im just checking in
hows everyone doing havent been around trying to sell the se so i have been busy with that and running my finance around getting the baby checked out and all that jazz

anyone want a se 1600

 

Sounds good to me. Making plans now to come. Probably make a long weekend out of it (lots of vacation saved up) and check out the Smokey Mountains on the way back (maybe a run through Deals Gap too ).

Luckily the Blue Ridge Parkway comes right by here. Certainly a nice road to drive. The wife and I are going to make a run along the Parkway this coming weekend. Going to grab some luch/dinner at a lodge here in VA.

Anyway, I plan to make it. Maybe get some of the Carolina boys to come down too.

 

You're on Kent, it's official. There's room at the Jefferson Hotel if you need it.

So the November OGTA meeting will be a joint get together with the OSJC guys at Lake Lanier on Saturday October 25, 2008.

(There will be a clandestine OGTA meeting at Jeffery's on Tuesday evening, November 4, for those folks not celebrating the election victories).

The meeting will be in Kent's honor; this should get us a little more leverage on RX-7Club.com. Kent I will arrange with Dave of OSJC to have your Longest Traveler T-shirt gift boxed.

And yeah, those Carolina boys love a good caravan. Stop and pick 'em up:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sadd...28&ie=UTF8&z=7

Michael, I'll take the se 1600, whatever that is.

 

Kent, you're welcome to stay at my Sugar Hill hotel, too, if Ray's accommodations aren't to your liking (no reason they wouldn't be).

You were one of the guys that really stepped up and helped me through my SE-in-a-box build, so I'll have a beer with your name on it.

 

I was gonna put Kent in with the goats, they're real party animals who can go all night long.



Sugar Hill is a little closer though, and probably has hot and cold running.

Got the note on the wife Kent, I'll have Dave double the T-shirt order.

 

Thanks for the offer, guys. It is really appreciated. Might just take you up on it. The wife will be coming down too.

We RX-7 owners must be a little crazy...driving across a couple states just to hang out with other RX-7 owners. Anyway, it sounds like a good time. Hope the 7 is up for the trip. It'll be a record for her.

 

You will love it

 

lol, I'll probably drive the hell out of my current motor until it pops before I drop the other one in. I'm thinking I'll take it apart and play with it and make some rotor displays or whatever Hopefully that wont be until at least the end of this year of school.

And the guy about the switches- the mazda MPV switches work for the FC's. The passenger plugs right in, but the drivers has to be spliced. They fit in the stock locations too.

 

So I arrived at Brett's house at like 10am this morning to pull the drivetrain from the 'vert for my dear Sabine who is plagued with a sub-standard hunk-o-junk minivan autotragic. The first few hours were painful...removing heatshields, disconnecting tranny wiring, and attempting to remove a badly rusted exhaust system (That never actually...came out...). The system was so badly rusted that the bolts were fused to the exhaust flanges as one big volcano looking piece in places.. Not me or even the mega impact gun on loan from Crit were able to make them budge. So...I dropped the driveshaft and removed the bolts holding the gearbox to the motor and had it 'ready' to drop by the time Brett got home. It took us HOURS to get the transmission to drop out because we were working around the exhaust system. It sucked, but we got it done with the only side effect being some sand and grit into the tail shaft...then made worse when Brett blew into the tail shaft trying to get it out...and made even worse when I blasted it with water and then compressed air. Fooey. I need to see if my brother still has any gear oil left that I can flush the transmission out with. All should be well in the end of things.

It sure was fun hoping the car didn't fall off the...uh...stands.....and jacks...it was pretty ghetto and it was on gravel and dirt. Sweetness.

Brett's job is to remove the pedal box that I didn't have time to get from the S4 parts car he's got...while I save up a few bucks and buy a new throw-out bearing, pilot bearing, pilot bearing seal and an S4 flywheel that isn't cracked. Once I have all of these parts in my possession, Sabine will be stripped and ready for the 'Swap Night' to which you are all invited.

 

Autocross vid. This was my fastest run. I hate how slow it looks in the video.

http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/c...t=100_2459.flv

 

stop posting that damn video Ray!

 

The slower you look, the faster you're going. Generally speaking it's because you're spending less time throwing grip away.

 

ha ray it means you give 1600 and i give you a 84 gsl-se

 

Well, it looks like I'm gonna need to finalize my rebuild checklist for good. I have a rebuild in my future soon. I've got SE irons, housings, rotors, oil control rings and apex seals. Might have enough side seals and springs.... I'll need to buy a soft seal kit with oil control o-rings.

