archaphil

iTrader: (1)

Well guys,

I have lurked in the shadows long enough. I normally am against posting a build thread as I notice how many go UN-built. However, I am having a late 20's life crisis ( really not ) and decided it was time to have some fun with my hobby.

So, onto the story, and before I do that I want to note that I will take any pictures anyone could ask for if they are in a state of "fixing/whatever" that I am. This build however will be a video blog for the most part. I will be doing rough over views of progress vs step by step. I can do step by step if there is interest, but at this time it is easier for me to down beers and just work and show.

So now, onto the story:

One of the owners of my old company had an 86 Base SE that she bought original from the dealer and daily drove it for years. She no longer wanted the car and offered to me for free. I, of course, did not argue. It was rough, banged up, and showed every bit of its 160ishk miles on the ODO. I put some coilovers and DTSS eliminators on it and just ran it. She did one thing right, and brought it RX7 heaven and dealer for all maintenance. The engine runs strong for what it is, and I can tell she never really got into the higher revs.

However, this chassis has serious cancer from our salt infested state and it has indeed seen a winter or 5. Pair that with being backed into on the drivers side quarter while in storage one year, and you can imagine the nice flaky goodness that I have (which is shown in PT1 vid) going on.

A fellow member posted up an 86 GXL with less that 34k original miles on it recently. I HAD to check it out. whelp, now it's in my garage. Still trying to decipher the cars history bit by bit but as the original owners son said:

"It was my fathers and he purchased it new in 86 from the dealer, he was given a company car late 80's-early 90's and it was parked until 2008". He then started trying to bring it back to life, but had neither the patience, nor tools to do so it looked like. So there it sat, until 2014, march 24th when I came upon it.

It was stored poorly, and certainly outside for numerous years before being pushed into the garage I found it in. Very minor surface rust starting on the fenders. Completely covered in dirt, dry rot tires... you name it. Poorly stored.


Lets begin the video journey, Pics upon request as mentioned:
-----------------------------------------------------------


Pt1:
Pt2:
Pt3:
Pt4:

Stay tuned as I go.


Mike

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Not sure what a "redneck wax job" is (I assume it involves Jack Daniels, firearms and brazen floozies) but it sure worked on the white car, it looks great.

I'd be tempted to flush out the block as much as possible, put the water pump back on, run a hose between the two rad hose bungs (so the system is sealed) and pressure test it.
If you can get the water to flow pretty clear and she holds pressure, what have you got to lose by running it?
You can rebuild the turbo at your leisure and if the NA blows, no big deal, you already consider it sacrificial.

Now what happens to the beat up chassis?

88fc3sT2

iTrader: (1)

Wow she cleaned up real nice!

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

Clokker: I could not wash it outside due to weather so it coincidentally involved some whiskey, a spray bottle with water, dawn soap, followed by meguires wax soap and a clay bar. I am a long time detailer from over the years. I then put cleaner wax on with my makita power buffer, followed by a coat of caranuba.

My potato camera hardly does this car any justice. and it will become even cleaner once I can give it a proper wash, get all the jams, etc.

By flush, and hooking the hose and pump back up, do you mean:

Top it off with coolant/water, and spin the pump by hand/drill to circulate it around, drain, repeat a few times?

I need to look into this a bit, But I like the idea, and like you said "what could it hurt?"

As for the red one....Going to just run it for awhile and use it as a reference car whilst taking apart/rebuilding the white one. I do hate that my daily is forced to sit outside now, but the weather appears to finally stop sucking here in snow-pocolypsica.

Ultimately I would love to keep the red one as a track car, but it will be sold off at some point here. I am curious to try out the power steering on the GXL, but I have already fallen in love with the manual rack. That might be making its way over to the white one, however I noticed a severe difference in weight between the base and gxl, so I need to decide on that at some point.


Thanks for the comments guys. Will update as I have time, and make significant progress.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

got a bit done today. I need to drain all my recovery bins at the local drop off to continue, as they are all now full. But, I am feeling good about this engine coming back to life.

Day 2 pt1:
Day 2 pt 2:
Once I run some more water through it, and get it pressure tested, I will start cleaning the entire fuel system out/rebuild. If it does check out, and fires, it will be making a trip to the shop pronto to get a proper coolant flush.

other then needing to buy new hardware for the exhaust along with the gaskets, the red car is about ready to be brought out from its winter hibernation.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

That waterpump adaptor is hilarious.
Very crafty.

Where are you draining the coolant from now?
Have you removed the thermostat?

