Tales from the Batcave (RX-7, rallycross, misc. stuff content)

In reply to EvanB :

Useless for the fuel lines for this, but I will keep that in mind when it comes to retrofitting A/C to the Quantum, because I have made the decision that it must have air conditioning.  A car that you can't drive in the winter is useless if you can't drive it in the summer either.

HAL was reading 95F today when I went for lunch.  And, guess what?  The A/C in teh S60R is inop because of the leaky condensor.  Condenser?  The bit in the front of the car.  And I only went out for lunch because today was $7 taco wrap larger than your face day at the deli, even though a customer bought the shop pizza.  (There is still a whole pizza in the fridge because nobody speaks vegetarian.  Nobody but me that is.  And I'm going to scarf down on that tomorrow)

In my experience, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary solution. 

And rubber fuel line works better on push lock fittings. 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

In my experience, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary solution.

Da (moto) Boss's dad, who is old-school enough that when I was over at the machine shop helping him (was debuging some tuning issues on the Solstice that he swapped an LS3 into) he was telling me old war stories about decreasing cylinder bore warpage with Milodon aluminum small block Chevy blocks, and rebuilding "V8-60" Flathead Fords... anyway, Dave (I never called him Dave to his face, way too much respect) had a saying he used a lot...

"Temporary solutions have a habit of becoming permanent."

However, this really IS a temporary solution.  The 13B is in here only because it was the only engine I had available to put in it after wasting WAY too much time and effort trying to find a good 12A.  I would greatly prefer a 12A not just for the originality, but because a 12A with the stock Nikki carburetor is a sweet thing to drive.  It's kind of like an BMC A-series on dual SUs, I guess:  maybe not the best in terms of power output, but it's just a sweet and period-correct driving experience.

And I have a 12A now.  So the 13B is only there because I need the car to be self-mobile by the 22nd.   The 12A WILL be going in over the winter.

Frustration in the Batcave.  Pics now, text soon.  Actually I am going to edit the hell out of this but because the pictures are on the tablet, but trying to type on the tabletnalwaysnlooks likenthiscunlessnintypenvery slowly... yeah.  

But first, I was to celebrate 220k day.

Before that, I had some free time at work, so I dug the POSsubframe out of the shed and measured it carefully.

It's more twisted than bent.  Might actually be good enough.  So...

Went for broke and just moved the pivots as far up and out as I could get.

And now, in the den of frustation...One of the things I had been skillfully procrastinating was dealing with the fan.

To recap: I want a "simple" driver, and this means a belt driven fan.  Don't want to run an electric with a 40a alternator unless it is manually controlled, and I would prefer a keep your head out of the car experience.  I have swapped a series 4 13B in to the car, with the water pump housing that came with it.  This requires a series 4 fan clutch.  I did not know until after I put it together that there is a cospatial anomaly with the fan shroud and series 4 fan, and you need to use the 12A fan according to the Internet.

Did I mention that R&R'ing the fan clutch involves removing the nuts from the mounting studs, and then removing the studs with needle nose pliers, because there is nowhere near enough room to pull the fan clutch off over the studs?

I undertook this task.  Yanked it out and installed a 12A fan on the Series 4 clutch.  This conglomeration on the left, the series 4 fan on the right.  Notice they are about the same diameter.

Long and arduous story short, the fan still hits the shroud.  It looks like the engine is sitting up too high.  I happened to have acquired a genuine Racing Beat 13B conversion motor mount bracket, and it seems to be the same height as my straightened-out 12A bracket.  Shrugging and deciding not to put too much effort into this because a 12A is going back in soonish, I just eliminated the shroud.  And used the 13B fan after all, because it looks more aggressive, which might mean something flow wise.

