my first rx7...got some questions
 

hello everyone my name is eric and i just came home with my first rx7, an 85 gsl! i'm pretty excited about it but i got some little things i have to work with so hopefully everyone can help me

i was gonna put my stereo in and the first thing i see is this mess
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image003.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image004.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image005.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image007.jpg

can anyone tell me what these wires are for? thanks

also the headlights popped up but they wont go back down? whats the problem with that?

all u need to do is find a switched 12v in all that mess and run ur own speaker wires.

headlights are more than likely the fuseable link under the hood. when I first bought mine I would always have that problem. off the top of my head I cant remember which of the 3 is the headlight motors, but I would start there. they are located right beside the ignition coils. mine were very loose and would fall right out of the connectors. you may have the same problem.

Wow. That's a mess. First, at the base of the shifter, don't plug the black wire into the red wire. It will fry your dash light dimmer switch the first time you turn on the lights. Those wires are for the auto tranny shifter illumination light. The four terminal plug is for A/T overdrive. Neither is used on manual trans. I think the blue and green wired plug at the ignition switch is for the ignition key illumination light if it has Blue/yellow and Green/blue wires. It is for the ignition key reminder switch if the wires are Blue/yellow and Green.

The other plugs appear to be the stereo plugs. There are 4 stereo related plugs in that area.

J-03 is a 3 terminal plug. Red/green is for illumination dimmer. Blue/green is power antenna relay trigger. Blue is switched if Jumper is in J-04. Plugs into back of stereo.

J-04 has 6 terminals. Two are empty. Blue/yellow is constant 12v. Red/green is illumination. Blue/white is switched 12v. Blue is jumped to Blue white unless you have the top of the line stereo. Plugs into back of stereo.

J-05 is a single terminal with a Blue/yellow wire. It is constant 12v. Plugs into back of stereo.

J-10 is 4 terminal plug for the front speakers. Blue/green and Blue/white are left speaker. Blue/yellow and Blue/red are right speaker. Plugs into another plug.

Wiring manuals are here.
http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=rx7manual

Oh yeah. Check that the switch on the dash is off (down), then check the third fuse towards the front of the car from the driver's seat on the left side of the fuse box. That circuit powers the "down" headlight function. 12V to the Red/yellow wire in the retractor plug will cause both headlights to go down in an emergency.

ok so i found out that i have a wiring mess in the back as well, i guess it was a failed attempt at a kill switch or something, theres a blk/gold wire cut, 2 blue/yellow wires, and the red going to the parking lights had been cut and spliced, 2 red/green wires, so i connected everything back together and my dash or parking lights do not work still because everytime i try and put the fuse in for them it sparks and i discovered a whole ashtray full of blown fuses!!!! :(:( helppp

Pictures and I'll help you figure it out.

In the tail light plugs... Red/green is tail lights. Red/white is back up lights. Green/red is left turn. Green/orange is right turn. Green is Brakes. Black is ground (at the rear hatch latch).

i certainly dont know the ins and outs of wiring on these things like 74RX4, but i HAVE experienced the headlight issues you are referring too. mine had several different headlight issues as a mattor o fact, all of them due to the fusible link that maggot mentioned. the one for the headlights is the very bottom of the 5 fusible links. my car had all sorts of speaker wire, coat hangers, everything metal you can think of shoved into the holes where the fusible links are SUPPOSED to go. it was so butchered up that i ended up getting a 6 fuse holder from radio shack, mounting it to the fender well using 2 sheetmetal screws, and wiring it into the factory harness so that i could use regular ATC fuses instead of fusible links.

the radio wiring is pretty common, and due to idiots trying to wire up radios with wire nuts and electrical tape. other problems you will run into are brittle wires across the top of the engine, and if your car is like mine, bad speakerwire. I ended up having to run new wire to all four corners.

