Project Resurrection: Running Log
 

Okay, you lot have inspired me to get my beloved '80 SA back on the road & past smog, so I can drive it to SevenStock this year. And possibly sell it (that's what I'm telling the wife, anyway).

The car was last driven in March of 2005, when it failed it's smog-check rather decisively (high HC's, slightly elevated CO; O2 was high). Since I had a newer car as my daily driver, it sort of got shoved into the back of the garage and neglected for the last few years, just getting started now and then. Mostly, then.

The engine had only a few thousand miles on a very careful and complete re-build, and I'm certain that it was simply running way too rich. Which of course points to the carb, for which I've now ordered a rebuild kit. I've also got to repair a fracture in the stock (and complex) heat-exchanger/exhuast headpipe.

Just for sh1ts and giggles, I figured I'd go ahead and chronicle the resurrection here, so that y'all can offer advice and snide comments as events warrant.

Day 1: Having completed a week's prep, consisting mainly of cleaning up the workbench and toolbox to servicable shape, charging up the fully-depleted battery, ordering a carb rebuild kit, and having acquired a set of tire skates that let me shove the car around the garage conveniently, I set out to begin work.

Since the carb kit has not yet arrived, I figured I'd spend tonite doing some basic checks and see if she'd light off. First time I've tried starting it in, oh, perhaps a year. Hey, I've been busy.

Battery in, key in, turn to on. Fuel pump is clattering merrily away in the rear, so I gave it a few seconds to fill the bowls. I notice that the factory-original analog clock is still working. Cool.

Start cranking. Turning well, sounds normal; I can hear her breatheing... but she's not lighting off.

Wait a bit longer with the pump running, try it again. Still no iggy.

I popped the air cleaner, and took a look at the front bowl window. I don't see no gas in there. Rear one's very hard to see even with a mirror and a flashlight, but it looks empty as well. I don't notice much fuel smell, either, and after that much cranking, I should.

Rummaging in the tool box, I find my fuel pressure gauge... but I can't find the appropriate adapter. Grrr. I pull the feed line, and there's a little gas in there. I don't have a convenient container to do a pump volume test with, seeing as all the preparatory garage cleaning disposed of them. Grrr.

Tighen the lines back up, and hit the ignition to see if I can see the bowls fill, or feel pressure in the hose.

Hmmm... fuel gauge is flat on empty. :wallbash:

3 YEARS since running??
do any storage/prep for long sleep? Like drain tank, carb, etc.??

Change fuel filter!!
(frankly, after sitting collecting condensation/water for three years - change ALL fluids!!)
Hope it goes well-
:)
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

It wasn't an "anticipated hibernation.", just a long shortage of round tuits, so no, it wasn't prepped for storage. I did start it pretty regularly for the first couple years, though, and all fluids had been freshly changed right before storage. :icon_no2: So it's truthfully only been completely idle for about a year.

Day 2: Carb rebuild kit arrived from Black Dragon - - and it included new float needles and seats, which made it a good deal for $27 delivered. The notation in the catalog that it "does not include metering needle" had me worried.

Also acquired new fuel filter ($3), some new fuel line, and a fresh bucket of parts dip. And a set of adapters for my fuel pressure gauge.

Day 3: The plot thickens!

Conducted fuel pump volume and pressure tests... fuel came out! So, I'm apparently not out of fuel, after all.

Volume was more than adequate, and pressure was only slightly below spec: 3.25psi.

Surely, this should be enough to fill the carb bowls after a minute or more of pumping, but they remain dry as a bone on both sides.

I checked the fuel hoses for blockage, but found nothing.

Since at this point I'm looking at a carb rebuild anyway, I went ahead and pulled the carb, and got it on the bench. I'm looking forward to seeing what the hell's going on in the fuel inlets.

I need to pull the exhaust headpipe too, but that will have to wait for another day.

I'm betting that either the fuel inlet tube is blocked, or the needle/seat assemblies are corroded to the point that fuel cannot flow thru.
Either way, a carb rebuild is really in order, so you're on the right path.

Yeah, my money's on the needles, too, though I can't come up with a reasonable argument yet why they would be stuck closed, rather than open. The evap system should have drained the bowls over a fairly short period of time (weeks, for sure), which would have let the needles drop. But we'll know for sure when I crack the air horn off, probably later tonite.

I'm pretty sure the needles I put in last time had the spring retainers on them that pull them out when the floats drop, but it's been so long I don't recall for sure.

Day Four:

It wasn't until around 8pm Sunday night that I finally got a chance to work into the disassembly for 90 minutes or so.

The findings:

1) The fuel inlet tube was full of free-flowing liquid gasoline, both sides

2) The inlet screens were wet, and appeared clear to a naked-eye inspection

3) The float bowls were basicially bone dry; there is a thin layer of very sticky brown goo on the bottom of one bowl, and a thicker layer on the bottom of the other, but clearly only a drip or two of liquid gasoline had gotten into the bowls from my recent restart attempts. That explains the non-start.

4) The previous set of float needles did NOT have the spring extractors on them, though they were grooved for them. this means that either a) the carb rebuild kit I got for the last rebuild (6 years ago?) did not include them, or b) they were included but I did not install them. My money's on a), as I'm pretty diligent about using new parts when provided.

5) The weird thing is, the needles were not "stuck" in their bores, nor were they corroded at all - - bright and clean, and the rubber tips only very slightly compressed from contact with the seats... which means they were closed, but I don't get why fuel pressure did not open them. Letting the floats hang did not appear to make the needles want to drop of their own accord.

