Your bringing up too many other factors other than the fact that we are specifically talking about engines. For the most part, engines are engines. They are nothing but giant puzzles however, you do need specific knowledge of individual parts and their function. You give me a manual for even a turbine or diesel engine, and I will be able to follow the instructions to disassemble and put back together.

 

The basics, righty tighty lefty loosy! Put things back where they are suppose to go. Vacuum diagram charts will further assist you. The botom line is there are truely some encapable mechanics out there with certifications they don't deserve.

 

Good for you.



The point that you MUST agree with is that not everyone, even mechanics, even trained dealer mechanics, could accomplish it. That's all we're saying, and if you're reasonable you'll admit to it and drop the subject at hand. Or you can continue babbling about offtopic stuff.

 

no, I think the point is...anyone who gives a **** about doing a job correctly can do it.

 

tvon - fair enough - my intention was never to doubt your specfic abilities or diminish, in any way, your accomplishments. My posts were just to add thought to the discussion in a general manner.

 

I don't believe that at all. People have different aptitudes. No everyone can sing, not everyone can be a software developer, not everyone can bench press twice their weight...

Not everyone is going to be able to rebuild or R&R their own engine "correctly".

 

come on man, didn't your mamma tell you, you can do anything you want?


anyone who is willing to take the time to learn and really wants to do it can. Turning wrenches is about the easiest thing I've ever done. We're not talking about fabbing our own twin turbo set-up here.

 

I really feel that most of the problems with "Mazda" mechanics is that many of them only see a handful of Gen 3s each year anymore, so skills and problem solving become rusty at best. That, combined with the fact that most are paid shop book rates with set times for repairs means that they are faced with a system that fails to allow adequate time for proper troubleshooting and problem solving. The end result (in many cases) is a car that comes back to the owner more screwed up than when it went into the shop. Just think about this... if you worked on Mazda 3s, MPVs, an occasional RX-8 and a Gen 3 every two or three months and knew from past experience that you'd make little or no money on the car based on shop book times, wouldn't you avoid working on it like the plague?

I'm in agreement with many on this thread who've said that nearly anyone who takes their TIME and double checks their work before proceeding to the next step (using a Gen 3 Mazda Shop Manual) can perform nearly any repair. I initially started working on mine with great trepedation, but now feel fairly comfortable with most repairs. It just takes time, patience, and oftentimes REWORK to help reinforce confidence.

Just my .02!

 

Sure, anyone can do it. Can they do it right?

It doesn't take much to mess up or forget something when building these engines. Heck, even the good shops mess up every now and then, however they have the money to recover. Most people doing their own rebuild are trying to save money. In the end, doing the rebuild wrong might end up costing more then paying up front for a shop to do it right (depending on what happened... i.e. pinched coolant rings is a cheap fix, it just cost time).

I could post link after link of people who have attempted to rebuild their own engines and failed the first time. That doesn't mean they never succeeded,? No, but it wasn't on their first attempt.

Anyone can do anything with persistence, time and money. However, when does persistence out weight the time/money spent; that's up to each individual.

 

Uh, not even close. I know plenty of shops that are very reputable that pass on RX-7's. Why? They say they are difficult and there are many areas where mistakes are made which can pop the motor. I know of 4 incidents involving different shops where they hooked up the RRFPR wrong and popped the motors.

Also, how many shops that take apart engines can work on rotaries and know what they are looking for?

There are many "tricks" that the average rotary rebuilder doesn't even know about these engines.

 

I don't have to agree with anything. Just because you choose to show some simpathy for these so called disqualified mechanics doesn't mean that I "MUST" agree with their in ability to not properly read a damn shop manual so they can successfully perform the R&R on the Fd which in turn causes guys like you to jack up the prices to do the same job that shouldn't be that hard to do. By all means you can keep kissing those mechanics asses and keep finding ways to justify their inabilities to perform so guys like you can reap the benefits of higher than what's neccessary R&R labor. If you think I'm being an *** to you then now, your right. Consider that the next time you post bs pics to prove your point.

There's nothing off topic about my post. This thread is about cost of R&R and rebuild. Don't exclude yourself from talking about other issues relating to the subjust like I did. I'm in no way braging on myself here just displaying the facts in my personal experience. Odviously you have a problem with that.

 

Thx!

 

Your right about the different aptitudes. Remember, were talking about people who are trained in the field of mechanics and basically performing in their same field, and not doing something totally against their "basic" knowledge. The problem with the rotary is the fact that people just plan "nut up" because they don't understand it's basic operation and automatically think everything is complicated when infact the piston engine is far more compicated. I didn't understand the basic operation my first rebuild back in 95 (well before there was any assistance from the internet) . I just did what the Haynes manuel told me to and I was able to successfully perform the removal teardown and rebuild of my 81 1st gen. I just feel any mechanic that has has any sort of automotive training shouldn't be having these kinds of R&R problems with the Fd.

 

Great post Tim! Just remember the trouble shooting part is a whole different ballgame as compared to R&R and rebuild (which is mainley what this thread is about).

 

That sounds great but remember these mechanics have NEVER been able to work on these cars, even when they were new.

