[Miata] Dead CAS (follow-up)

[Dean Woodward]

When I last checked in, my car had been exhibiting symptoms of a broken 
wire in the CAS harness- intermittent cut-out for random periods, then 
mysteriously coming back. Then it just died...

A $100 tow to a dealer, $85 for diagnostics, told me what I more or less 
knew anyway- this was an ex-CAS. More specifically, one of the pins on 
the CAS side of the connector was broken- he could make it make contact, 
but it didn't want to normally. The service writer said it was the first 
time they'd ever seen a car with an honestly defunct CAS. They were 
completely understanding that I didn't want to pay the $680 (plus labor) 
to install one, so it was another $100 to get it home.

Flyin' Miata (and Keith) to the rescue with a replacement for $100, plus 
a new seal (plus shipping). It took a couple weeks or so after it 
arrived to get around to installing it. What I got was a CAS for a 1.6, 
but the car doesn't care. The only gotcha was, since the housing is 
different, I had no basis to employ the timing marks I'd carefully made 
when I took the old CAS off. Magically, I got the new one spot-on with 
where I wanted it timed first try, the car started up immediately, and 
after a little exteneded HLA noise from not running for over a month, 
has done nothing but purr ever since.