I was the most shocked with the exhaust hanger. I didn't clean and refurbished any others yet. This just an extra from the parts stash. This hanger was dried and cracked looking in the beginning without much hope, I used wax and grease remover on a paper towel and rubber until the cracked parts were gone. I don't know if it dissolved the dirt, dissolved the rubber or some of both. I then treated with back To Black.

 

Some cleaning:

 

Some mistakes were made.

Never... under any circumstances leave the steering rack end exposed. This will take some cleaning and polishing to correct. Even then, I have my doubts.



While attempting to mock up a custom exhaust manifold heat shield, I broke the top heat shield screw despite going easy. This will be quite the setback. I will now be tearing into the 5th and 6th port sleeves and everything in the way of getting to the manifold. It needed done, I was hoping to do it later. Honestly, I don't know the name of all the parts there. I will need gaskets and will need to fab some new OMP hoses to. Which means the intakes will come off too. I really hope that i am up to the task. fortunately, I have a spare engine just in case I completely wreck this.

 

I grounded the front coil to the firewall better too. It isn't necessary but I did it anyway. I lightly sanded the surfaces, followed with scotch bright pad and coated with no-ox.

 

I spent a lot of time thinking and rethinking the electrical layout. I asked for some help on another thread and received some good help. Having some of the incredibly talented electrical engineers would have been clutch though. What I wired so far:

4 awg from the alternator to a fuse block. 120 amp fuse for the FD alternator upgrade.
4 awg from the starter ground to the ground bus.
Existing ground from the firewall to the ground buss.
4 awg ground from the battery to the ground buss.
4 awg from the battery + to distribution block.
The existing starter + will need spliced and extended to the + buss
I wire that was on the stock fuse block was trimmed and installed to the new fuse block.
I need one more wire to feed the fuse block. I really need another spot on the + buss. There are none so, this will be a fused connection.
Considered fusing all hot leads but it wasn't done at the factory so I didn't want to reinvent the wheel.

I needed to fab a mounting plate. This will be sent out to a fab shop and made of thicker gauge metal, painted and trimmed with grommet.






All connections have no-ox applied. I will still need to get ferrule lugs for the 4 awg at the buss bars and splice the 4awg starter wire. This was designed for 1/0 cable. I spent a decade or more of my professional life as a wireman for industrial motor starters or in telecom wiring. The engineering and fab were harder than the wire routing and terminations. I will stress this... please do not do what I did here. If any electrical gurus have some important input like, "hey dummy, you are going to be blowing fuses a lot." or "This is a fire hazard", PLEASE let me know, I am not an engineer.

What I really like about this setup, there are extra spots on the ground buss for the future if needed. Unfortunately, I have only one fused connection left.

I did modify the bracket some where the last + termination will go. There was to much metal there. I was afraid that a weak spot would ruin the plate. This shouldn't be an issue with thicker gauge metal.

I think that I will add some more split loom to the 4 awg ground too.

 

I needed to add a wire from the fuse box to the hot of the distribution block. I did not have an extra spot on the unused side. So this will be double fuse for now, I could remove the main fuse and move the lugged wire to the other side of the fuse block, we'll see.

Gather supplies and tools:



Crimp on the lug with no-ox on the wire, add heat shrink and no-ox to the lug.




And then terminate connection to the fuse side of the block.




Just to see if you are paying attention, there is a rather large problem here.




I added a longer piece of shrink to the wire so there is no exposed copper. Just be sure no rubber gets stuck between the mating surface and the lug.

 

Now it is time to splice the starter wire. This is a splice made at the factory.



This wire goes to the interior of the car. This was wraped with one layer of rubber tape and one layer of electrical tape. This splice was done good enough to not overheat or fail in over 35 years. I trimmed this back and removed the splice when I terminated it at the distro block.

Now to make a splice on the starter wire. I stripped the wire back and attemted to tin the wire first. There was no flux in the solider so it failed miserably with a torch as a heat source. I needed to add some flux.



The solider stuck but The wire wasn't hot enough. I was smoking the insulation so i stopped. This looks pretty terrible. I did wire brush this afterward though.



I then heated up the splice lug and tinned it the best that I could. I then heated both wire and the lug until the wire was seated correctly. I forgot the picture here.

Next was the other side. This was on the battery lug that I cut off. It was to short now and needed some length. The wire was cut crooked so I cut it again. All wire needs cut as straight as possible.




I stripped the wire and tinned the wire. This turned out much better. However, The amount of heat needed melted a good bit of wire. I should have trimmed the wire some but failed to do so. I then wire brushed the tinned wire. I heated up the lug and the wire, pressed it in place and let it cool. I really wish I trimmed the wire some.




You can see a bit of scoring on the wire, it should be good long term. I then crimped the lug with the wires in it. This is a bit overkill but this is the best way that I know.



A proper splice is incredibly important. If this is done incorrectly, a loose connection will get hot and fail if your lucky. It will catch fire if you aren't. I will wrap it with two layers of rubber tape, two layers of friction tape and heat shrink. I just need to buy some rubber tape. The new spliced wire will get some loom as well.

