Mine must have been redone a while ago then. They're way more faded than the original ones in that picture, but they aren't chipped. They match the visual age of the car anyway, though, so it's not all bad.




On topic of actually getting my car on the road again, I ordered a collection of hoses and suspension bits about a week ago and they probably won't arrive for another week or two, so at least for now, I don't expect to have any useful updates for a while.

 

Your stripes look a lot different from Banzais' pics thats for sure.

Banzai, originally the stripes were decals right? Did you find NOS decals or have them
reproduced by hand painting them on?

 

Yes, OEM stripes were cut out of vinyl and applied. Mine are cut from a file. The file was constructed from measurements taken at various points on the car for both the stripes width and spacing BTW them. Information was verified from a couple other original stripe cars to include the Corzett Limited in CA, mentioned elsewhere in this thread. There was a lot of effort and attention to detail put in, to make sure they are as true to original as possible.

 

Has anyone worked out a good replacement for the cheap plastic hinge on the armrest? I'm not sure there's enough space to put an ordinary metal hinge there, and it doesn't look like anyone sells the original, just the later ones with two metal arms instead of one. I've been poking around the simple interior bits while the seats are out and spent far too much time sort-of fixing this with tape yesterday.

In other news, I got a fairly reasonable estimate a few days ago and plan on getting the seats completely re-foamed by an upholstery shop and replacing the covers with a set from racing beat. I couldn't match the colors exactly if I wanted to, so I figure I'd rather have something I chose than something that isn't really original anyway.

 

ah well excuse me, beat black i suppose.
ours has the same strips.. although i havent looked closely enough to see if ours are painted or vinyl

 

Unless you just want new foam, you can sometimes find good seat foam at the
junkyard. Any 7 from 79 to 83, they all had the high back seats. I grabbed a pair of seats
from an 83 for $75 when I redid my seats and they were almost like new compared to mine.
Swapped the foam onto my frames and then put on the RB covers. They look great
and feel wonderful.

Details in this link: https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati...y-kit-1071159/

 

I somewhat doubt I'll be able to find an RX7 in a junkyard around here at all, let alone one with good seats, but I might look around when I have a chance. Thanks for the thread on installing those covers, I had already stumbled across it and it looks like it will be very helpful. (Haven't decided if I'll have the covers installed or try doing it myself yet.)

I'll certainly have the time... It looks like the car is going to be sitting for the next couple months. Long story short, I was expecting to slowly pick up tools and experience as I went, but it looks like I'll need to have the carb and probably the gas tank redone before I can even drive it. Admittedly, for most of you that probably sounds like nothing but I have zero experience beyond changing brakes and oil and no tools besides a few sockets and a jack. Cost isn't a concern, but it's going to be veeery slow going.

On the bright side, the bushings and all the coolant hoses arrived today so I'll at least have something to work on when I get a free weekend (which won't be for a couple weeks...)

 

Yea they are black from the factory, when I picked up my rx7 the windshield surrounds were In the same flaking condition. Paint them satin black to bring them back to life.

 

"..... have zero experience beyond changing brakes and oil and no tools besides a few sockets and a jack...."

Hey dude, YOU ARE GOOD TO GO! Just block the wheels with cinder blocks, tin cans, or wheel blocks. And after jacking up the car, support it with jack stands, or wooden blocks and boards. Wooden blocks and boards cannot be beat for stability. But give your car a good push and pull before crawling under it. Think earthquakes

 

So, short update:

With a bit of assistance, got the gas tank and carb out today. Carb is full of dirt/gunk, but it doesn't look like rust. Same goes for the gas tank, the inside isn't exactly rusty, just dirty, probably from sitting for so long. I suspect it sat with a full tank of very old gas and someone started it without emptying the tank first.

I'm going to get the carb rebuilt and find a shop to redo the gas tank. Should I worry about the fuel pump being full of gunk as well? It works fine, but I don't want it dumping dirt into a freshly rebuilt carb.

I was surprised to find absolutely zero rust behind the gas tank or anywhere under the car, so good news all around. The undercoating the original owner had done is starting to peel off in the wheel wells though so I'll probably repaint that at some point.

I'm having a local upholstery shop redo the seats in leather, should get them back in a few weeks.

