Starter
I’ve been spending a lot of time working on the Miata recently because it wouldn’t start. I was pretty sure it was the starter, but I tried everything else I could think of first. That’s because changing the starter on an NC Miata is a bit of a nightmare.
It’s hiding high up in the transmission tunnel behind this thing.
That’s the bracket for the oil filter. But it has a pair of coolant lines going to it. That’s because it acts as a simple oil cooler. But that means that when you take it out, you need to drain all the oil and coolant. It was probably time to do that anyways, but it made the project seem a bit bigger.
Once you get that out, there are a pair of very strange bolts holding the starter on. They’re M10 bolts, but they have M8 studs coming out of their heads! That appears to be because one of the studs is used to hold a wiring harness bracket. I guess that saved one bolt. And I guess the other one just has a stud for symmetry. &shrug; But that means that you can’t get a regular 14mm socket onto the head of the bolt. And there isn’t room for deep socket. I eventually got one of those ratcheting box wrenches to do the job, and out they came. A bit of wiggling and the starter follows.
If you zoom in on the ground strap between the solenoid and the motor, you can see the problem.
That’s pretty rotten. It’s not going to carry enough current to do much good.
Next up, is putting in this beautiful new starter …
… and reassembling everything.
