum radiators can be had. I'm going to look into that option when the time comes. First things first. Have to have a working engine before I shell out for other components.

Wow, I can see!

The rest of the job was pretty uneventful. I can see the new drive belts I replaced when I replaced the dead alternator. I'm done for the day and just pondering what to do next. I know I need to disconnect the fuel lines at some point and will need to relieve the fuel pressure in order to do so. Just a little concerned about doing it my garage with the water heater only a few feet away. Don't want to blow anything up. :)

It's new home. The fins look great though.

Day Two - Removing the air cleaner and hoses

It was just gnawing at me. I was going to wait until next weekend to do any more work on the car, but the task seemed so simple that I just wanted to do it. Although my back was still sore, I just had to get the air cleaner components out. I think I just wanted it out of the way so I can see more of the engine.

So, it was fairly easy. Removed the three bolts that held the air cleaner box. Also removed the hose to the intake manifold and the smaller breather hose to the valve cover. Also disconnected the sensors around the air cleaner box and left the harness dangling in the engine bay.

On a side note, I found a used 2000 Miata in good condition being offered for sale in Redwood City for $11k. Pretty good price for a car that has only 46K miles on it. I was considering it, but I was already in the process of getting a used Saturn for about $3K so I have a daily car while the Miata is being worked on. If I decided to buy the 2000 Miata, that would be it and I would be done. There's no money left to attempt fixing my 1999. I would have to get rid of my dead Miata in that case. I wasn't ready to do that, so I decided to pass. The Saturn isn't a done deal yet, but should be soon. I need something reliable to get me to work. If things fall through, though, the 2000 might still be a slim possibility. If that were the case, this journey would come to an abrupt end.