A while back I found a vert sitting in a friends steel building (barn sounds cooler) and decided that it would be a great idea to bring it home. $500 and a trailer later, and surprise it lives in the shop rent free now. At this point I thought a few years was fine to restart a rotary and got sidetracked into the horrible mouse smell in the interior, after a complete removal I realized that before I bought anything I should try and start it. I checked the vitals, poured some oil in and cranked over by hand. I noticed that the coolant was a little low (foreshadowing) and topped it off. After a lot of cranking, nothing. Came back the next day with a compression tester, and before I got to that I noticed that it had eaten a little coolant somewhere (more foreshadowing). After a quick compression test I got something close to 100-100-60 in the front rotor then in the back rotor I got 0-0-0, like literally nothing not even a twitch. At this point the fun cheap project turned into an expensive long project.But, I had experience replacing engines so what's the difference here. So, a few bolts, a few pictures, a little time, and a lot of elbow grease later; pop, out it came. Once it was out, a few long bolts weren't going to stand between me and the solution to the mystery so apart it came. And lo and behold why it was parked, very blown coolant seals, and broken water jacket grooves with an apex seal spring in them. The whole engine was covered in black gummy carbon+water+time junk. After much cleaning it looked much better. And after an oxy-acetylene torch and a hammer my side seals finally beat out of the rear rotor. Thats roughly the state it sat in for the rest of the summer, work and other projects that were much closer to being finished kinda ran over it and it sat in the back of the shop for a couple of months.

Fast forward a few months and school rolls around so now i don't have enough time to work after school and newfound wealth from the summer that needs spent. Everything was uncovered, cleaned, checked, and cleaned again. Then, enter clearancing side seals, I don't know how you guys do this but it took me like 3 weeks off and on and 5 messed up ones ahhhhhhhhhhhh I finally got something that looked like it fit. I did make a 3d printed tool for it if anyone out there wants it. A few more cleans, and I put most of the basic block together. That was about a week ago, since then I have waited on the roller bearings for the front to come in. While I was waiting I reassembled the interior (somewhat) and made the radio work (it's the little victories for motivation that count).

After getting a lot of ideas and insights from other people's build threads I decided its probably time for me to give back a little and create my own.


how I found it

shop looked so clean back then...
Might've been scared by the 4 ton engine crane behind it

almost exactly how I found it

man, is that a rats nest

that's when he knew: this is gonna be a long rebuild


ill be danged I haven't bought a special tool yet

where it sits right now



BUT; I am a spring of seemingly dumb questions, reader beware

 

One more pic, thought this might be useful to anyone


this stuffs called like structural steel or something, makes a really good flywheel stop.

 

I'm not surprised there was no compression, seeing the inside of that engine. Were there any broken seals, or did carbon & time do it in?

Luckily the rest of the car looks pretty good. Washing & polishing should bring that paint back around

 

No the seals were all in there but they refused to move . I actually found that the coolant groove in the front iron was busted and glued back together, and the coolant grooves in the center iron were bulged on both sides.

the car is really in great shape for around here, a little rust in a few spots but overall really clean.

 

agreed, i think it will polish up and look really good

 

Thanks man I really hope so, I might need to color match the bumper, the previous owner plasti-dipped it black then peeled it off and it looks really weird if you look closer at it.

 

Well I decided to go out early and get to work. The top worked alright since I got the car but recently it just quit. After a little digging I found out it was beeping to indicate that it was obstructed even though there was nothing on it. I removed the trim panels around the motors, which the fsm was really helpful for actually. If I disengaged the motor clutches the top moved freely, and when I put them back in everything was great. Surprise! I decided that since I was in there I would put more grease into the gearboxes that were in there, so out they came, apart, in goes the grease, put them back, then set your time machine to x2 and viola. Now they work and they’re a little quieter than they were.

I’m case you ever wondered what’s inside them, gears


for future reference, do not take the black motor cover off unless you intend to check or replace the brushes as they are a pain to get back in.

