'92 Miata, Water Pump?

My daughter just bought a 1992 Miata with 162,000 miles on it. Seems solid enough. It's expected there will be some work. It seems to run well. I've two questions.

The first is generic. What are the weak points / high failure rate components and/or if it were yours and you had experience with them what would you recommend checking and/or replacing? There are two ways to prioritize failures; components that fail and cause significant damage so should be looked at and those components that fail gently but frequently. I'm just interested in what Mazda Miata experience says should be checked and/or replaced.

The second is specific. I'll probably buy a book, although I'm not impressed with the books these days. Too generic with too many "if this then that" or worse "remove part A" which sends you jumping all over the manual and a simple paragraph becomes three days of work. Oh well, I digress. I think the water pump is bad. It's leaking coolant. It appears to be from a unit near the bottom of the engine, which I'm assuming is the water pump. It appears that the main pulley is nearly centered. Straight below that is what appears to be leaking. It actually looks fairly accessible, although probably from the bottom. Could someone tell me if this sounds like the location of the water pump and, if so is replacing it a reasonable task or a difficult one? Also, are there any other actions that should be taken at the same time? I had a Toyota truck where it was advisable to change the oil seal when changing the water pump. I'm not looking for detailed steps just an idea of how tough it is and any wisdom or gotcha's.

Thanks in advance. GK

Pick up a Miata repair manual off ebay and read it. And the oil pump is at the bottom of the enging, water pump above it.

I have a '90 Mazda Miata MX5 with the 1.6 engine and I originally bought it for my daughter and now I've ended up with it and I love to drive it. It has almost 200,000 miles and I've very few problems with it. It recently broke a timing belt, so i replaced that and did the water pump at the same time to save labor time later. I suspect since this post is kind of old, I assume that you've already had this work done. Sorry, I just started here a few days ago. It sounds like your water pump has failed and if you try to do it yourself and you are not really well versed in auto repair you will probably fail, and assign it to the dealer. Which is perfectly O.K. water pump replacement is a very challenging task for anyone. I've almost always done my own repairs for the last 30 years or so, and I've owned more than 300 vehicles, so, I've been a lot of places and I'm not sure if I regret that or am proud of that - car wise. I can say that the 'weak links' on the Miata are the little coolant tubes that are on the front of the engine and yours will start leaking soon, I suspect, unless you ponied up the big bucks for all new stuff by now. If not, there are fixes that work without too much expense but a bit of time and suffering. Also, if the catalytic converter hasn't been replaced, it will start making strange noises from the bottom of the car soon (like some kind of wierd metallic clanging - like a clamp is loose and banging around or something is dragging along the ground - and the parking brake cable is probably stretched out beyond it's reach and it doesn't work so well anymore, if at all). Let me know if you want further advice about those fixes. Generally tho' the early Miata's are well engineered and well built and fun cars to drive. I hope if you don't do your own repairs there is a trusty Maxda dealership nearby. Also, you should check out GoMiata.com and the Miatagarage.com (google miatas and you'll find thousands of links). Check out those web sites first (you may be able to avoid a manual purchase, but if you purchase a manual, buy a Haynes - the rest are pretty much crap)... Lots of Luck!

My daughter just bought a 1992 Miata with 162,000 miles on it. Seems solid enough. It's expected there will be some work. It seems to run well. I've two questions.

The first is generic. What are the weak points / high failure rate components and/or if it were yours and you had experience with them what would you recommend checking and/or replacing? There are two ways to prioritize failures; components that fail and cause significant damage so should be looked at and those components that fail gently but frequently. I'm just interested in what Mazda Miata experience says should be checked and/or replaced.

The second is specific. I'll probably buy a book, although I'm not impressed with the books these days. Too generic with too many "if this then that" or worse "remove part A" which sends you jumping all over the manual and a simple paragraph becomes three days of work. Oh well, I digress. I think the water pump is bad. It's leaking coolant. It appears to be from a unit near the bottom of the engine, which I'm assuming is the water pump. It appears that the main pulley is nearly centered. Straight below that is what appears to be leaking. It actually looks fairly accessible, although probably from the bottom. Could someone tell me if this sounds like the location of the water pump and, if so is replacing it a reasonable task or a difficult one? Also, are there any other actions that should be taken at the same time? I had a Toyota truck where it was advisable to change the oil seal when changing the water pump. I'm not looking for detailed steps just an idea of how tough it is and any wisdom or gotcha's.

Thanks in advance. GK

the water pump is pretty easy to install before you remove the timeing belt put a mark on each cam shaft and belt where the E and I are that way when you put it back on you can line up the mark on the belt and the mark on the cam shaft pullie also there is a marker on the crank shaft pullie and it must be dead center faceing up to line up with the mark on the block get all those in the right position and you will be fine. the timebelt tensioners are also mounted on the water pump if they have had water and junk leaked into them replace em and dont put to much tension on them when there new as they will get damaged Iv done quite a few timeing belts on miatas for friends who have got them out of wack. if you want to know what usually fails on the miata you just haft to look around I know the early miatas 1.6 had alot of crank shaft failyers after timeing belt replace ment and that comes from to much tension and raceing the crap outa it with the new belt on it, also the rear wheel
bearings take quite a thrashing so its a good idea to keep an ear on those as you will hear em if they start to go out another thing is the plug wires iv been told by alot of miata owners not to buy cheap ones as they only last for about 15000 miles before you can tell a difference. miata also have twin pulse ignition so you might wanna get a timeing light that does twin pulse.