OverDriven

I promised I would post this some time ago, so here it is. I recently found a guy on this forum advertising a TII with no title in PA for $1000. It had a running engine with 60K miles, fairly new tranny, and was in "decent" running condition. Well I live in VA and decided I wanted to go get this thing. I call him and ask him "do I need to tow this thing to be safe, or will it get me back ok for 100% sure?". He tells me he drove it a few hundred miles just weeks ago and it'll be fine. So I con my room mate Chris into driving me up to PA (gave him $100 for the help and paid for gas) to bring this thing down. With no title on the TII, I grabbed a plate off my other RX7 and decided to put it on the TII, drive carefully, and risk it. So almost 7 hours later we get to our destination. Its getting late by this time...about 6 in the evening. I meet the guy and take a look at the car. I have to admit that I took a very quick look due to the time and gave it a short drive. Everything looked great. Engine sounded great, didn't smoke, shifted well, body was 100% straight (but in need of paint). I gave him $1000 cash, had a bill of sales written up, and headed off to get back to VA with my room mate behind me in his Jeep. Mind you...this is Stroudsburg, PA...middle of ******* NOWHERE in the mountains. So we get on the road, and 20 minuted into it something wet hits the windshield. A slight mist of something sweet smelling. We all know what that means. So I think ****! I pull over at the first exit before the car even has a chance to hock its coolant and overheat. By some act of god, the exit we took brought us right to this huge grocery store in a nice little town called Nazereth, PA. By the time I get in the parking lot, the car is hocking up more of its coolant and the buzzer is giving me a headache. The temp never even hit half way, but was on the rise...I knew I would REALLY be screwed if it overheated. So I curse the damn car, pop the hood and take a look. Ahhh...the ******* belts are loose as **** and about to disintegrate. The water pump wasn't turning and so the thing obviously boiled its contents out of the overflow resevoir without any coolant circulation. Why the hell I didn't see that earlier is beyond me. I think they were turning it when I checked the car out, but the engine heat after a bit of driving caused them to expand just enough to not turn the pump. Theres no auto parts store in what feels like a million miles. I call the *** that sold the car to me and ask if he can come out and give me a hand, or refund my money. We were only 20 min away from him anyways. He tells me hes driven to NY with his friends in that time, and spent ALL of the $1000. YEAH ******* RIGHT. It really took alot for my room mate and I to not go back there to his place and wait with a baseball bat for him to come home. We almost did. I decided that a lawsuit over a $1000 TII isn't what I need right now and we just need to get back and figure this out. So I go in the grocery store, and grabbed the manager. I explain the situation, and the guy is like "what kinda car is it?". I told him a TII and he says "OMG I LOVE THOSE! I ALWAYS DREAMED ABOUT OWNING ON OF THOSE!". I jokingly said "wanna buy this one?". Of course I wasn't serious...I wasn't giving up on my new baby that quickly. So he lets me leave it in his lot, and we take the Jeep back to VA. After getting lost on the way back, it took us almost 8 hours to get home. What a nightmare...it felt like a bad dream at this point. Its late as hell, I have work in a few hours, I'm out $1000 and my TII is sitting with no plates in some strange town in the middle of nowhere 400 miles away. I know a towtruck driver that was willing to drive up there the next day at 4AM and bring it back. The cost to me? $800. Ouch. So after all that, I got my TII here and its now my project. Over 100 PSI on all rotor faces after a compression check, and the car was actually still a decent deal after all was said and done. I have it at my father's auto shop, so I have everything I need to make this thing the car it was meant to be. He actually had someone come in the next day and offer him $3500 for it when they saw it. I'm redoing the whole interior in black right now, and the car is getting a new CAI, full exhaust, SAFC, the Corksport Type II kit, new black paint, 17" wheels, and some suspension upgrades. The title won't be a problem for me as I know a few people who can help with that. So thats the story of my TII. I'm sure this thing would have been in a junk yard in another year if I hadn't saved it...I mean the owner never changed even the damn belts. If you've stuck with me this long, thanks...and I have a question about something...

The coolant spitting concerns me a bit. The water pump obviously wasn't running and that caused boiling in the coolant which caused the coolant to spit up. However, I have this underlying fear that a coolant seal had something to do with this. I have no evidence of that, but I know the symptoms are the same as what happened...coolant spitting from the resevoir. So when I got it back I topped off the coolant with the bleed open, closed the bleed, and left the cap off as I started it to watch for bubbles. Shortly after, the coolant began to rise a little bit and I got some tiny little bubbles coming up in a stream. However, the bubbles continued for at least 5 minutes AFTER I shut off the car. My thought (and hope) is that there is air in the coolant system now after it partially drained itself when I was in PA. I think this may just be coming up. I mean if it was a coolant seal, it should have stopped immediatly after sutting off the engine, right? Does this sound like a possibility? How can I get all the air out of the system?

-Joe

Fritz_X

iTrader: (1)

*COUGHparagraphs COUGH* Just kidding . That is awesome though, a running T2 for 1800 bucks most of us wish we could be so lucky. Enjoy it, these cars F***'ing rule.

--Fritz

OverDriven

BTW guys...I kicked myself in the *** when I heard this, but I found a running TII locally yesterday for $675. Well actually it found me. Since my father owns a shop and alot of people are in and out of there every day, many of them comment on the RX7. Someone came in yesterday and was talking to him about it, and told my father that he had a TII that he's getting rid of. Its on blocks...I don't know if he has the wheels or not. Tranny is out, but all together and just needs to be put back in. Engine runs fine. So all you need is a few hours to stick the tranny back in, and put some wheels on it and you have a TII for $675. I might take it also, and if not, I'll post contact info on here so one of you lucky bastards can grab it!

-Joe

Josepi

I have wheels and 675 dollars.