If rodent damage is a real threat, I've heard to make a perimeter around the car out of cayenne pepper, squirrels and mice don't like it. it can be found in bulk size. Some mothballs or dryer sheets placed around the engine bay also, just don't forget you put them in there.

 

I'll try the cayenne pepper thing, only problem is it will probably blow away every few hours. I might try stashing some up on the subframe though. And mothballs for under the hood sounds like a good plan too.

I'm not sure how likely rodent damage is. On the one hand they love small hiding places like under the headlights, and they like to snack on wiring.

On the other hand, I think I might be more likely to experience rodent damage in the garage since it's warmer and I know for a fact they're in there. So my car being on the driveway under a cover may work to my advantage.

I'll probably just throw everything I can at the problem and hope for the best.

 

I don't have the issue because I have a cat that spends a lot of time outside. He's a stray rescue and has a lot of wild in him.

Might try wetting the concrete before hand, the pepper might dry to kind of a coating, stick to the concrete.

Nice car, I've been following.

 

A cat is the best form of pest removal. I'd be reluctant to keep an outdoor cat where I live though, our house backs onto some woods and coyotes are fairly common. Also lots of raccoons.

I grabbed some mothballs for under the hood, so I'm hoping between that and the dryer sheets in the interior it's enough. I'm not too worried about something making a nest elsewhere (like on the suspension) since it would be easy to clear out. The cayenne should add an extra layer of protection though.

Thank you It's not nearly done yet, but the fact that I can drive now is immensely satisfying.

 

Love the write up!!! For the 3800 hesitation have you looked at the sock on the fuel pump? I spent countless hours chasing that and it ended up being something simple. I had a lot of rust flakes in there and it cured the problem when I changed it. Resealed the inside of the gas tank and problem solved.

 

Thank you

My first thought on the hesitation was fuel as well, since it happens when the secondary injectors come online and the primary injector duty drops to 50%. However I've already changed the pump, sock, lines, filter, and had the injectors serviced. And the inside of my fuel tank is the only part of this car that was in good condition when I got it, since it seems to have been sealed or coated before.

I'm thinking the air leak past the auxiliary port shafts is the culprit, but Spider2k has been kind enough to send me some seals that may work. As soon as they arrive I'll do a test fit and see if that helps.

I won't know if that was the cause of the hesitation until spring though, my Rx7 is not insured in the winter. It should at least help the idle though.

 

So a few weeks ago I ended up picking up an extra set of windows, and I finally installed them. Now I have all un-tinted glass, so even if I do prefer tinted windows at least everything matches.


You can see the border on the edge where the tint meets the bare glass.



I actually prefer the un-tinted glass in terms of looks, but the heat and light rejection of the tinted glass is hard to beat. Especially since I currently don’t have air conditioning.

I also started on the restoration of the power steer system. I don’t actually mind the feel of the de-powered steering, but I have some safety concerns.

With a manual rack it’s obviously easier to steer because of the 20:1 ratio vs the 15.2:1 ratio. This means the power steer rack is harder to steer at any given time. People say it’s a pain in the *** to park with a de-powered rack but honestly it isn’t that big a deal.

What is a big deal is that you are required to maintain a really solid grip when cornering, especially if you’re braking hard or accelerating out. There’s one particular corner on the way to work that comes to mind, where I need to come off a road with a left-hand bend and make a tight ( <90 degrees) right turn onto a narrower road that is immediately followed by a right-hand bend. This leads to a very uncomfortable experience because you need to use both hands and maintain a death-grip on the steering wheel, while also slowing down drastically compared to a power-steer car where you can throw it into the corner a bit more. This also leaves me concerned about the possibility of having to stop suddenly or swerve around an obstacle and not having a good grip on the wheel.

Basically, the de-powered steering conspires to make the car slower under similar conditions than it was with power-steer. This probably isn’t an issue on a race track, but on a road where anything can happen it’s really not worth it to de-power Series 4 steering IMO. The Series 5 17.4:1 racks are probably a better candidate.

