I need a favor: moving a car

Turner Oppy · **Posted:** Sat May 25, 2013 10:23 am

For my 1st post, I'm asking for help.

My miata just sprung a leak, from the water pump. I need to get it to the shop, but don't have a truck and/or trailer, and with the leak it will overhead before I can get it to the shop. Can anyone help me tow my car to Sports and Compacts on Hillsborough St? I'm in Durham not far from hwy 98.

I'll provide a frosty six-pack of quality beer, and you'll have my eternal gratitude.

PM me or e-mail turner_oppy@yahoo.com or call/text (478)-461-4783

Thanks,
Turner

JasonWatts · **Posted:** Sun May 26, 2013 1:19 am

How mechanically enclined are you? If you have a 2nd car you can replace the pump fairly easily.

Sorry I cant help beyond that. I only have a truck and no trailer

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Sun May 26, 2013 11:05 am

Turner Oppy wrote:

For my 1st post, I'm asking for help.

My miata just sprung a leak, from the water pump. I need to get it to the shop, but don't have a truck and/or trailer, and with the leak it will overhead before I can get it to the shop. Can anyone help me tow my car to Sports and Compacts on Hillsborough St? I'm in Durham not far from hwy 98.

I'll provide a frosty six-pack of quality beer, and you'll have my eternal gratitude.

PM me or e-mail turner_oppy@yahoo.com or call/text (478)-461-4783

Thanks,
Turner

Hey Turner. Sorry, no truck or trailer here either, but I wanted to ask if you had AAA or any other motor club membership. I know AAA can tow up to 15 miles w/ the basic package and up to 100 w/ the extended package. Every year I've had to use these guys and it's paid for itself.

Turner Oppy · **Posted:** Sun May 26, 2013 6:19 pm

Thanks for the responses. I'm reasonably mechanically inclined, but I don't have the facilities to do the work myself. I do have AAA, which I'll be using as my back-up plan. I do have a second, and third car, and the shop is booked up through next week, so I'm not in a hurry. I was hoping to have everything sorted by the Jimmy V autocross, though.

I'm going to try begging a bit more at next weekends auto-x, then I'll look into other options.

Thanks,
Turner

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 11:05 am

Hey Turner,

Glad you have the Porsche to race on Saturday while the Miata gets fixed. Anyway, replacing the water pump basically requires the removal of the radiator, timing covers, P/S, timing belt etc. So if you haven't had new timing tensioner/idler pulleys or a timing belt, I'd go ahead and have your shop do all of it while they are in there since it's part of the labor to do the water pump anyway. Also if your water pump end tanks are brittle and about to fail, you'll find out when you remove the upper/lower cooling hose from the inlet/outlet.

Fortunately Miata parts are cheap and plentiful.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 11:47 am

Also it's not rocket science like some folks on Miata.net would have you believe. I've done it 3 times myself. As long as you can read and turn a wrench, you can save yourself a bunch of money by doing it yourself.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 12:29 pm

The only hard part of doing this whole job (including timing belt and tensioners) is getting the crank bolt undone but given the BP engines spin clockwise, a bump start with a 24" breaker bar on the ground works like a charm (I think the bolt is 22mm though it might have changed over the years of 1.6 and 1.8L variants as the crank pulley design seemed to changed almost every 2 years). Then all you need is 10 and 12mm (maybe 14) wrenches/sockets and about 2 hours and coolant.

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 12:58 pm

If you can make it down to the Southpoint part of Durham we can do it in my garage. It's been a few months since I tore a BP open in there.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 1:01 pm

JamesMilko wrote:

If you can make it down to the Southpoint part of Durham we can do it in my garage. It's been a few months since I tore a BP open in there.

And with Milko's help you won't even need to jack up the car as he "vertically challenged". :mrgreen:

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 1:26 pm

By that you mean 'still skinny enough to reach underneath' right?

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 1:32 pm

JamesMilko wrote:

By that you mean 'still skinny enough to reach underneath' right?

Yeah, right.

clinehall · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 3:45 pm

Vincent Keene wrote:

JamesMilko wrote:

By that you mean 'still skinny enough to reach underneath' right?

Yeah, right.

VK must have had his milk money stolen by a short bully in elementary school.

Turner Oppy · **Posted:** Tue May 28, 2013 6:14 pm

Thanks for all the advice and jokes. I've spoken to Karl (or Carl) at Sports and Compacts on Hillsborough Rd (near the fairground). He seems like a decent guy running a private garage. I was gonna use AAA and get a tow on Friday to get the car to him. I was going to have the full 120k service done, unless someone has a REALLY good reason I shouldn't.

Milko, I really appreciate the offer, but according to my brother, who was driving when the car started leaking/overheating, I can't really drive it anywhere.

Thanks again, and see y'all on Sat.

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I need a favor: moving a car

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