Hello Joe
I agree and I must say I am hugely impressed with the owners club - lots of prompt, friendly, useful responses. Thanks to Paul French up in Warrington I’ve sourced a vacuum modulator valve. But…we are not completely sorted yet - the automatic gearbox specialist I hoped to get to look at it is riduculously busy and wont even consider booking me in for about another 3 weeks!!
Now another plea for help. Has anyone got a workshop manual drawing of the automatic gearbox please? Engineer friend Peter reckons we could probably do the job ourselves if we knew exactly where everything was located.
Thank you again to everyone for replying - do you think it would be worth submitting the whole project as an article for the club magazine?
Regards Alan
That first link I posted to a thread on miata.net has some pretty good photographs showing where the valve fits onto the side of the gearbox. If that’s not enough information, then a quick search of the “Automatics” sub-forum it’s in for “white smoke” or “modulator” should reveal lots more.
The brief description of the fitting instructions I copied and pasted previously made it seem like a very straightforward swapover job - just disconnect the hose, unscrew the old valve (don’t lose the little part sitting behind it) screw in the new valve and reattach the hose.
Hello Martin You obviously know where I’ve got to with this ‘saga’. I hadn’t forgotten the link you sent me - the photographs really make it perfectly clear where everything is located. I was just being a bit ‘belt and braces’ but I would still like to have a drawing of the automatic gearbox if anyone had one. (It’s my Meccano mentality!) Regards Alan
Hello again
You’ve probably got the problem fixed. Thank you for the information on the modulator valve - I got one from the same source and was impressed with their quick delivery. We fitted the new valve this morning and after a short drive there is not a sign of smoke. If you haven’t tried to fit it yet, let me know as I might be able to point out a couple of potential difficulties
Regards Alan Moore
Hi Alan,
I have received my valve aswell and yes I was impressed by the quick delivery too.
I haven’t had chance to fit it yet due to the weather being rubbish as usual. I don’t fancy getting the car out of the garage and crawling underneath it when its cold and raining. Hopefully going to attempt it this weekend.
What are the potential difficulties I should look out for?
Glad you managed to get yours fixed and at a fraction of the price it would have cost you at the garage.
Paul
Hello Paul.
We jacked up the car from the passenger side high enough to get an old mop bucket (which is about nine inches) deep under the gearbox which, obviously, is at the centre of the car. We then supported it with axle jacks front and rear having checked about three times that the gearbox was in ‘PARK’ and the hand brake was really full on plus chocks front and rear at the off-side wheels. It might sound a bit over the top but rather that than squashed !
Having the car well up allows you to move about more easily with space for a decent light. The first problem is to locate the valve. It’s on the side of the gearbox but is virtually hidden by the exhaust. I took a photograph which I’ll get my wife to send to you later on tomorrow (she’s the digital camera expert in our house) which will give you a good idea of where it is. You will need something to ease off the rubber pipe - we used a flat blade screwdriver but be aware that this pipe may be a little brittle - mine was fine, you should be OK. You will then need a small mole wrench to release the valve. Once it was sufficiently loose we turned it by hand to remove it completely. It’s a bit fiddly but perfectly possible. At this point we expected a flood of oil but nothing came out but I haven’t yet checked the gearbox oil level - unless we get some feedback on this, I would stick with the bucket. The main thing now is to make sure the ‘O’ ring seal is there. When we took the valve out it remained in place on the ‘wall’ of the gearbox but it could come off with the valve. Making sure the ring is there you just screw the new valve in place and tighten up with the wrench. And that is it.
I took the car for a good run and almost immediately it was completely smoke free. I hope you have the same result.
Regards Alan
I haven’t forgotten the photograph but my wife is being ‘Florence Nightingale’ to a few people at the moment - you will get it ASAP. Do also read the notes Martin Young sent me, there’s lots of good information there including a reference to oil levels.
Regards Alan Moore
I changed my valve this morning, it took all of 10 minutes to do. I did get about a third of a cup of fluid leaking out when I took the valve off.
No no more white smoke and the gear changes seem alot smoother too.