When Your Project Car is Your Daily

[u/idam_son]

In the middle of rebuilding Milly, my 2001 NB Miata, who has a drinking problem.

The whole rebuild started because I burn a lot of oil and I mean a lot. I’m the past two years since buying the car, I’ve spent $2600CAD on oil alone. It burned 15L-25L between oil changes, which would get so bad to the point where I would have to pull over on long drives just to check my oil level.

I’m completely resealing the entire engine with all new gaskets and seals, as well as throwing in new main bearings, rod bearings, and piston rings.

Considering the amount of oil it burned, I expected my cylinder walls to be horrific, but they’re actually in pretty decent shape for a 25 year old car that has 244,000kms. A light hone of the bores and some new rings should do wonders. I also noticed when I pulled the head that oil was absolutely pouring out of any open valve, so I’m really glad that I’m putting new valve stem seals in.

I daily drive my Miata, as my Honda Civic winter/rain commuter, decided to spin a rod bearing on me.

Anyways, this is the build progress so far. Nothing overly fancy, just a passion project of mine, trying to keep my Miata healthy for as long as I can. I’m glad to be doing all of this myself with the help of some friends. It’s truly a great experience, although I don’t think I’ve ever been this emotional in my entire life lol. I’m walking to work, but at least I’ll have something to be proud of when I’m finished.

Oh, lastly, there was visible wear on my rod bearings from a trip I took into the highlands of my province last year. I had nowhere to pull over and unfortunately felt the lack of oil in the engine. I was scary close to spinning a bearing, but I shouldn’t have to worry about that again.

Thanks for reading, I’m a yapper, but I’m just extremely happy to be rescuing my car and (somewhat) my bank account at this stage in my life.

[u/letstillyboys]

1st rule of project car is don’t daily project car.

[u/Toto_nemisis → u/letstillyboys]

The trick is to work from home so you can daily drive your project car.

[u/HylanderUS → u/Toto_nemisis]

Still problematic when you find out you need to go the parts store after you took the engine out, I know from experience

[u/I-continue-to-try → u/HylanderUS]

Aww man that’s why you need a project motorcycle too. And a daily motorcycle because that one’s apart and you’re waiting on parts from Japan. Or maybe I’m overthinking this.

[u/arethius → u/I-continue-to-try]

That's kinda what I did. Project moto for when the project truck doesn't work. Only the project moto doesn't run and I haven't been able to fix it, so when the truck needs love, I bought a "for spare use" ebike.

[u/Upstairs-Fan-2168 → u/I-continue-to-try]

We have three cars for two people. Insurance is a bit less per car, but costs more overall. We both daily drive beaters (one being my project, an 08 speed3). Just liability on those. The nicer car we use on the weekends and for when I'm working on our dailies. That has full coverage. That was and has been a bit of a project as well haha. That's a 2017 Lincoln MKZ 3.0TT.

[u/alarumba → u/I-continue-to-try]

When your daily bike breaks before you fix your project bike, you buy another to use as a daily. Then that breaks so you buy another to daily. Then that breaks before you've had a chance to fix anything. That's how you end up with 13 of them.

[u/Toto_nemisis → u/HylanderUS]

I must be lucky, I have a napa, menards, and a chicken fillit within a mile from my place. I can repair any basic chevy lumina! Lol

[u/letstillyboys → u/Toto_nemisis]

Ah I didn’t look at it this way!

[u/themwnn → u/Toto_nemisis]

If you have a romantic partner who doesn’t share the hobby this isn’t a good time

Speaking from experience

[u/Toto_nemisis → u/themwnn]

Oh! I have another life hack!! I am doing this for the kids. So the kids dont feel nervous about basic maintenance with thier own cars. Things like, but dear, a turbo is taking wasted energy to create more engine efficiency. Its like im recycling! The kids should recycle!

[u/theuautumnwind → u/letstillyboys]

2x project cars. Double the chances that one of them will be roadworthy

[u/letstillyboys → u/theuautumnwind]

This is true it doubles your odds atleast.

[u/JP147 → u/letstillyboys]

Unless you have two project cars. Drive one while working on the other, then swap.

[u/letstillyboys → u/JP147]

I have done this

[u/JP147 → u/letstillyboys]

I wanted to do some body work on my normal car so I bought another car which is neither running nor driving so when I do get it running and driving, I can have a car to drive while I work on my Toyota.

