The $100 Miata that wouldn't die (new purchase!)

[iEuropa]

A friend of mine (John) had an uncle who lived nearby to him, who owned a 1993 Mazda Miata with 360k original miles. John told me that his uncle offered to give it to him. He didn’t take it because he didn’t have any money to put into it. I told him I’d give him $100 bucks for it.

His aunt found me the keys. Our longtime friend Jeff came over to take part in this charade. This thing is a mess. It had been sitting for eight months. The paint is cracked and faded, it’s got dings and scrapes, and a hole in the bumper to boot. I opened up the hood and checked the oil, and it looked spot on. No problems there. I checked the coolant expansion tank, which was a little low, and I topped it up. I knew the fuel in it had to be no good, so we tried to siphon it out. The siphon hose couldn’t reach down to the tank, so we unbolted a cover in the trunk and tried to get at it through the breather inlet, and no dice. The fuel hose to the tank was clamped tightly and I couldn’t get it off without tearing it. So we dumped some fresh 93 in and hoped for the best. The battery was completely dead, (no surprises here), so we jump started it. This thing immediately started overheating like a… something hot. I knew it had a coolant leak, but I only checked the expansion tank. I was thinking if the rad was empty, the expansion would flow into it.

This car wasn’t registered and had no tags, so I brought some with me that my dad I never turned in. I’d never driven a stick, so my friend who used to daily a stick was going to drive us back to my house where I could work on it. Since the battery was dead if you stalled it, you were dead in the water. Jeff drove behind us to keep any cops from getting a good look at our back tags. This poor thing was overheating the moment it left the driveway, and was smoking harder than a veteran. I’m pretty sure it has a bad head gasket, and oil was coming out of every hole on the head. All of that oil was immediately being burnt and we were a massive cloud going down the road. Jeff said he had to keep the windows up and the recirculation on because it was so bad.

Knowing that we were overheating horrible (who would have thought), I tried to turn the heat on full blast. No dice of course, because the thing had nothing in it. To make matters worse, the bad fuel was getting into the lines, and there must have been so much water in the tank. The car would bog out and tried to die below 2500 RPM, so John was keeping it from just dying trying to nurse it home. We had to go forty minutes through back roads trying to get it home, and it very nearly made it. When we couldn’t run any more stops, just a mile from my house, a car came up and had the right of way at a stop sign. He tried to keep the revs up in neutral but it died out. Luckily, we were just on the cusp of a hill down to my development. A lady came up behind us and I could see her on the phone, so I ran over to her and implored her we didn’t need any help. I wasn’t keen to find out what the charges would be for doing what we were doing lol. The guy that lived on the corner came out and helped us push it around the corner and down into the inlet of the neighborhood I live in. Now we were up a creek. We didn’t have any friends with a truck, and my house was on the other side of a hill, likely 15* upslope. We pushed it into the grass to parallel park it on the street. After some discussion amongst us, the guy that lived at the house on the edge of the neighborhood came down and asked if we needed help. After explaining the situation he laughed heartedly, and pulled his ram out of the drive. We hooked it up with a chain (thank you Mazda for frame mounts), and pulled it to my house. Did I mention the miata breaks were hardly working? Haha. We pulled it in and I thanked him. It saved us a lot of mess. We went laughing the whole way to the bar and I bought us a round of drinks.

The next morning my friend who’s also a pretty good mechanic came over. He looked at it and deduced the thermostat may be bad. We pulled off the top of the housing, and the thermostat looked fine. The gasket crumbled to dust. It was bone dry in there though, so I pulled off the rad cap, and to my horror, it was empty. Oops. We filled it up and replaced the thermostat and gasket while we were in there. The bolts were rusted so badly we had to drill one of them out with a lefty bit, it was so seized only 10% of the bolt made it out. We still couldn’t get any of the old fuel out. So we put some octane booster, fuel stabilizer, and more 93 in it to try and dilute the bad fuel. We started it, and it sounded happier. It was still missing and had a pretty bad tick. We both chalked it up to a spun bearing, or rod knock, with an outside possibility of lifter tick. I was feeling brave, and decided we would take it to his house, about four miles away. I hadn’t driven it yet, so I told him I would take it over. I stalled it two times in the driveway, but then I made it to his house without too much fuss (any stalling), which I was admittedly proud of. When I stopped it in his drive, the engine wasn’t spewing white smoke from the tailpipe anymore, and the ticking was gone!! It was still smoking terrible from the engine bay. We put it on the lift. It was a hose that had busted, and it was absolutely pissing coolant all over the heat shield. He changed the hose and topped the coolant up. It won’t idle, but that’s probably because of the eight month old fuel in the tank. It drove to his house fine.

So that’s the story of the $100 Mazda Miata, thus far. I think I will be swapping for the 1.8L OEM engine next.

135i and Miata


Pop-up headlights


(Bad quality) Miata on the lift

[NickyC]

I know cars are inanimate objects and all, but I swear my car just looks happier when it's clean. That second pic you posted of the front of the Miata, poor thing looks sad and looks like it's asking for help! Glad to see somebody came along who will care for it, those are fun little cars, and how can you beat a $100 price!

[iEuropa]

Originally Posted by NickyC

I know cars are inanimate objects and all, but I swear my car just looks happier when it's clean. That second pic you posted of the front of the Miata, poor thing looks sad and looks like it's asking for help! Glad to see somebody came along who will care for it, those are fun little cars, and how can you beat a $100 price!

NA Miatas especially, look like they have a personality. The pop ups and curved bumper makes it look like it's smiling at you. I gave it a wash the morning after I brought it home, and it cleaned up better than expected. You're right, $100 to learn how to drive stick is a deal