paw140

After a week of waiting on the flywheel socket, I finally have my engine all torn apart.

The absolute hardest part was that stupid front hub bolt! Holy **** that was tight! My impact gun wouldn't budge it, so I went to Home Depot and bought a 3' long 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" by 1/8" piece of angle iron, drilled two holes in it to bolt the flywheel. I then bought a 2' breaker bar from Sears. I had a friend help me, and we ended up bending the hell out of the angle iron! This was with a 2' breaker bar with another 16" pipe, and I was bouncing on it! (I weight 160 lbs).

So we went to Home Depot and bought a 4' long 2" x 2" x 1/8" piece of angle (the biggest they had), and tried that. I was litterally bouncing on the breaker bar/pipe, and it STILL would not come loose. So Then I took a 2' pry bar, stuck it in the end of the pipe, and tried that (so I basically have a 2' breaker bar + 16" pipe + 2' pry bar), and we FINALLY broke it loose.

We got it all torn down. My rear rotor broke all three apex seals. The rotor and housing are really f*cked up bad. Both are gouged very badly, and the apex seal seats on the rotor are all messed up too. The front rotor and housing looks really good, and those seals are fine.

paw140

Another pic

RonKMiller

All you needed to do was apply a little heat with a propane torch to make it EASY to come off...........

Good luck on the rebuild.

paw140

I tried that Ron. It didn't work. I heated it for about 5 miutes...

Another pic.

paw140

Last one.

paw140

Ummm... This IS the last one

JONSKI

What oil were you using?

BATMAN

damn you showed that piece of iron who was the boss..
jesus.. hehe btw i like the cat litter next to the engine. found it pretty funny.

twokrx7

iTrader: (1)

Those rotor pics brought back bad memories, I still have them floating around in my head from my last rebuild.

I feel your pain on the pulley nut, I had two V8 gear head shops brag that their air tools would spin it off or break it ... neither could budge the damn thing. We put a 6 foot cheater on it later and off it came. I had to let the guys down easy and assure them it was their air tools that loosened it for us.

paw140

Kitty litter Yeah, it works great for those huge oil and coolant spills! I've found that no matter how hard you try to drain the oil and coolant, you still make a huge mess.

Jonski: I was using Castrol 10w30. Why?

I think with the cost of a housing and rotor and a rebuild kit, I may just be better off buying a Mazda reman. I'm going to try and track down a used housing, or at least a used rotor. Hmm....

Does a Mazda reman have a warranty if I install it?

JONSKI

Your parts look really carboned up, and I was just wondering what you were feeding your engine.

Were you using any pre-mix? If so, what kind?

paw140

No premix. It had 91K miles on it. I think that amount of carbon is normal. Have you ever taken apart a high mileage piston motor before? It has about as much carbon as one of those.

Paul

RonKMiller

DAMN, Time for the 800 lb. Gorilla then.......

RonKMiller

I think it's 12 months, 12,000 miles. The reman is a deal if only for all the new parts that you could never come close to in price by buying them piecemeal. Contact Ray at Malloy - nice guy. He'll get you lined up with everything you need at the best price in the country. I'm pretty sure all the recent remans come with new housings but you might want to ask Ray.

vudoodoodoo

Hmm.. I remember him telling me 2 years/ 24K miles...
But porting it will void the warrenty. Most of us get it ported.

paw140

No porting for me Not this time, at least. My goal with this car is to make it as reliable as possible, since I'm still in college and can't afford *too many* engine rebuilds. It is more than fast enough for me in stock form. And I don't want to spend all the extra money on support mods for the street prot.

rotorbrain

hey paul, my engine is torn down as well. ive been slowly cleaning it for about a week. haha. im thinking about sending it all in as well on a reman. i dunno. . . wait. . . i do know. . . i have no money. hahaha. guess itll be back to the garage for me!!!! i was looking at one of my rotors while cleaning and i noticed that the apex seal groves are slightly bent back in the same direction. im guessing this is the thing about the stock apex seals messing up the grooves. whatever.

jonski, my rotors had a lot of carbon on them as well. its just inherant. the rotary engine is gonna produce a lot of carbon due to the oil burning thing.

paul

Marius

This is the way to do it

paw140

Marius: The flywheel nut was easy My impact gun took it right off. The front hub bolt is the bitch. I used the same setup that you are using, but the engine wants to pivot when you try to loosen the bolt, making at A LOT harder.

rotorbrain: I'm going to get a reman, for sure now. I cleaned and inspected my 'good' housing today, and it has two cracks near the leading spark plug threads.

Let's see... 2 rotor housings, ~$1100, 1 rotor ~$500, rebuild kit ~$900, for a total of $2500. Mazda reman: ~$2100.

The choice is easy

pomanferrari

iTrader: (1)

Not clear if you made a fly wheel lock with the angle iron? You should take a look at a factory flywheel lock: sucker is massive.

paw140

Per the Bruce Turrentine video, I bought the angle iron, drilled two holes in the end it, and bolted it to the flywheel through the pressure plate holes. In this way, it hits the floor so the crankshaft can't turn. It worked well, once I bought the beefier piece.

paw140

rotorbrain: I don't remember you blowing your engine. What happened?

rotorbrain

nah, i never blew it. i was upgrading to a to4e kit and decided to take care of some much wanted engine porting and rebuilding while it was down. im glad i did. i found one cracked apex seal and both of my rotorhousings had cracks at the leading sparkplug holes. you know you can run s5 rotorhousings in there as well, right? you just have to plug up the coolant hole on the housings. they dont have the grooves in them like the fd housings do (for the sealant at the bottom of the engine), but i doubt that its a major deal if you dont have that. hell, it could be machined in there as well. haha. i have a set of s5 tII housings in my garage if you wish to take them off of my hands. im wanting to do the skalliwag rotorhousing coating on my fd rotorhousings. it looks to be very promising. otherwise i have these things just sitting around here doing absolutely nothing.

lemme know, . . . sorry to throw another wrench in there. haha. . . you are right though. . . the reman looks to be your best bet as far as ease and cost effectiveness.. . . unless you get my housings. hahahahahahahahaha, muuuuuuuuuuahahahahahahahahahahah. sorry about that.

paul

paw140

rotorbrain:

Thanks for the offer... how much do you want for the housings? And what is the 'skalliwag coating'? I'm not familiar with that.

I really think I'm going to go with a reman, though. I'll call Ray Crowe tomorrow and see what the deal is, and talk to my local dealer.

paw140

I just got off the phone with Ray Crowe. $1950 for the reman, guaranteed new rotor housings, new flywheel, waterpump and thermostat. $150 for the gasket kit, and around $100 each way to ship to Mississippi. That's an awesome deal, in my opinion! The new rotor housings alone would cost me $1200.

My local dealership quoted me $2200 for the engine, but there was no guarantee of new housings. And I would have to pay about $130 in sales tax.

I also ordered an ACT clutch kit and new rear brake pads from the RX7 Store. I have to drop off my tranny at the local shop for a rebuild, and send my injectors to RC for a clean/balance.

I'm pumped now. I can't wait to get this thing back on the road with a new engine! I'm going to have a new car when I'm done . Hopefully my turbos don't let go...