It's been awhile so I thought that I would post an update. Work has slowed since the end of October due to family obligations and work on my daily driver. I haven't posted any pictures because my desktop had some issues and fried all of my drives. I am recovered and trying to go through pictures now. There has been some setbacks and I will be done for the season soon. I should have this on wheels in two weeks but further work will continue into the early spring..... then... off to get a state inspection. Wishful thinking, I know... One can hope though.......

 

Well... I will try to get caught up some here. This is much easier to do closer to when the work was done. It's been busy here so, I will do my best as I wasn't super great with taking pictures since I was rushed for time.

Picking up where I left off.... I really messed up installing the oil pan. I looked very closely while doing the work and still missed something. I should have used more light and looked even more. Let me explain...... I did not see these a few long tye wraps that I had used above and never cut them. They were rather long and got squeezed between the pan, sealant and the engine, I did not notice until later. I loosened the pan and pulled out the wraps and re-torqued. I did not decide to pull the pan and redo the work. I took a gamble and so far..... it is good. I probably will regret this though.

 

Next up is to install in the sub-zero block off plate. I did not realize that this was a service bulletin many years ago. I ordered a block off plate from Atkins, some spacers from Amazon and reused the original nut and bolt. I believe the spacers were 10x10mm. I cleaned up the mating surface and tightened it down with the same sealant that I used on the oil pan.

 

After That I needed a solution for the heat shield. I use my spare one and did some rather amateur repairs. I painted it with some black exhaust paint and reinstalled it with the exhaust manifold with a new gasket.









With it being black, it is a little bit more not not as noticeable. I then installed a new O2 sensor.

 

I rebuilt the ACV system with new seals and cleaned the 5th and sixth port pieces. The rear one was nearly suck, a little wax and grease remover sprayed in there dissolved the carbon enough to remove them. No pics here either. There are some really good writeups here for that anyway.

I checked for damage on the ACV parts and reassembled with the same sealant that I used on the oil pan.





I had one striped screw head that needed ground off. That was a pretty easy fix with a dremmel tool.

 

Next, I reinstalled the sub-frame with the new engine mounts and new steering rack bushings. I used poly ones here as I thought that the steering felt kind of loose the last time that I drove this car. I don't have any pictures of the work here beside this one.




I was releived that the engine was off the jack and 2x4 now.

 

I will post some more later. I will go once a week until I get done posting current progress. There might be a few things to do in winter months.... we'll see.

 

How does it feel when you say it felt kinda loose ? I’m reusing my old but good bushing for my rack. But if I need to change them after I will punish myself for not doing it the first time

 

This is a very good question. When I last drove this car in 2012, I never drove a car newer than 1990 and never anything nice beside a short time with a GXL RX7 years prior. So, I was probably accustomed to either no power steering or nothing as nice as the self adjusting steering of the RX7. Loose to me is that it felt like there wasn't a lot of effort needed to turn the wheel. After doing some reading, the urethane bushings won't help with that. I assume it will be a bit more responsive and more susceptible to vibrations.

Nice work on your build so far. I assume the usefulness of the original bushings for you will rely on what type of steering that you decide to install. Also, I did read on here that because of our mounts being so large and tight. These bushings will flex very little anyway.

 

It looks like I posted out of order slightly. Before the sub frame was installed, I installed the air pump, intake gasket and some new coolant hoses. I also did some parts cleaning before install.






As you can see, this picture was taken after I installed the new oil lines and re-re-remounted the oil cooler but fore I did the sub frame.

 

What a mess the oil lines and cooler were. I foolishly fabricated brackets for the oil cooler before I installed the lines. That was a massive mistake. I also made the brackets before I mounted the battery tray, also a major mistake. These lines were never designed by CorkSport to be installed along side the original air conditioning lines either so.... still yet more issues. These lines are really close to being kinked in places and the bracket near the engine that keeps the hoses from moving around is not a working well with he new lines. It will need to be changed for something else. I think I made 5 sets of bracket before I finally did it good enough.

