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Oh, hey - thank you for this. I had no idea anyone made replacement panels. The lower on the passenger side of my '79 rusted out from an antenna leak long before I got the car. It was completely Bondo at the bottom by the time I owned it! I thought I was going to have to cut up a donor vehicle.
Here is some progress with a stud welder, Wolf Steel is also willing to make any panel that you send them.
Wolf Steel is also willing to make any panel that you send them.
Someone should freight them an entire rear half.
Foiled again!
The Protege brake booster I bought a couple years ago for this TII brake conversion interferes with the u-joint from MTheory's steering kit.
What's worse is now I'm looking up boosters on RockAuto and Cardone's diaphragm measurements differ from the ones I copied the first time around I was shopping in 2019.
Example:
FB RX-7(part 532127): 8.28" now, 8.63" then
Protege (part 532528): 8.285" now, 8.75" then
I'm thinking about an Impreza booster. They're showing 8.4" now, and 8.61" in 2019. A little more than I'd like to spend but TechnoToy Tuning sells a tiny one that'll definitely fit.
It used to have Flo's labels on them, they probably were able to get to their supplier directly.
With the bigger master cylinder that's gonna be a lot more pedal effort.
Edit: Miata booster looks like the ticket. It's the same 8.28" that's now listed for the FB and it's a dual diaphragm.
Mazda just lists "8 in." size for both. They probably didn't count on an idiot trying to swap them around.
Na miata ones fit nicely in with a bit of replumbing for the Miata proportioning valve. Keith Tanner (Flyin Miata) put this thread together for a bit of background.
That's good info. I compared boost ratios from other FSMs I could find, all using the same 44 lbs of force:
FC: 3.8
FD: 13.1
Protege is 10 for the ZM engine and 12 for the FS engine, not sure which I have.
Of course there are other factors like master cylinder size. FC is smaller at 7/8", FD, TII, and Protege use 15/16" bore.
TII and FD use the same size caliper pistons front and rear as well. I'm using the FC proportioning valve and it's the same part number for all years.
I didn't pay for overnight shipping but the warehouse Rockauto shipped from was a few hours away, and the Miata booster arrived today.
It's exactly the same size as the Protege booster which is marginally bigger than the FB booster, as shown by my scientific Black&Decker fixture.
The actual issue became apparent when I had both in front of me: I need a spacer! There's a 5mm height difference in the mounting flanges. Maybe wrenching in 90+ degree heat is frying my brain.
Before buying anything else I'm going to stack washers behind the booster to test this. I also noticed there are cut outs on the stock booster where the steering shaft would go. Not sure it would make that much of a difference if I did the same.
Now to decide if the Protege booster will provide too much assist (more than the Miata's but less than the FD's), though I'll most likely choose to get my money back.
Nope, mine never had one. Parts catalog shows them for S3s. Looks like the FD spacer is still available.
I have some .26" mystery spacers in my misc bolt box and put them on the studs. Looks like it clears with a hair of space so if the spacer is any thicker than that I should be set.
The booster bolt pattern is common across different OEMs as well, but the ones I see for Toyotas and Subarus are way too thick.
My hurdle with making one would be cutting/drilling the huge hole in the middle.
I would have gone that route if the local makerspace hadn't shut down.
In 2000 I noticed that the leather steering wheel was starting to breakdown and seeing as how I'm OCD the material condition of my RX7 I decided to have rewrapped. I bought a walnut Nardi 330mm steering wheel and adapter and installed it. I sent my RX7 steering wheel and shift **** off to a place in TX to have the work done. Got them back and put the shift **** back in but really liked the smaller wood wheel so I put my newly rewrapped steering wheel in my RX7 cruise box along with my other spare goodies. Fast-forward to 2006 when I retired from the military and had my finale PCS move (can you see it coming?) the cruise box with all my RX7 **** and new steering wheel was gone. I was not very happy but you can't do **** about situations like that because the movers don't give a **** and the military doesn't hold them accountable. For close to 15 years I have been looking for "complete" donor 3 spoke RX7 steering to have refurbished for my GSL-SE that didn't cost a fortune, and recently found one on eBay for $99.00 and was only missing the horn pad and bought it. I also picked up a brown horn pad of of eBay that cost almost as much as the steering wheel. Went to find the place in TX to ship it to them and the company doesn't exist anymore so I found another place in TX that also does that type of work (craftcustoms.com.) I was checking their website out and looked at their gallery pictures of work done and I found a picture of a Burgundy 1985 RX7 steering wheel and I swear it was my wheel from 23 years ago. Sent them an email and explained the situation and found out it's the same company with a different name now and yes it was my steering wheel in the picture. So I shipped the donor wheel to them and got it back this week and had a guy I know dye the brown horn pad to match the steering wheel and I think it turned out well. I am one happy-camper that's for sure!
Swapped out the turn signal light wipers emergency switch control assembly. Dropped $277. But before I figured out that's what I needed, I ordered the combi switch, dropping $138 from rockauto. Mazdatrix has the combi switch NLA.
But it looks like the same one that Mazda Truck b2000 uses for $20. And the entire assembly looks like it also for $120.
Can anyone verify this? Not that it matters, because that assembly it replaced is almost 40 years old.
This one? It looks correct.
Only ones I see NLA on Mazdatrix is 81-83 with cruise control and 79-80.
I got by for a couple years just cleaning the contacts inside. But last year a plastic piece inside broke off so I bought the whole deal because the wiper stalk was also malfunctioning.
yes, that's the exact one ! The entire assembly needed to be replaced because the turn signal worked, but the rotator part for parking/headlights was mush. It's ball bearing housing was crumbly. Also Rockauto said that it was the last combi switch, so I ordered it, after which Rockauto said it had one left ? ? ?
I was talking about the combi being NLA, now I don't see it at all on mazdatrix's website.
Now I'm obsessed! Can b2000 combi's and assembly's be used on rx-7 fb's?
Last edited by midnight mechanic; Jun 25, 2023 at 10:11 AM.
I'm surprised that one of us who has rx-7 OCD doesn't order the b2000 one from Autozone, and checks it in the store against the part on their car that they removed.
This is academic now because my new headlight turn signal assemby should last 40 years like the OEM did.
I've got TII seats in mine as well. I put the old seats in to take it to the body shop and was surprised how much taller the sitting position is, totally didn't remember that!
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