meerkat8701

forgot to mention i have bought white spirit for the cleaning process. will be using brake cleaner afterwards and blowing it off with an air pistol. is this acceptable?
aaron cakes video offered the best information on cleaning for me but i dont have a parts washer and the same gentleman that pointed out that one of my water jacket seals had gone (and was right) suggested that i use white spirit. im on a budget so this sounded right up my street.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

I used mineral spirits (what you call "white" spirits) followed by Purple Power and water. Final wash was just dish soap and water followed by a good rinse.

meerkat8701

and what swedes call "lacknafta" ill have to try to get something similar to purple power here as long as its a degreaser it should do the trick right? im very curious as to how nasty my 13b's gna be once i crack it open..

meerkat8701

Sitting here at work just aching for it to be tomorrow so i can get on with my car. been surfing around reading a bit looking for information on this but not found any exact answers even though it is a question that depends on alot. when i ordered all my bits from atkins rotary i ordered both streetport and raceport templates. i was originally thinking about using the street port template but from what i have read it is very conservative. if i was to use their race port template would it become undriveable? this is a summer car so cold-start issues are not that important. im wondering are the power gains worth it? would the idle make the car unbearably undrivable in normal traffic? am i getting carried away? probably...

ryan2949

iTrader: (2)

I really enjoy reading your posts. You seem so full of life and excited. Last I checked rotaries prefer cold starts over hot starts with their flooding issues. Personally I would love to have a large streetport idling in traffic, it would sound awesome and probably confuse other motorists aha. With a decent exhaust it won't be loud enough to blow your ear drums, but it looks like you have the roadrace exhaust which is a bit louder than the regulate.

meerkat8701

cheers ryan i must admit i am really excited about this! after a looong boring winter (broken only by a little two week stint in barbados) it feels so good to get up early on my days off with a purpose and just get out of the house and have something to really sink my teeth into =)

when i bought the exhaust last year the chap i bought it off mentioned that he had a lightened flywheel but i didnt have the money then. i checked with him yesterday and he still had it. so soon ill have a nice racing beat flywheel+counterweight for when i put the engine back together again. i have also decided to delete the AC, airpump and PS. not really sure what deleting the ps involves. gotta read more about it. havent found any how-to' on it but im sure its on here somewhere. would be nice to lose that unnessecary weight..

just gonna chill today. would have had to make double effort for everything because its a national holiday and everythings closed so i decided to just wait for tmrw..

(i can also hang out with my lady a bit before she leaves me =P)

meerkat8701

i found this "how to" on how to remove the ps. Removing P/S system on a 1987 RX-7 is this ok? or are there simpler ways to do it?

clokker

iTrader: (2)

The "simplest" way to do it is to remove the PS rack and replace it with a manual version.
May not be an abundance of manual racks available in your neck of the arctic, so this is the best way to do a conversion using your old rack.

meerkat8701

wow thanks clokker! this was really good! are the miata and rx7 the same regarding this or are there any minor differences?

clokker

iTrader: (2)

There are minor difference but nothing that will really confuse you.
I used that guide for my first depowering project and had no problems.

I've depowered both power racks- the "fast" 15:1 and the "slower" 17:1 and actually prefer the true manual's 20:1 "glacially slow" action on the street.
Of course, all this very subjective and dependent on what you do with the car.

meerkat8701

im definately more up for the "real in the feel" type of steering and i cos im a bit of a training freak ill only see parking as an extra underarm workout haha =)
mostly i just want to take away a bit of weight on the car and i saw in your thread that you did it on yours. i dont really know how much weight i stand to lose by removing the ps, ac and airpump but it should help a bit i reckon.
i have also decided to do the porting myself. the way i see it, the less i have to wait on anybody else minimizes the risk of sitting on my bum for two weeks twiddling my thumbs.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

To a large degree, the "feel/effort" is going to depend on wheel/tire width and weight. Steering wheel diameter also plays a factor.

Personally, I've never understood the bitching about low speed/parallel parking effort because A) I don't find it even remotely hard to steer and B) I cant remember the last time I had to parallel park a car.

meerkat8701

ill be having 17x9 wheels at the front so theyll be as wide as i can get them. as for the steering wheel diameter mine is original i think its a little big though. i was thinking of getting a smaller one but im not sure. i actually have a mocca sparco steering wheel i was planning to use on the skyline but i might just whack in on the 7. thats about the only thing i was planning to do with the interior.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

In a perfect world I'd recommend leaving the PS in place till after you've driven with the new wheels (steering and road), so you can see how it works for you.

