What do you do when you're struggling to find the time, motivation, money and space to carry out a restoration?
Pack it in? Pay someone else to do it? No!
The obvious answer is, you buy another project. And here it is:
A 1983 RX7 Series 2.
Catchy title aside its actually not that much of a beast, but lets see where we end up with it.
Bought it off a chap near Newcastle and drove it back down today, couldn't resist taking the scenic route home over the Yorkshire Moors and through some of the great driving roads in that area.
However predictably there are some issues, but I figured I'll drop a load of photos documenting what it looks like now, and then add some comments on what I've discovered and issues I found so far.
I already have a thread on RX7FB.co.uk, but I love the attention so I thought I'd stick one here as well.
Couldn't resist grabbing some pics from a suitably decent location on the drive home!
And now some pics documenting what I found before during & after quick clean when I got her home.
So some initial remarks:
Well, an update on the car.
Engine wise, I checked the timing and its spot on at idle.
I received the original pulley from the PO and after a bit of messing around to get the engine to TDC I reinstalled it along with the water-pump & alternator pulleys.
Well he forgot to send me the alternator pulley but luckily its the same size or close enough to one of the FC ones I had knocking around so with the correct spacer it all lined up okay.
Both leading and trailing are absolutely spot on.
Got to say there a few design flaws on this pulley kit, it was a nightmare getting these bolts out quarter turn at a time, couldn't fit a socket in!
So next stop for the engine issues are fuel filter (of course I have to order it, no one local sells one), and see if removing the Gilmer and going back to the original pulleys has fixed my vibration. I'll test it with and without the viscous fan.
Moving on with the weather being as good as it is I thought it was time to have my first few forays into the metal work under the car to see what I'm dealing with. Starting with a small test area on the rear arch. I also took the time to measure up for the discs.
So its not the worst I've seen, certainly not the best either, hand brake cables look new. Definite signs of repair work being done in the past and not the neatest of jobs, I decided that while I was in there it was worth stripping off some underseal to see what was hiding underneath.
So some holes to take care of, its alarming how fast and angle grinder and a wire wheel can make a car disappear! I'm more concerned however with the corrosion around the rear suspension mounting area which I suspect will need some remedial work.
I painted up all the area I stripped back with Rust Encapsulator platinum, its great stuff but man the lid doesn't want to come off that tin a second time, despite cling film under the lid I had to basically destroy the tin to get it open.
Considering how dead the bushes and struts are its amazing the car handles as well as it does. I foresee a big rock auto bill in my future.
(12/07/19) --------------------------------
Midday update because I need a break from rust falling in my face.
Decided to have a crack at the fuel filter while it was up on the stands.
Obviously all the fasteners for the cover were completely rusted in place, some of them I was able to carefully remove, but others sheared the heads immediately.
I soon realised it would be easier to just drop the whole shield assembly along with the fuel pump and take it apart off the car, of course this was easier said than done, one of the studs spun off its mount and I ended up having to do some precision angle grinding in the car. All the while praying that stray fuel vapours from the pipes (which I did block off) wouldn't blow me sky high.
I also discovered manky and sodden underlay beneath the rear seats.
Nice.
And the mission creep has begun, I absolutely can't put that fuel pump back in so now I need to upgrade and I'm down the wormhole of making sure the pressure / flow etc is all correct from aftermarket pumps.
I ground back the parts of the cover that were recoverable. (The filter cover is FUBAR) And put on a quick coat of rust encapsulator. Hopefully long term I can come up with a better cover system, but this is quick and will stop it rusting for a few years at least.
Finally I put my dehumidifier into the car and taped up the window I put the power lead through. Hopefully after a few days it should drag all the moisture out the interior.
(14/07/2019) ----------------------------
Well the good news is that changing the fuel filter seems to have fixed the losing power issues I had around 60mph.
And putting the original pulley system back on has completely taken care of the vibration issues I had, so the engine revs smoothly to the redline.
That's a result all around I'd say.
I was also having some issues having to pump the clutch to get the car into gear, there were no obvious signs of leakage from the clutch master or slave cylinders so I went ahead and flushed new brake fluid through the system, maybe there was some air in there because its now working perfectly again. The old stuff was pretty manky.
(15/07/2019)
If there's one thing I hate, its fixing wiring problems left by others. Unfortunately that was very much the theme of the day.
It all started quite well, I had a flick through the history which even includes some old issue of a rotary owners club magazine, (and a receipt for Jimmys back in 2000! Didn't realise he'd been on the go that long) and then I decided to treat the car to a claybar, hand polish and wax.
Sure the paintwork isn't the best, but not harming it keeping it from getting any worse. It didn't turn out too badly but if you look closely you can see it was probably a home effort.
I am trying to work out what used to be on the rear right quarter:
Anyone have any idea?
Also a piece of trim has fallen off at some point in the last week from just behind the drivers door, very annoying. Have to try and get hold of one.
Buoyed by this fairly rewarding job and the good weather I decided I'd stick with the theme of low hanging fruit and do a nice easy stereo install to finish off the morning.