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

So far today, was entirely closed loop keg only. Was a constant, top it off, spin the pump for a bit with the drill, drain, repeat. Until my 5 gallon bucket was full.

And yes, thermostat was removed. At first I wondered if I should leave it, but decided it would be blocking the efforts and result I was hoping to gain.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

You might try draining from the plug at the driver engine mount.
It's lower and more crud might escape.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

you magnificent bastard! I completely glazed over that plug. Once I get my coolant bucket dumped at the recycle place I will do just that.

The lid on my bucket was tight enough where I had to intervene with 2 1 ft pry bars around the entire rim until it let loose. That was part of day one I left out.... Beaten, battered, and had its way with me that bucket did. However, now the lid will not seal and I am forced to go buy another.

Tonight will be slow going piddly stuff like removing the remaining accessory's so I can have access to start cleaning the engine bay better. I found my wire wheel, so I can start cleaning brackets and misc. bits and pieces.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for that bit of info clokker! I managed to get liquid I could see through last night using the lower plug. I am eye-in up coolant pressure kits presently to get that piece of the puzzle solved as well.

Not much else to update really though. Waiting on gaskets and some other parts to put it back together, and just been cleaning the engine bay up. This weekend will be exhaust work and fuel system cleaning.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

friggen hate gasoline boys. If it wasnt for the fact that I want to sell the red one whole and running, I would have yanked its tank already and swapped it over. It even has a new walbro 255lph in it.

Airing out the garage as I type presently. Letting the gas tank sit outside tonight, being it has 9-10 gallons + cleaning chemical inside of it (boooom). Luckily none of my neighbors smoke.... that I know of "yet". I shouldn't joke, I have a fairly dangerous situation that I cannot do anything about till after work tomorrow.

But here is where I am at currently:


Better ways to clean the fuel tank? I can only get soo far with the baffles the way they are and I know it is nasty on the other side of them...

clokker

iTrader: (2)

I took the Z's tank to a place that works on industrial equipment and I don't know what they did but $90 later it was beautiful.
Probably some completely illegal chemicals involved.

Failing a future superfund site, I've seen purists split the metal tank at the seam and then reweld after cleaning the interior.

Personally, if the Z tank had proved unusable I would have explored grafting in the plastic tank from a newer car.
I believe that the plastic fuel tank from a 90's era Camaro is reputed to be a pretty close fit in an FC.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

$90 would be a sweet deal, the tank renew places around here are a couple hundred bucks. And for that price, I WILL swap my other tank over.

I did encounter an interesting way to clean my metal fuel lines from my father.

"take one of those foam squishy ear plugs, and shoot some break clean into the line a bit, then stuff the ear plug in, and hit it with compressed air. It will shoot out the other side if there is nothing to terribly ugly inside".

Apparently they shoot each other in the shop all the time with them whilst cleaning out hydraulic lines with this method. I found it quite brilliant, and will be attempting it. Worse comes to worse... make new ones.

Is it terribly hard on the NA fuel system to be running a walbro 255 on it without fuel pressure adjustment?

Also, I will look into this Camaro tank.

Thanks for the advice thus far Clokker.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

Mazda RX7 1991 Fuel Tank | eBay "with pump"... Yeah... im bidding.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Sold for $350...yikes!

At that price level I'd definitely be at the yard looking at Camaros.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

I stopped bidding at $140ish. Local guy I know has a couple tanks that I will be taking a look at hopefully this weekend and he has them priced sub $100 and I am sure I have parts he would want in trade.

I did not notice it went for that high. that is insane! Oh well, I got the exhaust 90% back on the red car last night after my gaskets came in. It is the rusted old one from the white car and I can already tell that it is going to sound "just lovely" *rolls eyes*. Oh well, next guys problem.

But, I will/should have that one running again this weekend and de-winterize it and take it for a rip snot.

As for the white car, I need to make a trip to the dealer for the gasket that goes between the keg and water pump housing. Mine does not hold pressure now that I took it all apart.

But, I had my radiator boiled/flushed/pressure tested and it's ready to make it back into the car. And beyond that one gasket and injector cleaning, I should be able to slap it all together and bring it back to life. Although with work/life issues that may be another week out before I can hear it run.


I am still debating bringing my walbro over from the red car to the white one...

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

well, Red one has made its way out of storage, and is alive again and sitting on the ground.

Picking up a fuel tank today, and will start bending new fuel lines this afternoon (hopefully).


Whilst transfering the stock exhaust from the white to red car, I noticed something is practically "on fire" when I shut the car off now. Not sure if a mouse or something is in there, or what, but I am hoping it goes away. It just smokes for a while at the cat/y-pipe area after running the car.

