1996 NA Miata

My Biggest Mistake.

And a pretty solid learning experience on internal combustion engines, buying a used car, and the overall MX-5 platform.

Front Engine Fix:

Coolant leaking from underside of engine after radiator and brittle tubes replacement, flying off accessory belts.
Potentially water-pump failure, need front engine teardown to determine this.
In the way is all accessory belts, valve cover and gasket, as well as timing belt. May as well do all this stuff.

Brown mixture from oil and coolant combination = (bad)

Clean ... nice.

Oil was milky brown like chocolate milk. After running the engine with new coolant and oil after the full front engine overhaul, positive pressure pushed coolant into the oil again. Some interface must be breached or the engine is warped.

Initial suspicion was that coolant was leaking into oil through oil filter interface or because of faulty crank seal, but positive pressure is induced in all those sections and should not allow coolant dripping to fall in.

Putting the valve cover on with the new gasket and fastening the bolts down, seeing uneven gapping between the top of the aluminum head and the valve cover itself. Possibly one of these are warped.

Or likely a head gasket failure, I wasn't able to check the cylinders individually with a boroscope or have a compression tester on hand.

How was the engine blown / head gasket gone?

Hadn't been driven in over a year. (Red flag)
On-site we had to replace the blown tires with spare 4x100 wheels.
On the drive back, the car overheated and was shut off on the side of the highway.
Coolant had been leaking out of the brittle tubing from the start, I should've known the system was empty.
Radiator had corroded and exploded during the drive, leaving the engine with little to no coolant
Hypothesis is immediate vehicle shutoff and lack of coolant to be cycled caused immediate warping of block to head interface, especially with cold outside temperatures.
Head gasket either blown, or engine warped. Didn't know until valve cover was off.

Unpictured Fix List:

Interior trim rebuild and replacement from Facebook marketplace
Radiator and cooling tubes replacement and install (OEM)
Cleaning and removing pink and stickers (why is this even here?)
Blown suspension components replaced with OEM replacement
Soft-top complete overhaul (new cloth on framing)

This car was not treated nicely by the previous owners. Evidently by the poor condition the vehicle was in. I did not have enough time to fix and overhaul this car. It was good while it lasted.

SOLD. No time or money to fix it..

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