I suppose it's possible that 3.25psi fuel pressure is just below the critical line needed to unseat sticky needles; the fuel orifices are very small, far smaller than a square inch, so there's likely only a few hundreths of a pound of fuel pressure actually exerted on the needles. After all, it's a pretty small amount of flotation that closes them, even against a brand new pump's pressure.

So, it looks like a carb rebuild is just what the doctor ordered. The power valves are mired in that gooey crap, and I'm sure there's going to be endless joy getting everything sparkly clean.

Interesting side note; my carb (1980 Cal MT spec) has two additional fuel inlet screens, which fit on top the inlet of the float needle seats. They're very small, about the size of the eraser in a mechanical pencil, and capped on one end.

They don't appear anywhere in the Nikki Carburetor Manual as separate parts. They're also apparently not part of the rebuild kit.

They are in a spare carb I have (a 79, I think), too. How odd they don't appear on the diagram.

Day Five:
Teardown continued, but only for about half an hour - - late work. Will start dipping parts tomorrow, and will decide whether or not to strip and re-paint the vacuum and bracket parts soon.

Day Six:

Finally, finally had a free evening to get this moving.

Teardown is complete, except for one part: the Power Valve Solenoid.

How I'd like to get my hands round the neck of the wiseass engineer who thought it would be cute to make it impossible to get off without a special 14mm wrench that can't be more than about 3mm thick.

Couldn't make the entire body a 19mm bolt like the richer solenoid... oh, no, that would be too easy and make too much sense. Instead, let's make the body round and out of thin sheet so nobody dares grab it with pliers or a pipe wrench, and then put a little skinny nutlike flange on the front that no proper wrench can reach.

Then, for extra points, let's make it mount to a land on the throttle body with extrusions halfway round.

Grr.

Went thru fits getting the two check balls out of their bores on the main body, too... the gooey evaporated gasoline resin was having a fine time bonding the balls to their seats. tried vacuum, tried penetrating oil, tried medium air pressure (couldn't get a good seal, & didn't want to shoot the thing across the room).

What finally worked was letting a little penetrating oil soak into the bore for a few minutes, then shoving the ball around with the magnetized ice pick I keep around for killing martians. Did the trick nicely.

So, once I can find a be-damned 14mm wrench stamped from sheetmetal, I should be ready to start cleaning.

HAHA, Martians!!

See this is why I'm so happy I live in the land of no emissions for 20+yr old cars.

Good luck to you man. Hope things go a little easier.

Hey, working late in a well-lit garage with the door open, you gotta be ready for those occasional martian invasions, especially here in the Granola state. Magnetic icepicks are to martians as silver bullets are to werewolves.

And don't ge me started on dear Governor Ahnalt changing our smog law from "over 30 years old is exempt" to "anything newer than 1976 will never be exempt."

Get your ass to Mars, Ahnalt.

Ah yes, that wonderful "Governator" you have. Thank god he cannot run for President, seeing as he was not born as a US citizen. Even being married to a Kennedy, he cannot serve in the white house.

I wasn't aware of any recent martian invasions. The last one was repelled by country music........

Day Seven:

After a fruitless search for anyone who actually stocks thin wrenches in the area, I decided to go to Sears and see what I could find.

I bought a Craftsman Strap-Wrench. 5 bucks, I figured was worth a shot so long as I was careful.

The cheap piece of crap broke on my first attempt. Turns out this "Craftsman" tool was made in the UK. Well, at least it has a lifetime warranty, so I can get another worthless piece of crap by returning the broken one. Man, I remember when Craftsman tools were bulletproof... and US made.

I did, however, finally get the power valve solenoid off. I used a pair of RG59 connector crimpers, which basically amount to a very thin pair of pliers with special cutouts in the blades. Grabbed that idiotic nut flange perfectly, and one grunt later, off she came.

Spent the rest of the evening spraying, dipping, rinsing, blowing, and oiling. And being disappointed with the carb kit I bought from Black Dragon, as it turned out to be minimal at best. Good quality, but skimpy on the parts - - not enough crush washers or cotter pins, and fiber washers for stuff that should be aluminum. Just goes to show, you get what you pay for, and sometimes you're lucky to get that! I mean really, how much can aluminum crush washers cost if they buy them in bulk?

Next few nights will be more dipping, brushing, spraying, hosing, wiping. Yay.

No martians were harmed during the making of this post.

Day Eight:

Other business kept me from doing any hand's-work this day, though I did research regarding carb kits.

Looks like AutoZone can get me a GP-Sorensen kit that, judging from the photo, is much more complete than the no-name kit I got from Black Dragon. Yet, it's the same price.

I think I'll retire the Black Dragon kit to the "repair parts" drawer, and order the Sorensen. Last re-build I did years back used the Sorensen kit (I still have the box... yeah, I should clean more often) and I recall it having everything needful in it, including the aluminum washer gaskets.

Ticks me off to have to buy twice... but it will still come to less than the cost of the kit MazdaTrix is offering, which is (I think) Original Mazda, based on the part number.

Still no martian issues... though we did have a raccoon invade the kitchen last night, going for the cat food. Damn thing opened the sliding screen door to do so, which was latched.

Day Nine:

Stopped by AutoZone; the counter tech assured me that if the kit did not contain the parts in the picture (clearly including all the crush washers) he'd give me a refund, so I ordered one. Should arrive by Wednesday, and I may be ready to start assembly by then.

Got home and pulled out the box from my old GP Sorensen kit. Yep, I saved the old crush washers when I did the last rebuild, so I'll have a fresh set.

