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I drove the Miata this afternoon. It is looking great. It is still very clean from being washed last Sunday afternoon. The tires are nice and shiney black. The windshield is sparkling clean. The Dodge pickup is still clean as well. It turns out it is really white, not the nice tan color it has been for the last year. I hope get the other truck put back together reasonably soon so I can bet the
Dodge back in the garage with it.

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One week later and I was back to the same point - ready to torque down the rod caps. The Haynes book says 45 ft-lbs. I torque one set down to 10 ft-lbs and the crank shaft gets a lot tighter. After torqueing the second set down to 10 ft-lbs, I can no longer rotate the crank shaft even using a pry bar for leverage. Insert expletive here!

So at this point I start trying to figure out what is wrong. Doh! The parts store sent me home with 0.020 Rod Bearing rings instead of the 'standard size'. My understanding at this point is that the 0.020's are thicker to accomodate the rod journals on the crank shaft being ground down 0.020 of an inch. Assuming this is true that would account for the tightness. I hope this hasn't marr'ed the rod bearing journal on the crank shaft.

As you already know, before I got started on this project, I had not really done anything like this before. I am not an expert but I sure am learning a lot. Unfortunately some of the learning is being done the hard way.

I will seek counsel tomorrow on whether the bearing size is the problem or not. Tune in later for more mind 'boring' details. (Boring-piston-ha!) Assuming it is the problem I will be out $21 dollars for another set of rod bearings. Someone will have to be responsible for this fiasco. I am thinking the guy at the parts store is a good candidate.

I suspect I will be pulling the pistons back out yet again. I am getting pretty good at re-installing them.

I had a couple of guys recommend that I go ahead and replace the oil pump while I had the engine apart. The oil pressure was fine before I took the engine apart. On the other hand the pump is inexpensive. Having to replace it later could be very time consuming. I purchased a replacement oil pump today ($13.99). I am attempting to learn from others advice here rather than learning this one the hard way.

One final note for today about that engine. The original rod bearings have a manufacturing date stamped on them of 7-84. Before I believed the engine was made between 1980 and 1984. Now I believe it was made in late 1984. (The new 0.020" bearings are stamped 01-04.)