www.RX7fb.com

Good news on the fault finding, if the fluid was bad then I would be inclined to changed both master & Slave, cheap as from Rock, if they have been holding bad fluid it is not normally if but when

Its on my (growing) list to order from Rock Auto.
I'm basically going to order in one go everything I need to restore this car to tip top condition from a new clutch and associated bits, new engine and transmission mounts, suspension bushes, shocks etc. Pretty much one of every wearable part haha.

Haven't decided on having the old springs powder coated or just buying some new racing beat ones or something. Ideally I like to drive a car that works perfectly stock before I start tweaking it so I can do it to my own preference.

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.

good work, there's some dodgy bodges there by the previous owners, luckily these are pretty simple cars to work on so not too difficult to put right. It looks 100% better for a good clean

You are doing the right thing by re-wiring, nothing worse than chasing faults when the diagram bears no resemblance to the colours you have It will be worth it in the long term. You fell in the "Garage Wormhole of time" where 45 mins outside equates to 1 min inside

DKWW2000 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2019 12:41 pm You fell in the "Garage Wormhole of time" where 45 mins outside equates to 1 min inside

Ahh, the curiously undefinable unit, closely related to TARDIS and known collectively as 'a while'

So the forum just logged me out as I'd typed this so sadly this post won't be the tour de force I originally had written down as I don't fancy typing it all again.

Anyway a couple of steps forward and a couple back.
The first job was to finalise the stereo install, now this may seem a low priority job with so much else to do, but tunes are always a first job for a car. While I had the centre console out I spruced up the 12v socket which had been looking decidedly rusty. I also cleaned the terminals as it didn't actually work before.






Next up to ensure reliability I thought it prudent to do a coolant and stat change, amazingly Euro Car Parts had the correct temperature thermostat in stock so for once it was going to be a simple job.
As you can see the old stat while still working was definitely due a change, I even found an old pipe blank inside the housing!





New dowty washer on the engine drain plug, 10x better than crush washers.



I prefilled the coolant before installing the thermostat housing, since it doesn't have a jiggle valve it means you can pretty much fill the whole system without waiting for the thermostat to open.
Had to goop it up as the old gasket was spent and I didn't have to wait for one from the USA.





Gratuitous car looking sexy shot:


Now I actually quite like the standard wheel, unfortunately i'm pretty tall and the leg room was decidedly cramped, I had to have both knees to one side of the wheel. I had an old wheel and boss kit knocking about that I'd purchased for the FC.
Slightly smaller diameter combined with it sitting closer towards me means much more legroom.





It doesn't look so bad.

Now I had a crack at the fuel pump again, in my haste to buy a pump I'd neglected minor details like 'will it fit?', the first problem was the holes for the old pump being too far apart on the bracket, because of its shape it wasn't possible to move them so I had to make some alloy brackets to move the bolt holes, and shim it up for clearance on the bottom of the bracket.

I even de-pinned the connector to get the grommet across.



Sadly when I offered it up it ended up forcing the fuel hoses to go around far too tight an angle, and to top it off the power wire was exactly 5mm too short. Plan B was to make a custom bracket to hold the whole lot, but someone has either raided or binned my old material corner of the garage, and while a varnished teak bracket might look good it probably wouldn't impress an MOT tester, so I gave it up as a bad job for the time being and reinstalled the old pump with new dampers.


Now on the last drive the car had developed an alarming knock over bumps, it started small but ended up sounding like something was going to fall off the car. Despite pulling over and yanking on various bits, I couldn't puzzle it out, it wan't until I got the front nearside wheel off that I realised it was the idler arm moving up and down... DRAT! A common problem I'm told, anyway new bushes on order from fleabay.



Also gave me a chance to have a quick look around the front arch area, predictably the bushes are shot and there's rust, but its not as bad as it could be IMO.





Blitzed with a wire brush and a coat of Screwfix zinc galvanising spray before reassembly. Won't last too long but will do until I can give it some proper attention.



Whipped the carb cleaner off to clean inside it and have a look at how they'd done the emissions removal. Seems to have been done well enough, at least they crimped off the old air holes.



At this point I noticed a puddle of coolant under the car, I guess flushing that radiator wasn't the best idea. I've ordered a swanky new alloy rad off eBay so lets see if it actually fits. It looks right anyway.

A simple number plate light bulb also ended up with both housings being ready to scrap, they're literally in the spray line but the connections aren't even waterproofed. Car electrics have come a long way.






Starting to get the feeling this car resents being pulled out of retirement!

Finally a sneak peak at my progress on the wheels.

Some good progress with sorting out the inevitable list of things that need doing when you acquire an old car. Looking good

You really aren't messing around with this are ya! Haha. Awesome work in such a short amount of time aye . Bugger about the electrics. Seems like you've got all the right plans going on also . Will be keeping an eye on here

Thanks for the words of support.
I have the advantage of currently being single & out of work until I get another contract lined up.