The trade-off is that the engine bay gets more cluttered and I have another fluid that can leak. I didn’t care too much about the ~10 pounds of weight difference, but the added clutter in the engine bay is unfortunate. Oh well.

The FC also has a really advanced (for the time) power-steer system. It uses a sensors to detect steering angle, engine speed, and wheel speed. It has a third connection on the rack for something called a “reaction tube” that goes back up to the pump. The pump meanwhile uses a computer controlled stepper motor (and other stuff I’m certain I’m forgetting) to vary the amount of assist based on all the above sensor readings.

I’m not about to pretend I understand 100% of what it’s doing, but the end result is the best steering system of any car I’ve used (the NC Miata is close). While parking or at low speeds you get 100% assist to make driving easy, then as you pick up speed the assist decreases so you get better feel. Meanwhile it also uses the steering angle to determine when you’re throwing the car into a curve, so that small quick inputs are easy but larger inputs decrease the assist to give you better feedback.

Anyways, that’s the sort of thing I love about this car. A check-engine light was completely unimportant to include, but one of the most advanced (for the time) power-steer systems using a bunch of sensors and a computer was imperative. Mazda put a lot of effort into making this a driver’s car.

Apologies in advance for the flash-photography to follow. It’s pretty cold out so we swapped cars around so I could work in the garage. The trade-off is the terrible lighting.

I originally pulled the power steering pump because I needed to replace the front cooler line. I wanted an OEM line but they’re now NLA, and also something like $350 USD. It’s a quality piece though, so I wouldn’t have been too upset about paying for it if it were available:





So I decided to take a look at my current line:





First off, you can see some repairs have been made. The soft-line at the top (which comes from the rack) is factory. The shiny fitting it connects to is not. There was originally a fitting there where it connected to the hardline, but instead it now connects to another hose. This is a repair I had done because that section of line was very rusty and started to leak. At the end of THAT hose is ANOTHER hose, which was there when I got the car. So I have a hose connected to a hose connected to a hose connected to a hardline (which did not originally have a flare and fitting there). Then the line is fairly rusty and loops back around to go back into the engine bay. One of the factory mount points is completely gone. When I removed the other mount point, you can see what the line is supposed to look like:





The correct thing to do is to replace this line. However I don’t have the correct diameter of line. So I ended up just scraping all the rust I could from this line and inspecting for any holes. Finding none, I decided to just rust-convert & paint the line before giving it a try. This is a low-pressure line and none of the rust was too deep, so I’m not terribly worried about it. If it leaks then I’ll investigate other replacement options.




I grabbed the power steering pump, and strangely the pulley was missing:




I can’t imagine what would’ve possessed me to store the pulley separately but apparently I did.

I dug through all my parts and couldn’t find the original pulley. However, after looking through the extra car’s worth of parts that I keep in the shed, I found this:




It’s in need of some cleanup, but it will do. First I separated the center hub from the pulley and inspected it:




Rusty, but nothing too bad. Popped it into some CLR along with the other pulleys I’ll be installing. After removing them and scuffing off anything loose they were ready for paint:




Top left is the power steering pump pulley. Bottom left is the AC pulley that goes on the front stack, bottom right is the power steering pulley for the front stack. I’d like to leave out the AC pulley for the time being to avoid having it on there while not driving anything, but that would mess up the spacing. For now I’ll install it. Not pictured is the tensioner pulley.

I also masked off the little hub for painting:



Everything got Duplicolor flat black engine enamel:




This little toaster-oven is really convenient for baking parts. The top gets warm enough to dry the paint first, then I can pop the parts into the oven to cure them at full temperature.

To be continued shortly, I've hit the maximum number of photos per post.

 

Continued:

I left the part of the hub that mounts flush against the pulley bare, so I gave it a skim of silicone brake grease to prevent it rusting again. The keyed channel also got some grease just in case. Then I ran a tap through the threads (as I've done with every other thread on this car) and reassembled the pulley:






It could’ve been smoother with filler-primer and sanding, but honestly it’s good enough that I won’t worry about that.

