Year: 2022

Another Internet Hole Sucks Me In

A couple of months ago I posted about a YouTube Ferrari engine swap that sucked me in.

Mike Burroughs’ original intent for the Ferrari/Honda build, when he started in December 2020, was to finish for SEMA 2021. Because of COVID, SEMA in 2021 was canceled and it was a good thing too because he never would have been finished on time. Now he is shooting for SEMA 2022 which in November and just a few weeks away.

Well, its happened again. About two weeks ago there was a guest in the video who was sand blasting the engine compartment ahead of getting it painted. At the end of the episode Mike tells us that the fellow who did the sand blasting was doing an engine swap too and we should go check out his YouTube channel.

So I did. Talk about parallel universes. This particular build started around the same time, with the same finish goal of SEMA 2021. The same “wouldn’t have finished it” applied to him as well. Also his first name is Mike too (last name is O’Neal.) This is not a Honda engine into a Ferrari, but a Subaru EZ30 into a 1969 Porsche 911.

So far he has created 97 videos and I have watched almost half at 47 of them. I have not peeked ahead, but because I have subscribed I see whenever he post a new video and from the thumbnails it looks like the car is at about the same stage as the Ferrari one. I have my fingers crossed that they’ll both make it to SEMA this year, but I won’t be surprised if they are not.

So, to possibly suck in a few more folks to his channel and this build, below is the intro video and it’s only about 8 minutes long. Give it a spin. Also, here is the entire playlist link.

Swapping Minis – Part 1

A few weeks ago I noticed that Donna was walking with a slight limb. We got an appointment with her foot doctor and he diagnosed it as a “drop foot”. He recommended getting a brace and set us up with a place in town to get fitted for one. When she asked what causes drop foot, he passed a referral on to a neurologist. Met with Dr. Neuro and he tested her with some electrodes and the left leg was noticeably weaker. The nerves that that control this run down each leg and exit the spine between a couple of vertebrae. This usually is accompanied by pain, but she has none, so they scheduled an MRI.

Well, the MRI did show some slight bulging in the disc that is in the right spot, but the neurologist thought it really wasn’t bad enough to cause the problem. He said he’d have a spine specialist he knew take a look. We haven’t heard back from him yet. This weakness also makes it so she can no longer operate the clutch in the Mini which is a fairly heavy clutch for such a small car. So we started looking for a Mini with an automatic transmission.

Couple of Sundays ago we found a 2016 Cooper S at the local Ford dealer. On Monday we went down to test drive it but they couldn’t find the keys. The salesman said it was possibly already sold because it was parked far away from the rest of the used cars. His manager was in a meeting so he couldn’t ask. We looked around the lot and found the only other car on the lot that was possibly small enough to fit on the short side of our garage, a 2020 Honda Fit. We took it for a test drive and it wasn’t a bad car but it lacks any character and is too long to fit on that short side of the garage. When we returned the Fit the manager was still in the meeting, so the salesman said he would find out about the Mini and call us, so we exchanged phone numbers.

Naturally he never called. Nor did we hear from him on Tuesday morning, So I called. They couldn’t find the salesman, but the woman who answered the phone said she’d find out about the Mini and call me right back. She didn’t. After lunch we just drove back down to the dealer and this time our salesman was magically there. The story on the Mini was that it had something wrong with the radio and they were waiting on a part. We asked to test drive it anyway so we could see if we even liked the car or not. We did like it (not really fond of the green with white roof combo though) but what about the radio? The screen of the “radio” was stuck and the only thing you got out of the speakers was AM static. But the radio is also your interface for setup of what your key does, your tire pressure, oil level, setup your Bluetooth, etc. Their answer was we’ll give you $1,000 off the $20k. I said I’ll go home and check out some forums and see about a possible aftermarket solution.

