riverseine

iTrader: (1)

Well guys, I might have had RX3s since heck was a pup but this is the first time I've ever tried to take one down to the bones.

I've hit a few roadblocks and could use some input.

I am disadvantaged in having the car in a small town very far from SF Bay area and equally far from Los Angeles, both prime locals for expert Mazda rotary knowledge and talent. I am just about ready to import someone expert at RX3 rear glass removal. And other things too...

Discouraged.

EDSRX3

For reference, I'm also building up an RX3.

I'm leaving the glass to a mobile glass guy. He's taking the glass out and reinstalling when its painted. His job is to preserve the old glass!

The dash pad is the last piece of the dash board to come apart. Everything else comes out in peices including the center metal that hold the guages, radio and heater controls. By the time all that and the glass is out you should be able to get the last to screws holding the dash pad.

The bolt for the hood latch has a nut welded to the fire wall. When you have all the dash out all you need to do is grind off the nut and weld another one in.

There will be a few challenges on reassembly.

What motor is going back in? Pressumably you are not using the old 6 mm twin dizzy. 12A or 13B?

Good luck. Other than the rotary motor, the body is just like a piston car. It realy only gets tricky when you get into the motor and engine managment stuff.

keithrx3c

First of all, try not to be discouraged. You'll get things that seem impossible to overcome but someone will always have an answer.

The two screws in the dash pad section, I'm guessing they're the corner ones? In the past I've used a pair of vice grips to get them out, clamp em on the screw as tight as you possibly can and unscrew them. Last time I used bolts when putting it back in the car instead of screws.

The broken bonnet latch bolt, bit of a head scratcher. Maybe just drill the whole thing out but go one size smaller than the bolt so you don't stuff the thread, then retap the thread, actually, it might be an idea to retap all the threads in the engine bay.

Rear window, before I tried a pull knife I would use a wide scraper (about 3/4 inches wide, the wider the better) pushing it gently between the glass and sealant from inside the car, wouldn't hurt to heat the seal up with a heat gun first.

Hope that helps.


Keith

riverseine

iTrader: (1)

Ed & Keith: I have spoken to two mobile glass guys. You would think they would be the most experienced at glass removal. However, I found that these guys take broken glass out for a living and are therefore not remotely careful. They were both reluctant to try knowing they would probably break it further upon removal. I need someone who has actually done a classic car that glass can not be bought for. Awareness and care taking a top priority. This is very hard to find in the small town of Santa Maria, CA where the car is. Maybe I talked to the wrong guys?

As far as the crash pad goes - it is OUT of the car already (as shown in VLog 4). The remaining metal trim piece between the windscreen and where the crash pad WAS is the problem that has me stumped. The two screws toward the center of the dash against the firewall and tucked way up underneath it all. No clearance to get a vice grip in there, very narrow.

On the hood latch...
Keith - impossible to drill through the broken screw extractor. Been there with 4 different bits of varying metals. Also heated it up with a torch to weaken the broken screw extractor and that didn't make any difference.

Ed might be on to something with grinding the back nut off. I think that might be the next avenue of effort to get this thing out.

Would love to hear any additional ideas from you great folks.

riverseine

iTrader: (1)

Keith - I meant to mention that I DO have a pull knife and used it trying to remove the front glass. It might be a poorly designed pull knife though so I think I will get another from a different manufacturer. The one I have has a fairly thick blade. I believe the thickness of the blade contributed to the easy cracking of the front glass while using the pull knife. Thanks for the suggestion mate!

jgrewe

iTrader: (1)

Piano wire or any thin wire, I've used MIG welding wire before. Poke through the rubber/glue with an awl and send the wire through the tight hole. Wrap the ends of the wire around something so you can grip it without cutting your own fingers off. Use a sawing action to cut the glue as you pull it around the glass. You may break the wire from the heat generated so go slow.

just startn

iTrader: (33)