Didn't have a great deal of working time tonight, but did discover a fairly important problem: the power valves in the bottom of the bowls were so mired in dried-out gas goop that they wouldn't close - - the stems wouldn't pop back up.

Using parts dip, brake cleaner, and penetrating oil, I talked one of them into coming out, but it's still sticky. The other wasn't going to budge. I even tried using my hand vacuum pump and brake-bleed jar to suck a lil solvent in thru the microscopic jet port in the side. No dice.

Having read thru the archives, I had one final ace in the hole. I boiled them in clean water. Did the trick neatly; both now moving freely.

I do need to get that pan cleaned before the wife comes home, though.

Still more cleaning ahead.



Oh, and regarding that expensive Berryman "Parts Dip" I bought a gallon of: the stuff they sell nowadays is damn wimpy; back in the day, that stuff used to eat right thru latex gloves, paint, and most any goo known to man in about 15 mintues. The formula they make now wouldn't even take the Sharpie marks off of the air adjust screw after a half-hour soak. Feh.

Chem-dip has lost a lot of it's original power, that's for sure. 15-20 years ago, you didn't dare reach into the bucket with a bare hand, unless there was soap and water close. Using it in a closed area was a good way to get some sleep. These days, you could prolly drink it, and not even get a buzz........

Yeah, They've been thru at least three formulations that I know of; there was even one that had a layer of light oil or some other low-volatile liquid on top, to keep the working liquid from evaporating.

I have some older cans about, but they are pretty well used up, saturated with dissolved goo. Need to get them to the next "hazardous waste pickup."

Day Ten:

Carb work paused while I got my busted headpipe out of the car, so I could weigh it and see just how busted it is. About 13 lbs. Pretty busted.

I finished cleaning the power valves finally; moving well, no sticking, and sealing tight when closed. A leaky power valve would bollux my attempts to pass smog, that's for sure.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to disassemble them? they are screw-slotted at both ends, but I only have the two, and as I have no idea how rare they may be, I'm not risking them.

Took the secondary diaphragm housing apart & got the diaphragm out safely, so it could get cleaned. Started woking my way through cleaning jets and bleeds.

The perpetrator of the late-night catfood breakin on day eight returned to the scene of the crime, but found herself stymied by a pane of glass this time.

Day Eleven:

More parts cleaning, & some painting of brackets. Nothing remarkable.

The original "B-9 Chem Dip" (Blue letters on white label) was primarily Methylene Chloride - - the Drinking Bird molecule!

Current stuff (multi-colored label) is a mixture of "primary amines." It's thick enough to float aluminum washers on top of, and sticky to boot. Neither are ideal features in a solvent (prevents penetration) but I'm sure it makes it oh so much safer. At least, dirt seems safe from it. And it doesn't do anything about oxydation. Supposedly has an affinity for carbon, though you couldn't prove it by me.

Looks like they did away with the original formula in 2006: http://www.berrymanproducts.com/Port...01,%200905.pdf

Day Twelve:

Busy tonight, shopping parts and suff; no wrench time.

I did pick up the GP Sorenesen carb kit from AutoZone; See comparative pix below:

1) looks like both kits actually originate on the same assembly line: Check out the inside packaging & labelling. Sorensen kit on top (outer box says "made in USA"; BD kit had no outer box.)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/IMG_0036.jpg

2) Heres the contents of the kit from Black Dragon. Only three of the replacement rounds are aluminum; the rest are red or black fiber. The sight glass seals look to be fuel-safe o-rings:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/IMG_0032.jpg

3) Here's the contents of the GP Sorensen kit. Same price wtihin a few cents, but I didn't have to pay shipping. Did have to pay sales tax, though.

Note that all of the round seals are aluminum crush washers, except for the four used to seal the jet access covers. Those are copper. One additional cotter pin, one less e-clip. Couple extra gaskets that must be for a differing appication. Sight glass seals are proper flat-cut rubbers.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/IMG_0033.jpg

Between the two, I'm liking the Sorensen kit a bit better. Both gasket sets seem well-cut and clean, though - - I'm sure either would work. I just like having the aluminums.

Instructions and the lil cardboard float ruler omitted from picture; the Sorensen instructions looked a bit better, though I'm using the Mazda carb manual.

Oh, and the needle kits have the exact same part numbers, only differ in date code.

Day Thirteen:

Another night where everyone wanted part of my time, it seemed.

Cleaned more jets and parts, and spent some time going over my ACV, making sure the failure of my exhaust headpipe didn't cook it, after discussing pipes with AZRotor. Looks intact, and diaphragms checked out OK via vac pump. Relieved; these damn things are rarer than hen's teeth and expensive as hell, and absolutely indespensible for passing smog.

I have officially dubbed it the Ahnalt Governator Valve.

Days Fourteen and Fifteen:

14) Mostly a quiet evening cleaning parts, and packing tools for a survey of the local pickkapart places. Discovered a strange amount of wear on the accelerator pump linkage (independant post about it here: https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-specific-1979-1985-18/question-nikki-sensei-s-774084/ )

15) Hit three boneyards, looking for a good headpipe and possibly some other things; slim pickings. The only SA I found, with a serial # only a few hundred from mine, had it's headpipe sliced in half by some yardmonkey retard that thought the heat excahnger was a catalytic converter. Ruined a rare sellable part to get at platinum that wasn't there - - great business practice, that.

Cut the heat sheilds off of my old headpipe to see what went wrong; the welds at the first bend were melted/boiled away:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/8db87fd7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/47a1303f.jpg

Failure of cooling air to reach the pipe, apparently. Need to sort that out, before I burn up any replacement I may find. Possibilities are failed thermal reactor, loose/mismounted insert, bad ACV or solenoids or air pump, blocked vent pipe, maybe a couple more. Time to pull the TR off & check it. :scratch:

Days Sixteen through Twenty-Three

In general, little time to work on the project this last week.