i'll post pics tomorrow, what a mess, i'm gonna hook up my stereo and make sure theres no random wires there hanging that could cause a problem, probably not but its one step taken care of

in my experience, usually the wires that might have caused a problem have already grounded out on something and blown a fuse. :hahaha:

Didn't mean to imply the fusible links aren't the problem with the headlights. They could be, but usually if they just won't go down it has something to do with the fuse in the fuse block that I mentioned. Both of the previous posters covered the subject. You can replace them with the more modern Bussman fuses this page describes.
http://www.jimrothe.com/mazda/fusible_links.html

or one of the many options in this thread.
https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-specific-1979-1985-18/fuseable-link-conversion-403676/

ok! so get this...i hooked up the ground/constant/acc/illum wires to the stereo harness and now my lights are working when i turn the key on, the stalk does nothing for them...and i don't have a fuse in the fuse box for the lights/illumination spot....the ignition lock cylinder switch has been replaced before i got the car so i'm guessing they crossed a wire....any guesses as to what i'm looking for now?

and how are the head lights supposed to work? they flip open when they turn on with the stalk but they randomly go down...and whats the switch to the left of the instrument panel with the light symbol for then?

the ignition switch was gone out of my car and honestly, there wasnt anything to cross when i hooked the wires back up. All i had were a hot wire, ign wire, acc wire, and starter wire. wired everything up to a flip switch and pushbutton for the starter and everything works as designed, so i would probably lean towards underdash rather than the ign switch.

What do you mean when you say you hooked up the wires to the stereo plug? Were they cut? Something is crossed or not plugged into the right place. I'm down for the night shortly, but I'll look at the diagram in the morning and see what I can come up with.

Dash switch raises headlights when turned on. Lowers headlights when turned of (normal position). The stalk switch raises the headlights when they are turned on, lowers when turned off. If the stalk is turned off and the dash switch is still on the lights go off but not down.

There are two circuits with red/yellow wire that relate to the headlights. One goes to the retractor motors to supply 12v to lower them. A separate circuit goes to the dim lights. If these were crossed, it would mess up the lights, but I don't think you would have symptoms like you report.

i hooked up the ground,acc power,constant power,and illumination wires to my jvc stereo harness and plugged it in to my stereo, turned on the key and i was shocked because it was night time and all my gauges and center console lights lit up along with my stereo coming on, only with the key tho, the stalk was not touched and when i did mess with it i saw no change.

i checked the fusible link and the wiring to my battery is mediocre condition at best, so i'm gonna redo the terminals, clean up the posts and add another ground wire and maybe that will help things.

ok so here was the wiring attempt for a fuel kill switch or something.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image009.jpg

this is the passenger taillight area...you can see which ones i had to tape together and the untaped wire on the taillight harness in the back, can anyone identify these wires?
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image010.jpg

these two were hanging underneath the hatch latch
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image011.jpg

this is the drivers side taillight, just the taillight harness was cut into here again
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image012.jpg

any help with this is much appreciated. thanks

/shudder...

Well, look on the bright side; you're gonna be a resident expert on the '85 wiring by the time you get all that hackery cleaned up.

You need to get a copy of the wiring diagram; it will identify all the wiring by color code and connector location. You really, really need one.

that is some seriously hacked up shit!

go to this site:
http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=rx7manual
Now find the manuals you want/need, download them, print them, put them in a binder and stash them under the seat of the car. These are worth there weight in uranium, and are much hotter. I would suggest having someone make you little tests based off of these things so you can memorize them.

ok so a little update... i was messing with this car today...heres what i did

first i replaced the positive battery terminal with a nice clean one and i found the positive cable had been frayed thru the insulation a bit near the end, so i cut all that off and redid that and cleaned the battery post.

then i was going to replace the fender at least cuz the door and fender need replacing on the drivers side, so i start takin bolts off and it was hard for me to get to one bolt in between the door and the fender so i took the door off just to see how hard it would be later.

