I've been threatening to do this so now I'm going to follow through with the threat. 
Last week I saw an ad on Craig's List for a 99 Miata for $1650. The ad basically read "Here's a 99 Miata. 146k miles. Doesn't run. Who knows why? Come and get it." I'm serious. That immense amount of data prompted me to call the guy and ask "Whassup?" Here are the pics from the ad.
So, I take it that it's in your driveway/garage now. Start troubleshooting yet? Does it crank? Compression, fuel, spark.
wlkelley3 wrote: So, I take it that it's in your driveway/garage now. Start troubleshooting yet? Does it crank? Compression, fuel, spark.
You're fast wlkelley3! I had to relocate after posting the initial thread so in order not to keep my eager readers waiting...the saga of a cretin with a wrench, a dream, and a beat up Miata continues. 
~~~~~
I called the seller and interrogated him for about five minutes on the car. The gist of the conversation was "I don't know a thing about the car's history. I resell houses for living and saw it sitting in some guy's driveway. I made an offer and he sold it to me. I still have it on the trailer because I haven't had time to take it off. Do you want to come look at it?"
I did some quick research on Miata.net and decided it was worth checking out.
A quick aside. On the way to check out the car I drove by a secured parking lot, chain link fence topped with razor wire, and inside it was the largest collection of wood grain Chryslery K cars I've ever seen. There must've been 20 there. I asked the seller wtf and he had no idea.
Here's the low down of my pre-purchase inspection.
I decided to go for it. In hindsight I should've tested compression and pulled the engine codes but I just went for it. I offered $1500 and the owner bit. Since he still had the car on the trailer he even offered to deliver it. He was at the house within the hour and we unloaded. I backed the car down the driveway, coasting, when I realized the master cylinder was shot. The brakes were useless. I stopped it with the emergency brake in it's parking spot.
There it sat while I thought about what to do next.
tl;dr - talked to the seller. bought the car.
Over the next few days I pondered. Why doesn't this thing run? Did I just spend $1500 on a car with a boogered crank from a botched timing belt job? Is the gearbox in good shape? What about the clutch? I hope it's headgasket isn't blown. Etc, etc. Typical buyer's remorse especially on something like this. Buying a non-running car is risky. You'll get it cheap, most times, but like eating sushi at a convenience store...it could go real bad real fast.
So I started wrenching. Which isn't easy these days. I have a two year old and a four month old so time to wrench is hard to come by. The best I could do was getting my son, the two year old, outside and letting him "work" on his car in the driveway while I dismantled the Miata to see what damage I had purchased.
All parts were purchased on Amazon if not otherwise mentioned. The wife and I took advantage of Amazon baby when our first was born which means Prime membership. It's scheduled delivery of diapers and other baby support gear along with the benefit of Prime shipping which is free two day delivery. Works great. I highly recommend it as once you're sleep deprived remembering to wear matching shoes will be hard to do after staying up all night with an infant who thinks they're working the over night shift at Waffle house.
First things first. I changed plugs and wires. No dice. Didn't change a thing. I then pulled the codes using a cheapie bluetooth OBD2 dongle from Ebay and the Torque app on my phone. It said that both the crank sensor and the cam sensor were sending computerized SOS's about being clueless as to whether the cam and crank even existed much less in what position they were in. I ordered both along with a master cylinder.
In the two days it took for those parts to come in I thought more and became more worried about the crank keyway, see shoddy timing belt job above, and the headgasket and/or valves causing a loss of compression. I decided to tear the engine down to see the timing gear and woodruff key. All good. 
The key and timing gear were in great shape. I then purchased the $20 compression tester from Harbor Freight and tested the compression. 180-190 across the board. Sweet. 
Since the engine was torn down to those levels...I decided to order the timing belt, water pump, and thermostat as well. Mission creep. What a pain. That old saw about "While I was there...I thought...why not rebuild the motor?" I didn't got that far mostly because my kid was ready to set the lawn on fire as I was doing a poor job of watching the little guy while distracted with crap cars.
tl;dr - got nervous that the car was a piece of crap. investigated. looks good.
Now we've made it to today. The day my parts arrived and I started the first timing belt job I've ever performed on a Miata. I've owned a hand full of the cars but always subbed the job out. I may again. It wasn't hard but it sure was arduous.