Most all carb internals cleaned and ready for reassenbly. Now working on stripping/cleaning/painting the external bracketage and stuff; much of hte old chromate coating has eroded with years, so we're going blue anodized clearcoat. Slow stuff.

The cam on the throttle shaft that I wanted to replace due to excess wear is a different shape on my spare carb, so it'll stay in place for now. Looking at it carefully, the wear won't be an issue for several years at least, given the age of the part. The linkage side was a direct match, so it's been swapped.

Pulled my TR; cursory inspection doesn't seem to show any gross failure, but it's clear that exhaust gas was making it into the cooling air jacket; MTBE deposits don't lie. This may mean that, the last time I was actually running the stock exhaust, I had the TR insert in backwards. No way to prove it, but it would cause the symptoms I'm seeing.

Still no joy on a headpipe; there's a chance I may be able to get my old one rewelded, as one of the guys in my dive club is a pipefitter for the oil refineries & may be able to do the fancy work needed. Or, I may get lucky from the couple people I've contacted thru the board, as their projects move along. the waiting may kill me.

Appears there's something wrong with my fuel gauge sender, or wiring; gauge is on empty, so I thought the tank was near dry. Prepairing to replace the fuel filter, I figured I'd pump it the rest of the way dry first. Pumped more that two gallons out, still shows dry, still fuel in it. Oh, goody; another task.

I'll need to test the entire emissions system, too, part by part. :icon_no2:

Days Twenty-Three through Twenty-Six

I'm finally satisfied with the condition of the carb parts I have, and have started re-assembling the carb. Still working on refinishing some of the brackets; painting in parallel with working on the internals.

This carb hasn't been this clean since it left Hiroshima. Everything working smoothly. All brass parts polished. Got all the way through verifying and reinstalling the jets and bleeds last night.

One minor issue with the Sorensen gasket kit, which has otherwise been excellent; the exterior (paper) gaskets that go between the sight glasses and their retainers were oversized, to the point that I had to trim their outside edges down by about an eighth of an inch total in order to get them to fit smoothly.

Carb will be done in a couple more evenings (busy til weekend with other stuff) and then I'll start electrical and vacuum testing of non-carb emissions parts. No sense in mounting the carb until I get my exhaust parts sorted. Tricky enough to get the Thermal Reactor off without removing the intake as it is; the carb just gets in the way.

Day Twenty-Seven

Finished the main body reassembly last night, with the exception of the dashpot bracketage, which needed repainting.

Only good thing I've discovered about the gold accent paint I used last time is that it melts away like cotton candy, when exposed to brake cleaner. Stripping it off consists of a couple aquirts, wait 30 seconds, then wipe it down with a paper towel.

Otherwise, the gold stuff was a bust. Looked great when I did it, but now, yuck.

Still need something to protect the metal, though, as the original chromate passivation is quite corroded on many of these parts. I suspect that the car's early life (back before I bought it in '89) was spent near the beach, as a lot of the chromated parts show the distinct signs of salt air exposure.

I'm using a blue anodized-look lacquer this time. It stood up well to engine-compartment heat on the other parts I used it for, cleans easily (nothing much seems to stick to it) with a dry rage, and it looks quite nice. Store used to carry it in a gold color as well, but I can't find any now. The gold was the closest to the original chromate color I'd seen, but you had to have the part near-perfect polished first to make it look right. The blue is dark enough that it covers a lot of imperfections in finish.

Took some pics of the build in-progress; will post 'em up tonight.


Brake cleaner deserves a place in the "most useful items in the universe" pantheon, just down from duct tape.

brake cleaner is awesome stuff.

I bought a honda a while back that had the WHOLE interior painted. Brake cleaner got it all off, you'd never even know it had been painted now.

Days Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine

Another one of those weekends where everthing except the car got a slice of my time. Including the joy of having the gas-door release on the Z decide not to work. Barely made it home to fix it! Good thing I had those two gallons of ancient gas I drained out of the RX-7 still in the gas can. Had to spend most of Saturday working on the wife's car.

Here's a couple in-progress photos of the carb:

Never leave dirty brass around old Marines - - it just naturally ends up getting polished.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/20b342c3.jpg

An example of the "before" condition of the exterior components (foreground) and the 'blue anodized' look finish on some that have been completed (background)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/cf445370.jpg

After careful consideration, I've decided that I'm going to helicoil the screw holes for the float bowl cover attachement; the old threads are pretty beat up, looking like someone over-torqued the lot of them ages ago. I had to do two of them (the ones over the OMP feeds) during the last rebuild, so I still have the supplies. Sort of a "all or nothing" thing, though - - mess one up, and recovery becomes painful.

Can I run my drill press with my fingers crossed? Stay tuned!

Day Thirty (Quite possibly the slowest carb rebuild on record?)

Drilled and helicoiled (actually using Permacoils, but anyway) the five remaining bowl-cover attachment screw holes last night.

Things were going great, until I got to holes four and five.

The fourth hole was one of the very "shallow" ones on the driver's side end of the float bowl (closest one in the above pic.) The total depth of this hole is only slightly more than the length of the installed permacoil, and when I went to break the installation tang off the bottom of the installed coil, instead of shearing like it's supposed to, it instead popped the last turn of the coil out of the tapped hole. This "ruins" the installed thread coil (messes up the pitch), and any screw that you try to put down it will end up stripping.

