15 replies to this topic

[Evan]

hi my names Evan ive been trawling around this forum for the last couple of months. anyway finally bought something that might be worth a mention on here,
BAM! its a 1980 series 1 rx7. long term project type thing. came with boxes of spare parts, a 6 tone paint job, no rust thats really worth a mention and the Rego is on hold, which is wicked.
Goals are to get it blasted and painted black, 12a bridgeport black interior, pretty normal unoriginal stuff really however i do have plans (stuff that i havent seen done before) id like to try on a s1 rx7 sometime so you never know....

Discussion thread
http://oldschool.co....7-evans-s1-rx7/

heres some pictures...











does anyone have a spare interior panel that covers the rear inside of the tail lights under the hatch.. heres a pic to explain what i mean



its also missing an engine gearbox and radiator (plus the bits that attach to them) and also the front lower valance is pretty much buggered so if anyone has one/knows of one any help would be choice.

[Evan]

update time. The interior is nearly all removed. just have the heater and that from under the dash and the wiring harness to remove. been bagging and labelling all the bolts, screws etc in an attempt to make reassembly easier. good times
some pictures for your viewing
midway through the marathon attempt at getting the dash out.

with the dash removed



and of course this decided to show itelf

thats the passengers floor pan. worst rust in the whole shell so im in need of a new floor pan if anyone knows of one??? joy

[Evan]

So Im slightly bored this evening and decided to chuck up an update of what little progress has been made in the last few weeks. Ive had a rummage around over the body and the patches of rust that have decided to show themselves are in slightly inconvenient places... the roof. When i pulled the headlining out there were a few drops of water just casually chilling at the top of the drivers side A pillar... well as it would appear there is surface rust on the roof skin but only where the frame around the sides exists
Pictures to explain what Im on about

Drivers side A pillar, this bit is the worst

above the drivers door frame

passenger side top of A pillar


Ive been chewing over how to get to this, Im really NOT keen on cutting the roof off coz i would image it to be the mission of all missions to get back on all lined up straight . Ive thought about trying to slide a sanding disc in the gap between the frame and roof skin and then chucking huge amounts of rust convertor/killer onto it afterwards but i dont know if it would be possible to get enough pressure applied to the roof to remove the rust as the sanding disc has to follow the curvature of the roof.
Ideas on this would be choice as.

this is whats under the dash (passenger side)

If you get really close to your screen you shall see a small patch of rust in the top left corner, just above the huge square hole that the wiring harness travels through. anyway this small patch is directly behind the inside of the box section thats under the fender, ( the outer fender bolts to the top of the box section) anyway that section is looking a wee bit iffy/soft/thin as shit and so has made it was onto the list to be cut out.

When i was gentally removing the dash theres the heater units... well theres 3 of them... the blower on the left and the heater unit on the right... however theres another one in the middle, it has two copper hoses coming out of the back of it but some muppet in the past ( not me) cut them off at the firewall which is just dandy. anyway can anyone tell me if its some kind of old fashioned air con? i know NOTHING about air con but if this car originally had it id be uber keen to put it back in..

heres some pics of what the middle unit looks like, theres a little control unit thingy ma jiggy on the bottom of it as shown in pics





next on the list is get the brake/ fuel lines out and remove the gas tank... then hit the rust repairs.


I really needa get along to a meet and introduce myself.

Evan

[Evan]

hello everyone,

I have the most wonderful news, well its only semi wonderful but it isnt what I was expecting to find. I got slightly curious as to why the front wheels are bickies and not the original rims like on the back. so i whipped out a ruler and measured the stud pattern on the front. Turns out it isnt 4x110 but 4x114.3... sooooo i was semi confused for a while until I took off the wheel, the disc hasnt been redrilled to this new stud pattern. so i grabbed one of the series 1 calipers i have (theres none on the car at the moment) and slipped it over the disc, with only one brake pad in it it only just makes it over the disc and the mounting holes dont line up at all on the backing plates.
sooooooooo this leads me to believe it is currently rocking a series 3 hub/disc and possibly struts too . shame i dont have any series 3 calipers. but ill find some and do away with the plans of doing a FC front brake upgrade for now.
saves me doing the 4x114.3 conversion on the front as i was planning too.


life is good.

chow!
Evan

[Evan]

Update.
so I priced up getting a floor cut out of crashed/striped 7 from some wreakers... decided the prices weren't ideal however a friend of mine said he would have a jam at making one and welding it in while I stand around and get in the way.
This is the outcome


So just getting it confirmed with cert people that its going to be all legit before it gets completely welded in.

also cut some holes behind the quarter windows



and in other news there was a bulge in the floor in front of the section thats just been put in the floor, had a look under the car to find someones jacked it up in the past and dented the floor, and also dented/ twisted this bit of the chassis

its also messed with the mounting holes for the bottom of the front left fender so it shall be visiting somewhere to get that all straightened out.