Next it was fuel pump time.  I have a fuel pump mounting plate On The Way, but not in time for my time constraint, so I opted to just booger-mount the cheapo going to be replaced soonish fuel pump to the original hole in the floor that the PO nut and bolted a different cheapo pump into.  Key on and the pump rattles!  And it quieted down, signifying that it was pulling fuel and making pressure?  Ran off to the BP with 7 gallons' worth of fuel carrying capacity, and dumped all that, ten ounces of 2 stroke oil, and a can of BG "44" in the tank.  Set the battery on the charger for some extra oomph while I inserted four spark plugs and found a set of plug wires, which also had a distributor cap attached.

Went to crank it and....

...the battery is still not enough to crank the engine.  It's on charge overnight.

Knurled. said:

Key on and the pump rattles!  And it quieted down, signifying that it was pulling fuel and making pressure?

Hahaha.  This is key.

So, I connected the now fully charged and operational battery, and gave it some crankage.  No compression.  I held the throttle open and cranked it until it sounded like it had compression again, then pumped the throttle a bunch to dump some fuel down its gullet.  Still nope.

I peeled back the air filter and sprayed starting fluid at where I thought the air horns were, and it did that whinnying fast crank but not quite even kicking thing.  Sigh.  Of course it won't be easy.

Got my head light on, looked at the carburetor, decided that the four screws holding the part with the fuel inlet is probably the bowl cover.  Removed that and found the carb to be full of vile red juice.

Remember the pump priming?  It was pumping nasty from the lines into the carb.

Soaked some rags to get as much of it out as I could, and now armed with my head light I could see where the air horns were to aim the starting fluid.  It kicked, and then ran!  And then died.  Further cranking netted nothing.  Pulled the cover off to see more red juice.

..Grr.

Okay, time to get serious.  Battery charger engaged, removed the fuel line and aimed it at a 2 gallon gas can.  Ran the pump for about 15 seconds and verified that the stream coming out wasn't vile red juice.  Pulled the bowl cover back off, soaked up the juice, and aimed a brake cleaner can's nozzle down every jet and orifice I could see.  The bowl filled up again with the brake cleaner, but now the bowl's contents were an opaque brown mess!  So the carb was definitely gummed up.

Sop the bowl out again, reassemble everything, run the pump, pull the cover back off, and get greeted by a bowl full of clear blue fuel.  (Remember, about 100:1 two stroke oil)  Put it back together...

Should be pointed out that the engine and carb were bought from a GRMer over five years ago.

*it's

First one i could find to link.

In reply to EvanB :

Hobbled my ass out of the house and went to the 'cave before first stopping at the BP to buy a 40-pack of half liter water bottles so I could fill the cooling system with water, and ran the engine a bit in one minute increments.  There's a lot of oil and stale fuel in the exhaust system, and it smokes up a storm, and I feel bad for the tenants, so I'd run it until it would start to smoke badly and then shut it off and wait a few minutes.  But it's getting better.

There's a List of things I need to address, and I did some mild diag while I was cycling the engine to warm up the cooling system and check for leaks, like the heater hose nipple on the engine that I entirely forgot to cap.

Need to torque the wheels.

The oil pressure sender is bad.  Reads 110+ all the time, shorting the connector to ground makes it read zero, which tells me the problem is probably in the sender.  The senders are diaphragm-type and they get beat up when the engines are out, so this is not unexpected.  I'll probably just ignore this since '79-80 RX-7s didn't even have idiot lights, let alone gauges.

The fuel level sender isn't reading anything despite there being 7 gallons-ish of fuel in the tank.  I remember the gauge working with the old tank.  Just to be sure, I ran a jumper across the connector, and the gauge went to full, so I know the wiring and cluster are intact.  The plan is to remember to bring my Fluke home from work tomorrow and verify that it is a dead sender instead of just a really dirty connection, and if so... well, I hope the six 4mm peanut butter screws holding the sender in will come out.  I know they won't come out of the old tank, but there is a chance I might be able to repair this sender with some good cleaning.

Okay, E36 M3's getting real

Shouldn't that be FB GSL, not E36 M3?

Ive had some success with techron fuel additive mixed HOT cleaning up scummy fuel sending units in gm products. May be worth a shot.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

The Mazda senders are known to corrode the spade terminals off of the pass-thru rivet, which can be fixed with some careful soldering.  Or it might just be really, really dirty.  Won't know for sure until I can throw measurement tools at it.

Text finally.

My headphones died, so I was working musicless tonight.  Thus this epidose is sponsored by the number One and the letter Metallica.  Nobody ever clicks these music links anyway.

First, six miracles happened, and I got the sending unit out.  Looks really clean.  (Note GRM Dork sticker on the '84 photobombing in the background)

But look at this!  A bunch of the coils in the resistor pack are broken.  This sending unit is FUBAR in the literal sense: "berkleley"ed up beyond all repair.  So we will have to use the old sending unit or nothing, since these parts are NLA from Mazda and the aftermarket hasn't picked it up.

Twelve!  Twelve miracles!  That is WAY more than you need to be sainted.

In contrast. the sending unit from the car looks like E36 M3.

The sending unit from the tank is a three spade unit, with the upper spade rotted off entirely.  That is the terminal for the low fuel light, which, I assume, is a GSL-specific thing, since my '85 GSL and my '84 GSL had one but my '81 GS (this car) does not.

This car's sending unit.  Note only two terminals, and they are oriented slightly differently.

The old sending unit was also dead??  After much screwing around playing with my ohmmeter, I deduced that the sending unit was good, but the connection between the grounding terminal and the actual sending unit was bad.  So, I wasted a lot of time and butane trying to solder the connection back together.

Tyler Durden, or perhaps Sakura Kyouko, seeped into my brain at this point.  You have to give up.  You have to realize that at some point, Plan A won't work.  Until you know that, you are useless.

My '85 also had this alteration.  It worked for 60k or so, and then the rest of the car failed around it.  No, I'm not proud that I couldn't find a ring terminal.

And, funny story.  The fuel gauge still didn't work!   It turns out that the sending unit lost its internal ground somehow between the flappy lever and the bit of sheetmetal that the flappy lever grinds/rotates in.  I removed the sending unit AGAIN and diag'ed this issue, then spent a good amount of time and penetrating oil (the good stuff, not that PleBian E36 M3) working the sending unit's arm back and forth trying to remove any nonconductive corrosion in the connection equation.

Twenty minutes later, SUCCESS!

No Batcave action because it was an overtime day at work, and I overdid it yesterday, and have to be in early tomorrow, so I went back to weebing out at home, and this was in my manga feed.  (Read right to left)

Drove it to work.

Horrendous drivetrain vibes.  Trans mount is broken and the U joints are sloppy.  Both easy fixes.

Carb flooded once on the road after coasting to a stop, not sure if this is bad tuning or bad plugs.  Probably both.

Damn this things needs a cleaning.  And the S3 seats need to die.  Finding S1/S2 seats is tricky though.

Turn signals don't work.  Hmm.

But still, it is waay lots fun to drive!

Last time I did this was 20 years ago.

Went to leave, and noted to Rick that I couldn't tell if it was having starting issues because it was flooding or not getting enough fuel.  When it starts, it starts difficultly, and with a cloud of smoke after hitting the throttle a couple times then holding it WOT.  (It's my first time with a huge sidedraft, and the choke is not connected, and the carb is untuned)  This time, it ran on one rotor.  For a long time.  I tried clearing it out when outside, and it seemed to get better?  But on the road it sucked, and I had visions of the plugs fouling completely while stuck in another traffic jam on I-71, so I turned back around to see if I could use the shop's torches to clean the plugs.

It was after I got in the parking lot that the low coolant light came on.  Opened the hood, and my mulish optimism that I kept having to add water because it was burping out air pockets was dashed when I saw the water jetting at high pressure from the overflow tank's vent.

Yep, it starts hard because it's filling with water.  Because it is an FC engine, it probably has a cracked coolant seal land.

(this is not the same link as above... well it is but starts at a different, appropriate spot)

It would appear that the patient is rejecting the heart transplant.  Fortunately, I have a much closer match for a transplant, now, but the immediate concern was getting the car 40 minutes through rush hour traffic without stalling or fouling the plugs.

I made it, but it was a little hairy.  

Now the worst part of any completed project:

Cleaning up the horrible mess you have made in the garage.

Knurled. said:

[...]

Now the worst part of any completed project:

Cleaning up the horrible mess you have made in the garage.

Maybe I'm crazy, but that's actually one of my favorite parts of any major project. I absolutely despise how messy the garage inevitably gets during a long project so the relief I feel once I actually pull the car out and get to clean is incredible. Pulling the recently-completed project car into a freshly cleaned garage is the automotive equivalent of climbing into a bed with freshly washed bedding, except even more satisfying. 

Part of the problem is the accumulated "stuff" that didn't have a home other than on, in, or under the parts shelf that is now a car.

I know deep down I need to throw that fuel tank away, for instance.  BUT RARE!!!1

I'll see if anyone at the Ohio Rotaries meet tomorrow has any interest in it.

But speaking of that meet, today at the Batcave:

Help me, K-Seal-wan, you're my only hope!

Drained the radiator,added the K Seal and... uh.. that many half liters of water.  Then idled it until the overflow started geysering (while filling the Volvo with stuff to take to offsite storage, like my collection of superchargers and turbochargers) and I realized that the thermostat wasn't opening, probably because of a huge air pocket.  So I closed everything up and went for a drive.  Temp needle went perilously close to the H and then the dam broke and it went right on down to normal.  Low coolant light fuzzed on and off a few times on my 10 mile journey.

Really must fix the turn signals.  The control module (even in 1981 it was an IC board, not a simple flasher) is bad and I am hoping Dave has one I can buy from him.

These cars are FUN.  People whine about sloppy steering, to me it feels perfect.  No it is not super fast like the '84's silly 1.3 turns lock to lock steering, but what it IS is responsive.  I can shrug my shoulders mid-corner and pitch the tail sideways, then collect it again just as easily.  It doesn't NEED to be fast.  It reminds me heavily of my '80, which was my favorite one.  It's a fun car in ways which my '85 and '84 never were.  I am thinking that it is all down to the rear suspension geometry change that Mazda made in '84, increasing roll understeer.  So when the body rolls, the rear suspension steers the front of the car to the outside, negating your steering input.

Must... resist... urge... to bridge port

Curious that this is obviously a Series 1 by the rear end and bumper, but it has a Series 2 nose.

Back from the annual end of summer Dave Meet.  Had a good time, even if it's been so long that I don't really recognize anyone anymore.

Car hated running for the two minutes it took to get from the garage to the BP.  Not the running so much as the starting afterwards.  Before the engine warms up, it blows combustion pressure into the cooling system, and when you shut it off, it blows right back out again. After adding fuel,  I drove for three miles on one rotor before it finally cleared out again.  But after that it was fine. Once it's hot, the engine tightens up and it stops huffing coolant.

It still likes to flood if you coast down in gear.  Left foot braking is tricky, steering wheel too close to the pedals for me to move around that much.  Handbrake does nothing useful because disk brakes.  But out on the Interstate, it's a dream.

Interestingly, the rearend is loud in this one too.  I think I'm just oversensitive to it.  The exhaust is QUIET at least.

Dave is going to hook me up with the missing windshield trim, and he thinks he might have a flasher unit.  He is also scrapping an '85 that is the same color, and I'm tempted to grab the whole front sheetmetal and the doors.

dont full bridge, it half bridge it! you know you like the happy medium!

Half bridge is just as much suckage to live with as a full bridge.  Judge Ito was right, if you're going to do it, do it all the way.  Either way the exhaust is loud unless you get an OLD Racing Beat exhaust since the new ones suck.  And if you want to drive it on the street, you need a 30lb flywheel if you don't want to shift in and out of gear all the time... and I think I wore out my left knee from constantly shifting in and out of gear because you can't coast a bridge port with a light flywheel unless you like beating the hell out of your drivetrain with all the bucking.

I DO have those 3N71 transmissions, I could probably get some 4000rpm stall speed converters made, that would make a bridgey livable.