After a hairily stressful 20 minutes of effort, I was able to get the bottom coil lifted enough from the tapped hole to grab it with a pair of needle-nose pliers, and slowly uncoil it out of the hole. This only worked because the bottom of the coil was accessible from the bottom of the hole.

I installed another coil, this time turning it a half-turn shallower, and broke the tang off with pliers from the bottom, instead of the normal punch-from-the-top process. Success! Huge sigh of relief, and on to the last hole.

Which, of course, decided to do exactly the same thng: the tang failed to pop cleanly, and the final turn of the coil is displaced. A test-screw run down the hole got totally chewed.

Problem is, this last coil is in a deeper bore, and I don't seem to have any way to access the bottom of the coil to try to grasp and remove the broken coil.

Had to leave things there & hit the rack so I could get up for work. It's going to eat on me all day, trying to figure out a way to extract that borked coil.

Maybe I can work an Xacto blade under the TOP coil end, and reverse it out? You can't push coils out (pushing only makes them grip tighter), and as they are far harder than the float bowl's metal, you must move them gently or they will chew up the install thread, ruining the hole. which would be bad. You can only extract them by grabbing an end and "dragging" them out, essentially shrinking the coil by winding it tighter.

We'll see how that goes tonight. Wishes for luck will be greatly appreciated.

Day Thirty-One

No one on the planet apparently stocks helicoil removal tools.

The normal procedure for most folks appears to be to use a strong sharp pick, and try to raise up the top end of the coil our of the tapped thread, bend it, and then use needle-nose pliers to turn it out.

The normal procedure, sadly, is not suited for 1) M5 size tinier-than-hell Permacoils, 2) cheese-soft carb bowl metal, and 3) eyesight that just doesn't focus down to the four-inches-away mode any more.

Hours of picking and cussing got me nowhere.

I tried using superglue to bond a screw into the coil and back it out. No dice; superglue does not like to adhere to polished stainless steel too well. More cussing and copious application of acetone ensued, to prevent the glue from sticking to the carb part of the mess & locking the damaged coil in even more.

Finally, I managed to get one of my tiny jewelers' screwdrivers under the BOTTOM end (the part that was mangled ou of line in the first place) of the coil, and slowly coil it inward & out the hole, with the tapped threads intact. Essentially, I turned the damn thing inside out.

Installation of the replacement coil went smoothly, so at last I now have full-strength steel-reinforced threads for my carb bowl screws... which will be replaced with stainless hex-head cap screws.

Finally able to move on to new stuff. Yay.

Days Thirty-Two through Thirty-Six

1) Used Super Black Silicone to rebond my hood's internal frame to the skin. Although not quite as solid-sounding as the hood on my 350Z (which is mostly aluminum anyway), the "trash-can" sound is gone for the first time since I've had the car, and the hood feels considerably more rigid, which should help with eliminating high-speed flutter at the corners some, once I can actually get it to high speed again.

2) Carb work continues slowly, because of the time required to strip, paint, and reassemble all the corroded exterior assemblies. Those containing stamped-in vacuum diaphragms in particular take a while, because I can't immerse them in stripper to clear the old coatings; it would dissolve the diaphragms. Q-tips and Dremel tool are the rule.

Takes about an evenings' work to strip one assembly down, and then paint it; takes at least three days for the paint to reach full hardness to where it's ready for reassembly.

Example:

Teeter-totter assembly before and after pictures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/07cff5fb.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/c02c2ddd.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/3ed5bcbd.jpg

After
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/acf76def.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/a99c5acd.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/f42b5c9f.jpg

I may have to re-title this thread "Pimping Miss Nikki." :)

Have also replaced the bulk of the carb's external screws with stainless steel hex-head screws; cap screws for the bowl cover and heavier items, and butt-heads for the smaller stuff. Still have a few specific lengths to either find or cut down. Low-priority work for when I'm waiting for paint to dry. many of the old Philips screws were thoroughly chewed up.

Only assemblies still waiting refinishing are the fuel spider, the bowl vent solenoid, and the choke thermo assembly, which is in particularly rough shape.

Then, I can finish carb reassembly, and focus back on the rest of the fuel system.

Still no joy on a front pipe within my current price reach; got a couple people who are looking for me, but they are busy people too. Now that the dive club has returned from the summer trip (envy for them), maybe I can pursue the FrankenPipe option with my pipefitter friend.

Looks like you are off too a good start! Hope your project continues to go well!

Very interesting thread, I just read through it now, I'll definatly be keeping an eye on it, I like the blue and gold theme you have going on, looks very clean! Good luck!

Days Thirty-Seven through Fourty-One

Finally got the last components requiring it disassembled, stripped down, polished, and painted (Choke Thermostat assembly, Bowl Vent solenoid). Now hung out to dry in the garage, so maybe Sunday I can do final assembly on the carb. Pictures will be shot when done.

No idea how it will work yet, but by damn, it's one pretty carb!

Also may have a line on an exhaust headpipe, local to the area; should know in a day or two I hope. otherwise, Project FrankenPipe will be starting up. God help me.

More soon.

Day Fourty-Two

Got a call from a newer forum member here, who had recently replaced his exhaust and moved out of state where he doesn't need smog equipment any more. We'd been corresponding for a few days; he offered me his old stock exhaust if I'd drive to his relative's place and pick it up. I readily agreed, and drove the 40 miles from my house to there to pick it up.

Sadly, the exhaust he had pulled from his just-purchased '80 is nowhere near stock. It's been reworked to include cats and (poorly; there are holes in the welds) welded together end to end except for the muffler. In the process, the part I need was cut in half and welded to a cat.

