Hey folks, I'm wondering if any of you owners in South Carolina might be able to help me (and my dad) out a little bit. This is a bit of a long story but I wanted to provide some background.

We bought an '85 GSL-SE with 70k mile back in 1992 and this thing was in excellent (truly excellent) condition. I drove this car around in high school for a couple of years then went off to college and left the car at home in Iowa. Well my parents moved to Clemson in 1998 and needless to say my dad didn't really keep up the car over the last 10 years. Basically the car began to deteriorate due to lack of use and earlier this summer he took it in to a Mazda dealership in Andersen to have the fuel pump and fuel tank replaced. When I went home for the holidays last week we went to pick up the car (yeah, it was there for months) and they told us that the catalytic convertor was bad and that once the car got up to operating temperature it would start to bog down. At the time the dealer said a new converter would run about $2000 and we weren't about to do that right now.

Driving the car back to Clemson it became apparent real quickly that something was definitely wrong. After about 10 minutes on the road the car started to stutter pretty badly and wouldn't respond to the accelerator. We were able to finally get it home and I told my dad he should try to find a decent mechanic in his area to try to diagnose the car properly. Well my dad is getting up there in years and he doesn't really know how to use the internet to track some of these things down so I thought I'd try to help him out. We want to get the car running properly mechanically as it only has about 99k miles on it right now (pretty amazing for a 23 year old car). We're going to have to get it repainted due to some oxidizing of the paint but first thing is to get her up and running smoothly again.

So I'm hoping that some of you might be able to recommend a mechanic that knows their way around the rotary engines on these older models that may be in the Clemson area. Maybe even Greenville/Spartanburg but the car would definitely have to be towed there. I just think we should get the looked over by someone that knows what to look for as I've never been comfortable with the work that dealerships do.

Secondly, do catalytic converters reallys run $2k? I was searching some threads here and found some parts retailers and they have converters anywhere from $125-$500 but I'm not mechanically inclined so I'm not sure if this is a proper replacement. Any recommendations on this? I know these questions are pretty general but I'm thinking that if we could replace the converter and at least get the car running fairly normally we could get it out to a good mechanic that can do a thorough check-up.

So if you have have any suggestions I'd really appreciate it. Sorry for the long thread but I'm hoping we can get pointed in the right direction as this is a car that we both want to get back to the condition she was once in.

BTW, if any of you are Clemson alums my pops is a professor there...just in case you might want to help out a fellow Tiger! Thanks in advance.

Damon

 

I wish I knew of a reputable mechanic in the Anderson area for you, but unfortunately the closest one I know is in Greenville. You might ask Dregg100 or RotaryBeat1287 if they know anyone as they're closer to you. Luckily there is a plethora of people in the upstate that know a decent amount about these cars, so it shouldn't be too hard to find somebody in the club that can look at it.

Unfortunately the stock catalytic converters do cost that much. There are actually 3 separate converters, one of which costs $1200.
There are aftermarket systems that work, but they generally require replacing the exhaust manifold as well.

 

There are no smog checks in SC. Take the converter out and roll.

 

That's the plan for now, but eventually I'll be bringing it out to CA so the smog check will definitely come into play.

 

Good luck with it... what does your dad teach? I'm a Clemson alumni. I bought my first RX-7 while I was down there, a '85 GSL-SE also.

I'm in Spartanburg now, I don't have any suggestions on a good mechanic but if you haven't had any luck yet I'll ask around. I know you want to stay away from the dealer in Anderson, the Greenville dealer is better I hear but I have never personally dealt with them. There is a guy in Greer that is highly recommended... I'll have to look up his name though.

 

I'm in the upstate. I don't have a shop but can help you out by either fixing the car for you or recommending someone in the area who has a shop and is very reasonable.

 

Thanks for the information everyone. I really appreciate it.

Scottt80 - My dad teaches art history and art education. He's been at Clemson since '98. I'll be hoping the basketball team can beat Wake Forest next week. They're looking pretty strong this year. If you happen to find the name of the guy in Greenville that would be great!

Aspirao - where are you located? I've sent you a pm to ask for your contact info. I'd really like my dad to connect with some folks that know their way around these engines as we work on getting the car back to the condition she was once in.