Forgive the blurriness of the following photo:




This is the yoke plug on the steering rack. I had backed it off slightly when driving around without the pump to make steering about 1% easier, but now that I was re-installing the pump I wanted to reset it to factory spec. You need to use a 41mm socket to loosen the lock nut, then torque the plug to 14 ft-lbs. Then back it off 25-30 degrees with a wrench, and snug the lock nut back up before torqueing the lock-nut to 40ft-lbs.

After that I connected the lines:




The slight kinks are courtesy of the previous owner. This is one part of the FC steering system I kind of hate. Instead of having banjo ends on the hoses, or using flared ports on the rack, you have to use banjo bolts and o-rings to connect those adapter tubes to the rack, then connect the flare fittings from the hoses to the adapter tubes. It just irks me and it’s begging to leak. I used all-new Viton o-rings so hopefully I can avoid soaking my nice clean harnesses in ATF again.




I used some shiny new hardware to install the power steering / AC bracket. I’m still missing the two rear nuts (need an M12 fine), so I’ll get those ASAP. I’m not driving the car until spring anyways.

The AN line for the oil cooler is quite close, but it isn’t rubbing so I’ll just keep an eye on it for now.




The power steering bracket is back in, idler and other pulleys are reinstalled, everything is ready to go…

Except that I can’t find the four M10x1.25 bolts required to mount the pump. I’m assuming they fell into the same black hole that claimed my pump pulley. Also it’s New Year’s Day, so I can’t go buy any.

Hopefully my next update (“My power steering works!” or alternate title “Leaks, leaks everywhere!”) will be tomorrow.

Happy New Year’s to everyone. Until next time

 

re sent your seals, this time with the whole address. i hate that i just threw away all of that power steering stuff...

 

The power steering stuff isn't too hard to find if you want to restore the system later. Luckily plenty of people de-power or go to manual and they end up selling their old pump and lines.

That being said, you may like it de-powered. I just found the safety thing a bit concerning for my particular use, but there are others out there driving with de-powered racks who like them a lot.

 

Bright and early this morning I went out to the local Canadian Tire to grab those M10x1.25 bolts I needed. It snowed last night (and was snowing this morning during the drive too) so I had to keep the speed down and there were a few times other cars got too close for comfort. That being said I did end up getting what I needed:




And the one sneaky M10 that hides on the back of the pump:




With that done I took some time to clean off the crusty connectors and re-wrap the pigtails on the pump. I used TESA tape, although I find a piece of the fuzzy interior tape on either end is a good piece of insurance.

Conveniently I left the power steering computer under the dash when I pulled everything else, so all I had to do was plug it back in. I was glad not to have to try and dig through my storage bins for it like some of the other parts. Plugged in the sensors, tightened all the fittings, installed the pulley, and…

Realized I did not have the belt. I have a stack of v-belts on the shelf, and I had assumed I kept the old belt (it would be out of character for me to throw it away unless it was bad).

So after a drive back to the Canadian Tire I grabbed the 4L 42” OD belt I needed. There was a bit of confusion since it seems Mazda had two separate accessory brackets. One was for cars optioned for power steering only, the other was for cars optioned for power steering and air conditioning. I made an educated guess that I would need the longer one and luckily it worked out.




(Those packets are the moth-***** I was using while my car sat outside).

My engine bay actually may end up looking neater after installing the PS system, since it gives me convenient locations to hold-down the alternator harness and the spark plug wires. The two leading coils are a waste-spark setup, so it’s fine to zip-tie them like this. I will probably make a bracket of some sort to hold those wires down properly.

I filled the pump and started the car, and there was zero power steering. But after checking I realized that the pump had already run itself dry. I filled it and turned the wheel, and it ran itself dry again. I was looking and not finding any leaks, but the pump kept taking more fluid. I was starting to think that something must be wrong, but eventually the steering effort eased and it worked perfectly. I guess I forgot just how much fluid this system takes.