I greatly appreciate his generosity and his offer, and will hold onto this system in the event that I simply cannot locate or fabricate the part I need to actually restore my car as planned - - it might actually have worked well enough to pass smog in Phoenix.

I can't fault him at all; He was doing me a huge favor, and he's likely never seen a stock '80 exhaust, and I only sent him photos of the front piece I needed... which is still sort of there, like your friend's face on a Borg. Just enough left to make you mourn the loss of the rest.

I am depressed.

Day Fourty Three

Miss Nikki is ALL DRESSED UP for the party...

Carb is finished, outside of some final adjusting.

Pix. Ignore the misconnected vacuum line in the first couple; that was just to keep it up out the way. Final ones are correct.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/2a1c739e.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/1552b6b9.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/a7468ec2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/a507e749.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/f304afd8.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/76a22c96.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/2db33e0a.jpg

The ol' girl ain't looking too bad for pushing thirty. Only new parts visible are the stainelss screws (and the jar lid.) The silicone vac lines are four or five years old, all the other parts are original to the car. Cleaned up purty nice.


Here's a photo of the almost-mythical, rarely-seen-cuz-its-usually-stuck-in-the-air-horn needle screen:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/0496b8b8.jpg

Now that the carb is finally done, I can get back on the rest of the fuel system, namely finding out why my gauge isn't working, and clearing and refiltering my fuel feed.

I still need to solve the exhaust situation, too. Fun.

Days 44 through 55

Not a lot of visible progress in the last week and a half, though a number of little things have gotten cleaned up, and I may have an exhaust solution lined up.

I also survived another birthday last week, which is exactly according to plan. On the other hand, the three days of garage time I had planned for Labor Day weekend ended up being about a half a day, which was not according to plan.

The "fuel gauge not reading" issue has been traced to a malfunctioning sender. Discussed swaps and issues with clubmembers in another thread. I've got gaskets ordered, and will be chasing experimentation units at the local boneyards tomorrow.

I pulled the rims and took out the center trim inserts, and re-painted the flat black portions using the "spray and wipe" technique. They don't look half bad! (pix tonite).

In the process of pulling the wheels, I also inspected the brakes. I didn't expect any problems there, as I'd completely re-done them shortly before the car went on vacation, but I noticed that the rubber boots that protect the front caliper pins (28 years old) have dry-rotted and cracked. Rather than get water in there, I started hunting replacements, and was happy to find that Mazda still has the "Boot Kit" available for 80's, which replaces the boots for both sides of the front. Part # 834149250, $17.08. Ordered, should have them early next week.

Last night, I finally had a chance to talk to my pipe-fitter dive buddy regarding my semi-melted exhaust duct. He said that he'd probably not be the guy to do it himself, as he's more used to working on stuff much thicker, but that he knows a guy who can probably handle it easily. I'm going to meet that person tonight, and see if a deal can be struck. Failing that, I'll have them splice the (much older) front half of the salvaged junkyard duct to the rear portions of my much-newer-but-busted duct, thus creating "Frankenpipe." I'd rather fix my pipe, as it's much newer and has seen much less corrosion. Metal's in much better shape, it's just the welds that are fubar.

Meantime, I've got a pile of emissions parts to run through static testing, and a few underhood things I'd like to do touchups on if there's time before SevenStock. Much dust removal to be done, too.

Also, I have Xlr8Planet's new air cleaner replacement lettering on order, and hope to get my air cleaner refurbed before the meet.

Still might make it, but time is tight, and I still have to pass emissions testing.

The race is on.

Days 55 through 68

Only a week remaining until SevenStock, but I think I’ll make it. Several things have come together in the last two weeks, and several other things have come apart.

After discussing the tank sender issue with several folks here in the forum, I was able to work out a procedure to replace the electrical element in my SA sender with the element from a salvaged ’85; wrote that procedure up, and it’s now in the archives: https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...wpost&t=786986

Whoohoo, I’m a real member now; I’ve been archived!

The brake boot kit arrived at the Mazda dealer with only one boot in it (guide pin boot); it took a fair amount of diplomacy, and a little bit of theatrics, to convince the counterman, then the service manager, that “kit” normally means “more than one thing” and that if they read their parts breakdown, they’d realize that this particular kit is supposed to include four boots (two guide pin, two lock pin), not just one, and that I was NOT paying $17 for one boot. It helps vastly to have a copy of the parts fiche (thanks, Sgt Fox!) and to be more familiar with the application than they are. It took three days and another trip to the dealer with photos of my calipers, but they did get Mazda to re-ship the kit; the re-shipped one contained five parts: four boots, and one pouch of pink boot grease. Apology and exchange accepted.

Put the new pin boots on the front brakes, scrubbed the rims (Simple Green & hose water), and put my re-painted center badges in – looking sweet. Dropped the front wheels back into my wheel skates, raised the back, and pulled the rims for cleaning & badging. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Uh-oh. Why is the right rear brake dragging?

Pulled the drum… wow, looks like I lost a brake cylinder seal some time back. Shoes were soaked with old fluid and had expanded (causing the drag) and there was slimy hydrated fluid all over.

OK, no problems; I have a spare set of shoes I bought some years back, and some old pulled rear cylinders. Should be able to work this out.

Cleaned up the mess, and discovered two unhappy things: 1) the shoes I’d been sold years ago, and never used, do not fit this car; slightly larger diameter, slightly different shape to the metal shoe. Damn. And 2) all my hoarded rear brake cylinders need work, as they are old.

