Parts for car recovery and other

I’m an NA Miata owner. For those not hip to the language, that’s the first generation of the cars. We have NA, NB, and NC so far. Anyway, I’m an NA Miata owner. I love pop up headlights. I love the simplicity. I love everything about them. They really appeal to me and I’ll likely always own one. I’ve done nearly everything you can with an NA Miata, maintenance-wise. I don’t need manuals anymore, except for torque specs. I’m one with the NA.

So when it came time to change the timing belt on Sarah’s new-fangled NB Miata, I started to research the differences and how to do it. See, there’s this wacky cam timing thing over the intake cam. A lot of searching on miata.net forums didn’t turn up a single how-to in easy language on changing a timing belt on an NB2. I *did* find a dozen little separate snippets of info and tried to piece them together. So here you go, an NB2-specific timing belt change.

You might notice the engine bay is a little yucky. Poor Bucky doesn’t get quite the obsessive treatment that Sharka does. But we’ll have a cleaner engine bay in just a few paragraphs…

Before you start, you’ll need an NB timing belt kit. Mine came with one smaller cam seals and one larger cam seal. The larger one goes on the intake cam. I also got a front crank seal, a timing belt, an NB2 valve cover gasket, and a timing belt tension spring. I also ordered the alternator and a/c accessory belts and a water pump kit that came with the pump and two gaskets.

Things that did NOT come with my kit that I didn’t need but was worried about: The little copper washers for the oil line on the back of the valve cover (pictured later) and any extra gaskets for the timing control system. Don’t worry about this stuff! You’re fine reusing parts.

I also did a fuel filter change. This way-annoying job did NOT get photographed, but here’s a few tips. Order two spare quick-connect clips. They’re Mazda part number T032-42-694 and don’t come with the replacement fuel filter (BP4W-13-4809U). Apply those to your new fuel filter before starting the job and you’ll not lose much fuel at all. If you have to switch the clips from the old filter to the new, you get a stream of fuel piddling out for how ever long it takes. But back to the timing belt change.

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