12A startup - a must read
 

I thought I needed to share this with you fellow first gen drivers. A bit of background ; I have no formal mechanical training, everything I have learnt about my rx7 has been thru the heynes manual and from this website. Not many rx7's around here in Cape Town, South Africa. Anyway, I decided to put a rex together in stock standard form. Managed to get a used 12A with no history so don't know how long it was standing. All parts were there though. Working alone on weekends i painstaking pieced her together. This weekend past it all came together. Time to put in oil, water and the battery and then try and fire her up. Put in the oil....and it went straight down onto the floor. My first thought was that the drain plug was not tight. I tried to tighten it but it was tight. then saw what that it was cracked. this delayed me by a few hours cos i had to take the sump off and get someone to weld it up. Sunday put the sump back, in went the oil, no leaks. Put in the water, and out it came. one hose perished. sourced another hose. in went water and coolant. no leaks. Now for the moment of truth. connected up the battery. at first everything looked fine then shock horrow....the choke cables started melting. WTF ! Oh hell i thought....short circuit somewhere. there goes the fuses, fusible links, etc, etc, i',m never going to get this thing to start now. disconnected battery, went inside to have a beer. came back relaxed. then started going backwards thru all the wiring connections i had done. started with the starter. and hey presto, there is what looked like the problem. cable from the battery was scuffing against bell housing. I twisted it right and insulated it. then put starter back in and wired up battery again. waited for the choke cable to sizzle. NOTHING. then went around to driver seat and turned the key. Ignition on, and what a huge relief, all warning lights on. And I could hear the petrol pump whirring away in the rear. Turned the key to get the engine swinging over. she turned....but no start. Checked the plugs. All fouled up with petrol. cleaned them off, deflooded her. plugs back, tried to start again. again, no start, checked plugs, fouled up again. getting despondent now. what is wrong ? cleaned the plugs. read on the forum that some guys throw in some atf to loosen things up a bit. so I threw some multigrade oil into the carb and squirted some into the plug holes. also threw some fresh petrol into the tank and into the carb. plugs back in....turn the key....sounding better now....some smoke coming out the back....about to start...then YES!!!! she fired up ! lots of smoke...then clear. Boy what a lovely sound. Oil pressure gave a good reading, temperature gauge gave a good reading. she then settled down to a nice steady idle and revved freely. maybe i was just lucky, i dunno. I just had to share this with you guys.

Congradulations!! Excellent story... glad to hear you got it running and welcome to the forum!

Well done. :)

nice nice, must of been kind hard finding engine in cape town.

hey bud ... sounds like me ... took the car out of the junk yard and had really almost no clue about working on cars ... but every thing seems to be a pita ... if you just sit down for a sec and think about it thing just come together by themselfeves almost. get some pictures going ... let see this beat now ;)

A huge white cloud of smoke never looked so good hey?

Great story, glad it fired up for you

Congrats! Awsome Story... Would love some picture sometime. Take good care of her, he was ment to be with you. :bigthumb:

Good Job
 

AMAZING. Congrats on the new found toy! lol. go have fun with her and remember, CHANGE THE OIL OR SHE WILL DIE. lol. have fun :bigthumb:

Yet another 7 brought back from the edge. Nice job man! :)

Sounds like your starter may have been a little sluggish. Anyway, it's great you got it running. It's always a cool feeling. :)

w00t another rotary back on the road, congradulations!

GREAT JOB man, but this statement worries me...coming from a very electrical background, LOL!

as you know the starter has the solenoid on top of it. the whole thing mounts pretty close to the gearbox bellhousing. The positive cable from the battery connects to the terminal on the solenoid furthest from the gearbox. however, somehow i had twisted the cable so that it actually ran along the bellhousing. this must have happened when i wiggled the starter into place from underneath the car. also the end of that cable where the round clip is connected had some wire exposed. So yeah what i suspect was happening was that somehow this positive cable was causing a short with the gearbox. Hence I had to twist it right when I re-installed the starter so it it didn't run near the gearbox this time, and then also insulated it as well to make sure. Why the rubber sheath around the choke cable started melting is still beyond me. Maybe in the whole circuit this was the one of least resistance and therefore the cable heated up the most causing the sheath to melt. I dunno....just have basic electrical knowledge.

the one thing i'm really pleased about is the general condition of the car. yes there is rust (to be expected as living at the coast and over 20 years old) but most of the electrical things I've checked so far works. eg. pop up headlights, buzzer when you leave the lights on, boot release, petrol flap release, both electric windows, the hazards, the indicators, the brights and the lights. the only thing that doesn't work is the electric rear view mirror.

but you guys must watch this space....the threads i've been studying now has a title 'TII swap into GSL-SE' although i think this one could be just a little bit beyond me.....methinks this is a swap best left to the professionals.

The more you work on the car and the more time you spend on the forum and reading the manuals, the closer you will get to where you want to be. Don't count your skill out on the TII swap. You sound tenacious enough that you will get there with time and education.

Add 8-10oz. of 2-cycle (motorcycle) oil to every fillup, and keep your eye on the temp gauge: overheating kills rotarys. So, as preventative medicine, take a look at that heater hose that runs under the 'beehive' oil cooler. If it's soft or rotten replace it. Easiest is to get the pre-formed Mazda part, but lacking that you may find a 5/8" hose at your local autostore (reputedly for a Mustang) that has the right bend to go on that infernal fitting under the beehive, but lacking that you can actually get a standard 5/8" hose on that @#$%$# fitting: I described it somewhere in this forum.

If, in spite of precautions, you DO overheat your rotary, the internal O-ring seals may get fried and water leaks into the combustion chamber causing hard-starting in the morning, and clouds of white smoke. But we have a 'temporary' fix for that which will last about a year.

B