Holding water!
So, I got the water pump in. (Man, that was a stupidly big job.) Radiator is topped up, test started, and nothing's leaking. Haven't got it up to operating temp yet, but I'm sure it'll be fine.
But what about brake drag!?
With the size of the aftermarket for these cars,
surely someone sells a low-drag Miata disc-to-drum conversion kit, right? Surely?
I told myself I wasn't going to do any more mods to the MPGiata this summer due to chronic TMFP (Too Many Projects!!).
But I've always hated how much harder this car is to push around the driveway than the Firefly/Metro, considering they're within a hundred pounds of each other. And it just doesn't seem to coast well at low speed.
I could even hear that telltale quiet "grumble" of the pads dragging on the rotors when rolling at
very low speed.
So I caved in and pulled the slider pins out of one of the front calipers this evening, and one of the pair absolutely did NOT deserve the name of "slider". So sticky! Nearly seized, really. Anyway, it's all cleaned up and everything floats/moves much better. Only 3 more calipers to go!
Also I noticed there were no springs in there, like this Miata (D):
Details:
http://dirtyshirt.info/auto_mazda_miata_brakejob.html
Need to get me some of that!