Anyways, there are no leaks yet. I looked at the sketchy cooler line and see no moisture at all, and the little adapter area by the rack that I am always suspicious of looks perfectly fine too.

For the true leakage test I put some cardboard boxes down under the engine bay and I’m leaving it for a few hours before starting again.

I don’t want to declare victory yet, but the steering seems to be working fine so far. I can easily turn the wheel with one hand (possible but not trivial with the de-powered steering), which I can already tell is going to greatly improve my enjoyment of the car. As for the real test, that would require me driving it on a road at different speeds and in different conditions. So unfortunately, that’s at least 3 months out.

Overall it’s been a good day. Until next time

 

Oh, I have a manual rack. Drove an entire day to pick it up and have all the bearings and bits waiting to rebuild it.

 

Oh, that should work fine then. The 20:1 ratio should make it much easier than the 15.2:1 rack.

I had an opportunity to pick one up a few months ago for a good price, but it was, ~6 hours round trip and I decided to pass. Now I'm kicking myself, since I didn't get a chance to try out a true manual rack, or at least add the manual rack to my stash of parts.

So far I'm glad to have the power steering back though.

 

IMO the manual rack does offer a low effort, but its also a really slow ratio, if you drive the car fast you need to move your hands really fast
the late FC single line 17:1 system, used to be my favorite, its very natural. with the PS hooked up effort is perfect, without its ok, a little heavy but not unmanageable.
the normal 2 line 15:1 system. this is the current favorite, what happened was that i drove a couple of cars with faster steering and liked it. it does make the FC turn in almost un-natural, but it is capable of it. when you're diving fast you don't need to move your hands, which is ideal. the effort is a bit light, imo, but imo....

 

For me, I just want to remove every unnecessary but that I can to clean things up. It never gonna steer like an s2000 anyways😁

 

I recall my FC having a sort of "glued down" feeling back when I got it that it doesn't have as much of now, and I think it's because the steering effort was so much lighter with PS that throwing it into a turn was easier and I could bring it closer to the limit of the tires. And that was with blown shocks and rotted bushings.

With the PS deleted I needed to put enough steering effort in that it started to feel like I was at the limit way before I was actually there.

This is with the 15:1. Interestingly, I have a 14.8:1 rack in my Celica and it still doesn't have as much of that "glued down" feeling, but I think it's the feeling of the front-wheel drive trying to understeer while also being a heavier car. Apples to oranges I guess.

My main concern with the depowered steering was that the road would try and rip the wheel side to side, or that I couldn't shift while turning. Two hands were required at all times. I can drive around the limitations but it's just one more thing to think about instead of enjoying the drive.

That 15:1 ratio also affects how easily the wheels turn the steering wheel, not just the other way around. The 17:1 or 20:1 racks would mitigate these issues.

 

I already miss the nice clean engine bay look of having no accessories. But hey, it's a trade-off. It's also reversible if I change my mind again one day.

 

You also drive yours more than I ever plan to. Its not even a weekend car for me, it just a project to tinker with and drive on e in a blue moon. The 20:1 is pretty much the same ratio that my NSX had and it didn't bother me, I like the manual rack.

 

@Spider2k

The seals you sent arrived today, thanks again







They look like the stock seal does. Makes me wonder why no vendors offer an aftermarket replacement.

I won't have time to try installing them for awhile, but my money is on the thicker one fitting.

 

Keep us updated. Thanks to AliExpress!

 

Even though I didn't have the time, I decided to make the time to install the seals today. It's -2C out today vs -19C in a couple days.

I was originally going to do a test fit on one of my spare manifolds before taking my actuators apart, but I found they were under some other containers in the shed and it would have actually taken longer to get to them. I found a friend though:



I put him back in the shed, since he's not hurting anything by living in my old springs.