Although i have ZERO knowledge of the Rx3 chassis ill throw in my $0.02. The nut on the firewall looks to be a no brainer. If you have a grinder and can get to the back side of the nut, grind it off. If you need something smaller use a dremel. After you get that done put a nut&bolt threw the hole and weld the nut back to the firewall. THe windsheild, I dont know how the moldings are held on ect. but it looks as though you already have the moldings off? If they are, Go grab some guitar string, Bondo squeege and a good friend, child, wife. Now you should already have a spot were you were attempting to remove the windsheild? push one end of the string threw the hole and tie it to a ratchet extension or something, to make a handle. Do the same for both ends and use it like a saw. squeege is used to hold windsheild away from chassis. Hard to explain but here you will get the idea. Why i say Guitar string? it goes ALOT faster and makes the job ALOT easier. Its much thinner so works more like a razor.

just startn

iTrader: (33)

I must type slower

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

This may not be of much assistance right now, but would help just in case the old glass cannot be reused. Jay Leno needed a new windshield for his L10B Cosmo and someone in the rotary community offered theirs to be cloned for Leno's car. If you watch the videos on youtube about Leno's Cosmo, you'll see that Mazdatrix had a hand in the car's restoration (engine), so they might be able to tell you who cloned the windshield for Jay Leno, or recommend a shop that will do the job correctly.

Screw/Bolt extractors suck, period. I had one break off with under 20ft.lbs of torque applied in the correct manner during extraction of a M6x1.0 bolt. My reasoning is that if a bolt is weakened enough to break off, a bolt extractor will break off even easier. A torch didn't make any difference either, just charred the paint. You're just going to have to drill it out and replace the captured nut. Here's how I did mine:

Dremel + Heavy Duty cut-off wheel to cut the extractor flush
Dremel + a Ball diamond grinding bit to make a divot to center the drill
3/8" drill + Titanium Nitride drill bit to get the pilot hole drilled
Dremel + Cone Diamond grinding bits to remove the rest

Alternate between the drill and dremel so neither one gets too hot and you should get through just fine. Drilling will take some downforce to work properly and this will heat up the bit, so alternating will help prevent it from overheating. Harbor Freight's TN drill bits and diamond dremel bits work pretty well for this. Mine took 2 hours to get the hole large enough for a M5 bolt to slip through (did not re-tap threads)

If it is anything like the RX-5 Cosmo, it will use M6x1.0 bolts for the hood latch.

RX2fan

This is how the old Mazda technician books say to remove glass. If you want go to a junk yard and practice removing the glass on a car first to get some experience. These modern tools are pretty much ment to break the glass so you have to replace it with a new one (my personal opinion)

silverfdturbo6port

iTrader: (26)

id use with ol wire trick to remove the glass.

jgrewe

iTrader: (1)

Just make sure you are dragging the wire through the rubber. If you hear and feel a scraping sound, you are riding the edge of the glass. Just change the angle to you from and get the wire off the glass.

Once you get the wire through the rubber the rest is easy.

keithrx3c

Yea I was referring to the metal section that attaches to the dash pad, sorry, I should've been a bit clearer. Is it the only part left in there? I wonder if welding something on the screws that you can grab onto to undo them with might work? Maybe a long piece or rod with a thread, lock two nuts together and undo the screws?

My pull knife has a pretty thin blade, wouldn't be much more than 2mm thick.


Keith

riverseine

iTrader: (1)

Great advice guys.
I'll be applying it this weekend.
Got a new and thinner pull knife and several guitar strings. Gonna practice with the front glass which is already cracked. Thanks for the videos just startn those were definitely helpful.

I've got a Dremel and will tackle the broken screw extractor via grinding the back nut off.

As for the sheet metal between firewall and crash pad, once the glass is out I might be able to drill through the screws from above. Can't see squat with the glass in so more on that later. Keith might have a good idea there with welding a threaded rod to the ruined screw head - only possible if there is clearance for welding stuff. We'll get back to that after the weekend.

Thanks again for spreading the knowledge, much appreciated.

RX2fan

Good luck finding a new front Windshield!

just startn

iTrader: (33)

Good Luck with the adventure. TAKE YOUT TIME TAKE YOUR TIME TAKE YOUR TIME! Think outside the box, there may be a few tricks you might have to pull out of the bag to get it done. Just take your time. If you drink and you have a drinking buddy Grab a 30 pack and go to town.