Mr Miata lives in the garage, where he is warm and safe from the elements, and only tippy toes out on beautiful days to romp around the countryside.

I got lucky when I bought him, in pretty much bone-stock condition, and I immediately dropped a couple grand into catching up on his maintenance, so now he is in really good shape, and doesn’t need much work done on him. Which is good, because while I used to enjoy working on cars:

(Photo for proof)

I no longer enjoy working on cars too much, what with smashing my knuckles and swearing at bolts that won’t come off, so I try not to do that.

So now it’s mostly sunny day driving…

Visiting with friends

Hanging out with the cool kids (play Find The Miata – I was the only one there!)

Comparing him with others (LOOK HOW SMOL!)

And playing dress up 😀 I found a great deal on a hardboot for him. My last Miata had a hard boot and I loved the way it looked. I had to remove the rear windblocker to get it in, but I like more wind in the cockpit anyway. I bought him so I could feel the wind! It’s not like I am taking it for long highway drives.

I spraybombed it white, and I really like the look. Nothing fancy. I wish I could do the whole interior in white, but I priced it out and it was quite expensive to get new seat covers and door panels and all that.

Navi approves!

I did replace the steering wheel this year. It came with an aftermarket wheel the previous owners had installed, but they included the original wheel and parts to return it to stock. I had it in the shop for the last bit of maintenance work in the spring and asked if they could swap wheels for me, and my mechanic came back and said one of his guys wanted to do it in exchange for the ricer wheel, so I was like ‘of course!’ Good deal, and sometimes mechanics don’t like to mess with aftermarket stuff like that, so I was happy for that. And I was really happy because that ricer wheel just didn’t feel right to me. It felt like cheap, slick plastic, and it stuck out so far I had to take my hand off of it to reach the turn signal stalk. The original wheel is bigger, wrapped in leather, in the position the designers intended when they built this nearly perfect car, and has an airbag. Good trade!

The other things I did to it this summer were to rebuild the shifter with new bushings, fresh fluid, and new rubber seals – a job I have done so many times I don’t even consider it working on my car, and so I didn’t think to take pictures. And replacing the original radio for a new one with bluetooth, because I listen to all my music off my phone.

This was my first time poking around inside the dash. I’ve done this many times on NA Miatas, but this is my first time on an NB, so there was a little learning involved. And this project happened before the shifter rebuild. Look at that deteriorating rubber shift boot! I wonder if it was original? Anyway, that’s when I realized I had to refresh all that before I buttoned everything up again.

But back to the radio, that thing should have easily slid out after inserting the Ford Radio Removal Tools in the holes and squeezing the pins open. I watched a bunch of videos, and tried over and over again, and could not get it out.

Dave even came out to help lend a bit of brute force (and Mighty decided to sit in his lap while doing it). The longer it took, the more ‘brute’ it got, until we pretty much just got in there with a screwdriver and pried and bent things and forced it to come out!

It turned out some of the clips were broken! I’ll bet the PO had had an aftermarket radio in there and just popped this back in before he sold it. Luckily none of the wires were cut, so it was easy to plug in a new adapter, which I had wired up to the new radio’s plug.

And look how thin the new radio is! It’s just a radio and bluetooth, so it doesn’t need the depth to accommodate a tape player or CD player.

It all went back together and looks like it belongs.

I also had a little run around with a check engine light coming on. Of course the first time it came on I was driving out to Moulton Falls, which is way up in the hills, with no cell coverage, and it scared me a bit. He was still running fine, so I drove him straight home, watching the gauges the whole way. Scott loaned me his code reader and we figured out which sensor it was, which turned out to be a cheap and easy fix, and it was located on top of the valve cover, so it was even easy to get to, so I did that myself. Then I took him for a nice long drive up to Amboy and back, just enjoying the sunny weather!

But summer was over way too soon, and I love driving Mr Miata, so I still sneak him out on dry sunny days, even if it is inappropriately cold.

And that was my Miata summer. Here’s to many more!