I'm heading over to take a look at an RX7. Body is pretty nice, VERY little rust.

The story is that in 93, when it was below zero, the owner was unable to get this baby to start, so he put it in the garage. Never messed with it, and it SAT, and SAT, and SAT until now.

Engine was free then, just would not start (duh...) However, it's locked up now.

What is the best way to get it unlocked?

I will flush the fuel, rebuild the carb, remove rats nest, change oil and antifreeze, throw a tune up on her, and hopefully she will fire up.

What are my chances of being able t get this thing running, and the seals not be totally trashed and leak coolant out of the coolant seals?????

Either way, it's a LOW mileage 83, for a measly $80. And, it has some slick looking wheels already on it. Needs some body work, especially the RR quarter was kicked. Oh whell, for $80 I hope like hell that I can get it running.

 

run some seafoam, maybe that will help

 

seafoam might might, but you always have a chnace that your side and top springs have gone flat.

 

Locked, as in engine won't rotate at all? Even by hand with plugs out?

 

those wheels look pretty cool. i remember the winter storms of 93. they were pretty bad around here.

 

Seller says the engine is locked up due to it being sitting for so long. I'm hoping that some Deep Creep will wake it back up. I'll know more Sunday, once I get my hands on it. Either way, for $80, I can't go wrong. I found a complete rebuild set (minus apex seals for $150.) So, worse case is I'll rebuild it, and hopefully have a good running engine.

 

I've had good luck with engines that have been sitting for a long time. Done four in the past year or so, and they all came back to life. I'm sure others have done this process, which is really very simple, just slow. Plus is it doesn't cost much.

I FILL the crankcase with a 50/50 mixture of Marvel Mystery Oil and WD40 and let it sit for at least a month. Filling is done through the carbs with plugs in. After sitting, I pull the plugs and slowly try to rotate the engine. If it spins by hand, the oil will be forced out of the plug holes. After the oil is out, I try to spin it over with the starter motor - if the seals have come loose you should hear the "popping" sound as it turns over. If it turns over by hand, but no compression, I spray the stuff into the intake & exhaust ports and turn it over by hand for a few minutes every day. After a while, the seals have come loose and started working. When (if) this happens, I spin it over to clear out as much solution as possible, put in fresh engine oil, filter, then new plugs & see what happens.

Main drawback to this is it takes time - and if the engine is really bad (cracked seals,scratched chrome etc) it obviously would be a waste of time. I use judgement and try to determine if the owner is blowing smoke or serious.

As an example, a 1985 GSL I have in the shop at the moment was totally locked down. Doing the above procedure produced a motor that spins over and has compression. This car shows 61,000 and had been parked for over 12 years. I believed the owner because paperwork on the car shows he bout it in 1987 and receipts show the right mileage over time.

Word of warning - Obviously, if this thing has a cat on it, this should be removed before the above is done as the oil will destroy the converter. Makes a hell of a lot of smoke with thermal reactors too.

 

HP, thanks for the tips. I'm not to worried about the cat, as it will all come off, and be replaced. It is going to be a dedicated drag car, but trying to get the stock motor running, so I can start on chassis tuning, and getting track time. In the meantime, I will be building a MUCH more potent engine (over the next year). I'm looking to have the quickest Rotary in KC.

Thanks for all the great information.

 

FYI - those wheels are American Racing Series, 14x6 and had to be custom ordered in the 4x110 spacing that the early FB's needed. I know this because I ordered a set for my 80LS many, MANY years ago. In fact, the rims sit unshod stacked up in the corner of my garage to this day, as when I sold the car, I kept the wheels because they were in such good shape and rare to find in that bolt pattern diameter. Here's a pic from the SA's heyday;



On getting the old engines to run, the trick is to not force anything. If you just crank on the starter, you're bound to scrape carbon off of the inside which will SURELY lock up the seals and tear up the Oil Control Rings, and everything else that keeps oil out of the firing chambers.

Good luck with it, however.

 

So, what you are saying is that these wheels are easily worth the $80 that I am paying for the car???