But first a little history, the car used to have a Hawk alarm fitted with all the gizmo's, auto window up when locking, hatch release, remote start, the works. At some point this had been removed, I guess as the car had been sat and someone lost the fob or some other similar situation. Now this had always worried me because the last thing I needed was some janky wiring or a still lurking alarm system shutting me down mid drive, probably mid overtake.
So when I got the dash panel out for the stereo I decided to do a little wire tracing.
One thing led to another and before I knew it I had the drivers door card off, the glovebox out, the wheel surround off, and the under driver side dash.
After discovering an always live wire just dangling under the dash (after it tried to weld itself to the accelerator) I decided it would be prudent to disconnect the battery.
As you can see from the photos I've got some work to do to get this all looking spiffy again.
The doors had previously been fitted with security locks, connected to the central locking & when I got the door card off it was obvious why the normal door lock mechanism no longer worked. The solenoid appears to have been fitted to the place where the door rod would normally go. While I could definitely get them both working, I'm not sure if I should or not as it looks like an incredibly easy mechanism for a thief to defeat.
I basically ended up delooming the entire door trying to puzzle out the wiring, some of the wires went in one colour and emerged a different one. I ended up having to cut off what felt like miles of electrical tape that had fused on. Revealing dodgy solder and janky connections. This is why you should never let anyone wire on a car unless you've seen their prior work.
The ignition wires on our cars carry the current for most of the electrical loads, I will eventually change it so that the current goes through relays and the ignition switch wires just trigger them, but for the moment I just restored the cut wires that had been diverted for the immobiliser.
Whoever fitted the alarm used wires of a much smaller cross section then factory, they also annoyingly cut them very close to the plug so I didn't have much room to work, however I manged to splice in some decent size wire with heat shrink butt crimps.
And all this came out the car for the trash!
After all that I started on what I was supposed to have already finished, the stereo wiring.
There appeared to be nada original wiring left, so using a 9v battery to check locations I spliced in my speakers, found a switched 12v from a blue plug which presumably went to the old stereo, couldn't find a constant live so I wired it to the wire I mentioned earlier that was swinging about.
I need to go back & make sure its fused correctly as I've no idea where its actually coming from.
Did some trimming to the centre piece to allow the cage to fit, tested the stereo (it works!) and the antenna (it doesn't).
Then fixed the window switches which had been hacked up to fit the auto close module.
Finally I realised it was 10pm, and I hadn't stopped once, not even for a cuppa or lunch!
Current state of play:
At some point I'll plan out some real wiring improvements but at least for the time being it should be reliable.
Pack it in? Pay someone else to do it? No!
The obvious answer is, you buy another project. And here it is:
A 1983 RX7 Series 2.
Catchy title aside its actually not that much of a beast, but lets see where we end up with it.
Bought it off a chap near Newcastle and drove it back down today, couldn't resist taking the scenic route home over the Yorkshire Moors and through some of the great driving roads in that area.
However predictably there are some issues, but I figured I'll drop a load of photos documenting what it looks like now, and then add some comments on what I've discovered and issues I found so far.
I already have a thread on RX7FB.co.uk, but I love the attention so I thought I'd stick one here as well.
Couldn't resist grabbing some pics from a suitably decent location on the drive home!
And now some pics documenting what I found before during & after quick clean when I got her home.
So some initial remarks:
Well, an update on the car.
Engine wise, I checked the timing and its spot on at idle.
I received the original pulley from the PO and after a bit of messing around to get the engine to TDC I reinstalled it along with the water-pump & alternator pulleys.
Well he forgot to send me the alternator pulley but luckily its the same size or close enough to one of the FC ones I had knocking around so with the correct spacer it all lined up okay.
Both leading and trailing are absolutely spot on.
Got to say there a few design flaws on this pulley kit, it was a nightmare getting these bolts out quarter turn at a time, couldn't fit a socket in!
So next stop for the engine issues are fuel filter (of course I have to order it, no one local sells one), and see if removing the Gilmer and going back to the original pulleys has fixed my vibration. I'll test it with and without the viscous fan.
Moving on with the weather being as good as it is I thought it was time to have my first few forays into the metal work under the car to see what I'm dealing with. Starting with a small test area on the rear arch. I also took the time to measure up for the discs.
So its not the worst I've seen, certainly not the best either, hand brake cables look new. Definite signs of repair work being done in the past and not the neatest of jobs, I decided that while I was in there it was worth stripping off some underseal to see what was hiding underneath.
So some holes to take care of, its alarming how fast and angle grinder and a wire wheel can make a car disappear! I'm more concerned however with the corrosion around the rear suspension mounting area which I suspect will need some remedial work.
I painted up all the area I stripped back with Rust Encapsulator platinum, its great stuff but man the lid doesn't want to come off that tin a second time, despite cling film under the lid I had to basically destroy the tin to get it open.
Considering how dead the bushes and struts are its amazing the car handles as well as it does. I foresee a big rock auto bill in my future.
(12/07/19) --------------------------------
Midday update because I need a break from rust falling in my face.
Decided to have a crack at the fuel filter while it was up on the stands.
Obviously all the fasteners for the cover were completely rusted in place, some of them I was able to carefully remove, but others sheared the heads immediately.
