Got into the motor today, starting to get familiar with it.
Oil pan pulled to swap it for the low-profile one courtesy of V8R. Have to pull the crank pulley to pull the pan, and I had to take a grinder to one of our pulley pullers to narrow the fingers so the would fit the pulley. Also ordered a new crank pulley bolt as it is torque-to-yield, part number 11569873:
Crank trigger wheel is internal and located at the back of the engine. Beefy 6-bolt main bearing caps (4 from the bottom and 1 of each side coming through the block wall). View in this pic is from the back of the motor:
My particular engine came from a Camaro that had flipped in an accident (it wanted to be a Mustang). This meant some extra work for me because the oil cap had been broken (part number 12642516) and some dirt had made its way into the driver’s side valve cover/cam area and that meant more disassembly to clean everything out. Not wanting to risk missing anything, I pulled both the valve covers and the main front cover so I could thoroughly clean everything. To pull the front engine cover you need to remove the power steering pump, and to remove that you need to first remove the pulley on that pump. While I was in there, I also found that one of the four cam position sensors was cracked, so a replacement for that is also on order (part number CSS1909). There are 3 timing chains:
Some sockets that usually lie in the toolbox untouched in a Miata shop are getting some action on this new motor… 1/2″, 15mm , 18mm, 22mm
Slightly more involved tightening sequence than a BP motor!
