So to begin my guardians have had a 1979 GS in their garage that had just been sitting there for over 26 years. I have always been into cars, Japanese cars especially, and I had been learning how to work on and fix cars so I figured since it was just sitting there anyway I would give it a go and try to get it running again. I followed vipernicus42's advice on his reply to the "Bringing a rx7 back to life thread" and after finally doing all of the recommended steps like: plugs, wires, fluids, battery, belts, filters, etc. and I got the thing running! Of course it wasn't all smooth and the car, on choke, would run at around 5500 rpm and once the choke disengaged it would stall out. I had no idea what was going on but I figured it was 26 years of gunk built up so I seafoamed it and got the fire department called on myself twice but once the seafoam was run through the car would idle just fine. At this point I decided that the rusted out exhaust had to go so I removed all of the emissions control stuff such as the air pump and thermal reactor and replaced with a full racing beat exhaust system with a custom 2" stainless connecting pipe. I also got the brake system redone with mazdatrix stainless lines and some autozone pads/rotors for the front and atkins shoes/drums for the rear. Lastly, I dropped the oil pan, cleaned out all the gunk and replaced the oil pickup tube/gasket as well as a new oil pan gasket. I've driven the car around 160 miles since I got it running and it seems to be fine with an exception of it smoking relatively heavily on choke (idles fine, no smoke) and it started with a puff of smoke at 3500 rpm. Now, it depends, consistenly if I shift at 3500 or earlier it's totally fine, if I shift at 4k 50/50 shot it will smoke, same at 5k but at 6k it blows a pretty damn big cloud, I'm afraid to push it any further than that. So other than that I have a racing beat intake canister, k&n filter, and I am going to replace the intake manifold gasket and o-rings just to make sure the smoke isn't being caused by coolant getting through that. This is my build thread that I will update as things progress but also would like to see if anyone has any ideas as to what is up with my smoking situation.

 

Looks like a nice complete and intact vehicle. If its been stored for 26 years, it can't have that many miles on it. FYI, this is an early build car with out the passenger door side mirror. You have the early style dash trim and always on A/C switch too. Take care of your dash, uncracked speaker dashes are not that common. Racing Beat sells replacement red dot seat covers too, if you ever want to replace the originals. Post some pics of the engine bay.

 

Unfortunately, the dash is cracked, the steering wheel is just covering it up in that picture. It was driven quite a lot in it's time so it does have 160k on it with no rebuild. I am currently in the process of procuring another set of high top seats as I do not have the funds to redo the current ones yet. I will post pics of the engine bay sometime this weekend when I have it out.

 

Quick update: So I installed the Racing Beat intake canister, k&n filter and replaced the intake manifold gasket/o-rings. The gasket seems to have slightly helped with the smoking issue but it is still a prominent problem. It seems that it smokes more in first gear than any other and also seems to depend on how fast I shift, if I shift slower it smokes more but if I shift really fast then it seems like there is little to no smoke. Not totally sure what the problem is, also noticed that I potentially have a failing clutch slave cylinder. I was driving and the clutch would work very intermittently, like I would have to pump it 5 or 6 times for it to disengage. I got home and found the brake fluid for the clutch was empty. I put some fluid in it and pumped the brake pedal and voila! the clutch works fine again. I will have to look around and see if the cylinder has a leak or something to prevent further issues. Lastly, it seems that when fiddling with the intake manifold I screwed up how the throttle cable sits so it would rev itself up to around 4k and would not go lower. I had to loop the cable round the throttle valve(?), and now when the pedal is floored it seems like half throttle.

 

Nice car. Love to see surviving originals.

On a tangent.... That's a speaker in the dash? My dash top has a hole there, but the new vinyl doesn't have a cutout for it. I understand now.

 

Thank you, it feels really special to own one that is this old and still in working condition. To answer your question I am unsure if that is a speaker. When the radio is playing nothing comes out of it, I am thinking it may be the turn signal clicking thing or maybe a vent for something not entirely sure though.

 

Another update: I fixed the throttle issue by tightening the throttle cable nuts and now it works totally normally again.

 

Quick update: My buddy gave me an ebay hub and a steering wheel so I threw it on and am going to be buying a sparco or momo wheel in the coming days. I also put on a new shift ****. I've attached some pictures that I took today after washing her and included one of the engine bay.

 

speaking as a Marylander, I am impressed this car is not rusted out. In my home state, I think they paved the roads with salt... A really nice car.

 

So, its been a while but figured I'd update this build thread. The car finally gave up and was blowing clouds of smoke at idle so I have since pulled the motor and disassembled it. I am currently in the process of figuring out what needs to be replaced/resurfaced and will hopefully get it done in the coming weeks.

 

What's the build date on that car? Its an dearly car given the lack of a passenger side mirror. Did you post your VIN in the registry?

 

It was built May 1978. And yeah, I already posted the vin in the registry

 

So I brought my engine pieces up to Speed 1 and they told me my plates, rotors, and E-shaft, are in excellent shape. My rotor housings are totally shot tho so I guess I'll be looking into procuring usable ones. So if everything works out I'll end up with better housings, seals, a new rad, and then this car will be back on the road. I'm hoping to get her running again before Winter rolls around.