I soon realised it would be easier to just drop the whole shield assembly along with the fuel pump and take it apart off the car, of course this was easier said than done, one of the studs spun off its mount and I ended up having to do some precision angle grinding in the car. All the while praying that stray fuel vapours from the pipes (which I did block off) wouldn't blow me sky high.
I also discovered manky and sodden underlay beneath the rear seats.
Nice.
And the mission creep has begun, I absolutely can't put that fuel pump back in so now I need to upgrade and I'm down the wormhole of making sure the pressure / flow etc is all correct from aftermarket pumps.
I ground back the parts of the cover that were recoverable. (The filter cover is FUBAR) And put on a quick coat of rust encapsulator. Hopefully long term I can come up with a better cover system, but this is quick and will stop it rusting for a few years at least.
Finally I put my dehumidifier into the car and taped up the window I put the power lead through. Hopefully after a few days it should drag all the moisture out the interior.
(14/07/2019) ----------------------------
Well the good news is that changing the fuel filter seems to have fixed the losing power issues I had around 60mph.
And putting the original pulley system back on has completely taken care of the vibration issues I had, so the engine revs smoothly to the redline.
That's a result all around I'd say.
I was also having some issues having to pump the clutch to get the car into gear, there were no obvious signs of leakage from the clutch master or slave cylinders so I went ahead and flushed new brake fluid through the system, maybe there was some air in there because its now working perfectly again. The old stuff was pretty manky.
(15/07/2019)
If there's one thing I hate, its fixing wiring problems left by others. Unfortunately that was very much the theme of the day.
It all started quite well, I had a flick through the history which even includes some old issue of a rotary owners club magazine, (and a receipt for Jimmys back in 2000! Didn't realise he'd been on the go that long) and then I decided to treat the car to a claybar, hand polish and wax.
Sure the paintwork isn't the best, but not harming it keeping it from getting any worse. It didn't turn out too badly but if you look closely you can see it was probably a home effort.
I am trying to work out what used to be on the rear right quarter:
Anyone have any idea?
Also a piece of trim has fallen off at some point in the last week from just behind the drivers door, very annoying. Have to try and get hold of one.
Buoyed by this fairly rewarding job and the good weather I decided I'd stick with the theme of low hanging fruit and do a nice easy stereo install to finish off the morning.
But first a little history, the car used to have a Hawk alarm fitted with all the gizmo's, auto window up when locking, hatch release, remote start, the works. At some point this had been removed, I guess as the car had been sat and someone lost the fob or some other similar situation. Now this had always worried me because the last thing I needed was some janky wiring or a still lurking alarm system shutting me down mid drive, probably mid overtake.
So when I got the dash panel out for the stereo I decided to do a little wire tracing.
One thing led to another and before I knew it I had the drivers door card off, the glovebox out, the wheel surround off, and the under driver side dash.
After discovering an always live wire just dangling under the dash (after it tried to weld itself to the accelerator) I decided it would be prudent to disconnect the battery.
As you can see from the photos I've got some work to do to get this all looking spiffy again.
The doors had previously been fitted with security locks, connected to the central locking & when I got the door card off it was obvious why the normal door lock mechanism no longer worked. The solenoid appears to have been fitted to the place where the door rod would normally go. While I could definitely get them both working, I'm not sure if I should or not as it looks like an incredibly easy mechanism for a thief to defeat.
I basically ended up delooming the entire door trying to puzzle out the wiring, some of the wires went in one colour and emerged a different one. I ended up having to cut off what felt like miles of electrical tape that had fused on. Revealing dodgy solder and janky connections. This is why you should never let anyone wire on a car unless you've seen their prior work.
The ignition wires on our cars carry the current for most of the electrical loads, I will eventually change it so that the current goes through relays and the ignition switch wires just trigger them, but for the moment I just restored the cut wires that had been diverted for the immobiliser.
Whoever fitted the alarm used wires of a much smaller cross section then factory, they also annoyingly cut them very close to the plug so I didn't have much room to work, however I manged to splice in some decent size wire with heat shrink butt crimps.
And all this came out the car for the trash!
After all that I started on what I was supposed to have already finished, the stereo wiring.
There appeared to be nada original wiring left, so using a 9v battery to check locations I spliced in my speakers, found a switched 12v from a blue plug which presumably went to the old stereo, couldn't find a constant live so I wired it to the wire I mentioned earlier that was swinging about.
I need to go back & make sure its fused correctly as I've no idea where its actually coming from.
Did some trimming to the centre piece to allow the cage to fit, tested the stereo (it works!) and the antenna (it doesn't).
Then fixed the window switches which had been hacked up to fit the auto close module.
Finally I realised it was 10pm, and I hadn't stopped once, not even for a cuppa or lunch!
Current state of play:
At some point I'll plan out some real wiring improvements but at least for the time being it should be reliable.
when your trying to undo someone else's bodges but it looks like you know what your doing. 
Ooooh, I've never been an inspiration before
. HOW annoying is trying to locate those stupid little splitrings that hold the seals in place? That's one job I hope to never do again!