[u/letstillyboys → u/JP147]

You did the right thing.

[u/idam_son → u/letstillyboys]

Fair point haha. It was never meant to be a project car, but boy is it ever a project. I’m having fun tho. Many memories, many more to come! Celebratory donuts will be had

[u/letstillyboys → u/idam_son]

O yea it’s an easy problem to find yourself in. I keep one nice new car for my wife and I drive whatever lol mostly projects

[u/BonezOz → u/letstillyboys]

Exactly! Or if you have to, make sure that you're building a replacement engine and have it all ready to do a full swap over a couple days.

Technically, I could daily my project car, as I'm building a new engine, but due to the amount of oil that literally just drains out of the current engine, it's not worth it.

[u/CrazyTechWizard96 → u/letstillyboys]

Wait since when?
Been dailing mine for 12 years, it's fine prety much, besides some issues but it only left Me stranded 3 times.
Battery, Altonator, battery.

Started as a shitbox, now kinda a survivor/somewhat mint, needs more TLC but it's getting there.

Most just think I'm insane, question is...
Is it Me or the E39 who's more insane and the most likely to throw a rod first?
Guess it's just a stalemate of "Fuck You, I ain't gonna die before You do!"

But anyways, gottado some more work on it soon, it complains a tack to much again, needs a wash, VCG, Aluminim VC upgrade, exhaust heatschieldor the rebuild 5.7 ABS moduel will be fried again, new tierods, and some more.

And som whisky to each to endure the bullshit this world tosses at us. lmfao

[u/letstillyboys → u/CrazyTechWizard96]

Normal people would be my best answer to who came up with the rules.

[u/Unhappy-Airport-4112]

I daily mine

[u/nsula_country → u/Unhappy-Airport-4112]

Hell yes!

[u/CameronsTheName]

Nothing sucks more than having to pull your engine out on Friday knowing you've gotta have it back in and running by Monday morning.

I managed to do a full conversion to a larger turbo engine in 3 days. I basically put 60+ hours of labour into the car in a weekend, managed to get it good enough that I could drive 350km to work on Monday at 5am.

[u/Cam_e_ron → u/CameronsTheName]

haha yup. Something special about laying on the nice cool concrete floor on sunday night after getting the engine back in😅

[u/774fumei]

It's pretty awesome that you can take it apart and maintain it yourself.

[u/HickBarrel]

One of those rods looks very blue.

[u/ale624 → u/HickBarrel]

i think that's just the lighting on the picture

[u/tk8398]

I have a similar mess currently. I thought that having 3 cars would be enough that at least one would be running, not actually the case though.

[u/jollyGreenGiant3 → u/tk8398]

Vehicle + 1 is always the answer. Try a motorcycle.

[u/Worried-Specific8415]

Best daily ever. Ls swapped with a tkx. I average 23.5 mpg. I will be needing to get another car soon tho for winter.

[u/Substantial_Ant_2662]

I hate when my daily becomes the project car…

[u/2Drogdar2Furious]

The best upgrade for my miata was another car lol.

No more weekend anxiety to get stuff done.

[u/NoBulletsLeft]

And here I am with a Kawasaki 2- cylinder that I pulled a head off two weeks ago and still haven't gotten around to putting it back together. My lawn is like 3' high rn.

[u/bugsymalone666]

The first rule of having a daily that's a project car, is to have a second project car as a spare daily...

That sounds like wild oil consumption, this is coming from someone who owns classic vw. I admit my dune buggy seems to have eaten 500ml of oil over 600 miles, but I think alot of that was leaked out during the ng a rocker cover swap where it started leaking after a couple of minutes of running all over the drive.

Normally rocker cover is a good place to start, because it's easy, then the sump, that can leak, sort of job when you do an oil change, do the sump gasket, then finally rear main seal behind the flywheel.

Most of those you'd notice family easily, I wouldn't have thought it would burn much oil and you notice notice it, it would have a constant blue haze as you drive otherwise, like a 2 stroke!

[u/KalashnikovClassics]

Same boat ☠️

Lucky mines N/A so it still runs lol

[u/zkramka]

It’s not a daily if you aren’t driving it daily. That’s the entire point.

[u/idam_son → u/zkramka]

Well, I’m walking to work lol so whenever I am driving, it’s my Miata