Resurrecting Hibernating Rotaries
 

I have a 1979 RX-7 (actually 4 of them) that has not run in a number of years. What precautions should I take before trying to start it? Should I squirt oil into the rotor housings through the spark plug holes and turn the engine over by hand? Or is this a waste of time? Thanks for your help.

add a lil oil in the rotors. Use the starter to prime the oil pressure before starting

you should squirt some atf, not oil into the housing via the leading (lower) spark plug hole. try and turn it over by hand first, you are doing this to ensure that the engine is not carbon locked, while turning it over ideally you would like to check each of the apex seals through the exhasut port to see if any of them are sticking; you should be able to move them slightly in their grooves. (once again carbon lock is your enemy)

if they stick in, then you will simply not get good compression, this is no big deal look up decarbonizing the rotary in the archives.

if they stick in the out postion and you try to force the engine to rotate you can seriously scrape and damage your rotor houseing, or the rotor's apex seal groove.

once again look up decarbonizing procedures in the archives.

kenn

edit; the reason for the ATF vice the engine oil is that the ATF will immediatley start to decarbonize the internals, which is always a good thing, extra engine oil will only create more carbon in the combustion chamber.

Thanks, guys, I appreciate the advice!

Don't get carried away with the oil (or ATF, it makes little difference) , less than a teaspoon per housing is plenty. Fresh gas with some injector cleaner product, again it makes little difference what brand. The goal is to remove any condensation from the tank. And fresh oil. Give it a good crank with the starter with the plugs out. Then I'd do all the fluids once it's up and running.

Paul

check oil level
check water level
pull plugs
neutral
little oil/atf in each hole
rotate backwards at least a good 10 turns
little more oil
rotate forwards at least 10 turns
DISABLE THE SPARK and FUEL (unplug distributor/ignitor/whatever, pull fuel pump fuse)
now turn the engine over with the starter with no plugs in it for 5 sec at a time 3-4 times. This gets oil pumping without a lot of load on the bearings.

Now hook it all back up and try to start for real.