Took off the actuators and set them aside. Then removed the shafts (having to remove 3/4 of the screws with a hammer and punch):



I actually DID have seals in there. I guess I didn't throw them out and decided to reassemble with the old ones. Anyways, they're long past dead.

New seals:



It turns out the shorter seal is the correct one. On reassembly I had to be careful to get the shaft back onto the pin in the correct orientation. If I flipped it 180° by accident I would have aux ports on by default and then off at 4000rpm.

I'm still a bit paranoid that I got it wrong, but I feel like I would have noticed when starting the car.

Anyways, I get everything back together and start the car. I'm lucky I have good compression since the battery was nearly flat (I've been meaning to get a tender for it). Starts up well, idle is maybe a bit better with the new seals. All in all it seems to have made a bit of difference, so thanks again Spider2k.

Unfortunately my power steering started to act strangely. It was fine on first startup, but as idle approached 900rpm or so it started to have spots where it felt "tough". No grinding or anything, but just a tough spot. Sometimes I could push past the tough spot and then it would loosen a bit before happening again. I drained some fluid (it was slightly overfull), turned lock to lock a few times, but no change.

Already having spent too much time on it for the day, I pulled out the power steering computer and spent an hour reflowing the soldering joints. I didn't see any obvious issues but that would be my only recourse other then an issue with the rack. Solder joints on the logicon and clock assembly are known issues on this car too. No fluid was leaking so it would have to be an internal rack issue or internal pump issue (presumably rack because it only happens at certain points).

After reflowing all the solder joints I reassembled the power steering computer and installed it. Then my brake lights stopped working. I realized I had knocked loose the connector at the pedal, but reinstalling it didn't help so I need to do further diagnosis. But it's dark now, so that isn't happening.

I considered starting the car again to see if I had fixed the steering, but frankly I don't even want to know at this point. I won't have time to work on it again for a few days (maybe weeks).

All in all it's been a few hours of work today and I have less to show for myself than yesterday. Two steps forward, one step back.

 

Glad they worked! Thanks for being the guinea pig for my random AliExpress shopping.

 

Being chronically unable to sit still, I went outside and worked on my car. It was a balmy -25C today and my car is outside, but with no wind it was manageable.

I had three goals:

- Check for vacuum leaks (specifically by the Air Control Valve blockoff) and seal if present
- See if my power steering was fixed
- Look into the brake light issue.

On goal one, I still have a somewhat lumpy idle. The ACV blockoff is at least partially to blame, because the idle is tuned around the air that the ACV channels into the exhaust ports. Having no way to tune (beyond the little varistor that doesn't seem to help much) my expectations for a buttery idle are somewhat limited. Until now I've also had an issue where plugging in the BAC valve causes the idle to start bouncing, so I just turned the idle screw out to about 900rpm and unplugged the BAC. Having no accessories meant this was no issue.

Now that I have put the power steering back, the BAC valve starts to serve a more important function. Also the big solenoid that sits right nearby. So I had to fix whatever was causing the bouncy idle, and the likely culprit is a vacuum leak of course.

I suspected the ACV blockoff was leaking because I saw some moisture on it. Having removed the plate, here's what's underneath:



Looks like moisture found it's way to the back of the gasket (likely from the catalyst air-injection tube). This was easily fixed since I just had to remove the gasket and use RTV instead. Moisture won't attack RTV so I think it should last.

I also found the rear actuator for the aux ports was seized, for some reason. I put it on the bench and gave it a whack with a dead-blow hammer, now it seems to be fine. I put some moly grease on both of the piston-looking things for good measure.

Now I was ready to try starting. I considered just leaving it as-is for the day, but the RT in RTV stands for "room temperature", so I needed at least a little heat to actually cure it. Starting the engine was the logical option. Before that I decided to clean the connectors for the power steering pump for good measure. With the connectors cleaned and computer completely resoldered, that takes care of all easily fixed electrical options.

I had to let the car charge awhile. Even once the battery was 100% charged and the car was warmed up, cranking rpm was maybe 120 or so. Like I said, I am grateful for my good compression.

