Things to do while having the motor out.
 

Not sure if this is a flame worthy topic to post,

But I pulled my motor for this evening and was planning on doing a few things.

Motor is a stock 1.6

-Swapping Trans
-Inspecting Clutch
-Changing throw out bearing
-Tapping oil pan
-exhaust manifold gasket
-motor mounts
-remove unneeded wiring

things that would be a good idea while its out?

-timing belt?
-rear main seal?
-coolant reroute?
-water pump clutch?
-CAS?
-Front crank seal?


what else should i throw in there?

Get a giant rubber-band, mount it in the engine bay and take a photo!

World's first rubber-band powered MX5!

Anything on the back of the engine, really. Rear main is a good preventative one as long as you're doing the clutch. You could go ahead with the reroute while you have easy access to the back of the engine too, though it's not impossible in the car so I wouldn't let it hold up your progress.

Go ahead and clean the engine bay, too, while it's out. Perfect time.

De-rust and repaint the subframe.

Here's a good one: swap in a 1.8:party:

Clean everything you possibly can.


Do the timing belt and water pump. The idler/tensioner pulleys. Front/rear main seals, cam seals, CAS o-ring, basically any gasket you come in contact with, change.

Transmission seals wouldn't be a bad idea, since you'll have the new one sitting around pre-engine-removal.

While the 1.6 is out you should have plenty of room to put a 1.8 in there.

Edit: dammit Vlad beat me to it. That's what I get for opening too many tabs at once.

FTFY.

Also, clean/degrease/paint all those hard to reach places. It's a pain in the dickhole with that pesky motor in the way otherwise

haha, I think i will boot around in the 1.6 till it pops, 1.8's are hard to find in this area of canada unfortunately

all these little seal's definitely add up, does anyone trust local part stores with these seals or is it beter to go through an online source like FM?


yeah the dickhole motor is definitely a PITA, ill pressure wash/degrease the tit's out of it.

I changed out my motor out a few months ago and I ended up doing these:

Replace the clutch line with a stainless steel one that eliminates the curly roller-coaster one.

Paint the block and oil pan a color that will contrast with oil to help diagnose the eventual oil leak.

Clean the transmission tunnel and respray some heavy-duty undercoating on the underside.

Check your clutch slave and master. They are cheap to replace. Also replace transmission input and output seals. You can apply DEI heat shield tape under the transmission tunnel to deflect most heat away from the cabin. Even a small roll on driver side worked great for me.\
Go to dealer and buy a nylon shifter bushing for $7 or so. Might as well do it with the transmission out.

This. Both of my miatas have needed their slave cylinders replaced around 70-80k miles.

Do the clutch slave and master at the same time.

-Zach

Going to order all those seals this evening hopefully.

does anyone recommend the FM tools for installing the crank seals and etc?

Motor mounts

Insufficient funds for cool mounts, but might throw some mazda speed mounts on or OEM seeing as they are only $30/mount

seam weld these bits

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1368564265

949 has the comp mounts for $17 more a piece. This is what I bought

Mazda Comp Motor Mounts 90-05 Miata

Clean, but not just the bay - clean the engine too. Also a good time to replace (or bypass) all those obnoxious little coolant lines. Install the 949 clutch line. Not hard to do with the engine in, but ridiculously easy to do with it out.

Now would be the perfect time to cut out the frame to firewall gussets.

interesting illl take a look and see how these seams are doing.

might have to order these, reasonably priced.
im assuming I wouldnt be doing motor mounts for a while after these.


Definitely going to clean up the motor and make it look pretty, also acquired the M-tuned reroute, probably install that tonight, but i should have ordered that clutch line too.