I am the second owner of an '87 GXL. I have had it twenty years now and it hasn't driven it since 2011. Both of us owners have kept the car in the garage most of it's life. Someday I will post the story of how I aquired this for $300. I put very little money and a lot of effort into the car to get it street legal before I drove it 30,000 miles and the rear toe bushings went very bad. It has been parked in the garage ever since.

I decided to get the rear suspension in order this summer. I will use this to track progress. If this isn't a build per say, I will move the thread.

 

This car unfortunatly has an "R" title. The original owner took it off-roading. He bought this car back from the insurance company and somewhat fixed the fender. It has some under carraige damage as well. There is a dent on the unibody support on the drivers side and the rear driver subframe area around the mounting bolt. It looks messed with at some point. This has 118,000 miles, has very little rust and at least one rotor facing per rotor reads 120 when cold. It has a very low idle but otherwise drove great before the bushings took a dump. Everything on this car is OEM and I plan to keep it that way... for the time being. It took some dents in the garage over the years, most of which were done by my old house mate.

This is my third 2nd gen RX7, the other two were wrecked. The second was a '87 GXL 2x2 with and auto trans and most things were unbolted and stored in my garage more than 20 years ago. Having extra parts around doing this rebuild is awesome. I do have an extra full 13b as well. I am still considering what to do with it.

I know the rear wheels are on reversed.

 

The interior is in pretty good shape over-all. I foolishly didn't close the windows during all of this and is suffered pretty bad. The engine bay is pretty dirty too.

 

The first part to come off was the rear tie downs attached to the spare tire well. I didn't have any media blasters and I was on a budget. I used a five gallon storage tote and did some electrolysis. I wire wheeled them repeatedly in between soaks in the tub and cleaned them with wax and grease remover. I then painted them with rust-oleum epoxy appliance paint. Not Ideal but this is more of a consevation than anything and the paint dries very hard.


Before

Before

After Wire Weel

After Wire Weel

After Electroylsis And Cleaning

After Electroylsis And Cleaning

After Paint

After paint

 

the second thing to be removed was the rear wheels. I took those and I wire wheeled the back side until it was clean. I then did a rather lousy job polishing them on the back side. I don't have pictures of the finished product, its not great either but it is way better than 35+ years of dirt.

I then tore apart the rear calipers and soaked the calipers and hardware in evapo-rust. This worked extremely well. Get a five gallon bucket if needed. I did the electrolysis on the brackets. I did find that one caliper was seized at the ebrake. There was no fixing that for now. I did have a spare and I used that one instead. I then cleaned and painted them black with VHT and baked them in my oven. I rebuilt both sets and then realized one bracket was stripped out. I will post pics of the different one in the spring.

I removed as many parts from the rear subframe as possible. When the hubs were removed I claened and polished those. The polishing was not very good but it is way better than just a cleaning. I was able to snip the lower brake dust sheild and sprial it off for reuse later. I wire wheeled the dust sheild and painted those. Sorry, no pictures again.

While removing parts on the subframe I started with the exhaust. I bought two OEM mufflers when I bought this car. Those were still in very good shape and still had factory paint left with little rust. I will paint those in the spring. The Y pipe was off and it was OK, it will be painted as well.

I then lowered the subframe, no broken bolts so far at all. This is where things took a very bad turn for the worse. Nearly every bushing bolt was in seriously bad shape. There are plenty of bolts and nut that were able to be save and reused. Some with the original coating on them. Most of the sub-frame bolt were rust fused together. I burned through saw-sawl blades and cut-off wheels. I was able to disasemble the whole sub-frame and rear gear. I then wire wheeled the entire differential. The steel parts were rust treaded with rust fix and painted the differential. The sub-frame got wire wheeled, sprayed with rust fix and then rust kutter. It was then painted with apliance paint. This process was repeated with the axle's and any other steel part with either chrome wheel paint or the black apliance paint.





After that was finished, I replaced all bushings and most JIS hardware in, on and around the rear sub frame except for the long control arms and reassembled. This is the only picture that I have of this sans hubs and brakes.





Keep in mind, this was the aprox. order of things. Waiting for paint to dry and parts to soak was really rough. So you just try to stay busy tearing apart something as stuff was in process.

 

Cool, loving this so far. Keep it up!

 

There are some seriously talened people on here doing builds, including you. I am certainly not one of them. There is definatly room for criticism on these posts. Other than the more than 2,000 USD I spent on the bushings and peripherials in the rear, this is a very lite budget. So far i have two goals... keep this from rusting into my garage floor and get this inspected. It's more of a presevation until I get a better budget. I made some bad decisions late is this project due to a time crunch. I expect some and others moving forward. There is nothing quite like doing hard work twice. Live and learn.