The original brackets have a built in slant that further pitches back the cooler. That angle gives clearence to the top oil line connection on the driver side. I just thought the original rubber pieces were just warped from repeated heat and cooling. Not true.... they are designed this way for a reason. Instead of making a sixth set of brackets, I adjusted the angle with washers.

You can see the Swiss cheese brackets. Ver. 5.003345 I filled the holes with JB weld and painted them.






This looks pretty awful. It is a good as it will get, besides the bracket on the left.

 

This the only picture that I have of it mounted and it isn't a very good one either. The top hose connection has very little space to occupy without kinking the hose. I wish that I would have taken a picture.



During all this fun, the heat shield for the condenser broke.




I luckily had a spare one. I sprayed it with rust fix, painted and installed it.




Seeing this now and the slight crookedness of the cooler is making me want to try again. Knowing that I am a lousy fabricator, I think that I will quit before I make it worse.

There will be for of my trying my best and failing repeatedly again next week.

 

have forgotten the order that these things were completed so, I will do my best. I needed to do some cleaning and refurbishing.







I soaked this in evaporust and primed/painted.



No after pic for this one.

 

At this point, I had a few irons in the fire. I replaced front brakes and rotors on my daily. Same for the radiator too. Finally the car was ready for inspection.

When I went into the shop for an inspection, I asked them to separate my front rx7 rotors from the hubs. They were stuck on there due to galvanic corrosion. When the first one went on the press he cracked a peice off the rotor and then gave up. I took them home and thought of another way to separate these. I do have an extra set of these so I cleaned up the parts pile again and removed my spare set from the knuckles. One of the two were stuck as well. Now I have one good hub.

The one that was cracked at the shop was cut very carefully with a saw as deep as I felt comfortable in a strategic place. I then proceeded to beat the rotor with a hammer in a vise and rotor pieces broke off. I then hammered and chiseled on top of the saw cut.... it then cracked near the cut. It was fully separated now, I have two fronts hubs for when I need to prep the front end for wheels.






I told him that these hubs are NLA, and he still took an air chisel to the back side of the hub to break up the corrosion. I am not very happy about the damage but at least the project moves on.

 

You can buy Japanese aftermarket front hubs that have new wheel bearings already installed. Not cheap, but they exist. The Japanese Yen is super weak right now, so it would actually be a good time to buy. Heck, I may even buy a kit to have spares. Comes out to ~$400.00 USD for a set of two, including shipping to the US

https://www.rhdjapan.com/gt-1-motors...-kit-fc3s.html

 

Thank you for the information. it is very tempting considering set for the front and back on Ebay used is usually listed near $1000.

 

I worked on the radiator on and off for a bit. I don't have pics of everything but I will do my best.







I had some trouble removing the bottom mounting bracket bolts. The top ones looked almost new but due to the bottom getting wet, etc, they were frozen. I removed the tops bolts, drilled and grinded off the old bolts on the bottom. I then did my normal rust removal process on the brackets, primed and then painted them. I found the proper bolts with captive washers and got new nuts. I try to straighten out the bent fins on the rad too. I had already flushed the rad so, assembly was next. I got it all bolted up and added a new sensor. I found one on CarId that was either OEM or very close.

I bought new hoses from the local parts store and those were to short. So, I cleaned up the old hoses and reused them.

I do believe that I forgot to write about the new thermostat and reassembly. I used a new gasket with one side that had adhesive and one clean side that I added the same sealant that was used on everything else. I accidentally forgot that I ordered a t-stat from Atkins already. I did find one available at the store that was the correct running temperature and also has the safety feature of it failing open instead of closed. So, the parts store one was installed before I realized I had already bought an OEM one.

With all of the easy to order hoses for the cooling system, replaced or refurbished (including the heater core ones and the one on the back of the water pump assembly) I refilled the cooling system.

I am happy to have taken pictures of where all of the foam was installed. I did remove and clean off all of the old foam. I will at a bare minimum replace the bottom bits later and then see where air is leaking and add more. This is good enough to get the car in and out of the garage.