Need to do some shopping for the following.
- series 3 front calipers
- straight complete rear bumper
- series 2 rear end redrilled to 4x114.3
- front valance
- possibly a new front bumper if i feel like it (probably going to happen)

until next time

[Evan]

So what the hell have you been doing Evan?

working out how to compress photos on the computer thats what!
anyway
the floor patch has been finished.
and Ive had the chassis stuff sorted.

everything behind the fender in this pic was squashed, its now not squashed, also had the other side done and the dents taken out of the main rails.



I decided to paint the underside around the wheel well etc in POR15 due to surface rust... which resulted in me painting the whole underside in POR15 so it looks swish, will probably put underseal over it when I get it painted. but for now Im going to bask in its glory.





the lighting makes it look greyish, its really black but you get the idea, the bits which havent been painted will be done when I take the trailing arms out/replace shocks etc which will happen when my new diff arrives.

umm what else.

oh due to finding the whole in the passengers floor I took the sound deadning out with some dry ice as it was all cracked and I was scared Id fine more holes...but I didnt. only found surface rust in the drivers floor pan


couldnt get to the bit in the drivers foot well as the pedal box/steering column was in the way. will get that stuff out soon and get the last of the sound deadening out.

also in the back of the car there is this



so that and the front floor pans will get POR15-ed as well... which will result in me doing the entire inside floor of the car, just cos.

I got a new front valance which is 5339 times better than the one I had, which I have since given away. got another rear bumper but after pulling it apart Ive found it to have dents in it where to mounts attach so kinda looking for bumper #3 at the moment.

And thanks to Ewan at Hayatonka I have a pair of ssr longchamps for the front and a complete series 3 rx7 rear end en route so currently waiting for them to arrive in the next container.

choice.

[Evan]

more black.


Finding series 3 front calipers is going to be too hard/cbf importing any from japan for what they will cost etc.
soooooooooooooooooooooo wilwoods

calipers are owned by a friend, theyre going on his escort which is in the background, however are the perfect size for the series 3 rotor
So I'll be getting some of those sometime.

[Evan]

In my attempt to remove wiring from the engine bay Ive started making these:

Ive just taken the individual circuits and separated them from the main tangled loom, photo shows the wiring for the headlight motors, horn and electric fender mirrors. part way through doing the indicator/headlight ones. have added a plugs to the ends so reinstallation will be easier without having to drag the entire loom through one hole.
Also the wiring to the right fender mirror has cooked itself along with the negative wire that runs around the front of the car, will fix this in due course. It would seem that this meltage may have been caused by someone putting 30 Amp fuses in pretty much every spot in the fuse box, instead of the normal 10,15 and 20 Amp ones

anyway the wiring currently looks like this

[Evan]

so yesterday I went for a drive and picked up some stuff

however not all of that is my stuff, this is my stuff

the big box holds a new windscreen, the little box contains the brakes for the gift wrapped series 3 rear end, so now my pcd is the same all round. A bonus was finding out the diff appears to have an LSD in it.

I utilised only the best measuring tools: a tape measure, stick and a piece of string to come up with some dimensions for wheels. and got some longchamps in 15x6.5 +18. intended to put these on the front so today did the mandatory test fit/ shitty photo op.




the lip sticks out a smidge, unfortunately I'm not a fan of tyre stretch and don't reaaaaaaally want to drag the guards out much so I duno. Also I want wider wheels on the back (so I can fit bigger feet) and the wider versions dont come in high enough offsets so was thinking of getting another pair of narrower ones and have new inner shells made up.

but meh, knowing me I'll probably change my mind on the wheels.

link to the opinions/criticism thread is in my sig

[Evan]

Done some stuff. painted up the diff/trailing arms, axles were taken out/are still out, bearings on them are sweet.
new diff is now in the car,



will throw some oil/axles back in it soon and needs new shocks/springs still. Also pulled the rear calipers to bits, gave them a paint and put new seals in them, end result:


discs will be skimmed sometime. Other news is Ive changing my mind on whats happening with the front end. the series 3 front end is going and making way for this:


which is a FC subframe/rack/hub/strut set up i got a couple of weeks ago (was told its out of a series 5 turbo but all FCs are the same), benefits include the conversion from a forklift steering box to a rack, even bigger brakes than the series 3 and the ability to buy off the shelf FC coilovers. The hub face to hub face width of the FC front is near as makes no difference the same as the series 3 however the mounts on the subframe have to be moved slightly. Its a modification Ive seen done in Aus and the US from google searches but I dont know of any road legal series 1/2/3 rx7s with it done here (theres a couple of de-registered ones that have them bolted in).

anyway that will happen next.
maybe
sometime.

