^^^ Best... compliment... evar...

As a salute to your dedication/affliction/passion I spent 2+ hours underneath my SA today with SOS pads and Simple Green, cleaning areas NO ONE will ever see....
;)
enjoying the thread DD

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

Day 1156

JCCS is day after tomorrow; the louvers are not going to make the cut. Kind of a bummer considering all the time I have in them, but there's no point in putting stuff in a show that you don't think is representative of your best work. I'll come up wuth a way to make them right, in time.

Spent the 98* evening putting a fresh coat of Mother's Pure Carnauba Wax on the Beastie... and, for a miracle, lived to tell about it, heh. Pretty much show-ready except for a touch-up vacuuming & loading up the car.

Rumor has it that SevenStock is aimed at halloween weekend, which gets me about a month between shows. Time to take another crack at that thrice-bedamned post-shutdown flood, which is once again making itself known.

Most recent test, I ran the car up to temp, then shut it down and immediately:
Pulled the carb vent hose (eliminates the carbon canister)
Opened the oil filler (eliminates the crankcase vent system)
Opened the gas cap (eliminates the tank vent system)
And the rear bowl STILL drained down into the carb, creating the by-now imfamous near-flood on restart.

It's pretty much GOT to be a siphoning issue at this point. Either that, or the carb base gasket is still not sealing properly to the throttle body, or both.

It's a puzzle. An ugly, ugly puzzle.

I'll need to smog the car again in March of next year; clearly need to get past this by then.

What time are you heading out? I'm thinking of caravaning... (Depends on my boyfriend's and our friend's schedule) He might be bringing his MR2 but the window motors don't work AND the AC doesn't work. And the car is black... Still debating whether to bring the FC or not.

Cars start rolling into the show area at 7:30, and I like to be kinda early so I don't get the "last" spot. It's 57 miles, and I'll not be whomping it up at high speed in an attempt to avoid as many bugs/rocks/tire treads/wrong-way drivers as possible, so transit time will be right about an hour.

I'll probably be leaving the house between 6:00 and 6:15.

Let me know if that suits ya. I don't think general admission starts til around 9am.

Day 1157
Went out for a short test drive, to heat things up, check oil, etc.

Backing into the drive, I smelled a faint whiff of anti-freeze. Rut-roh.

Looks like it's just a loose hose clamp on the lower rad hose (right next to the thermal reactor, of course). Gotta let it cool down afore I can try tightening it, but it's only a couple drops. Nice thing about "show-car clean:" leaks are impossible to miss.

Little vacuuming and general shining to do tonight, then it's roll 'em in the morning.

Hrmm, that may be too early then. I'll see you there later for sure :)

Dam just looked up JCCS i wish i could go to see ur car. Have to put a FMOC on my car 2morro and its a 2.5 hr drive =((. Guess ima have to wait till 7 Stock to see it.

If you see a big stripey beach umbrella, I'll be under it.

JCCS is quite a show, but so's SS; if it's there and you're there, then I'll be there :egrin:

Day 1158

The short version:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...h/IMG_0253.jpg

:bling:

For more details: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v2...0Long%20Beach/

Congratulations, I'd say that plaque is well-earned after all the time and attention to detail demonstrated in this thread. May you win many more like it. Now go have a beer and celebrate.

:asian: Woohoo! Congratulations on another well deserved win!

congrads on the win.

Congrast on the win Glenn. Its good to see SAs take the podium.

Any progress on the louvers? I'm hoping to start rebuilding mine in the next few weeks or so.

Honestly haven't touched them since before JCCS. I have them hanging on the wall in the garage where nothing will happen to them, but I'm currently in the midst of replacing my 17-year-old front struts.

I still have the receipt, and Tokico has that limited lifetime warranty... Be interesting to see what they say - - especially since they don't make the struts for SA's any more, heh.

Maybe I can parlay a set of FB struts out of 'em. Good for trade or later use.

Interesting side note: I bought a full set of Racing Beat springs (and bushings, etc - - full suspension workover) on the same date; picked them up from Mazdatrix via will-call on 5/16/95.

As I was already replacing the struts, I was also curious to see if the springs had settled overmuch, which is a common issue with coil spring suspensions over time.

I took them to the Racing Beat showroom today at lunch, and asked to compare them to a brand-new set for free length.

The brand new set measured just a couple hundredths shy of 11 inches, extreme to extreme. Call it 11.98 inches, eyeball measure using a steel 1/100th scale.

My 17-year old, many, MANY miles elapsed driver's side spring measured exactly 11.92 inches.

That's a total loss of 0.06' of free length - - much of which is clearly due to eroded paint & grit abrasion where the springs ride the perches.

I'd call that decent durability. :icon_tup:

Day 1183

And, I'm STILL in the process of replacing my front struts. Had everything all set to to proceed on Friday night last, all parts on hand, everything disassembled properly.

Saturday morning comes, and sees me diving into the cleaning and re-painting part of any job when done for the first time in over a decade. Painting all went well, with strut tubes/knuckles & brake backers getting a heavy coat of gloss black, and strut top mounts getting satin black, after cleaning the inevitable rust out of the upper chamber.

Then, I started having one of those days that come along every so often.