Of course, it's a lot easier to remove the PS now rather than later (although it's not really too bad), so I guess you just make a decision and go with it.

meerkat8701

exactly my feelings on the matter. everything's so accessible right now it would be a shame to have to go round puffing and panting on the floor later. reckon i'm just gonna go for it. i think the same as when i get tattoos. i just refuse to regret them!

had to run around a bit to get the socket for the flywheel nut, i used a 55mm in the end. that and the 3/4 adaptor cost me approximately 65 dollars. yes my **** still hurts from that one but i was left with no choice but to pull my trousers down and bite my lip..

had absolutely no luck at all getting the nut off with brute force. im doing it on the floor so the engine just kept rocking all over the place. i'm more or less fluent in swedish but i still ran out of expletives by the time i gave up. i then proceeded to lump the engine in the back of my micra and cruised around the area looking for someone with airtools. after getting funny stares and unhelpful, short answers from the disgruntled, tired of life neanderthals i was stupid enough to ask, i finally met a cheerful chappy who was more than happy to help. he whipped it off in like 20 seconds and even said i could come back if i needed help with anything else! seek and thou shalt find eh?

went back to the garage and lumped the engine out again and put in place. with a smile and a freshly aching back i was ready to get cracking! then i realized that i could have asked him to take off the nut to the front cover as well. spiffing. one thing was for sure, i wasnt lifting the engine into the micra again so i went at it with a breaker bar and a pipe. a few cusswords later i got it loose, a few more and off came the flywheel. the actual pulling apart of the motor following the atkins video took about 45 minuites even with my slowness and went without mishap, nothing was stuck and it all seemed to go effortlessly. a nice change from the events leading up to the eventual teardown!




my fears were confirmed when i saw the red water seal all gunked up and jammed into one of the holes in the rotor housing. i gave them a quick scrub over, removed all the fiddly bits from the rotors and gave them a little scrub as well. left em to soak in white spirits overnight. not immersed but it should help when i go back tomorrow.



ill put up pics of my rotors and housings once i have got all the yukky crap off of them. in the meantime ill be celebrating with a favourite of mine, meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam yay!

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Surplus Ikea horsemeatballs?

meerkat8701

yessir! taste so much better =)

meerkat8701

ive been reading a bit about water jacket seal failure and i have read quite a few horror stories. it also appears that this is a very common failure with euro six ports. i didnt find any clear cut info on how bad it has to be to be unsaveable. if the groove is a bit worn on the outside is that ok? i seem to remember coming up a gainst a bit of a rough bit when i was cleaning out the grooves yesterday. im just trying to have a healthy paranoia to counteract any later dissapointments..

meerkat8701

dont want to be this guy..

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Post up some pics and let the experts weigh in.

meerkat8701

i geuss ill have to bear getting my cleaning effforts flamed i must be sick in the head. i have NEVER in my life been this desperate to finish work to go and clean something!

meerkat8701

well, a build thread is no build thread without a bit of excitement and danger. or in this case, catastrophe.

i resumed my cleaning efforts at the garage after work today. once i got to cleaning out the grooves for the water seals on the intermediate housing, i saw that there was a peice missing on the outer edge of the outer groove for the water seals on both sides.




as you can see on this side its at about 8:30 on the housing.

and on the other side on the channel below..



then on the rear housing there was a small crack and if you look closely enough you can see that its been pushed out a bit. its at about 12.30 in the picture below.



luckily a few of the older guys were there in their garage and they kindly had a look. one of them said that because it is cast iron it would not be possible to repair. in his own words "there is not even the smallest chance of that happening"..

i really dont know what to say apart from that i dont feel very lucky right now. what do you guys think?

Customisbetter

People have repaired those with welding, however i would source a different iron.

meerkat8701

i have sent out a couple of mails but im not hoping for much positive response. according to my friend the risk lies not in the pressure the weld will have to withstand but the temperature that may make it fall off. i may be forced to do it though if i cannot get my hands on replacement housings..

Customisbetter

Well the weld will be mostly in the temperature of the coolant which is not too hot. What you really need to worry about is the height of the weld. It can't be too tall or the compression from reassembly will crush the weld and leak. Also you might want to check out Rotary Evolution's Coolant Savers. He was banned yesterday but he should be back soon...

https://www.rx7club.com/group-buy-product-dev-fc-rx-7-268/coolant-seal-savers-premature-coolant-seal-failure-prevention-1006993/