HepCat58

I picked up a 1983 GSL with 92,400 miles in Tucson, Arizona on January 5, 2015. This is my second Rx-7. My first was a brand new 1983 GS bought in October '83. I'm working on this latest one to bring it back to its former glory...I hope. One thing I've learned is it ain't cheap to bring an old Rx back to life. That being said, there is a hell of a lot of satisfaction in working on this thing myself. I've put a lot of time in my Miata and Jeep, but there's something about the 1st gen Rx-7 that demands I return to the fold. Anyway, I'm doing everything myself on this project. No outsourcing whatsoever. We'll see how it goes.

The day I bought the beast.


The very first thing I had to deal with was the dreaded "no lowbeams" problem. I removed the combo switch and cleaned up the all the accumalted crud from the last 31 years. Reinstalled and everything works fine now. I had to adjust the headlights since a PO was running with high beams only and had them all out of whack. Replaced the mismatched headlights while I was at it.


Next was the routine tune-up. Plug wires, plugs, distributor cap, and rotor. Night and day difference.

Drove it around for about a week.

Pulled into the garage to get down to business. Started stripping the paint. Pulled out the interior. All the trim. I found over two dollars in change and an earring inside! With new funding I immediately hit up Racing Beat for new springs and Carid for KYB shocks.









The biggest problem I've had were rusted bolts breaking off. Real pain. Gazillions of parts and stuff were ordered. Most have come in. It's an ongoing process though. I was really slowed down by the front suspension and steering refurb. Everything except the shocks and struts were original. What a friggin' mess. PB B'laster and heat are my friends. More pics to come.

woodmv

iTrader: (8)

Wow, nice find! Good luck with the resto - looks like you're well on your way. I'll be watching. I wouldn't know what to do with a rust free body...

Are you going to paint it yourself? Do you have any more history on the car - was the car always in AZ?

HepCat58

Thanks, woodmv. Brother, I wish it was a rust free bucket. The rear wheel wells have a good amount of rot. I'm thinkin' Mazda designed that area to maximize crud collection to ensure maximum rust development in a timely manner. That's the only major rust though.

The car came to AZ in 2003 with 89,000 on it. Evidently it sat around for 10 years baking in the desert sun. It came down from Illinois in 2003. So no surprise when I came across the rot. That's as far back in the history as I know so far.

I do intend to paint the car myself. Same with the interior and upholstery refurb. Started prepping the exterior for an epoxy primer shoot a couple of days ago.

woodmv

iTrader: (8)

That's a VERY common area for these 7's to rust. Looking at your pics I see I had to replace that and more in those areas. If yours sat for a while, I would also check the frame rails where the drain plugs are in the body as you remove the interior. In my case, after sitting for 9 + years, a mouse had made a home of the car making 3 nests - two inside the frame rails beneath those plugs and one in the rocker panel ahead of the rear passenger tire. I also had floor rust issues because the undercoating had developed some blisters which allowed the snow and salt to accumulate between the metal floor and the undercoating. It just ate away at the floors behind the seats and the torque boxes, which led to rotten floors in the footwell areas. You may want to poke around those areas to make sure you don't have the same issues since your car was from Illinois...

HepCat58

I did find a couple of places here and there to include the blistering you spoke of. Thanks for the tips! I'll start going through the other spots you mentioned. Much appreciated. Had a rat's nest in mine too. It was up in the space with the windshield wiper motor and links.

atheadwins

iTrader: (3)

"New funding" LOL.

Awesome find! I look forward to seeing everything you do to it. May I ask what you paid? Only interested being in the Tucson market myself, it's cool to see running examples on the forums!

Good luck with everything, it can be a real pain sometimes working on these but it is so rewarding, I am excited for you to get all new steering/suspension bushings in there its really worth it! Is this a manual or automatic?