The car was already torn down quite a ways from my investigations. Valve cover was off as the car came with a new valve cover gasket and needed it. I had removed the belts and water pump pulley on my way to checking the crank key way. Also I had removed the timing belt covers to check the tensioners and belt condition.
So next I changed out the water pump. No surprises there. I was glad I didn't have to remove the cam gears because...that was scary. Also, they wouldn't hold still for me to loosen the bolt that held the gears to the cam. If you want pics of this procedure just check out miata.net. They have as many pictures of timing belt changes and water pump stuff as Reddit has pictures of girls with their boobs out. Wait a min..you're already clicking on reddit.com aren't you? 
It's ok. I'll wait.
While working on the water pump I remembered how some folks had real trouble removing the woodruff key and front crank seal. In a moment of genius I ordered the front crank seal too. The front of the engine looked a little grimey so I thought I'd replace that as well. So..as a diversion from some water pump action I reached down and gave the woodruff key a tug. It came right out in my hand. Same with the timing gear. Cool. I completed the water pump and moved on.
I changed out the timing belt without any issues. Timing the cams was a cinch as they wouldn't budge from their current positions unless I really heaved on them with the ratchet. That made lining up the timing marks really simple. I set the tensioners and reinstalled the crank timing gear and woodruff key. When reinstalling the crank pulley I did wring off one of the m10 bolts. I was stupid...too much he-man torque on one and off the head came. I then removed the crank bolt I had just torqued to 150 ft lbs and looked at the broken bolt. I remembered that you could cut a line in what was left and use a screw driver to try to back it out. I pulled the dremel and started cutting. It worked great. I was as surprised how easy it came out once I tried that technique. I reinstalled, restrained my over torquing habits, and all went on nicely.
I started reinstalling everything. All the accessories like the alternator and power steering pump. Put back on the timing gear plastics. Reinstalled the belts. Reinstalled the valve cover with a fresh gasket. Put in the new thermostat and realized the supplier didn't put in a new gasket. 
I thought "Maybe if I bolt this up tight enough it won't leak?" I then progressed to reinstalling the air hose, radiator, and fans. It went pretty quick actually. During this process I replaced the two sensors that threw codes originally.
Then, the moment of truth. The car was put back together. I had charged the battery a few days before. I sat in the drivers seat and ignored the cigarette butts lodged in the carpet near the emergency brake. I turned the key to start and it fired up. Just like that. It ran like a top. In my enthusiasm I got up and looked under the hood and saw the thermostat housing was leaking all over the place. After driving to the parts store and getting the one gasket ($2.36) I installed it. I then restarted the car and decided to try to go for a test drive. The brakes had to work in some way right?! Wrong. I got to the top of my driveway and decided against it.
So...backed down the driveway and started on the master cylinder install. Which was frustrating because the hard lines were in the way of the right side mounting bolt. Eventually, it went on. But had a lot of air in it because the supplier didn't think I would need any fittings to bench bleed it with. I installed it as bled as I could get it and then bled each corner of the car at the caliper. I tried using the Harbor Freight hand vacuum bleeder. It worked about as well as trying to cut cheese with a piece of string. I then resorted to the old style Harbor Freight one man bleeder and that worked great. I pumped some fluid through and built some pressure at the calipers. While doing this I noticed one of the wheels has a cracked spoke. Time to shop for a replacement.
It was time for the first test drive.
...and it was glorious.
The car drove well. It needs an alignment but the power was there. The trans shifted great. The clutch held power well. I couldn't tell if the pads are worn as I completely forgot to look but there was some grumbling sound under braking. The interior still smelled like a dirty ashtray but I'll get to that later.
So it runs..and runs well now. Time to source the other parts to make it a more comfortable and presentable ride as well as one I can take to HPDE's. I cleared all the engine codes and they haven't come back. My bet is those two sensors...would've got it running right away. But at least now I have the piece of mind of knowing that the Tbelt, water pump, etc are all done.
tl;dr - fixed the car. runs great now. grandoise ideas of the future commence.
Nice! Still under challenge budget?
It is. Way under budget if I decided to enter the challenge. I wouldn't be competitive as I'm building it to be a nice driver and HPDE car. I wouldn't strip it in other words for that last ounce of performance.