Once it warmed up I set the idle to stock (750rpm). Since I had just fixed some vacuum leaks (not only the ACV but also the new seals on the actuator shafts) I decided to set the mixture again. Normally this isn't necessary but like every part of my car the mixture screw was screwed with by the previous owner. I set it the crude way: turn it all the way rich, turn it towards lean until you hear it stumble, then back a little towards rich. My external tach doesn't seem to want to read my Rx7's engine speed for some reason, so this will have to do for now.

And with that I plugged in the BAC and the cylindrical thing next to it (I call it the Big Air Solenoid, not sure what Mazda calls it) and nothing happened. Which is exactly what SHOULD happen. Then I removed the jumper from the initial set coupler and it still just worked normally.

I turned on the accessories and the BAC valve did its thing, maintaining idle. I turned the wheel (steering now seems to act normally too) and the BAC valve and Big Air Solenoid again did their thing: solid idle at around 800rpm. All in all the idle is still slightly lumpy, but as mentioned above my expectations on that front are limited until I have some level of tuning control.

My brake lights still don't light, but since all the other illumination works this will require me to put my head against the pedals again to see what's what under the dash. Which means it's a job for another day.

Lastly I put in a battery-tender.







So with that, I'm calling it a successful day. Until next time

 

Minor update. I had an unseasonably warm day today, so I took what free time I had and spent it on my Rx7. First thing I did was to """fix""" an exhaust leak. And by """fix""", I mean slap exhaust cement onto it.


This is a short video I took to show how loud the leak was. The first minute is just testing the steering and moving the car forward one foot so the tires don't get a flat spot, so skip ahead if you just want to see the leak. I'm not sure where it came from since the last time I did any exhaust work everything fit. But then when I took it apart and put it back together (I think while the engine was out) this flange decided not to align quite right anymore. The noise is quite noticeable and on video you can see exhaust spilling out.

I am not too concerned with the longevity of this repair since I want headers anyways, so I decided to just use exhaust cement. I slapped some on and worked it in before letting it dry awhile. This isn't really a repair but it's fine for a part I will be replacing later.

After:


I also have a slight whine from a bearing somewhere, probably the transmission.

On to something a little more interesting. I have a Cusco under-brace on my front control arms. I got it when I was buying my S5 tail lights, and the guy had it in his garage so I bought the brace as well. Does it actually do anything other than add weight and provide a convenient thing to prop my transmission on while the engine is out? No idea.

One thing that has always bothered me a bit though is that the sticker was peeling off. A few years ago I removed the sticker entirely and cleaned it, then reattached it with packing tape. But this has always bothered me a little bit. The sticker is pointless, all it does is advertise a name-brand part and it lives under the car facing downward, but I still wanted to fix it. A replacement sticker costs $50 for one (!), and that doesn't seem like a wise use of my money.

So I decided to make one. First I guesstimated the size and got the nearest size Avery clear printable labels (1"x2-5/8"). This really is more guess than estimate since I didn't even lift the car to remove the old sticker and just eyeballed the width of the bar from above. I also know it's on the smaller side, but the next up option is a 2" label, and that's too big. Then I found the appropriate logo online and used Avery's online tool to format it for printing onto my label sheets:




Then I loaded the paper into my printer and printed the template (make sure to select "actual size"):




I wasn't sure about durability, so I scraped one label vigorously with my fingernail:




You can see the scratches, but I'm pleasantly surprised. Next up, the original label is an aluminum foil-backed label, so I needed to add an aluminum backing. Enter some aluminum tape:



Then cut it out:



There you go. I'm sure there's some enthusiast out there who would notice it isn't original, but it's good enough for me. And if it doesn't last, I have 299 more labels... The package of labels cost like $15, so it only cost me $0.05 for one label and I have the other labels left for something else.

Next time I have a compelling reason to lift the front of the car, I'll remove the old label and compare before installing.

Until next time

 

Love me some Cusco blue parts. So completely pointless and JDM...