Poked around in a couple of Mini forums and found out that replacing the radio with an aftermarket unit was a dicey play at best, so I decided they would have to fix it before buying. The next day Donna asked me to call the shop over in Medford that we have had Mini fixes from in the past to ask their opinion. I was connected with a very nice guy who took 5 or so minutes explaining how the system worked and letting me know it would be a couple grand at minimum to fix this. His advice was to walk away and never buy a Mini with existing electrical problems. Called the Ford dealer and said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Part 2

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Mini Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 10, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

In honor of our recent purchase of a newer Mini Cooper, this week I’ve chosen the smallest car I could find in each category. For reference, our 2016 Mini is:
13’1″ long, 5’8″ wide and 4’8″ tall.
Sport Off-Road Touring
1992 Autozam AZ-1 1972 Land Rover 88 1962 Trabant 601
Length: 27″ shorter
Width: 13″ narrower
Height: 11″ shorter		 Length: 15″ shorter
Width: 2″ narrower
Height: 22″ taller		 Length: 17″ shorter
Width: 9″ narrower
Height: 1″ taller

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1991 Honda CRX Sold for $15,000 on 10/4/22
Off-Road: 2005 Jeep Wrangler Sold for $19,500 on 10/9/22
Touring: 2007 BMW 328xi Sold for $15,300 on 10/7/22

Baby It Was Cold Inside

Not in the house, even though the morning temps are now consistently in the upper 30s to very low 40s, but inside the engine of the Miata. A couple weeks ago, possibly on the last trip to pick up a pizza, I thought that the temp gage was very slow moving and as I got close to home the Check Engine light came on.

I loaded a car scanner app on the phone that reads codes, plugged in the Bluetooth OBDII dongle and got back – P0128. This indicates that the “coolant temperature is below the thermostat regulating temperature” and the most likely culprit is a stuck open thermostat. This causes your coolant to be always directed through the radiator keeping the engine cooler than it is supposed to be. It could be a few other things, but predominantly it is a bad thermostat.

I read a few posts on the Miata.net forums and the repair is spoken of as being simple enough. I then watched a couple of YouTube videos, including one entitled “changing a Miata thermostat in 7 minutes, but I’m getting to the point in my life where I’d rather pay to let the pros do it. I called my local go to shop and they were scheduling appointments 2 weeks out. Yesterday was the CTBNL’s day.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Regular Ol’ Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 3, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1991 Honda CRX 2005 Jeep Wrangler 2007 BMW 328xi
One of these was on the short list back in 1989 before the Miata won. One of these is on the short list for when our giant change jar get full. One of these has been on the short list since I got to drive one back in 2007.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1975 Puma GTE Sold for $29,500 on 9/29/22
Off-Road: 1992 Daihatsu Atrai Sold for $7,100 on 9/30/22
Touring: 1971 Gilbern Invader Bid to $9,500 on 9/28/22

Thanks Mike

Today is Sunday and I took my usual Sunday morning ride out to the end of Lakeshore Drive and back. This gives me a nice little 15 mile ride, but today I only made it about 4-1/2 miles. At first it sounded like I sucked a tumbleweed into my back wheel, but when I looked back, there was nothing visible, but audible was a different story – hisssssss. I had a puncture.

I did a quick U-turn thinking maybe I could ride a ways back towards home, but that wasn’t happening. As soon as I got going in that direction the air had all escaped. I walked a few steps to get out from in front of someone’s driveway and settled in to see about patching my new hole in a tube.

I’ve been carrying around a modified water bottle with flat repair stuff inside just for this occasion. It used to be on the tandem so the spare tube in there wouldn’t fit the road bike, but there was a quick patch kit, 3 tire irons and a CO2 inflater with a couple cartridges so in theory I should be able to fix my problem.

I had just removed the rear wheel (why is it always the rear wheel?) when a fellow in a Honda CRV stopped next to me and zipped down the window, “Need some help?” I replied, “Not sure, but I might.” I told him I thought that I had the stuff to fix the issue, but hadn’t really checked yet. He pulled over, walked back and asked if it would be easier if he just gave me a lift home. It took me roughly 38 milliseconds to run through the hassle of doing the work on the side of the road in my head and the possibility of failure before I said, “If it isn’t too much trouble, I’ll take that ride.”

Turns out, he is also a cyclist and knew first hand the hassle of trying to fix a flat on the side of the road and the indignity of walking several miles home pushing, not riding, your bike. And one time when he had a flat someone stopped and offered him a ride home, so this was his way of paying that fellow back and leveling the cosmic score.

Later in the morning, for a test I attempted to fix the flat with the stuff inside that water bottle. I could, but in 10 minutes in my garage, who knows how it would have gone out there in the wild.

Thanks Mike.

Car Wash Day


I got a nice mountain bike ride early this morning around Moore Park and I really should wash that thing (and then re-lube the chain) because it is quite dusty from the very dry trails. Instead, I washed both cars this afternoon.