I got the driver's side strut all re-packaged and up in the car, and made my way through the joyously sloppy job of re-packing the wheel bearings. I always pack 'em by hand, rather than use one of the repacking tools that operate off a grease gun, as I like to use Castrol tub grease. And frankly, it's just plain slimy fun.

All's well, til I screwed up seating the new seal, bending the lip irrecoverably due to a misplaced hammer strike. Naturally, I only had two, and naturally, nobody stocks them locally, so I say a few cranky words about how I'll have to get cleaned up & go order more before I can finish.

Then, while torquing the right-side strut cartridge into the carrier, just on the final twist, the strut pops out of my bench vise and the wrench takes a nice big bite out of the piston shaft of the new strut. Ruined, unrecoverable. $50 right down the drain, plus shipping. And another multi-day delay, ordering a new one from Rock Auto, because naturally nobody local carries KYB GR-2's for an SA, either.

At that point, I gave up for the day - - some days it's just plain dangerous to try to keep on when things aren't jelling.

My new strut cart should show up tonight or tomorrow, and I can finish getting things reassembled. Then it's alignment-monkeying time.

Grrr....

Day 1185

New strut cartridge was waiting for me when I got home Wednesday (much love to Rock Auto) but thanks to a few crash-priority Honeydews lobbed in from the missus, I didn't get around to dropping it in til last night. It got buttoned down safely (I wrapped the shaft in packing foam, so naturally nothing slipped this time...) and all the required this and that put back in place.

I also replaced the standard-style hose clamps I had holding my Racing Beat silicone rad hoses on. At the time I got mine (the first pair off the dock, 'sponsored' to me in return for my car being used for the product photos on their website) the specialized clamps needed, which have a ribbed inner liner ring, hadn't arrived. I'd used standard clamps with thin brass shimstock to protect the hoses, and they held OK for quite a while, but I was stating to have tiny leakage. A little minor sneakiness made it possible to change out the clamps without having to remove the hoses, which saved me a lot of work and the ridiculous cost of new antifreeze.

Got everything buttoned up about 8pm & took her out for a test run, swinging by the local Thursday night meet.

Lawdy, what a difference!

I no longer feel like I'm inside a basketball during the playoffs. Smooth, tight, controlled, and much more responsive. I no longer need to fear the infamous "freeway over-crossing drops" on the 71. Corner exits are once again coordinated, instead of requiring a tiny counter-steer to straighten out.

I am teh happeh.

Strut failure can sneak up on you so slowly that you don't realize how bad your handling has become until you replace them. They kind of train your expectations of what's normal as they fade, so you don't consciously notice that things aren't right.

When you do finally change them, the difference is profound.

Good for another 17 years... :egrin:

This is an amazing restoration project, I'll definitely reference your thread when I eventually get myself a 1st gen RX7.

Day 1270

So, I starting pulling the engine out of the car today; I'm unhappy with my oil consumption, and I suspect it's just an oil ring issue but I don't want it to get too far gone and damage any housings along the way. I'm also hoping to find another 100% compatible carb I can rebuild and swap in as the next step in "why the hell do I flood after shutting down?"

The car was still running fine, idling smooth, and pulling strong... but I was up to a quart every 200 miles or so, and that's just not normal.

Taking tons of photos along the way, of course, and will document in disgusting detail the steps in pulling, rebuilding, reinstalling a bone-stock SA 12A.

With maybe a few side trips to the chrome shop along the way :)

Glen, i may have an SA carb on the shelf if you find that you need one to rebuild.

the good news is that the oil burners usually are the ones with nice rotor housings! sometime in 2012 i'm rebuilding the engine in my old SA, it just leaks from everywhere, but it IS a 33 year old engine

Yep, the oil tends to lubricate and preserve everything in pristine condition. It's the coolant leaks ya gotta watch out for.

I am so going to drop by to see how this gets done right when I find a moment :nod:

Day 1272, Year of the Dragon

By the end of today, the engine is out, the trans is separated, clutch and flywheel removed (with NO drama:nod:) and the engine's up on the stand, ready to start disassembly, probably tomorrow.

Feelin' a little older than the last time I did this; did the whole drill from memory without one reference, but I'm a lot stiffer than I remember being after three days of garage yoga.

I'm going to do a sequential writeup of the process in a separate thread, with tons of pix, for anyone who wants to have an SA engine pull guide.

Dave, iof you've got a for-sure 1980 SA carb in decent shape, I'd be interested in discussing. I can help you ID it visually. 79 and 80 had one major difference. I supposedly have a 79 on the way, but it's a couple weeks late arriving; the seller has to try to get answerrs from the post office (it was insured) but the holiday hasn't helped.

Interesting thing is, the exhaust and plug condition do not look typical of an oil-burner. Ash deposits, no real oil deposits at all. Really curious to see what was going on, here.

Welcome as always; phone or text first, to make sure I'm actually on the job when you've got time. Last day of vacation tomorrow, so some errands to run.

i've done a lot of GSL-SE's and those are nice, but the SA was much easier to work on. probably just because its the original design...

i did LOL at garage yoga, i totally DO use the yoga in the garage. i think i even came up with a new move putting an FC diff in....