 

After breakfast things got progressively more insignificant.
I fixed the cracks in the trim pieces using a soldering iron and a zip tie like a TIG welder, worked surprisingly well.
I then decided to play the game of replace a fuse and see what works now and how soon it blows.
Todays lucky contestant; interior lights
Actually not much bad happened here, the door lights and the key light began working and for some reason a beep that was really faint all of the sudden decided to become loud. The dome light still didn't work and in troubleshooting I started seeing all sorts of sparks, turns out the positive wire came unhooked and was going wherever it wanted (hence the blown fuse). I didn't have another rivet to put it back on and much less a gun to put a rivet like that in so I replaced the whole assembly with a different style that fit quite nicely.

need to learn to take pictures before I put things in the car

now how slick is that?

After that victory, time to dive into a deep deep hole.
My warning light cluster is pretty corroded in some spots and not many of them work
After a while trying to fix the traces for the clock that were corroded away I gave up and deleted the whole clock assembly because it was probably the worst of the corrosion anyways.
I sanded all the contacts and tested all the bulbs, and reflowed all the solder joints and replacing any burnt out traces with wires.
Now If I install it and turn the key on these are the lights I get

airbag, brake (it is on) belts and washer fluid, Door light does not work if the doors are opened
Keep in mind, ECU is hooked up but there is no engine or harness, but does that have anything to do with it or should they all be on?

That brings up a few more questions that arose.
First, the beeps; when I pull the lights fuse it's really faint but once I put it in it gets loud again, its the same beep as the one you get with the door open and the key in the ignition, except it goes beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep(the one in the movie attached) and that's it, doesn't do it anymore. My airbag light does flash, there is no airbag or anything related to the engine harness, is that why?

And, intermittently I get a triple beep from the power steering computer, the FAQ section says that its stepper motor related but I'm not really sure what that means, does this have something to do with the absence of the pump?

 

Most of the issues you're having will be related to the cold-solder joints in the body CPU. It's the black box with three (sometimes four?) connectors on it, sitting by the interior fusebox.

To fix it, you need to take the CPU apart. Use a soldering iron to heat each joint until you see the solder turn liquid, then add a dab of fresh solder (not too much!), then remove the iron and let it cool.

The same goes for the warning lights and in some cases the logicon.

I'd disregard the power steering beep entirely - especially since there is no pump. You can unplug the computer for now to stop the beeping; it's the small silver box under the dash by the steering column, with a long white connector.

I don't know anything about the ABS system unfortunately, but I would do the above steps first as that might fix it. The CPU & warning light solder joints are the usual culprits.

 

I’ve gone through the warning light box entirely, should they all be on in a case like this?

So you think that the beeping is caused by cold solder joints not the stuff missing?

 

I think the door light, the beeping from the door chime, and possibly the airbag light may be CPU solder related.

The brake light could be, or it could be low brake fluid.

The power steering is probably due to the pump being missing. That's why I would unplug the computer for now, just so you can isolate that beeping out and diagnose the other things.

 

Alright I’ll have to check that out tomorrow, the brake light is just fine, I meant that the parking brake was on and it goes off if I take the brake off.

All the solder I have is lead free, is that fine with the lead solder on the rx7 boards, I really don't like to work with lead solder but I can if needed.

 

I forgot about the handbrake activating the light. I've only recently put the bulbs back into my warning lights.

I think lead-free is fine, although I tend to prefer the lead stuff. I think the main problem with the OEM joints is that they were too cold when soldered and didn't bond properly, and also they didn't use enough solder.

 

alright that makes life easier, might have a 3rd go at the dummy lights and see if I can get anymore.

I wonder if I can just bypass that whole second board full of diodes and straight wire the lights?

 

ive had them take more than one try too.

way back in the day my buddy had a gauge pod there and built a replacement thing, it was pretty simple, you could totally do a bunch of LED's and make it really tiny

 

I don't mind it I just want it to work

 

Well turns out my end play bearings are coming from Japan. In the meantime because they aren’t getting here till December I ordered some from banzai so if anybody wants to buy a pair I have a set for sale. So what follows is a series of very small projects.

First: when I bought the car the gauge bezel lived in the passenger seat and all the mounting tabs were broken off. For the top part I jb welded some 1/4” nuts to the top plastic of the dash and ran bolts through. And for the bottom part I am currently running a zip tie chain, not the best fix but it’s on there.

Second: the passenger seat wasn’t bolted down. This one actually bolted up unlike the drivers seat that I had to do some welling and uh creative drilling to get it to sit straight and not pointed at the handbrake. These are supposed to be Toyota tundra sport seats and they honestly fit pretty good.