So, now on order from Black Dragon, new brake shoes, and a right rear cylinder (which Mazdatrix lists as No Longer Available, so it’s probably an aftermarket).

In the meantime, I’ve also pulled apart the clutch system, to clean it out, re-paint the hard-line & it’s bracket, and purge it of old fluid. It’s still in good shape, just needed refreshing and a quick honing. The clutch slave was the very first part I replaced; it failed shortly after I bought the car, nearly 20 years ago. Way to hang in there, lil’ part.

The bracket that holds the junction between the clutch hard-line and the hose has always struck me as a total throw-together part; it just looked sloppy as hell. Two inelegant pieces of stamped sheet, spot-welded together, and the edges didn’t even match up. So, I reworked it, trimming it down and smoothing the sides. Looks much more like it belongs in the car.

The dive buddy who is doing the exhaust welding for me completed the internal welds, and tack-welded the two sections together so I could do a fitment test, since getting the alignment on the angle of the inlet right is critical.

Test-fitted it last night; perfection. Now it goes back to him for final welding. I should have a complete exhaust by tomorrow night, and can start reassembly toward a re-start this weekend. Then, final fluid change, testing, tuning, and smog-check.

If I have enough time left, I’ll re-paint my air cleaner & hatch latch, & use xlr8planet’s excellent re-lettering, which arrived last week.

Getting close, but still much to do.

Days 68 through 78

Long story short; Buddy's weld job ended up off just a bit in angle, which means that none of the rest of the exhaust system will line up properly, aft of the heat exchanger.

He was off by only about a degree, but that amounts to a couple inches by the time you get to the muffler, and it's just too much error to get aligned.

Missed SevenStock. Bummer. Still gonna get Spry Beastie back on the road, though; too much time invested to give up without a hell of a fight.

Essentially, this is the problem:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/00396d2a.jpg

Stock midpipe on stock hangers will not align with the heat exchanger, due to offset induced by angular error in the headpipe. Ends up, even if forced all the way over by disconnecting the hangers, with an undsealable gap.

If put on the stock hangers, & left to hang freely, the problem is clear:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/b11895c5.jpg

However, I have most of a useable stock midpipe that I inheritied from "80's Old School"s old exhaust, which he left here in Cali and bequeathed to me.

Sawed loose from the non-stock components, that left me with a midpipe missing the front flange and about 2 " of pipe. At this point in the exhaust, we are essentially "cat-back". It's behind all the smog components and is nothing more than a simple exhaust pipe.

So, the solution seems to be this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/d85d2f98.jpg


This is mocked up with a flange I bought from a local muffler place, and a piece of galvanized pipe I got from (urk) Pep Boys. Since it's galvanized, I can't weld it properly, but it made a perfect jig to mark the angle needed. I expect the muffler place that sold me the flange can stretch a hunk of cold steel pipe and weld it up based on my markings, and I'll be in business, at minimal cost.

It still pulls the hanger a bit out of true, and its using about all the angular adjustment that the ring gasket at the muffler junction will allow, but it will connect A to B with little to no additional restriction. It's a no-compromises workaround (I can even use the stock heat sheild) for being still unable to locate a good-condition headpipe at a price I can afford to pay.

And I still have my untouched, good-condition midpipe, if I can locate a good headpipe. That way, I can recover back to completely stock with only a few hours bolt-turning, should I find one.

Looking good....great write up!! I hope that you get it all back together soon. I hope that some of my old junk can get you back up and running!
BTW, I will be in SOCAL in a few weeks. I am interviewing for a position at Exxon/Mobile in Torrance. (Wish me luck!!!) Hopefully I can meet some of the SOCAL Rx-7 folks!
Also, if I transfer back to SOCAL again, I am gonna keep my RX registered in TEXAS!!! No emissions!!!

Wishing you luck!

Days 79 through 80

The muffler shop guy (Daryl at Miracle Muffler & Trailer Hitch in Anaheim - - great guy, does a lot of custom/restoration work) said we could easily use the parts I had, but warned that trying to do this type of fitment off the car is very difficult, because even tiny amounts of error can prevent things from fitting - - as I knew too well!

He tacked the parts on two sides, based on my marks, and I took them home to re-fit them and bend the tack-welds for a more exact fit.

Problem is getting things in and out without disturbing the alignment. Nearly impossible, since there is little clearance at either end.

Good thing we refitted, as the tack welds were off by a bit. had to pop two of them to get tight bolt-up. Which presented me with a problem; how to preserve the alignment while I got the pipe off the car?

I decided to "tack-weld" it with epoxy. I figure that will hold long enough for it to be re-tacked in steel, before chipping the epoxy off & seam-welding it. I didn't want to use more than a couple small spots, because I wanted to leave plenty of space for welding in between.

I let the epoxy set up overnight with everything torqued in place, and went to carefully remove the pipe last night.

I had it out, and was pulling it out from under, when the back end got hung up on the axle and I dropped the damn thing, which of course hit the floor epoxied-end first, and cracked the epoxy free from the less-than-perfectly-clean metal on one joint. I said some bad words I learned from my Drill Instructor; three bugs dropped dead in mid-air, but the pipe was unimpressed.

Luckily, the epoxy cracked, but the cracks provided a perfect "index" for re-aligning the parts, since it did not stretch at all.

Re-epoxied it last night to hold the marks, and it's now sitting in the back hatch of the Z, waiting to go over for welding at lunchtime.

I'll still have to trick up a support for the cooling-air exhaust pipe that goes out to the back (mount for it originally bolts to the 'missing' flange that I'm recreating here) but I have some 16ga. sheet I can hack and hammer into a decent mount.