Wow, that works out great!
Mr_Clutch42 wrote: Wow, that works out great!
It really did. I'm surprised as the whole thing was a gamble as I mentioned.
Thing is...these deals are out there if you have the resources to jump on them when they show. While I was there the guy's phone was ringing, texts were coming in, email going off...people were really climbing all over him to get to the car. I knew I had to act fast at that price.
Keep us posted on everything else you do you to that car!
1966stang wrote: Keep us posted on everything else you do you to that car!
Will do 1966stang. I'm writing an update now with new pics. Pics being the life blood of a build diary right? 
I've been negligent in that regard.
Here are some off trailer pics of the car. Work update to follow.
..and here is the cracked wheel I mentioned. I can't believe I missed that at purchase.
Yipes! Consider it an excellent excuse to move up to a set of 15's and sticky rubber.
nderwater wrote: Yipes! Consider it an excellent excuse to move up to a set of 15's and sticky rubber.
I'd love to but I really want to get this thing on the road as cheap as possible. Also, there aren't any good deals on the Craig's List at the moment.
I thought if I could get a set of decent 15's with some inspection worthy tires for within a hundred or so of the cost of two tires and a wheel I'd go for it. That deal hasn't materialized nor have any of my low ball emails been responded to in regards to this. So I'm thinking a junkyard sourced 14x6 wheel to match the others for $50 from, say it again, car-parts.com would do. I can source stock sized tires to match the practically brand new fronts from Tire Rack for around $50 a piece. It's hard to beat that price to get on the road and see how this thing holds up. I'm a firm believer that any used car needs some serious road miles to show it's weaknesses and true nature. After all, I'd rather the thing break on the way to work in the rain when I'm interviewing for a promotion than on the first session at an HPDE. Priorities. I have some.
"Rear tires are toast."
GOOD. LOL.
there seems to be a child trapped inside the vehicle.....did it come with the purchase?
I want one. bad. about as bad as a del sol...but with RWD envy. enjoy it.
That's an awesome find! I found my 1990 for 1000 paid 750 and drove it out of my garage for about 900. Feels good man.
Well fellows...here is the latest installment in this build diary.
The car...it smelled like a smoker ate trash and drank a very old beer and then threw up in the car. That's about as accurate a description as I can muster for what stench hit me in the face when I'd open this car after being locked up for a few days. I'd had enough.
I went nuclear on the car's interior. I pulled the seats and put a fine mist of water onto the carpet. I then sprayed it with Simple Green. Then I put some SG into a bucket with hot water and grabbed a brush. I then proceeded to shampoo the dickens out of that carpet. I did the same to the seats. I used a shop vac to suck the water and soap out. I did the same to the seats. This drastic step took out about 90% of the stink. The top, unfortunately, contained the rest.
During this time I sourced a new passenger headlight from a junkyard and installed it. I also replaced the back passenger tail light as it was cracked. I put four new tires on the car and got it inspected as required in VA.
Then, I did some hard thinking on the subject. I wanted this car as a light track day car and a toy I could use on fun sunny days. My son, he loved it. But I realized the interior was never going to be clean again. The rust in the back fender wasn't going to get better unless I cut it out and welded in a patch. The car ran great and had some incredible options but I decided to move it on.
I put it in the local Craig's List. It was never noticed by a Nigerian prince and no one offered to help me sell it. I got my asking price and sold it to two guys from Norfolk. One was in the Navy and his friend was....very friendly. All said. I was happy with the outcome. I would've loved to have kept the car and used it for what I intended but I'll wait for another candidate to come by. Maybe next time I'll try an E36 or E46 BMW. We'll see.
One thing I do regret...one day before selling this car a 2001 Celica GTS 6 spd was listed on CL for....get this....$2300. It had 140k miles and everything worked according to the seller. In my market that's an easy $4.5k car. It passed quickly as you can guess.
So..the final chapter. I'll let you guys know the latest once it arrives!
nice work. I remember seeing that one float around craigslist a couple days
That was it Johndej. I had a hard time nailing down the price and ad on it. I'll say this...once you price something right you'll have no trouble moving it fast on CL here.
Did you see that Celica GTS I mentioned? I'm still kicking myself on that one.
You'll need to log in to post.