The new box is not water tight so I will need to seal the gaps where the wires enter by wrapping the wire in some rubber tape too.

It is tight in there but this will work. The top of the battery box needs repaired and refurbished too.




The wires are a bit tight underneath the plate and the wheel well. I will add a spacer and possibly longer bolts if it fits correctly under the hood.

 

For such an important connection, I would've bought a 50-80 dollar hydraulic lug crimper tool from Amazon and picked up the appropriate size crimps. This would ensure the wires are tightly and correctly joined together. After soldering most of my last engine harness, I finally took the drive and got the correct wiring crimping tools. Gave me a lot more peace of mind being able to replicate factory termination/splicing methods.

 

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback!! The hydraulic ones that I used at work were very expensive so I just used what was easily available at the parts stores. I will cut this off try again.

The splices that I did, we used H-lugs. The ones that Mazda used were not allowed. Is there a specific lug and crimper that you recommend? Thanks again!

 

I'm pretty sure this is what I bought off Amazon. Worked great for my battery relocation harness.

https://a.co/d/bhwoT3I

 

Thanks for the guidance, this part of the project will need to be finished later. Not finishing the the one $50 crimp will not hold me back from getting this car done. Considering, I might not start this cat until next spring. I need the $50 for other things first.

I have made slow progress. I took of three days from working on the car instead of one. No long Saturday either, the rear brakes on my daily driver needed rear rotors, brakes and new drum brake for the ebrake.

More cleaning:

 

I have spent most of my time around the exhaust manifold area. I took off and cleaned the actuators and ACV.




I need to pull apart the ACV and ohm out the electronics yet. Cleaning off the gasket was not fun and took a lot of time. This gaskets seems to have been either installed wrong or just the wrong one. Look at the gasket material over the hole? There was another section that was similar.



These need a bit more work.

 

Fortunately those parts, the O2 sensor and the exhaust manifold came off very easily. I spent time mocking up a heat shield. The design needs improved some, perhaps some material over the O2 sensor area? Any suggestions are appreciated. I need to find a place to fabricate this in stainless. Any help there will also be appreciated.

 

I broke off a screw on the top of the manifold, that needed fixed. It was drilled and tapped. The one on the right was ground off first as the head was rounded off.

 

I need to order some parts so progress doesn't get stalled out to much. I do still have other work on the front bumper and fender to do still too. I have all the parts for that, I am just over my head on body work so....... well see how that goes. I need to get a JIS screw driver bit to get off the screws holding the 5th and 6th port sleeves in place. I will clean and replace the gaskets. Thanks to @WondrousBread for the heads up on the seal size.

This doesn't include all of work to reinstall the rest of the front of the car, including the sub frame and suspension.

Never did i think that this would still be going this many months later. I would rather do this now and get past most of the serious pain at once.

 

Work continues although slower than I would like. I needed to do brakes and rotors on the daily. The rear e brake was sticking and that needed fixed after I installed new parts in the rear.

I got parts.... this will keep me busy for a bit.





I have many projest that are half finished so, I will post everything together. A lot of cleaning was done though.

 

I cleaned the fan.








Part of the intake and the rubber section on the firewall.

 

I cleaned the top of the firewall and got the firewall ground all cleaned up. I spraped the paint, cleand the lug with 600 sand paper, finished off with scotch bright, added no-ox and reinstalled I didn't get a picture of the sanded paint surface, cleaned/polished firewall and the polished lug but you can sort of see it here.





I just bought a case of star washers and I will add them to all of the grounds that I have completed so far. This ground, I assume, it to hooked up test equipment. Before the cleaning, I had trouble getting a clean signal to the battery ground. Afterwards, it is perfect. Now, I have a clean ground reference if needed.

 

Saturday, I only had time to get the new clutch slave/master cylinder in and bled. There are many projects partially done including the oil pan, 5th and 6th ports seal/gasket replacement and others. I also learned how to plastic weld. More to come.....

 

Not a ton of progress being made but I received the injectors back. They were in good working order from the paperwork. A slight improvement..




The rubber gaskets were not however. Those needed replaced. They were sent back cleaned and kina painted. I used a cotton swab and some paint and cleaned these up.





I prepared for the reinstall by cleaning up the fuel rail and cleaning the strainers? I very lightly cleaned the port with cotton swabs until clean. The side that I could see had zero blockage. These will come out later when I do the UIM and LIM. I understand the risk of peices of cotton falling off into the intake, I was very careful and will hope for the best.




The connectors were in good shape overall. The boots were just on the edge a being brittle though. You might be tempted to straighten out the injector boots and harness... don't do it. Old wires could break.




I revoved the tape from the harness and replaced with new. The injectors went in nice and tight. I could spin them by one light touch with a finger before.





The tape job could be better.

 

Finally got the heat shroud for the AC radiator bolted down. I broke a bolt and couldn't figure out the sizing. Well, the AC was installed stateside I assume. The bolt size was the humble 1/4 20. I was lost for a bit there.

 

I cleaned up another ground point and added a star washer.

