Daniel and Gail (pictured driving the Sunbeam on the 
header photo) decided that a pretty sports car would be nice to have for summer trips to the Cape. But they live in the city without a tool-stocked garage so an English car from the 1960s was out of the question. What is reliable and fun? A Mazda Miata.
Miata’s have been around since 1990 and they have been popular. Finding a used one in Daniel’s price range couldn’t be that hard. But most in the Boston area were rusted, so I offered to look in Maryland. Not quite a southern state or California, but perhaps better than New England. We found the eggplant colored example on Craigslist near our home, and I made an appointment to see it last weekend.
As luck would have it, the weather turned cold (very) so demand for convertibles was weak.
The previous owner gave Daniel and Gail five quarts of oil, a filter, and a water pump. He suggested that we change the timing belt as preventive maintenance since he didn’t know when it was last replaced.
I offered to do the work for Daniel because, as mentioned, he does not have access to a garage and because he is busy with school work. Besides, Daniel had 
changed the timing belt on the Subaru engine in our 818 kit car, so I owed him a timing belt change. The job is straightforward: Lock the camshafts using adjustable wrenches and a visegrip, take off a lot of pieces, and then make sure the timing marks align. It is also a good idea to replace the water pump since access is easy once the timing belt has been removed.
The Miata is a bit more complicated than the Sunbeam, and there is not much room under the hood. I dropped a nut and a bolt during disassembly, only one of which I have recovered. Dropping nuts and 
bolts on the Sunbeam is not a problem unless they land in a puddle of oil under the car.
To the right is the front of the engine with the new timing belt installed. The white lines on the sprockets are timing marks used to set rotational orientation. The white marks are typewriter correction fluid (Whiteout), a tip taken from the Sunbeam workshop manual. Some good ideas persist despite technology.
Sunbeam 