Needless to say, not a day of this exhaust work goes by that I don't look at my perfectly serviceable RB header/presilencer sitting in the corner, and then think of, and roundly curse, our dear Governator for having changed the smog laws to 'protect' me from my car. :wallbash:

Looks like its coming together, although I'm actually happy to live in good old NJ after seeing all the hell you have to go through to make it smog legal.... The Visual check is much less involved here, although the sniffer portion of the test can still be tricky....
I'm a little confused by one thing you said though about welding that piece on. I've never had a problem welding galvanized exhaust componenets with my wire feed welder...
Nice job on the carb btw, the color scheme is nice and clean looking. :bigthumb:

Thanks for the complements.

Issues welding galvanized are two-fold; one, the gases generated from the vaporized zinc are prone to make you nauseous and irritate your lungs, and two, the vaporizing zinc can cause pinholes in your bead that weaken it, just like any outgassing can.

it took me just over a year of "on and off" working to finish mine :D

... and it doesn't look nearly as good as yours. it's very clean, but i didn't do a whole lot of polishing - actually, i only polished the venturis.

anyway, just wanted to say you've done a very impressive job and keep at it. this is a cool little journal you've got going here.

1

DD your Miss Nikki is a fine gal to behold :)
Thanks for sharing the Pain - interesting read as a fellow 80-SA-er
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

Hmm interesting to know. I usually take a lot of time cleaning and prepping parts before welding, including grinding a good bit of the galvanizing off, so I guess thats why my welds always hold up.... I constructed most of the exhaust for my T2 FB out of galvanized bends etc and its still holding up fine. I'm a home taught welder so as long as its steel I pretty much go for it lol.
Anyway, again nice work, will be nice to see the car all together and running :)

Hey are you trying to hold one exhaust pipe to a flange or whatever so you can get it welded??? Forget using the epoxy. Just put the exhaust system in place where you like it....Drill a small 1/8" hole in the pipe/flange area. Put a small sheet metal screw in it and pull it all out. When your buddy welds it all together he will weld up the small hole you drilled also... NO FUSS NO MUSS!!!

Day 81

The epoxy trick worked well enough; Daryl tacked the welds thoroughly, then chipped and brushed the epoxy off, and then beaded both seams nicely. This guy and this shop now get my highest recommendation; he charged me very little for a lot of good advice and some solid work.

Here's a good side-by-side of my stock midpipe, and the modifications needed to accomodate the small alignment error my dive buddy introduced to the headpipe:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/15faabfc.jpg

Fitted the pipe in; like a glove, perfect alignment.

Next, I needed to re-create the hanger bracket for the cooling air exhaust pipe, which runs parallel to the exhaust. You can see the original bracket welded to the flange of the stock pipe. Since the angle of the exhaust changed, the length and angle of the bracket changed totally, too.

Tools and materials available included 16-ga sheet steel, hand hacksaw, files, bench vise, drill press, and BFH (3lb short-handle cross-peen sledge). I don't have a cutting torch.

First, put all parts in, and mock up the part using graph paper, being careful to be sure there's still room to torque the nut:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/b89eb73a.jpg

Transfer the paper template to the steel (adding allowance for bend radii), and start stroking the hacksaw. Wish I had a sharp new blade for it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/bc4837a4.jpg

...aaand keep hacking:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/001081f8.jpg

Thankfully, I at least have a drill press. Doing a 1/2" hole with a hand drill is no fun at all.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/1e05a48b.jpg

I can only make bends in steel this thick by locking it in the bench vise and beating the living hell out of it with the sledge. That restricts me to straight bends only, but it works out fairly well. The bends are for both accomodating the required angle, and for rigidity; without them, the bracket would flex too easily.

The completed piece, ready to be fitted:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/65fa5692.jpg

And finally, installed. Fits like a glove.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...f/17994705.jpg

I'll pick up some cold-galvanizing spray today at McFadden-Dale's, and some new bolts to replace the horridly rusted ones that hold the heat sheild on the midpipe.

Then, I will at last have a complete, and smog-legal, exhaust. Yay.

Problem was, I had to hold two loose parts (extention and flange) that fit loosely, and I had to preserve angles on all three axes to very close tolerance. Nothing was straight in this, nothing fit tight. A couple thousandths off could have wrecked me.

Best way to do this kind of stuff is to weld it on the car. But I can't get the car to the welder at this point.

Got lucky; the epoxy worked out.

Days 82 and 83

...So naturally, the front cooling-air pipe, which goes from the front pipe's rear half to the bottom of the Thermal Reactor, doesn't fit, either. It's too short by about 1/4", which means that the repair was not just off angularly, but was slightly out of place, too.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...27031dfc-1.jpg

This is the odd-looking pipe on the very obttom of the stock exhaust; for some rason, the FSMs call them "rubber" but they are not; theyare thin-wall tube covered in several layers of what looks to be either fiberglass, or asbestos (!) for thermal insulation. This pipe feeds air that originates at the air pump, travels thru the ACV and the intake manifold, then down a long pipe to the rear heat exchanger, forward thru the outer jacket of the headpipe, and then (via this tube) into the bottom of the TR, where it serves to provide pre-heated air for additional combustion of exhaust gasses. Got all that? Without it, there's no air for the TR to use to burn leftover HCs.

I don't want to hack up my good stock one (again, hoping eventaully to find a good stock headpipe) but I have most of a spare (again from 80's Old School's castoffs) which is in pretty rought shape, but I think I can refurb it and get it extended to fit.

This is the last piece that can possibly be affected by the repaired headpipe. Other than this, the exhaust is complete and installed.