[For Sale] [NA] Possible FS: Project car with Flyin Miata Stage 2.5 suspension

[GLudlow]

Hi all!

Life sometimes takes funny turns, and I'm in a bind. I am halfway through my most ambitious Miata project; replace the cylinder head in my 1992 SE project car. When taking out the water pump, I managed to strip the lower bolt on the side (the one almost impossible to get to), and now I can't seem to disconnect it. I've realized that I am in way over my head technically.

To make things more fun, we are moving in a little over 1 month to a new house. The new house only has a small 1 car garage, so not enough room to keep my car in pieces. I also need to clear out our garage in anticipation of the house sale.

So I'm considering selling it as-is to get rid of the hassle, and later look for another Miata. I thought I'd ask here, although I'm a good 3.5 hours South of ATL now.

The good:
Brand new (under 100 miles) Flyin Miata Koni stage 2.5 suspension
Brand new tires on 14" BBS rims (with caps)
Brand new used interior (we stripped it, put in a new dash, top, seats, carpet, etc.)
Body is totally rust free
Have a whole bunch of new parts, including timing belt/water pump kit, all new coolant hoses, new radiator, all new gaskets (all OEM or good quality)
The cylinder head checked out fine at the machine shop, it is ready to re-install

The bad:
Body has 150k on it
Cleaned cylinder head out, along with all the fixings (intake manifold, exhaust header, radiator, etc.) dis-assembled (but organized)
The car has no rust, but could use a paint job. Paint is fading or work through in places (bad buffing?) and a little faded
I replaced the power steering rack myself, and although it drives fine, the wheel only weakly re-centers. It might be a little low of fluid

I am open to offers. I'll throw in all the pieces that I bought for it, if you can pick it up before February 10th.

I would like to get $2k for everything. The suspension kit was over $1,300 and could easily be removed and re-sold and parted out, or you could throw in a 1.8L or a V8 and have a great fun driver.

So please let me know if you are interested (or if I'm crazy)!

[mrbill]

Any pictures of how it sits right now?

[GLudlow]

I can post some pics tomorrow (tonight depending on when we finish working on our new house). Here is a pic of the engine bay after I got the head removed. The interior obviously looks nice :-)

miata engine bay no head.jpg

It is a bit frustrating, we put a lot of work into it, little things like a new rear deck lid (previous one had holes where the spoiler used to be), new oem tail lights, new window seals, etc.. I make it sound terrible, but it looks decent as-is.

[Stealth97]

Dude... you're gonna take a bath on a car that doesn't run. Put stock suspension on ASAP, along with some steelies, sell the wheels, tires, suspension for what you can get...

[iscariot]

The bolt on the side - you mean the water pump inlet to the mixing manifold - the one that's super annoying to tighten?

Protip: 12mm ratcheting wrench is how I access it. Non-flex head, since space is very tight.

If that's the one - Good news. Unboltall the other waterpump bolts, and pry the pump forwards. The outlet is held on by 2 bolts and the o-ring for the heater pipe that goes underneath the exhaust. Once it's out, you can grinder off the bolt head and retrieve the mixing manifold pipe. The stripped hole? That'll be new on a new water pump. Just gotta grab a new bolt.

** Be careful prying - you need to overcome the old gasket material, but not put a new dent on your gasket mating surface. If it doesn't yield, double check you've removed all the bolts.

[GLudlow]

Iscariot: I undid the power steering pump and moved it a bit, but I can not remove the unit (water pump plus heater pipe stuff). I got enough room to get some wrenches around the bolt, but it still won't move as I think I deformed it too much. It looks like the mount for the power steering pump is in the way, but that has one bolt I can't seem to access (behind a bracket for the long mounting bolt).

Should I be able to force it out, more or less?

[iscariot]

Take a picture, I'm not quite sure which bolt you're talking about. Talking about the hinge bolt for the PS pump? 14mm on the front through the pulley, 14mm nut on the back, that should peel it out of the way. Since you've got the head off, you can also pull the heater pipe rearward and pop that off - so then you're just fighting the middle radiator hose.

[GLudlow]

That is it. I found out how to get to the bracket bolt, too. With that gone I can lift the entire assembly out in one piece.

[GLudlow]

Ok, car is officially off the market; I got the WP off, was able to get to things and worked, and even found temporary storage, if needed, for the car during the move. Can a mod close the thread?

Super thanks to Iscariot for the tips!

[wildfire0310]

Ok, car is officially off the market; I got the WP off, was able to get to things and worked, and even found temporary storage, if needed, for the car during the move. Can a mod close the thread?

Super thanks to Iscariot for the tips!

This is what makes Mx5atl so great. It's not people asking for handouts or trying to get free stuff. It's guys trying their best to lend a hand in any way to help each other out. :).

[eyeballs]

Awesome!