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Zac's rotary redux project, because he has too much spare time.


ProZac

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Its been a... year. And I mean that it is both surprising that a whole year has passed, but also not, because it passed in the blink of an eye, because it was a _year_. Lots of things non car-related happened, less things car related happened. I still tinkered in the garage though, as it was excellent therapy time :-). No, it still doesn't run. No its not any closer. Yes, I worked on things that get it no closer to running and driving. Yes, I enjoyed it. No, I don't have a timeframe, not what its about :-).

 

Some highlights:

I took the boot lid off because I couldn't get up in there to clean with it on. Overspray all over the wiring boots, grimy, all caked up with the clearcoat, some surface rust here and there, nothing that some scotchbright and etch primer wouldn't fix.

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Back to back I think the contrast is quite satisfying... Yes, I painted the jam. Removed the rubber boots / washer hose and vaporblasted all the overspray off them, they look brand new now :-). Have cut some rubber gaskets to go around the hatch hinge studs to do the job of the seam sealer that was used from factory. It's not like I'll be driving the thing in the rain much.

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Process photos:

Cleaned the jam thoroughly, then roughed up with grey scotchbright. Sprayed etch primer on the parts that were missing paint up under the top of the hatch.

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Ordered some 2k paint from a place in NZ. They pre-mix a slow hardener in, put it in a spray can and courier it. Has about a week of pot-life apparently. Worked excellently, no reactions, good coverage.

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Did 3 coats, then sprayed some into the lid to go around and do touch-ups on various chips and stuff. I'll end up doing all the jams, and probably the bay like this myself, then one day It'll get a door shut respray by someone a little more into body work than I. Made it look a heap tidier in the mean time.

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Back into the interior, the rear-view mirror was all delaminating / corroding around the edge like they do. As this is a super early car it has the early style mirror... I didn't realise there were different types when I bought a new replacement mirror from Mazda.... Well... I figured I should swap to the newer style, as if I ever need a replacement windscreen they are way, way more common. This meant I had to remove the mirror mount that was glued to the screen... This puppy:

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I popped a couple of screws in there to give me something to grab, but it was on there solid (which is a good thing). I read about removing them, and it seems that heat is the key. I went gently gently with the heatgun... heating from the outside.... This was wrong and got me nowhere. After turning my heatgun from 'kitten breath' to 'dragon flame' (the only two settings is has), I heated the ever loving crap out of it from the inside... I mean got it properly hot... I gave it a tweak with the pliers and it fell right off, into the wet rag I had right below it... where it sizzled and steamed. I read horror stories of people dropping them, where they then melted the dash and carpet.... No thanks.

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I got most of the residue glue off with solvents and careful scraping. Its some sort of bonded on ceramic pad on the windscreen I'm pretty sure, I was scared I'd scratch it and you'd be able to see the scratch from the outside. No chance of that, the black portion is very, very hard.

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Have got the later style button and the correct Loctite adhesive to bond it on, but haven't done it yet as I need to come up with a plan to get it perfectly in the right place, or it'll drive me nuts every time I look at it.

During my experiments with powering up the electronics in the car, I played with the HVAC system a bit. It all seemed to work as it should, but it was kind of noisy, and the blower motor sounded terrible.. I'm sure you can see where this is going.. Rejuvenation time!

Turns out you can remove the A/C evaporator and blower motor without pulling the dash, its not even that hard... but the distribution / mixer / heatercore box is right in the middle... So I pulled the dash. I was expecting a headache, but genuinely the easiest dash I've pulled out of any car, was pleasantly surprised! I'm super lucky that the dash in this car is in very good condition (see the original interior photo, its the only part that IS), so its stored safely inside on the spare bed :-). Will need one repair to a plastic mount where the glovebox screws in, but basically all FD dashes are broken there. Will glue the cracked bit up, and come up with some sort of 3d-printed reinforcement I reckon, to stop it happening again.

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Pulled this completely apart.. The DC motors that drive the blowers are pretty grunty.. The original one from the car was particularly nasty too. Brushes still looked okay, but the casing was a bit corroded, and it was packed full of leaves, dust, feathers, grime, your mothers underwear, shells, nuts... everything. I had a spare blower motor, so yanked the motor from that as it was a much cleaner unit. Still pulled it apart, tickled up the commutator and brushes, re-lubed everything... the usual. The plastic impeller and casings all got a low pressure vaporblast to bring them back to new. Took the recirculation door actuator apart, cleaned tested and re-lubed as well, tested the relay... all the things. Should be good to go :-).

Gave the distribution box the same treatment. Although I cleaned this one in the sink, as the foam was actually still in really good condition so I didn't want to blast it off.

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The heater core pipes were in a really sorry state though. So pitted. Removed all the corrosion, made sure they were still nice and strong, blasted and had them plated. Reinstalled with new o-rings. Hope like hell they don't leak at the interface to the core, as that's a dash-out job to fix, but I reckon they'll be alright :-).

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Dummy fitted this with the pipes loose so I could adjust them to be right in the middle of the holes in the firewall, have new pass through grommets on the way from Amayama.

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So happy to see some updates with the as usual awesome zac levels of attention to detail.  I'm still insanely jealous of your fd - I'd happily have one just to look at and sit in even if I couldn't afford to run it. Hence I'd be going over board to make it nice too. 

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4 hours ago, yoeddynz said:

So happy to see some updates with the as usual awesome zac levels of attention to detail.  I'm still insanely jealous of your fd - I'd happily have one just to look at and sit in even if I couldn't afford to run it. Hence I'd be going over board to make it nice too. 

That is 100% what its for :-). Although, Lily has extracted promises of her driving it when she's old enough... So maybe I do have some sort of timelime... Still, that's at least 9 years away ;-). I'm insanely jealous of your workshop, it just looks like the most inviting place to tinker for hours on end. We're working on house renovation plans, and pasrt of them includes expansions to my workshop facilities. Nothing major, more a rearrangement, but I'm really really looking forward to turning it into a really nice space.

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