I'm also working on finding a more accurate history of the car. Ohio has public title records for it back to 2001. This car covered a total of 500 miles from 6/15/2001 to 2/2016, only being transferred once during that time (inheritance). I'd need to have someone track down physical titles for anything earlier than that, but it does confirm that it has been sitting for at least fifteen years, and there's a reasonably good chance the 75k original miles is accurate.

 

If the gas tank has sat with nothing (or little) in it, these metal tanks have a nasty habit of shedding their innards into the fuel with age. Since you are going to the trouble to (correctly) get the tank professionally cleaned (rad shops do this) I would advise a follow up of getting the tank's inside walls coated to prevent future rust/shedding issues. I have used POR15's gas tank coating kit ($30?) that an owner can apply. $ and time well spent.

Stu Aull
80GS (w POR'd tank)
Alaska

 

you can get carb rebuild kits either from black dragon or just your local autozone.

you can clean the gas tank yourself if you feel like it. once the pump is out, get some stuff from home depot... the name is escaping me, but it's strong stuff. acidic level of like 1 iirc, I use it for motorcycle tanks

between that, carb rebuild kit, I would also replace the fuel filter that is located under the car by the external fuel pump. just under the driver door on the inside of the frame rails and just back a little more, so I guess under the rear storage container driver side. has a cover over it iirc. GL man

 

Is the fuel level sender gasket the same for a 79 as it is for later years?

Mine was in pretty sorry shape when I took the sender out. The sender itself looks a lot like the ones for later years but I don't know if the gasket is the same.

Also, how do you remove the fuel vapor valve? Does it take some sort of special tool? I see a circle of six holes, but no screws. I don't want to break the thing getting it off but I would imagine whatever is used to clean out the tank would eat into it. The valve I'm talking about is labeled as 1 is this picture:

 

Sender? Nope- unique to 1978-80 SA model...tho the gasket is the same...
8871-60-962A

The check valve is illustrated in the Parts Book as being held in place by a "grommet".
So...pressed in? Since it just sits up on the tank with no load, this is possible.
I pulled mine years ago and recall no problem taking this out...

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Thanks, I didn't think of trying to just pull it out, was afraid I'd tear the rubber part. My sender is fine, it's just the gasket I'll need to replace.

I replaced all the vacuum lines (well, the ones that were the same size at both ends) yesterday and cleaned up the engine a bit, it's nothing special but I think I've gone from looking like it "sat in a shed for forty years" to just plain "forty years old". Progress. Now I just need to actually get it running...



(and yes, there is more than just that rag covering the intake)

 

Took the carb apart this weekend with some assistance, and found a pretty serious problem (and it unfortunately doesn't explain no idle).

The secondaries are rusted shut.

Sooo, has anyone ever seen anything like this before? The plates look like they're made of brass or something I wouldn't expect to rust, but they and the body itself have a very thin layer of rust on them. Since these should be a very tight fit I imagine it doesn't take much rust to lock them up.

I haven't been able to free them easily. I suspect that using a hammer would be a very bad idea. Maybe soaking in WD-40 or something similar? Or using heat? Using a torch on a stuck bolt is one thing, but I'm not sure I'd want to do that to the carb base though.

I should have taken a picture while the carb was still dry, it's hard to see from this one, but:





I should probably add that this is on a family members workbench a few hours from me so I won't actually be able to get back to it for a week or two.

 

Finally got my seats back, pretty big improvement I'd say. I know they're not the originals, but no shop could match the originals exactly anyway, and I'm probably not alone in preferring leather to cloth. All in they were a bit under $1k, not bad for a lot of new foam and leather (well, leather fronts, fake leather bolsters/sides).





Also finished the carb rebuild, but I'm still waiting on getting the gas tank back (don't have a truck so getting it to and from a shop on a workday is problematic).

Rebuilding the carb was simpler than I expected, although maybe I shouldn't say that before knowing if it works... I ended up not replacing the needles and seats because the replacements were clearly a different size and I would have needed to bend the floats pretty far to get the right adjustment.

The secondaries came loose pretty easily after soaking for a week. Seeing as I thought the car was running pretty well when they were stuck shut it should be great once they're actually working.

I used the GP sorenson kit that I've seen mentioned here a few times and a bucket of carb cleaner to soak stuff in. Only real concern was that the needles/seats weren't the same size and I had to trim the sight glass gaskets.

 

the #1 rule of ANY 12a carb rebuild is NEVER use the NEW needle and seats, always reuse the old ones if at all possible