Third: The radio was flopping around everywhere, so after about an hour of design and 7 hrs of printing it’s now mounted. I still need to make the wooden top part but it looks much better.

Fourth: I opened up the body control module and everything looked great in there, the beeps must be something to do with all of the airbag components missing.


Probably not the most interesting update I know but if you guys want a thread on harvesting and drying corn I’m sure I could pump out more updates .

 

Found one of these in each parts can for the door cards, I’m guessing previous me took them off.

 

Well I’ve been quite busy with a lot of things but I guess it’s time to catch up what’s happened in between.

Here is the engine as it sits now, I was tired of waiting on shipping from Japan so I ordered some front roller bearings that got here in a few days. I have the other ones now as well as a front and rear main seal kit from atkins if anyone is interested in shipping from PA instead of Washington/Japan.

The next task: install vacuum pipes and wiring harness. The first thing I did was bust up a check valve so I ordered a few from dale clark and they seem to be pretty nice. But as soon as I went to install it onto the car, I found a problem.

Yeah it seems as though I am the only person on here that has done this or is going to admit it but I put the fill tube in backwards.(I replaced this iron and it shipped without the tube) The cable bracket was hitting on the fuel lines so it went bye bye but the nipple hits on the solenoids and I’m not sure how to get a new one to stick to the other side. If anyone has any ideas I’m kinda stumped on this one even though it seems so simple.
As always thanks for reading and happy thanksgiving!

 

Turns out whatever I was on when I installed the tube meant I didn’t tap it in there very hard and it came right out. I decided to replace it with the one from the other iron. Best way to get one out is to grab around where it expands at the top with vice grips, heat the bottom with an oxy torch and then beat up on the vice grip. Bingo. Turns out the injector clips were busted so while I was waiting I turned to the auto shifter that was EXTREMELY sloppy. Whenever I pulled the shifter out it seemed like there was no bushing at all. Idk if it’s going to stay auto or not so I printed a little sleeve on the 3d printer and it seemed to fix the problem. I can provide the stl if anyone wants it.

 

Small update, the engine is mostly all dressed to go in but I still have a few vacuum questions.


yea Ik it’s a really bad picture
Are the things labeled d.v. the green check valves?
And does anyone know where the heck the vacuum line from the back of the cruise motor goes??
proper update coming soon just wanted to see if anyone had an answer to those because I can’t seem to find anything.

 

Well after going through all the broken bits of vacuum hose the d.v things in the picture are in fact the green check valves, and the cruise motor tees into the hose labeled H on the diagram.
Not much to say here, I put the engine in and for some reason it was really a pain, took a lot of adjustment, force, and wiggling but it's finally there. As of right now almost everything is hooked up except for the radiator, liftoff t-about a day.
Haven't done too much looking yet, but the short range tps doesn't pop out it just stays in, I can pull it out but there's like no spring in it. Im trying to see if I can fix/ repair/ run with it.

Now just cut the chain... Nothing to say about the crane that can lift the car.

 

Heard some noise today although significantly less than I wanted to.
HERE/HEREs the link to the video of what it did. A little bark on starter fluid and then nothing. Got a few similar tries like this after but nothing much. Next I unplugged the TPS because of the problems I mentioned earlier, then it proceeded to backfire out of somewhere and cause an engine fire everything seems okay it was extinguished quickly.
I'm thinking the next course of action is to charge the battery and try to start it with the intake pipe on so the air meter works, I cannot tow start it, its an auto.
Im not sure wether or not I should plug or unplug the tps after that little bang there. IDK if anyone reads this thread any help would be appreciated.

 

The car will not run without the AFM connected. Occasionally you will get a pop or a brief startup, but it's usually less than 1 second before it dies again. It's also a good idea to go over all the other sensors. Particularly the green rectangular one on the back of the water pump housing.

 

I almost forgot about that sensor. I can't seem to get the starting fluid to travel all the way up the tube and down the manifold, hence why it was off. When I went to start it the wire was broken for the starter solenoid so I used my starter switch, I just realized that the ECU had no idea the car was being started and probably was doing some really weird things. So up on my list is to de-flood, fix that wire, test the thermo sensor. What do you think about the tps in the state that its in (seems to slide fine but doesn't have the spring to pop back out), should I plug it in or not ?