I have been painstakingly trying to decide on wheels for the white car.....

I think gold with a decent chrome lip (like the xxr 962) would look amazing on my white car and coilovers. But.... That is a staggered setup, and I am torn on wanting to be able to rotate my tires or not. The other side of me knows that I am only taking this thing out on the weekends, and hopefully to the track twice a year at most so I do not care that much.

My inspiration:



but obviously mine is staying white.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

Bit of an update for yall:


If anyone has a good method for cleaning out fuel lines so I do not have to go through all this extra work I would love to hear it!

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

more progress!!!


Managed to use the ear plug with compressed air method after all. No longer need to fab new lines. Back to waiting on parts and trying to sell the red car. ugh, I don't need to sell it, but it would certainly help out funds. I really want to keep them both and have a clean driver, and a dirty ol track car, but it is just not in the cards presently.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

I will try and get some pictures up tonight, but I sandblasted all the rear end parts: sub frame trailing arms etc. Minus the mess, sandblasting is amazingly good fun. Makes me want to build/buy a blast cabinet now. I would be blasting everything!

Parts to replace all of the bushing and links etc to be adjustable arrive today. I just need to decide on the color for my trailing arms. Sub frame is staying black. But I am torn between: Silver, White, or Red for the TA's. Granted nobody will ever really see it with the car being lowered anyhow, I just like knowing it is there.

hmm... what else... OH! Once I got the stock fuel lines out of the car, the earplug trick worked like a charm!! Blasted 10 through each line with 2 cans of break clean. They cleaned up brand spanking new. No need to fabricate new ones now. Just replace all the rubber hose and get the whole *** end of the car back together!

I am getting close to starting it from its 20+ year slumber, and it is really exciting.

While the underside is tore apart I am going to scrub it down and clean all the mess that was made by the PO from taking the engine out and what not. I know I should undercoat it while I am here....but ughhhhhh.

I am striving to be as picky as clokkers restore.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

I encourage you to aim higher.

I was going to tell you that the subframe is a lot easier than you'd feared, but you already found that out.

You are going to hate yourself if you don't undercoat now, while the car is so stripped.
I would say that POR15 is the optimal approach but it's a decidedly major project in itself and faced with the same situation on the Z, we opted for a less intensive solution and used Rustoleum truck bed liner.
We powerwashed the underside and then scrubbed with stiff bristle brushes, followed by a final wash.
Used brushes and foam rollers to apply two coats.

If lacking the longevity and effectiveness of POR, the Rustoleum seems pretty tough and at the very least, everything looks nice and black.

As for the suspension finish...
Unless you powdercoat, I'd avoid gloss finishes and in any case, I'd go satin black on everything.
Bright gloss colors look fantastic at first but suffer if not constantly maintained and let's be honest, when did you last crawl beneath you car and wax the suspension bits?

Yeah, me neither.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

Ha, yeah.

I forget the exact stuff we used when undercoating my step dads 67 SS camaro underside. But I am fairly certain it was a rustoleum product as well. And it has held up well. Granted it is more of a show queen then anything. But yea, I have been seriously trying to motivate myself to "just do it". The weather here has been **** most of the week and it has put me in a slump of not wanting to do anything productive in the garage.

You think even a nice rustoleum primer followed by a coat of rustoleum color then finally cleared would not hold over time? If I got 2 years out of it that would be fine. I mean, eventually that entire S5 Turbo ii swap in the back of my garage will end up in this car and I can hit it again.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

The bedliner is tougher and thicker, so covers flaws better.
I think regular paint would be a terrible idea.

archaphil

iTrader: (1)

I meant the trailing arms, sorry. Yeah the undercarriage itself will be a rustoleum bedliner and or por15.

RevinRx7

iTrader: (3)

Honestly for the stuck hub assembly, go rent a HUB puller for front CV shafts from your auto parts store. I tried all the tricks you are doing and it came down to using that with an impact driver until it popped off.

The PB will NOT penetrate. Plain and simple. I let it sit for a week WITH tension on it. When I finally got it off, it had only penetrated down MAYBE 1mm. There's ~50mm of rust left to go.

The air hammer will just mushroom your 1/2 shaft tip, and also won't work. Tried it.

So I put on the hub puller (you'll have to touch it up with a dremel to get the clearance you need, its not much) But grab your impact and keep torquing until it comes loose. Take a few breaks to relieve some heat.
And before you take it off when you hear it break loose the first time, make sure your 1/2 shaft has fallen out of the hub. I made the mistake of taking it off and it not being fully released.