so in the process of taking the door off i found that some power mirror wiring was frayed with bare copper wire showing on this too!!! it wasnt much so i just cut all the wires that run to that and will redo them later. i then moved the speaker cover board and found a 24 yr old 4" speaker that i tossed into the trash. then i unhooked the harnesses for the rest of the stuff and took the door off.

i then saw the hatch release button was flopping around, so i undid the dash panels in that area and found some broken stems that i'll need to epoxy back together.

when i did that i found ANOTHER wiring hack on the dimmer control wheel!!!! one of the red/blue wires had been cut at some point and the previous owner has decided that spade connectors male/female kind are the best replacement instead of soldering wires back together. this wire looked loose so i decided to play along and just get out the pliers and tighten those things together as hard as i can and tie electrical tape around them as tight as i can too.

so i tried out the hatch and gas release buttons and they wouldn't work when i know it did when i got it...so i double checked the fuses and i guess i moved some around when i was messing with them earlier. so i put a 20 back into the fuse spot and they work fine. cool

so then for some reason i tried a 15 amp in the tail/illumination fuse spot again and it didnt spark when i put it in this time!!!!! w00t. i then preceded to try out my lights to see if they came on with key or not and they didnt! and then i tried the stalk to use them and when i flipped to my parking lights they came on and my headlights went down like they should (since they were stuck open since sunday) !!!!!

SO as of now alot of stuff is unplugged still tho but the things i wanted to work are working now...heres the list of unplugged items

power mirror controls
dimmer switch
the three harnesses running to the driver door which i believe are power window, power mirror, and maybe door interior light sensor? someone tell me what they are lol.

so i guess now i'm gonna slowly hook those things back up one by one and see if my problem arises on one of the things i'm hooking back up and if so i'll trace the source of my problem if i have one left! sweetttt wish me luck!

oh yeah!!! and my progress lowering springs came in the mail today! w00000t

ok well i hooked up everything else one at a time and everything checks out i guess

i have 2 more issues then i hope i'm good lol

one... i found these wires in the back near the rear left speaker
https://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k...h/Image013.jpg

and 2...when i turn the key on...sometimes all my warning lights show up but sometimes only my ebrake and seatbelt light show up...is that normal? thanks

Buy a Repair manual at shucks
 

A repair manual is like 24 dollars and has saved me a lot of time

those wires look like the factory speaker wiring, which you should replace when you install a radio anyways, so dont worry about them.

i reread your previous post, and it sounds to me like one of the frayed wires you have found was probably tied into the dimmer circuit in someway or another. the fuse popping issue is most certainly a short to ground, and now that you have fixed several frayed wires and are no longer popping fuses, you should be ok to hook up the power mirrors and stuff that you unhooked.

on the warning lights, my 7's warning lights always come on, and then go off leaving 3 illuminated, the oil-l light, brake light, and washer fluid light. those three are on because i havent gotten around to fixing them. i am not sure why the lights would fail to come on, but if the car runs ok and everything works the same when they dont come on as when they do, then i wouldnt worry much about it.a

well i found out something interesting today, i was reassembling my dash panels and apparently the metal plate that the fuse box mounts to is WAY close to the hatch popper and they were grounding out on each other too and blew that fuse! so i tossed the fuse box plate and i'm gonna mount the fuse box on the kickpanel area to the side instead. good lord lol

Rather than relocating that box you could put a piece of rubber between the plate and the switch. Alternative: hot glue on the terminals of the switch will probably stay in place better. Just make sure when it cools that it doesn't move at all or it will just fall of and start shorting again

well i'm just gonna stick with relocating it, thanks tho


as an update i redid my ground cables and cleaned them up a bit, i added a extra ground from the battery to the alternator bracket and moved the starter ground to the top of the engine and moved the strut tower ground to the top of the strut bolt. cleaned each area down to bare metal for a good solid connection.