Evan

[Evan]

So a mate of mine started modifying the FC subframe to go in, why him? cos he can drive a welder. But hit a snag with that and I need to clarify some stuff with a certifier so more on that later.

Anyway I got bored and became curious as to what condition these doors/bonnet are in. I purchased a cheap sander/polisher and some strip discs and had a hoon. Bonnet had about 8 layers of paint,primer and bog on it. The doors had about 6. Interestingly, altho both the bonnet and doors are/were green underneath that the doors were blue whereas the bonnet was red so they must have come from 2 different cars in the past before being donated to mine.
Less words more pics.






and the other side



And in primer.





No pics of the bonnet in bare metal so here is one of them all together.



The primer thats on it is a temporary thing, that will be removed later when its given its final panel and paint (Im not doing that the garage is way too dirty and Id take a thousand years)

Anyway theres no rust in the doors, just a couple of small dents, no major though.

[Evan]

Two updates in a week. what is this?

The paint stripping has continued. Strip discs and wire wheels are amazing, did the left side yesterday. (sorry for the glare on some of the pics)








Had a heap of layers on it, about 3 paint jobs worth of resprays over resprays and a decent layer of bog. Was pretty stoked with how the guard came out, next to no dents apart from a couple in the lip of the guard and no rust. So coated it in some Wattyl Killrust super etch primer to seal it up.



So based on this positivity last night I decided to make do the B and C pillar and upper guard.

Found this at the top of where the C and B pillar and roof all come together



found a lot of bog at this point and noticed there was a tack weld, and another, and another and another...







So the roofs been patched... didnt know that was there, the bog over it was pretty decent.

anyway ended up with this





Yup.

Will hopefully have some more for you later in the week.

Discussion - http://oldschool.co....7-evans-s1-rx7/

[Evan]

More:


Didnt get all the paint off around the lower half of the back end, I got bored and moved on. Will revisit it later but for now



Moved on to this:









This side is in very good condition, better than the other side. Theres one dent in front of the wheel arch which you can see in the last pic but other than that its all good.

Evan.

[Evan]

Heres a protip for owners of rotary engined Mazda’s (or their piston powered versions) who want factory part numbers for stuff. There’s a website by the URL of www.foxed.ca if you go there and click on the ‘rx7 manuals’ button at the top it brings up a list of download links of various factory manuals for the popular old Mazda’s in PDF form. They don’t have every manual but they do have most of them from the Cosmo sport through to RX8s. (just note they are the US spec manuals so some stuff is LHD specific obviously).

Anyway the reason I tell you this is from what I’ve been told Mazda parts dudes generally don’t like people showing up asking for parts for 30+ year old rotaries. HOWEVER if you take them the part number they will look for you on their computer (if you flutter your eye lashes/show some leg etc.) So what I did is downloaded me a copy of the parts catalogue for the series 1 rx7, wrote down the part numbers for all the door and window weather strips and went and visited a mechanic I’ve known for years who likes his Mazda’s. Struck up a convo with him and asked if he could find out the availability of these parts and their prices (using his trade account ) Well it worked. I got a box of stuff with all factory weather strips including the rear tail light gaskets/rubber seals all for significantly less than the likes of a rare spares repro kit (even though I got the trade rate on this stuff the retail prices actually adds up to be less than the rare spares kit). I am still waiting on a couple of the seals to arrive which are being brought in from Mazda Japan which Ive been told are a couple of weeks away.

I won’t need these for a while but wanted to get them now because once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Pics or it didn’t happen




Oh also pretty much all the paints off from the bottom of the windscreen back except for the centre of the roof. the sills came up sweet.
but theres no pics of that.... so it maybe didnt happen.

[Evan]

Been umming and ahhhing over engine options for months, changing from 12a's to 13bs to N/A 20bs to the 6 port rx8 renesis 6 speed set up. Anyway the other day I finally purchased something. Went on an epic adventure to Auckland today to get it.
brought this home




JC cosmo 13B front cut. previous owner said it has 67,000kms on it and was last run a year ago. Also came with a whats supposed to be a S5 rx7 turbo box which is all wrapped in glad wrap.

jeah.

[Evan]

I've done stuff all since the last up date. But here's some pictures anyway.

 

The day after I got the front cut home I had to get the engine out of it somehow, cue Daedong power!!!!!

 

 

 

 

I gave the subframe and front cut away to the local BMX club (I think) who were doing a fundraiser collecting scrap steel from around the area.

 

which left me with:

 

bit of a strip down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, this roughly fits too

 

 

Evan.