I recently purchased an '87 TII and had to tow it home. The front rotor has 0 compression, and the rear has 60, 60, 30. The car is in great shape (except for the engine) and I want to rebuild it.

The car has been sitting for awhile and I am contemplating carbon lock. However, haven't ruled broken apex seals.

This weekend I am going to finish pulling the engine. My question is, I have read the FSM, and haynes manuals thouroghly, I want to do the rebuild myself. Those of you who have done rebuilds, did you use all the micrometer and special measureing devices? I believe I have the mechanical know how to do this, but I don't have some of the measureing devices.

Anyways feedback about what measureing devices everyone uses would be apreciated. I hope this makes sense!

BTW, I do have strait edges and feeler gauges and such.

Thanks

Steven

 

^

 

a straight edge and feeler gauges are all you need. actually most of the time the part will be visibly bad first.

mike

 

Thank you j9fd3s. That's what I figured. If the rotor housing are screwed I would probably be able to tell with my eye along with bearings, and such. Anyone else have rebuild feedback.

 

This tape should help you out.
http://www.atkinsrotary.com/enginevideo.htm

 

I didnt use any micrometers or whatnot.. mostly cuz the engine had good compression when I took it apart. ONly rebuilt it cuz it smoked like a **** and had one apex seal that liked to stick.

 

Make sure your rotor to rotor housing clearance is with in spec and make sure when you get the side housings lapped (I'm sure they're gonna need it) that they are within spec. If you can re use your apex, side, and corner seals make sure you clean the crap out of em. Remove ALL the carbon build up on them and just go ahead and reuse all the springs unless they're broken.

I did a rebuild once and just bought new oil seals corner seal plugs and inner water jacket seals. You can reuse the outer ones if you don't mess them up too bad upon disassembly. If they're stretched cut them and notch them to fit just put a good amount of hondabond4 where the notch is. Good Luck!

 

If you have the housings lapped, you really should have the housings nitrided.

 

Check the stepped wear first. I've seen quite a few plates with 150K miles on them which are well within mazda wear limits like half the wear limit. If you plan on using new rotor housings then spend the extra amount and lap them. You will need to change the front spacer in that case to bring the shaft endplay within spec.

 

Lapped side housing with out nitrided will last shorter than most pre 78 motors especially turboed which is about 70k and then smokey smokey. 0.7 mm side seals are not that sensetive to step wear and in my opinion minor step wear won't effect anything. My friend did a motor and he is the type has to mithis and measure that, well he had Racing Beat lapped the housing and I told him may be he should have them nitrided because I did not like the surface and texture of the lapping. He said that is what Racing Beat does and it is OK. The motor smoked from day one with new control rings and rubber O rings. Took it apart and the side housings and oil control rings looked like 150k from 2k of driving.