It is very common to smell gas fumes after letting a Miata sit for a while. It usually happens when the gas tank is more full. This can be caused by a couple of things, but what seemed to fix my problem was cleaning out the check valve. This is located on the top of the gas tank behind the seats. When functioning properly the ball inside the valve should move freely. It can get gummed up over time not allowing the ball to move freely and causing fumes to leak out!
We made a video to show you how to access this check valve. I tackled the issue while I was replacing the top as the rear carpeting was already removed!
It was time to fix the door cards on the Miata. The standoffs were broken and brittle due to the age of the car. I found an elegant solution to this by using 2-part epoxy! We were able to trim up the old stand offs and replace them with fresh standoffs molding the epoxy within some tubing.
We had an absolute blast participating in Crown Rally 6. It was our first experience with Crown Rally and it was an absolute blast. It started off downtown Saint Paul with an overcast day and a light drizzle. Over 100 cars took off and headed to towards Iowa with a few checkpoints along the way. It was fun thrashing back roads on our way to Cedar Rapids Iowa.
This day started off great, but half way down we started to notice a loud thud within the car. We pulled over to asses the situation, but without jack stands or a lift we couldn’t determine what the problem was. We had just recently installed a downpipe and midpipe which required us to loosen the subframe as well as remove the prop shaft from the car.
Finally around 5pm we had reached Cedar Rapids and quickly got on the radio to ask around for a jack and jack stands. @therealnomnom was gracious in lending us some tools and a jack to determine what our problem was. It turns out that driving aggressively for the day had allowed our subframe bolts to become loose. There was significant play in the subframe by the time we reached Cedar Rapids and I’m amazed the car didn’t fall apart. “I’ve driven my fair share of broken cars before” Charlie said with confidence.
Here is the re-cap from our first day on the rally!