My budget used-parts build has finally caught up with me. I put in a used motor, used fuel pump, and used clutch/throwout/pressure plate and injectors. The injectors were seized and had to be cleaned. The fuel pump crapped out about 2 months ago and was replaced. The clutch hardware was replaced last weekend. Now that all that's done, she started blowing smoke like a sonofabitch.

If I can put together the couple of interior bits, I'll have a well-sorted SE with fresh parts, but damn it sucks chasing one problem with another. At least I can build the new motor in the shop while I continue to drive.

 

Sucks to hear about the motor Crit. It is a nice car though.

 

What do you mean it's blowing smoke? Under what circumstances?

 

Crit, drop me a PM when you get ready to start working on the rebuild. I have never done this, but I can follow directions (don't listen to Ray) and I'll bring the beer. Seriously, I would love to lend a hand and at some point this in my future so it would be a good learning experience for me.

 

looks like the TOB was the final straw? just gonna rebuild everything?

 

It really doesn't blow smoke so much as pukes it on startup. 2 hours, 10 hours, 1 week - doesn't matter. The control rings are shot but my seals are still good, so why not rebuild before it grenades?

I'll get everything collected and inspected, ready to go, and maybe have a Saturday cookout in the near future. I'll have to be sure not to interfere with Collin's open-heart tranny swap.

 

Coolant or oil Crit?

Maybe you should think of selling it and buying a FD......

 

What's all this about a meet at Lanier? What's the plan?

 

It's really strange that several things decided to pack up all at one time. It's almost like you sabotaged your own vehicle so you could better justify it to your wife or something

No but seriously, that blows...no pun intended. Why so serious?

Okay for real...yes...it sucks. I know how it feels, actually. My 2nd FC went LOCK! one day and that was the end of that. Also, something on Grace's transmission is fubar. Clutch out either in neutral and idling or driving along...sometimes I get a metallic whir like a bearing starved for oil and metal on metal carnage...it happened last winter when temps got really cold...but there's no excuse this time. It's warm out. Everything else seems fine and the gearbox acts fine...it's just noise. A sign of things to come? Maybe I was *supposed* to stumble across Sabine....maybe Brett was *supposed* to buy that convertible and maybe I was *supposed* to trade him the spare motor for it that I received when I bought Grace. I'm not a religious person by any means, but I do believe that things happen for a reason as that bitch Mother Nature seems fit. Catch my drift? My concern with Sabine is with the cooling system. On the interstate in warm weather, she'll sit around 1/3 of the way up the gauge. Not quite half, not 1/4...right in between. The fear comes when summer rolls back around. I guess I've got plenty of time to iron out the cooling system...I'm leaning towards it being the radiator. It would make sense because flushing it made such a huge difference. Maybe it's just a BAD radiator in some way. Regardless, once the tranny swap is done and everything else is moved over, I'll swap the radiators between cars. If it fixes Sabine's problem, she'll be keeping it. If it doesn't, then I'm moving the newer radiator back.

Wow, you know, I should really get a blog?

So in fewer words and without adding all of my own personal details...Crit..you have a good car. You have a cool car. As far as 1st gens that I personally know go, yours is my favorite (Sorry Ray, sorry Stu and sorry Chris...but it's true.). I hope I'm invited to the rebuild party. It seems any time I go to your house, I learn. And learning is key. If I were Mr. Scholastic, I'd tell you that knowledge is power. Hey...if I hadn't assisted (more like watching) you guys in replacing your Clutch and TOB and whatnot, I wouldn't have had the confidence or the know-how to wrestle the drivetrain out of the convertible. And since Brett helped me in the final stages of getting the freakin' thing onto the ground and removing the clutch, he learned something too.

So yeah. Maybe your Oil Control Rings deciding to pack up and causing you to rebuild is exactly how it's supposed to go.

Tim: What do you mean? He had an FD... Actually, where's yours? Kidding of course. You know I want to have surprise buttsecks with your FD (Better keep her away from me!). So one bolt snapped off and it's holding up the entire project??

 

You know, I suppose it's possible to have a stuck oil control ring, and maybe it's worth a little seafoam. Otherwise, I've either lost the o-ring around one of the oil control rings or they've slipped the control ring spring and are no longer spinning with the rotor. Relative motion between the control ring and rotor gives it a chance to work oil by, if that happens to be the mode of failure.

So yeah, seafoam first (why not) but I'm still puking blue smoke until I can build and swap in my backup.

And to think, I JUST put the pilot bearing and seal in that motor.... oh well.

 

Hey, you guys remember these days?



That smoke is GOOD Crit, it means your OMP is working.

Greg here's some photos from the last joint OGTA/OSJC meeting at Fort Yargo this summer. This one in October should be similar but better because it will be the last major bash of 2008.

You know, before the dems take over. Hope the Carolina Boys show up.