Not a whole lot of progress last night. I cut the driver's side e-brake cable to get the caliper off. I started digging through the caliper, taking it apart, etc. It became apparent that there was a lot of corrosion inside the various mechanisms of the rear calipers. The Miata has a lot of extra mechanism in there to handle the e-brakes, annoyingly. One or two slide boots were just totally missing too. I'm just going to bite the bullet and get two new rear calipers, then I'll have basically an entirely refreshed braking system.
I also installed new axle seals on the rear uprights. I figured I would write up a short how-to based on my experience with this install and other installs I've done.
I split the fresh coat of paint with a razor around the edge of the axle seal.
Then I tapped a screwdriver sideways under the shoulder of the seal. This particular screw driver I have filed a little sharper just for odd jobs like this.
Then twist the screw driver to pop the seal out. Some times you need to walk to screw driver around a little and pry from a few different spots.
Clean off the seal surfaces, wire brushes and scrapers work well.
Put a thin layer of grease on the new seal to help with install and to keep the rubberized coating from tearing.
Line up the seal and use a clamp to LIGHTLY and CAREFULLY hold one side of the seal in place. The clamp does not have to be tight, just enough pressure to keep it from slipping off is enough.
To tap the seal in I used a rounded chisel about 3/4in wide. Having a rounded chisel has been quite handy for random tasks like this.
Start on one side next to the clamp and lightly tap around going in one direction. Don't jump around or try to start tapping in the seal from both sides of the clamp, the seal will usually just pop out where you're not tapping.
Once the seal has started to engage around it's entire circumference you can take the clamp off and finish tapping it in.