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"Hey dad, we should get a cheap sports car off craigslist or something and fix it up. I think that'd be fun." "Can this wait til next weekend, [Ferrovanadium]? I have a golf tournament."  all of the pictures are gonna be lovely phone pics and i'm sorry One morning three and a half years ago, this 1984 RX-7 GSL-SE that my uncle and cousin had bought on craigslist and “fixed up” (read: done nothing more than cover large portions of the body and trim in red plasti dip that immediately began peeling off) “wouldn’t start.” My cousin had gone off to college and my uncle was going through a divorce, so the car ended up sitting in his driveway under a cover for three years. Until April of this year, when my dad and I stumbled across it and asked if we could have it. $100 later, it was ours, so we got it towed home and set about figuring out what needed fixing.  All we knew starting out was some little stuff: the trim along the top of the windshield was missing some bits, the battery holder was completely gone except for the plastic tray (which was falling apart), the distributor cap/rotor/spark plug wires needed to be replaced, and there was a mysterious switch in the dash that my uncle said he’d been using as a kill switch but didn't know what it actually did. Fun!  Neither of us has ever worked on a rotary before, my dad hasn't done anything with cars in ages, and the extent of my hands-on experience with cars is changing oil and spark plugs. We can totally do this.  First, the easy stuff. Air cleaner, sure.  Wait, why's it full of goop? (I didn't get a picture but the air filter itself was just slathered in whatever the gently caress this probably-degraded goop is)  I thoroughly wiped out the air cleaner and we got a new air filter in, we replaced the distributor cap, rotor, spark plug wires (which were all in awful shape), spark plugs, oil, oil filter, and fuel filter, and then it was time to check out... the switch.  (we never did find out what it controlled, though we suspect it disabled the fuel pump)   With the switch removed, we dropped a good battery in it, put five gallons of gas in the tank, and turned the key. It cranked really sluggishly, and didn't start, so we pulled the starter motor and took it to advance auto parts to get it tested. It was apparently dead as gently caress, so the next weekend we tried it with a rebuilt starter motor and it fired right up! We drove it less than a mile before we started smelling brakes and figured out the left front brake was seized.  It needed a new caliper, so while that was in the mail we went to a local salvage yard that had just picked up an '83 RX-7 we could pull some bits off of.  See if you can find all three pieces of the battery holder scattered around this engine! We got it installed, at least.  We also nabbed the bits of windshield trim needed to replace what was missing on ours, it fits quite well!  (picture taken after we gave the car a much-needed wash) Car is currently back up on jack stands while we look at the rear brakes, which also seem to be stuck but not as bad as the left front one was, and replace the shocks. Ferrovanadium fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Aug 27, 2019 00:01
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 13:09 |
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I was hoping to have interesting updates and cool pics to share, but after we got the shocks replaced and took a look at the brakes, we started replacing the rear suspension bushings. And we're still replacing the rear suspension bushings. It's taken us all month since we've not had any extra time to work on the car outside of weekends and limited time on saturdays. In a week or two after the rear suspension bushings are done we'll be rebuilding the rear brake calipers, and then on to the front suspension bushings.
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Sep 29, 2019 17:45
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