Peace,
Al

HepCat58

Hi Al,

Thanks. I got it for a grand. It's a manual. Gotta have the 5 speed. Finished cleaning up the last of the front end components. Everything has been repainted that's being re-used. Waiting for a front sway bar to come in from Racing Beat. Working steady.

HepCat58

Wow...just...wow.

HepCat58

Slapped down some paint so I can start installing the front suspension and steering back in. I'll also start putting back in freshly painted light headlight assemblies and other front engine stuff. Was going to wait until later to pull the engine, but I'm thinking about just going ahead with it. Dunno. Racing Beat front sway bar is installed.

RCCAZ 1

iTrader: (10)

Looking good! Subscribing. Bought a '79 SA recently and am contemplating keeping her original OR doing a light restoration. Will be following your progress closely. Nice work so far!

woodmv

iTrader: (8)

Dang, you're not messing around!! Looks awesome. Can't wait to see more pics (you can never post too much ;-) )

HepCat58

Thanks, man. Good luck with the '79. Looking forward to seeing it!

Mike

HepCat58

Thank you, Wood! I'll get busy on the pics. Working on the front suspension this morning. Plus, I'll be cleaning up and painting those black bits supporting the radiator and condensor. Well, back to it!

Mike

HepCat58

Almost there on the suspension and steering. Have to wait for a bunch of hardware (bolts, nuts, and washers) from BD that were either missing or busted off when I dismantled the stuff. Here's the right side so far since I had enough hardware to do one side. Nothing is torqued down yet. I'll wait and do both sides together. Don't flame me, I know the End Links aren't right. Just stuck them in there for now. Gotta do a couple of weeks of work so I'll only be able to play at night until the weekends. More funds for Dixie though! Anyway, I went with RB Springs and Sway Bar with KYB struts. Other stuff, Bushings Bearings, SS Brake Lines, and Mounting Block came from various ebay sources.


What was...

The brake calipers and rotors are a project slated for spring. The rotors are pretty good. Just rusty. Well within specs. Just replacing the pads for now. Thinking about going to six inch wheels so everyone can see the cool suspension and steering gear.

HepCat58

Here's something you don't see everyday:

The old AA Rayovac air line plug trick. Developed by Foolix ****** back in late 2014...I believe. I'll have to check Wiki on that.

Foolix ****** at the R&D lab 2014.

pzr2

iTrader: (3)

HAHAHA, now that's something...

The difference is staggering. Just that wheel well shot sums up this build! I love restoring cars to their former glory. If I wasn't staring at my computer's clock, you could have tricked me into believing that you shot those pictures in 1983.

Happy hunting! Hope the rest of the build works out well. I'll be checking in later for some more restomod ****

EDIT: Hell, I forgot to mention: I'm also in Arizona! When I get my tin can running again, we should go see if the Arizona RX7 community is still kicking!

woodmv

iTrader: (8)

Wow! That looks awesome (the car I mean, not Santa). I bought the same spring/shock setup - RB springs and KYB struts. I think we're both gonna be happy. I even also painted my swaybars red!

HepCat58

Thanks for the kind words, brother! I would dig the hell out of hooking up with other rotorheads. It's so much work, but I absolutely love this thing. It would be fantastically cool to hook up with other AZ enthusiasts.

I'm with you on the restoration thing. There are a few oldies I just drool over. The Rx is one of 'em. I actually rather have older gems than the newer rides. Well, I do like the early 2000 BMW's. That's 'bout the "newest" I'll go.

Thanks again for stopping by. Look forward to future posts!

Mike

HepCat58

Much appreciated Mr. Woodmv! I was checking out your build thread this afternoon, while at what we jokingly refer to as work, and look forward to seeing more. I remember when the '79 first started showing up at the dealerships. I had a '76 Mustang II Cobra at the time and couldn't wait to get rid of it. Ended up with my second MGB though, a '78. Two years later I had the '83 Rx-7. First time I saw a '79 Rx was in Meridian, Mississippi. There was just nothing like it out there.

