Dilemma

[Ultraman_Cosmo]

Since selling her series 1 RX7 18 months or so ago my girlfriend has been hankering after another one, being rather bored with the automatic Honda civic she is currently driving. Despite not really being able to afford it the Ebay bug got the better of us a week or so ago and we bought two RX7\'s from up Bradford way. One clean looking car with a knackered engine along with a rough one with an apparently good engine. Some of you may have seen the listing. Unfortunately because of the distance (250 miles ish) we didn\'t view the cars and trusted the description. Both cars were delivered yesterday at a cost of £300 and I was instantly disappointed. Although generally clean on the body it wasn\'t as good as expected with more patches of localised rust and areas or poor paintwork, but my real horror was today when I got to see underneath properly. I had asked my friend Bob to make a start on the welding as I had seen last night that some was needed on the end of the sills, but after having been under it today I\'ve asked him to stop. The floor and ends of the sills at the rear of the car are repairable, although worse than expected but what I couldn\'t believe was just how badly rusted everything is. The diff, suspension parts, brake lines fuel lines are all just flaking away in big chunks, I\'ve dragged 35 year old NSU Ro80\'s out of fields that are better than this! Also the petrol tank is disintegrating. It\'s like the car has spent years under a tarpaulin in a field, it originates from Scotland, don\'t whether that is a contributing factor in it\'s state? Anyway, the dilemma is what to do now? If we do all the work required (which is a lot) we\'ll have spent the amount of money required (if not more) to buy a decent one and if we cut our losses and scrap it we\'re £750 out of pocket. The parts we will need (from initial investigation) are complete fuel line replacement, a replacement petrol tank, complete brake overhaul (callipers, hoses, pipes etc) all rubber bushes look in a poor state and the whole underside will need wire brushing and repainting. We had expected to do an engine swap and have it on the road in a week! So, any suggestions or advice appreciated. Does anyone have any ideas what the callipers will cost to refurbish and what a tank will cost? If I had some of these parts available to just swap over rather than having to repair everything myself it would relieve the burden a little. A crashed donor car just off the road would be ideal I suppose. Anyway, feedback appreciated Phil. (depressed)

[Martiny]

Why not give Andrew a call at Jimmy\'s, hes bound to have a tank real cheap.

[sadgoth]

I have a 1981 mk 1 in good (ish) condition with a smoking engine (I\'ve replaced the water and oil seals - still smokes!) the only issues on the body are a small hole behind the passenger side rear arch and another small hole behind the front arch above the sill on the same side. The underside appears good. Don\'t have the time to finish it so I could let it go for a reasonable price if you are interested

[travellinbob]

I think that ikemlm has just sent some 7 calipers off to be refurbished. With a bit of luck he will pop up any second now to let you know how much!
  cheers and good luck. dont let the bugger get yo udown.
  michael.

[mpk490p]

i have some parts avaliable if you decide to rebuild the one you have

[MikeLMR]

sent a pair of calipers off to a company called Bigg Red, they will recon a pair of front calipers for £96 and a rear pair for just over £100 + £9 or so postage I think.

I found them on google. No idea how good they are, but rebuilding calipers isn\'t exactly rocket science so I can\'t see much being wrong.

[Ultraman_Cosmo]

Thanks for the parts offers folks. We decided to go ahead and get the car done. There\'s been loads of work to do but at least now the welding is all done, the underside is fully wire brushed and undersealed and the replacement engine is in with new clutch. Tank was repaired too and back in situ. My mate Bob has been a diamond with his metalwork skills fabricating so many items from scratch, e.g. the exhaust heat shields, the fuel pump mounting plate, the air scoops in the front bumpers etc etc, all of which had disintegrated. The whole underside of the car was as bad and worse than this:


But looks a little better now:


As you can see, not going for a show car! Just a sound usable daily driver for my girlfriend. And you can see why we didn\'t want to use the engine (has been stripped now and was knackered.



Gonna get the calipers done by Bigg Red and then we\'re nearly there Anyone know if the rear anti roll bar drop links can be replaced with parts from a different vehicle?

Phil.

[MikeLMR]

I would be interested to know if they can too ... do you have any photos of them ? I know they look similar to the front and rear links on my BG 323 ... they aren\'t that cheap but at least they are easilly available ! mine are intact on the rx but i have an uprated rear bar to fit sometime in the future.

The underside looks much better, I don\'t envy your mate Bob .... underseal is a right awfull job (just finished fixing up my 323 for its MOT !)

[Carl]

Hi Phil,
Unlike the RO 80\'s the Mazda RX7\'s mostly have done some pretty high mileages in all weathers.
I would think that most RO80\'s would have not done the same sort of mileage,or if they have it would be likely that they would have done alot less miles in winter and on salty roads than RX7\'s.It is that time spent in corrosive conditions that deteriorates them.
The RX7 1st gens are not badly built really and often better than alot of cars of the same era,you just have to be careful what you buy.
Maybe it would be better to have alook for a sound body more locally and go from there using the parts from the 1st two cars to fix the good body.
Anyway,i have sent you a pm too.

Regards
Carl

[jinx]

Many (many) years ago I worked for a spray shop which repainted Honda\'s before delivery to dealers. Some of them were already rusty on arrival because they travelled from Japan on deck rather than in container or hold storage. (6 weeks or so in a force 8 salt spray followed by a period of indifferent storage on the docks bathed in sea air....) Wonder if the first gen\'s rust issue has the same source?

[Ultraman_Cosmo]

just thought i\'d update this to say it lives! was mot\'d on saturday and passed, it\'s first mot for 12 years. an enormous amount of work has been done, to summarise:
underside stripped back to metal, all welding tackled and repainted / treated with waxoyl underseal.
all new brake lines and calipers.
new rear shocks, drop links.
exhaust heatshields all re-fabricated.
tank replaced.
rear axle replaced.
engine replaced.
new clutch.
and probably lots more!

it\'s not been done to show standards by any means but is now a sound rust free daily driver and the best bit is another gen 1 survives.

phil.

[travellinbob]

nice one! after looking at those photos your mate is worth his weight in gold for doing such a solid job. Nice to hear another one is saved from the scrappy!
 cheers,michael.