i cleaned out my combo switch and now everything works (i hope), i just need to add some fuses i'm missing now

i started repairing and repainting my center console, and i guess i might be missing some kinda bracket for the shift boot underneath? cuz theres nothing for the holes in the shift boot to do anything with..random

quick question, how does the horn mount back on the steering wheel? it was off when i got the car, i have the red vinyl piece, a push button with some wires, a plastic ring and thats it? i dunno where the wires go or anything, lol

Red vinyl piece? Are we talking a stock wheel? I'm sure my stock wheel just had a metal plate that had a spring behind it and I believe it was held in place with some bolts then the rubber cover just wraps around the plate. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't seen my stock steering wheel in awhile. I bought an aftermarket one awhile ago but they sent me the wrong bracket so I had to use another wheel I've got and I dropped my stock wheel and the good one off at a machine shop and asked them to fab something up. I should really go see how the progress is goin. But I digress... Lol send some photos of what you've got and we'll see if we can piece it together!

ok so i have another issue now...i replaced all my missing fuses and ran all new speaker wires and now my lights are coming on with key again, so i traced back all my fuses and it won't do that unless the "radio/antenna" fuse is in the box, every other fuse is fine...so now my radio won't work unless i run all new wiring somehow...where should i look for the short or crossed wires so i don't have to rig up new wires?? i don't have a power antenna anymore i don't think. thanks in advance!

ok! update! my wiring mess in the back is FIXED. i got to looking closer and found even more of a cluster!#@@! when i started unraveling the electrical tape. good god! its all fixed, radio and lights work. everything works fine. yessssss now i need a paint job cuz this is what i'm working with lol
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...picture001.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...picture002.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...picture003.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...picture004.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ch/picture.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image019.jpg

I swear I saw that thing on auto trader. That's weird. I remember saying that I felt sorry for the poor smuck that bought it too. Lol. Good luck with that! Do all the panels at least line up?

lol uh oh...the bodys straight everythings there, the wiring was a nightmare but it runs, needs a clutch tho. if you got any more info about it i'd appreciate it :)

based on the pictures id say it looks worse than it is. now that the wirings fixed, your halfway there. the body looks pretty straight, id say a good week of bodywork AFTER work and itll be ready to spray.

well my plan is to refinish the wheels, cuz they're pretty ugly, and then i'll worry about the body

well i lied, since i had the spare door and fender laying around i put it on...heres the pic
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image022.jpg cars coming together slowly but surely. i'm making a double din stereo bracket now so i can finally have my interior in one piece

lookin good. i need your address so i can come swap wheels with you:) from the pictures those look good and mine are curb rashed to hell and back. frankly im surprised mine hold air.

lol wow, yeah mine aren't that bad with any curbage, you can't really tell in the pic but they all have clearcoat and everything peeling and looking awful, it would definitely benefit from a nice polish so we'll see how that goes

ive had good success with this style wheels in the past using a bead blasting cabinet to clean them, and clear coat to get the shine back.

Man, I just love fixing other people's messes.

yeah especially when the PO didn't tell me about these, even better right? lol thankfully i have time to mess with this car and figure everything out

I'll tell you what will help better than anything. Try and find a non-running but complete parts car. Maybe one that had been wrecked or has a blown engine. Then you can use it as a reference while you repair your original. I have done this before.

well thanks to the members here its been fixed :) although now i've discovered that my choke cable does nothing for the carb and therefore will not start until i have messed with the choke manually on the carb, any ideas on that?

seems like that would be a simple issue. ive never had a 12a model so i dont know if the choke pulls out or slides side to side or what, but heres how it approach it. turn the choke completely off from inside the car, get out and look at the carb to take note of the position of the cable. now turn the choke completely on from inside the car. get out and look at the carb to take note of the position. if the choke is moving but is not moving far enough, you may need to adjust the cable. if its not moving at all, you probably need a NEW cable. im assuming the choke DOES work since you said youve been manually engaging it.

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...h/Image020.jpg
w00t

Damn some of that wiring looks like a nightmare.

am I crazy, or is a peice of your rotor missing? and why is the spring green?