Hope the suspension setup performs like I hope. I guess we'll know soon enough! I've never had KYB's. I have adjustable Tokiko's on the Miata. They are okay.

pzr2

iTrader: (3)

There's an Arizona-dedicated RX7 forum of sorts, but it's been dead for a while now. The mod for that site, Digi7ech, is still screwing around this forum though. Though generally speaking, the RX7 community over here is pretty fragmented. I hardly see any at the Pavilions either. Here's to changing that!

HepCat58

Right on, pzr2! Hell, we don't have to meet up every night and swap spit. Just be nice to hook up every once and a while.

It would be a big benefit for us southern AZ rotary professsionals to come up there and pass on our superior knowledge to you city slicker Maricopa County types.

Thanks for stopping by the thread. I appreciate it.

Mike

pzr2

iTrader: (3)

Please. You have no idea how stupid some Phoenix people can be. I repeatedly had to explain to a friend that there's a difference between a GSL and a GXL. Didn't even know that the FB was the first generation of RX7....

That and all of the metro specialists packed and left. After AZRR, everyone's sort of had to bodge **** together and hope it didn't explode. I think there's this guy named Cesar somewhere, but I doubt many people know about him, considering the sorry state that all of the RX7s are on craigslists, hahaha.

But yeah. My pleasure! May the productivity be with you this coming weekend

RCCAZ 1

iTrader: (10)

..."Please. You have no idea how stupid some Phoenix people can be. I repeatedly had to explain to a friend that there's a difference between a GSL and a GXL. Didn't even know that the FB was the first generation of RX7...."

Agree with "some" of what you've said. In general, most up here in Phoenix are not "enthusiasts" which leads to misconceptions and misinformation. BTW, SA was the first gen of RX-7

Since AZRR closed 4 years ago the options have been VERY limited in Phx. Joe from Scorch Motorsports also closed his doors a few years back, so currently I only know of 2 guys building engines, one of which you mention (Cesar). He's on the NW side of Phoenix and does decent work from what I've heard. Many of us remaining enthusiasts do our own service work on the cars since dealerships have limited rotary experience, and the ones that DO are VERY expensive. Most of us with turbo rotaries use Tony at UMS for tuning.

I started Rotary Car Club of Arizona (RCCAZ) back in 2000 that grew to nearly 50 members before losing steam and disbanding two years ago. We still get together annually for our trek to So Cal for Sevenstock, and occasionally for drives with other clubs (Datsun) or a Saturday night at the Pavs. PM me if either of you are interested in getting together.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

best post ever!

pzr2

iTrader: (3)

D'oh! See, all of the misconceptions and misinformation is starting to get to me as well! Still, I think the most important part of the story was the fact that the dude didn't even know grandaddy wedge existed.

Yessir! Write me a rain check on the interim though, I'd rather show up with a functional RX7 when we meet, hahaha.

The lack of rotary specialists in Phoenix isn't being helped here on RX7Club though. Can't so much as figure out how to change your own oil without wading through 50 pages of forum arguments over what brand, weight, OCI, additives, detergents, crush washer or not, synthetic or not, torque specs, filters, and premix vs OMP . I feel genuinely sorry for the newcomers of this board, who get told to power through an endless amount of forum threads the moment they get their cars just to keep them running.

Considering I have nothing better to do during the weekdays (I can only get my hands dirty on the weekends), I've been considering setting up a website that's sort of the equivalent of a reddit ELI5 guide for newcomers. I know Icemark's FC FAQ, fc3spro.com, Aaron Cake's website, and a few other guides do exist, but it'd be nice to compile all of the information together, along with the odd update since most of it was written at least 5 years ago. My web dev friends have been doing nothing but sitting on their asses and playing smash anyways, might as well give them something to do I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw an RX7-dedicated website that didn't look like it was designed on a 90s IBM? But I digress, I'm getting sidetracked.