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My son's 96 miata blew a heater hose and overheated. The car will not start and spins over much easier than before. Cam is rolling so t-belt must be intact. Any DIY help or recommendations for reasonable mechanic/shop in the NRH area would be appreciated.
Have you run a compression check on the engine?
Pull the plugs. They can tell you a LOT......
not yet. we had to pay a for a wrecker so we had it towed to a shop in NRH for diagnosis but we're thinking, if it's not too late, we may be able to save some money if we could do it ourselves.
Where are you at in NRH? My daughter goes to school in NRH.
I don't have a compression gauge, but I'm sure we could come up with one. But it sounds like you guys may have blown a head gasket, if it spins over much easier than before and the timing belt is intact. :cry:
I have a compression gauge....I'm in Arlington...
Sounds like we need a tech day! :wink:
The numbers are in... 1-4 respectively 80,22,23,90.
Bad, Scary Bad, Scary Bad, BadQuote:
Originally Posted by jjmiata
Are you sure you tested 1 and 4 at the top, looks like the leakage you would have when the valves are open one stroke early. Even a bad head gasket should show around 50-60 %, not 90 %. Check it again.
It would be nice to know which cylinder is bad for sure before you start tearing it down. Also, if you have a lot of carbon build up you can show higher leakage than normal like your 23 % leakage.
Can you even start it? If you could, I would Seafoam the combustion area before saying you have a bad head.
Gary
If you want a second opinion you may want to call Stevan Boyd - www.miatasolutions.com, he is up in Justin, Tx. he is about the best there is in this part of the world when it comes to fixing Miatas.
I suspect he used a compression tester, not a leak-down tester. That says we've got a blown head gasket right smack dab in the center :(
Yea, sounds like a blown headgasket to me. I had one on a "new" engine with the first engine I ever dropped into a miata. My compression was 0 and 10 on the inner 2 cylinders :oops:
Well any news on the car? Was it the head gasket?
2 weeks, a few days, and a whole bunch of money later, we bought and installed a used engine from a 48k mile donor car and it runs great. I would like to point out that the heater hose failure was caused by oil seeping from the CAS seal. It was such a small amount of oil we never noticed it, however it had been seeping undetected long enough to deteriorate the hose to the point of failure. A word to the wise with a 1.8L: check for oil seeping from the CAS and dripping onto the heater hoses directly under the CAS between the firewall and the head. Hope this info helps.
Thanks to all who gave input on this matter. It is greatly appreciated.
YEEOUCH - sorry to hear that... It was either 3Bean or POS that had the same issue but was lucky & didn't burn up any motor parts.
RJ
Soooo, what have you done with the old engine????????? I'm always looking for "spare parts" :)
It was 3Bean! But I am seriously considering ordering up some new hose today. I replaced the CAS O-Ring a couple of month back....Quote:
Originally Posted by channelmaniac
Glad to here the car is back up and running!
Heater hose... what are those? ;-)