 

You're deceiving yourself and (attempting to deceive) others if that is truly your belief. My side of the debate has 10+ years of poor track history to support the FACT that most mechanics, including mazda dealer techs, CAN NOT adequately troubleshoot, repair, or swap engines on FD's. Your side has...well....your opinion.





I could honestly care less. Do you really think people reading this thread believe what you have to say? It is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that regular mechanics find themselves unable (knowingly or not) to do the work. You trying to tell me that this isn't the case, does about as much good as you telling us that the FD is a family car...it's obviously not the case.

Hey...for my part, keep it up. I've gotten about 10 PM"s this week from people saying they strongly agree with what I've said in this thread, and that they want me to work on their engine/car for them because of it. Thanks!

 

I would have to agree with Kevin on this one. We have had several cars towed to the shop directly from Mazda dealer service bays. Even the dealers that claim to have a "certified" rotary tech mess these cars up pretty bad. We have one being dropped off next week that Mazda has installed 4 engines in the last 7 months.

We have also had them towed to us from "import" shops that thought they could work on FC's and FD's but did more damage then good.

The fact is that most repair shops, that know what an RX7 is, will shy away from working on these cars. The ones that don't know what it is will think it is a Mercury Cougar XR7 until they pop the hood and ask where the pistons are.....

 

Putting a FD motor together (I'm referring to just everything ON the block) requires an extreme amount of attention to detail, especially when you are doing it for the first time.

The problem is even worse when a regular shop does the R+R, they get it torn down to the block, send it off to be rebuilt, get it back weeks later and have no freakin' idea where everything went.

Most shops don't have the manuals either.

 

And as I said earlier I'm not specifically talking about troubleshooting(which in fact has been the majority of the Fds's problems and not R&R in the past). That is even more complicated. This thread is about " Total cost for a reman/rebuild and install" not troubleshooing common problems these engines have(which I strongly feel most knowledable mechanics aren't even capable of performing). My main argument is the removal of the engine, the removal of it's accessories, and the replacement of such(as if the car was towed to the shop to have a reman droped in). You keep throwing in other factors not specific to the thread topic.


So now you think that I'm trying to discredit your overall abilities to perform a valuable service to other members of this forum? Notice the comment I made about you a few days ago in the 20b section while you and I were still having somewhat a disagreement here on this thread.

https://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php...8&postcount=11

 

So is this suppose to be an excuse for them to screw things up when they take on the work?

 

I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here, but your logic escapes me.

Since you are such a big sackrider of dealer and corner garage mechanics, why don't you take your car there and let them have their way with it, then report back to us?

Oh, that's right, you won't let anyone else work on your car. Hmmm, odd...

And as for your continual comments that I am trying to go offtopic by *mentioning* the troubleshooting phase of working on FD's, I just threw that in there. To make you feel better, I will restate my opinion:

Most dealer mechanics and regular repair shop mechanics will have a hard time, or be unable altogether, to remove, tear down, reassemble, and reinstall an FD engine.

 

I'll tell yah it's beauty to see the workings of this engine and it's a lot easier to rebuild than I thought. I'm doing my own rebuild.....

 

Not likely! Dealers and garage mechanics aren't the only people capable of performing an R&R on the FD. My main point here is most people with some basic mechanic knowledge and hand tools (like myself and most otheres here on this forum) can successfully perform that job with a shop manuel wheather you want to believe that or not.

Simple answer, why should I spend more money to take my car to a mechanic to perform work that I can do myself? I'm this way with all my cars. Again R&R isn't as difficult as you would like eveyone here to believe it is. I have my own shop and basic hand tools to use. I also undertand that most here who are capable don't have that luxury. Some live in apartments and don't have access to these means to perform this kind of work. If I have a problem that needs diagnosing, I'm perfectly comfortable with taking my car to the dealer to run a diagnosic check. Trouble shooting I will leave to the rotary experts.


I don't disagree with you when you word it this way.

 

I am currently looking for a fresh rebuild on the engine for my project and have contacted RR ( Kevin ) for some info recently. Then I saw this post. I have read this incredibly long thread and came to this conclusion....This is the guy that I would fully trust to overhaul my motor and will wait in line to get er done - period


Mainly from this comment below.

So, Kevin...I have sent you another e-mail to please put me down.



"IF a man made a list of every part that would be *ideal* to replace on a car of this age, you'd have more money than the cost of the car when it was new.

You can't go at things that way...you have to draw a reasonable line somewhere. You have to have someone with intelligence enough to make the judgement calls on what is reuseable and what is not worth taking the chance on. That's where I come in...if I find something rigged up or something that I feel will fail within a year, I tell the customer that it definitely needs replacement. Otherwise I advise them that it would be ideal if they did, but it will ride for a while if the budget does not allow it. We're not building the space shuttle here.

Any idiot can make a long list of the stuff that "should" be replaced at given intervals or during certain other service procedures. Just look at dealerships who yell "you need a new motor" every time you flood an engine or "you need new turbos" every time the boost pattern is incorrect. IT takes someone who knows what they are doing to be able to save the customer money while maintaining reliability and get things to work right again."

 

In Oakland California,

Rebuild on good core and reinstall $2800

My rotary mechanic has been rebuilding engines for over 7 years.