 

I decided to uncover my extra engine and go though some of the parts stash. I needed to see if the heat shield for the manifold was intact. I still have a driver door without the window, door cards, rear hatch without window glass, sunroof and many others stashed elsewhere in the garage. Some of this will be sold when I figure out what parts are usable or unobtianium. Others like the rear sub frame, trailing arms and other will get competition bushings or other aftermarket goodies. I want a mostly OEM car so I have a baseline performance instead of just throwing parts at something that seems to work fine in the stock form.

My friend that sold me my first RX7 was scolding me for keeping this stuff. I wish that he was still alive 20 years later for the usual reasons and also to see that it wasn't such a bad idea at a minimum.

Also, the engine still turns over by hand at the flywheel, very easily with a wooosh. In part... it still has compression.










This is an auto trans engine with the counterweight. Iihht go with a lighter setup at the clutch and use the counterweight. Otherwise it will be sold.


It was workable, the bottom half is still available from Mazda. The top is workable and I will see if I can repair and reuse.





I will post more on this when I have a solid plan or half baked enough to work.

 

After some discussion in this thread:

https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-gen-gene...thers-1167464/

I decided to remove the oil pan. I will try not to double post any pictures here.

Since the engine and transmission is being held up by the trans mount and a jack with a 4x4 on the flat spot under the flat spot under the transmission, this was easier. Getting the pan off is pretty straight forward. It is held in by 10mmx15?mm bolts. My first issue was here, a busted bolt. Next was loose bolts. After the bolts are out, I gently pushed a five-in-one painters tool between the engine and the gasket avoiding any direct downward pressure. Doing my best to just use the tool to cut the gasket maker. After removing the pan, it was time to asses the damage.






No cracks, chips or bent pan.... nice. I did find this attached to the oil strainer.




It is a spiral of some metal??

I slowly cleaned off the remaining gasket material with a soft plastic scraper and wiped down with wax and grease.

The busted bolt:



I took some time to think of an approach and decided to use an easy out. I started to drill a pilot hole and realized that I didn't know the final size. I changed bits to the one in the kit without finishing the pilot hole..... big mistake. The cheap and dull bit slipped to the side and ruined my approach.

Now Plan B: another mistake.

I used my super sharp bit that I use in all of the m6 bolts that needed drilled and tapped in the car. This seemed to go well until I realized that the bit was just ever so slightly crooked and the bit started to walk in the hole as well. The bit was catching the hard bolt and sliding ever so slightly chewing up the aluminum. After tapping the hole was completed it was mostly true to the angle of the original. However, the hole was very choppy and uneven. The only part that grabbed the bolt was deep in the hole.

Now Plan C:
It was time for a heli-coil. This did work and really saved this engine. A few tips here... tape the bit so you don't over or under drill the hole depth. Take your time and work without distraction. Notice there aren't any pictures.

During down time with this ordering parts and supplies I did some sanding.




I then did more electrolysis... on the pan.



I then soaked it with some Rust Kutter.



And some more sanding.




After this is were the problems started. The inside:




Chipping paint, or so I thought. After some solvents didn't clear this off I realized this is powder coat. So..... I decided to carefully sand of the coating by hand. Using power tools can leave dips and gouges in the pan.




Will this be the correct decision? Time will tell.

I then started on the outside. More problems happened when the cold galvanizing primer didn't bond well. I usually haven't been sanding after the Rust Kutter, just scrubbing with soap and water. I also sanded with 400 grit and should have used a coarser grit. I cleaned off almost all of the primer, prepped with wax and grease remover. I then used adhesion promoter and good auto body primer. finally success.... Afterward I coated this with multiple coats of the appliance paint.

My attention moved to the matting surface on the engine. There was bits of sealant left that wouldn't come off with solvent. I decded to lightly sand by hand with brown scotch bright.... this worked very well. A piece of advice here.... do not use power tools. This can cause dips in the mating surface.

I bought a stud kit from Banzai Racing. I was thoroughly impressed with the ease of purchase and delivery time, thank you!! I could have assembled a kit myself but supporting a vendor here seems more important to me. It was time to prep the engine surface now, more wax and grease. This didn't seem to work well at all. I settled on some acetone on a paper towel and is was a great success. I then coated the engine surface very lightly with the Mazda Grey being very careful not to over apply or get any in the holes. I then cleaned the oil pan surface and slowly installed the studs. After the studs were in I put a solid bead of sealant on the oil pan surface in the middle and on the inside of the bolt holes. Then carefully, I Installed the pan to the mating surface. While holding the pan in place I added the nuts. After adding the nuts very loosely I followed up with a 10mm socket and extension, finger tightening to screws. A tip for this here... when you think the nuts are finger tight... try again. After your bruised ego recovers... do it again. I needed to finger tighten these nuts three times before the pan settled in place. I then finger tightened the trans mount bracket the same way. I will later come back and torque the nuts to inch lbs. Thanks to @gsmithrx7 for the conversion. Most torque wrenches are not accurate enough at such a low torque spec in ft. lbs.

Working on my back for all of this was only difficult while drilling and tapping. Take your time and stay focused. Notice... no pictures again.

Time will tell is this was done well enough to no leak. More to come....

 

Too many pics in the last post. The finished not professionally painted pan: