1973 RX-3 Wagon - An epitrochoidal descent into madness

The0retical said:

I convinced him to help me pull out the engine of the RX-7 along with one of my wife’s brothers

how long had your wife's brother been in the RX-7?

In reply to AngryCorvair :

I'd like to buy several commas please.

The0retical said:

wasn't real thrilled when my reply was flatly “Not Dexcool, likely some 50/50 Ethylene Glycol equivalent. The MSDS says to take him to the hospital I meet you there to entertain our daughter.” 

Ugh, a parents' nightmare!

For future safety, Dexcool is also ethylene glycol based, as are every other coolant that isn't Evans NPG or Sierra.  Dexcool is different for its aditive package, but its anti freezing properties come from ethylene glycol.

Not that I'd want a swig of propylene glycol coolant either.

In reply to Knurled. :

Interesting. Poison Control specifically asked if it was a Dexcool mixture so they could inform the toxicologist. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what the additive would be or what it does to the body when ingested.

That's pretty much what I get after joking about keeping the kids out of the spent fluids. He's ok, but it's been a bit of a rough year for him between the pretty severe injury to his hand and drinking the coolant. I know, from our first one, that kids are basically fearless however he seems to have not received the "base" fear instinct.

I'm probably going to spend a bit of time fooling with the interior of the RX-3 next while I review exactly what I'm going to need to mount the 13b where the 12a was. Lubricating the window mechanisms are pretty high on the list of priorities because the kids love sitting in the car and rolling the windows up and down. It also needs a through cleaning and quote on repairing the drivers side seat. I'll likely pull the dash out and ponder how to fix that as well over the winter.

First, I need to disassemble, clean, lubricate, install the pellet furnace.

In reply to The0retical :

I seriously hope that they are not under the impression that Dex-Cool is nontoxic.

Regards the RX-3, if it is anything like mine, what is actually binding up are the glass seals.  A little lube on that and my driver's window worked great.

I know this happened months ago, but DEXCOOL is 95% ethylene glycol (SAME as the GREEN stuff).   It's still toxic.....

The DEXCOOL part is the 5% Organic Acid ADDITIVE PACKAGE in the coolant for the metal protection vs. the SILICATES  in the green.....     

Both are toxic....in high doses, eventually lead to kidney failure....

I love wagons too. Or anything with a hatch. And anything pre 1976 and Japanese. I built a 2 door RX3 for SCCA ITA back in the day. And around that time I bought an RX4 wagon to donate it's 13B to my Rotary Truck, which later got a couple of Ford small blocks and 4x4

In reply to bOttOmfeeder :

Gotcha. I've never really looked into what the differences were between coolants. It's always been a situation where I just put in whatever the factory service manual calls for or it's equivalent. I've never really felt the need to re-engineer the cooling system in a car. In this case, based on some thing Knurled mentioned in another thread, I may try a waterless coolant in this to see if that alleviates hot spotting around the spark plugs.

Fortunately we got Rhys to the ER pretty quickly and the staff pumped him full of saline intravenously. His pee smelled terrible for a day or so. 

As a side note, I will say that trying to keep an IV in a 1.5 year old is like trying to put rubber pants on cat. 

In reply to carwhisperer:

Glad you're following along. If you have any documentation about the RX3, I'm sure everyone here would love to see what was done to prep a vintage ITA car (I know I would.)

RX-3 knowledge seems to be difficult to come by online. Lot of people seem to hot rod them into drag cars down under, or into crazy multi hundred horsepower street cars here in the US, but very few appear to document the process or try to go OEM+. As such there seems to be a lot of tribal knowledge. I feel pretty lucky the there is a real level of knowledge on this board and participants are willing to share that knowledge.

Just found this thread and I hope this project is still underway, I've seen maybe 2 or 3 RX3s in my life.. also how is it on GSLSE wheels? Aren't early rotaries 4x110 like the base Series 1-3 RX7s ?