I am seriously considering after driving this to circulate the new fluid, adding some evaporust for cooling systems. There was a lot of rust in the system due to me being younger and dumber than I am now, I just used regular water and antifreeze. I have read where the treatment does too good of a job at removing rust. It will remove rust that holds back fluid from leaking inside the engine, like severely rusted coolant passages. If someone here has solid recommendations on using this stuff for a rotary engine, it would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

When I had my windshield replaced I discovered that the built in AM radio antenna grounds through this connector to the top of the transmission bellhousing!
It is one of several ground connections and condensers that are used to eliminate radio interference in the audio system!
The ground straps that went to the mufflers are part of this system.


noise suppression

Interesting

 

I am right with you, after installing my new oil cooler I noticed that a picture showed a piece of foam insulation was attached to the top of the cooler!
This foam strip filled the gap between the top of the oil cooler and the heat shield for the A/C condenser.
There is also a foam piece attached to the bottom edge of the cooler!

These foam pieces seem to force the airflow through the cooler blocking any air from going around it.
The top foam piece would direct the airflow downwards away from the A/C condenser, improving its efficiency (better cooling).
This seems like a good idea.

I am going to use some memory foam I have on hand; would this be a fire hazard?

Any thoughts will be welcomed!

 

Member @j9fd3s recommended weather strip found at the hardware store. If it isn't thick enough, just build it up, one on top of another. As far as memory foam, I would put a torch to it and see how fast it burns. Most things that are used in bedding now a days is sprayed with flame retardant.

 

With many of the easy to reach coolant hoses and the oil hoses replaced, I filled the coolant, oil and needed to finish the electrical and intake to give it a start. I replaced the seal in the intake and reassembled the intake with a new OEM air filter.

Thanks to @djSL I ordered a crimper and got to work on the final connections. The first one that I ordered was broken so, on to number 2. The crimp dies were a bit oversized I think, based on reviews anyway. I tried mutiple sizes before I found one that crimped more than I already had the old way.




It crimped it more than I was and I was satisfied. I wrapped with splice tape, two layers and two layer with electrical tape. I looked good enough.





I then crimped the battery/alternator terminal(s) and added heat shrink. I added boots to the battery terminals too.








I finished the connections to the battery and added the clean battery box part. I need to add NoOx to the connections yet though. I let the leed by the alternator a bit long so when I add a higher power alternator, it will be long enough. I can always make it shorter later too.

After this was done, I immediately gave the car a start. It fired right up just like it had before the engine work. I never had a good idle with this car but it still hits warmup and doesn't stall until after the sequence finishes or some time afterwards. I could not leave the engine running long as this was started without any exhaust. My garage isn't really all that far from my neighbors living room maybe 25ft or less. I did see some smoke coming from the manifold but wasn't too worried seeing as there was a new gasket and paint close by.

What did concern me was there was a coolant leak at the driver side heater core. While replacing the hose before all of this, it got stuck. I foolishly used some pliers and used to much force, it bent the copper pipe. I did straighten it out as well as I could with limited space. Luckily for me I bought some high pressure hose clamps. I just tightened the clamp further and it cleared right up. There were no oil leaks!, for now at least. Finally, it was time to rebuild the front suspension, brake and steering system.

 

Well, based on this, I forgot to install the clutch fand and shroud. Oops, I did add those things back on before starting the engine. The fan picks before and after were posted so here is the before fan shroud, sorry no after shots. I wish these end parts weren't so rushed. Winter was coming.....

 

I am on a roll here..... I did also install the air pump/hoses and bought/installed new belts. I tension-ed the belts by hand. I need to go buy a belt tensioner before I start the car for the first full warmup.

 

Well, I am pretty awful at remembering all of the work I did. Before I started engine, I installed the leading/trailing coils and wires only to realize the paint on the trailing coil brackets kept it from grounding properly and I was getting no spark. I needed to clean off paint near the connecting bolts/holes/nuts. I also removed paint near the mounting bolt and coated with no/ox.

The car still did not get spark, so after hunting wiring issues for a half hour or so, I found a connector that was disconnected from its mate during the looming process. I didn't have the brake booster or the master in yet and just assumed that all of the connectors went to all of that stuff.
After all of that mess..... the car started.

 

Glad it started up, and that it was only unplugged. I've definitely been there.