 

There were other things that need taken apart like the remaining exhaust and the heat sheilds. There was some lousy welding on the cats that always leaked and one was gutted. From the Y pipe to the front is getting replaced with OEM. I did wire wheel all heat sheilds and painted with VHT exhaust primer. I will sand them in the spring and Spray with VHT exhaust paint. The drive shaft came out too. The main shaft was cleaned, rust treated and painted. I will get an aftermarket one with replaceable U-joints later on.

 

Now it was time to remove the gas tank, sheild, straps and all of the other hardware still attached to the unibody.





I do not have the before pictures of the gas tank. when it was out, I was dumping dirt and rust out of the tank when it dried. I pais a liitle over $400 to take it to a gas tank renu shop.




For any of you that have seen a stock tank. There are foam strips on top of the tank from the factory. These keep the tank from vibrating or causing a spark. I ordered some fuel cell foam from Summit racing and spray glued it to th top of the tank.

 

After the tank was out is time to clean the unibody. I really should have pressure washed this or at least hosed this off. I took a rag and a bucket, layed under the car and scrubbed until it was clean.

 

Some of these were taken before it was clean and some were after i sprayed them. I then sanded the rusty bits and treated with rust fix and then Rust Kutter. I know... the bricks were a dumb idea. It was pretty rough with no weight in the back. I had to be careful with wrentching on stuff and cleaning. I would kind of lift the car some if I wasn't careful. It was about this time that I broke my first and second bolt. While removing the anti-sway bar mount the 14mm nut got stuck to the bracket and it snapped because I lost patience, working it back and forth.Then a 10mm nut did the same on the bracket removal for the fuel hose on the unibody. I will figure out a fix in the spring.

 

While doing other things on the car, it was time for a little primer and paint. First the Rust Kutter needs washed off. After that is dry I applied some zinc galvanizing primer first to the underbody after doing some taping. There were other parts that got this spray as well, I just don't remember exactly which parts, just not the ones that get hot. After the primer is sprayed, it dries very quickly. If there is any contaminates, the primer won't stick and wrinkles. I found one spot about the size of paper money that needed cleaned better. The rust cutter is really sticky and paint adheres very well. After one coat dries, I start on the appliance paint. If you use this appliance paint, please wear protection. This stuff puts off more overspray and fumes that I have ever seen. It will stick to your skin like crazy as well. Yes..... your face too. Ask me how I know.









I know it doesn't look very good. Once again, I am just trying to keep it from rusting worse before I save enought to do things the way more expensive way.

 

I only painted the rear section and along the rails where the fuel and brake line is. During all of the work underneath I found where the fluid leak was coming from, it was the main fuel line. I decided to replace all of the lines there. This is where went really wrong. While the copper line was fairly easy to bend, some of the bends are really close to max bend radius for the tubing. I was able hand bend the piece from the front to the rear easily by removing the original and just mimicking the bends. On the rear part of the main section, I was real close to kinking the tubing and probably should have started over. The sections from the junction block were quite easy as was the small section near the gas tank. I was able to put heat shrink tubing in some of the original spots that had it OEM to protect from rock chips near the wheel well

Next was the gass lines. I used OEM style steel lines. These were the lines with another softer metal added to ,ake bending easier. I was a wireman for 15 years of my life and I figure that Is would be ok to bend by hand. it is and isn't. The tight bends needed in places are next to imposible without a bender. I used the process as the brakes. Mimick the bends and hope for the best. I got ot done but it is not pretty, the tubing in just shy of being kinked in places and looks rough. I will redo this when the underside gets a full restoration. Or if the inspection station fails my work.

Some of the pictures were taken after the gas tan and rock shield was installed. The shield looked better before I left it sitting where is got solvent and dirt on it. Most will never see it, I just wanted to keep it from rusting away.

 

As you can see I tried to reuse as many brackets as possible to keep costs down. I cleaned up the brake block and painted it. I used either the appliance paint or wheel paint so hopefully it holds up ok around oil and gas. I know that I will regret this sloppy work later. I had a deadline to make so I could wax my daily in the garage before it got too cold. I statred the heavy work at the very end of June. I finished work on the rear side of the underneath of the car by Thanksgiving weekend. Many 8 to 10 hour Saturday only work days. There are a few pictures left to post. I never really intended to post here. To be honest, this is kind of embarrassing. I am capable of better work, more later.

 

There isn't much left after the tank install. The next part was to clean the wheel wells and paint with primer and truck bed lining. After that I used two jacks, one without wheels and some patience. I raised the rear subframe onto the unibody and tightened the bolts. Followed by the refurbished ebrake cables, drive shaft, new adjustable camber link and axles. Most hardware was new JIS, there were some larger pieces that were soaked in Evapo-rust, cleaned, primered and painted. It does flake with a socket. I did coat everything with anti-seize too. I proceded to add the hubs and brakes back to the chassis. I bled the brakes and finished any remaining work that I forgot to mention here.



As you can see, I reused the old rotors. I needed to order some and missed the deadline. Also this is the side with the bracket that was striped and I didn't have time to repaint the different one.

I ordered stainless lines and these kinda suck. These seem too short and didn't come with a keyed section that lock into the caliper. Is there a seperate part that I need to order?

 

This is all until spring.... There is no exhaust except the OEM paper weight on the engine. The heat shield is loose and needs removed. I need a viable alternative too, maybe have somone fab one? I will pull that off if I am feeling brave and clean up around that part of the engine. All of the exhaust needs painted. There is a very small oil leak that seems to come through the engine mount. It probably is the lines that feed oil into the combustion chamber. The engine doesn't idle either, that is a project. I reused the struts in the rear, those need replaced. The remainder of the underside of the car needs cleaned and painted. The heat sheilds need finished and installed. Most of the rust on this car is on the lowest part of the rockers, those will need cleaned back, treated and painted. Then it will be on to the front suspension and brakes. After that the master cylinder for the clutch might need replaced and the same with the brake master as well. I have a missing part to find used somwhere that is for the shifter return spring. All of the bushings need replaced in there as well. I need tires for inspection, an alaignment and hopefully then, it is time to drive.

After that it will be considering getting some paintless dent repair, home brew color correction and fender painting. I will consider more aftermarket parts later in the project. I really don't want to throw parts at the car until I know what problems that I want to solve. That will take miles and miles of driving and some very hard driving to figure out. Time and money will tell the complete story.....

 

On another episode of "At least it's better than is was." I did some more work. I really need to rebuild the rear struts.. I will replace eveything except the springs for the time being.


In My New Spring Compressor


After A Wirewheel Cleaning

I am not good at this blogging yet. I forgot to take a picture after electrolysis.


White Apliance Paint

I am not sure about the white. It certainly is better than it was.

 

I am not good at remembering to take picture along the way. I worked on getting the exhaust pieces that I have painted in an attempt to keep it from rusting. I used VHT header paint and primer. I also did the heat shields in the same paint as they looked kinda rough. I suppose that I will see how all of this holds up, it is worth a try. Everything is OEM as far as I can tell and the Y pipe is not made very well. It was wire wheeled much cleaner before paint.

 

Looks really good man, keep up the great progress!

 

Enjoying this thread, can't wait to see the car back on the road again!

 

i happen to like what you're doing - dealing with the rust, and particularly the rust in the unseen places. it's a logical and sound approach.

i also understand about forgetting to take photos because you're too wrapped up in DOING things.

i'm enjoying your work and progress a lot.

 

I was nervous for a second about those fuel lines, I thought you were skipping past them.

Also, if you are doing all that work, I would suggest replacing the brake hard lines. I had one burst on an old 88 vert I used to own. It was a pain to replace if I had to bend it by hand but Mazda still sells the hard lines pre-bent. I would just do it for the peace of mind down the road since you have everything out anyways.

Good work! Keep it up.

 

This right here!
My current car an 89 Vert, other than the notoriously bad Crystal White paint delamination, has very minimal rust except for one spot that I notice every damn time I get into the car. On the drivers sill, by where the door hinges are, there is a weld line between the rockers and the fender area of the unibody. Right there it broke the paint and is rusting. I keep saying I am going to get to it but I have been busy with other things. One thing I can say though, the person I bought her off of was the original owner and there is so much undercoating everywhere, engine bay, underside etc...

 

I have been slowly ticking of boxes on this project. I needed to clean up the covers in trunk for accessing the fuel sender and fill hoses. I wire wheeled, used electrolysis, painted the side that faces to outside of the car and added some butyl rubber to keep the cover water tight.

 

I finished some brake work as well in the rear. I bought new and painted the rotors. I painted the middle sections on the front/back and the cooling fins. I managed to strip out two caliper bracket when I took them back off and reinstalled them, luckily I had two more. I highly recommed tapping the threads after painting the brackets. The brake pads were very poor fitting. I need to grind off sections of the metal so they would fit in the bracket and slide properly. With everythig rebuilt I reinstalled everything includig the rear strut.

I painted the spring which was easy and turned out failrly well. I tried cleaning the KYB shock that I bought so I could clear coat them. I did not realize that wax and grease remover will smear paint. So....I had to sand down the shock some and repaint. I have never had such trouble getting paint to bond to a surface ever. I do not know what is in the KYB shock paint but is does't like the primer/paint that I used. I needed to sand most of the surface of the shock to get the paint to stick. I forgot to take a picture of the finished shock. I replaced all of the parts except the spring and the metal top mount, which I used electrolysis and painted black. I haven't finished the second strut as of yet. I do realize that the bottom rubber mount isn't in the assembly drawing. It came with the shock so, I used it.

I need to get the rear of the car on the ground so I can torque the axles and lock in the nuts.

I painted more of the underside of the car, on the drivers side. It went pretty well thankfully. Althkugh I forgot the after pictures. I pulled off the transmission mount in preparation for new bushings and pulled apart some of the rattling exhaust manifold.