Hi all,i am new to the Mazda RX-7 owners club and am looking forward to hopefully very soon owning a 1989 RX-7 Gen 2.I recently sold my R32 GTR Skyline as i needed the money to buy a house (mission completed),however this has left me car less.After spending the last 2 months looking for something different i came across the 89 gen 2 turbo today,made the phone call and am going to see the car on Saturday...As i\'m very much new to RX-7 ownership i was wondering apart from the obvious what should i look out for with the gen 2??? (am aware they need rebuilds) He say\'s he has receipts for a recent engine rebuild for 3,000 sterling,there is 116,000 miles on the car.Any help and advice would be much appreciated.
Huge thanks in advance....Looking forward to enjoying the forum :)
Hi, welcome to the club....If the cars had a recent engine rebuild that\'s a good start but its always worth getting a compression test done by a rotary specialist if you can. Gen 2\'s can be prone to body rot so need to inspect carefully. I\'m not an expert on gen 2\'s but I\'m sure there are other members who can give you more specific pointers. Also try searching on the forum as these kinds of questions are asked and answered time and time again...Good luck with the car... :Thumbs-up
Best advice I can give is go and see the car \'cold\'.
If the engine is cold, any compression problems will make starting difficult, so it\'s a good time to see what happens.
Engine should kick into life very quickly, usually with a little smoke from the exhaust - lots of blue smoke means it\'s burning a lot of oil - could be bad, lots of white smoke could be coolant - also could be bad.
Exhaust should initially smell gassy, but will quickly normalise as the car warms up. Go for a run in it, don\'t boost it hard until its warmed up (5-10 mins). Temp gauge should be dead on halfway.
Then shut the engine off, and try restarting it. Should restart with no problems - if it\'s hard to start, it\'s either badly out of tune, or the engines on its way out.
Usuall checks for rust (around wheel arches, sunroof, and floorpan), check for noises from the breaks when stopping, gear change should be smooth. Check for water in the oil, check coolant in the expansion bottle at the front.
FC\'s have a few little electrical niggles - the most common ones are the logicon (heating controls) and the wiper switch - intermittent and fast wipe not working.
Good luck with the buying :)
I would worry less about the Engine and concerntrate on the Body condition..
The FC\'s are notorious for corrosion mainly under the car, sills and flooring.
You can re-build or replace an Engine, but you cannot totally eradicate corrosion!
There are many threads on here about this same topic on what to look for etc..
Best of Luck!
Hi guys thanks for the quick replies,just realised now i think i put the post in the wrong place...ooops sorry (new boy)anyway thanks again as all the info i can get the better,hope i\'ll be joining you soon in rotary ownership... :guinness
My advice would be very careful about how much you pay. Prices vary wildly for these and in my experience some charge a premium to claim it\'s a "classic" or "future classic".
Also check insurance (although less of a problem if you\'ve had a Skyline) becuase some sellers will claim cheap insurance as a 1.3. Although you might get away with this cheaper insurance bracket if you go to make a claim you might find yourself not covered.
Apart from that I think the rest has been covered!
Shame you had to sell your R32. I used to have one and it was such an excellent car - never missed a beat. :InLove
Hi Mullins cheers for that info fortunately for me i\'m a professional valeter so i have garage insurance,makes things alot easier...yea miss the R32 had always wanted one but getting a house was more important so she had to go...
I would agree with Trex, having had 3 TIIs, the floor pan is the main thing, look behind the rear seats where the wheel arch is and check the floor really well. Even lift the carpet to be really sure. You can cover a lot with body Shutz so have a good poke about.
welcome to the club. :wave
Moved to correct section...
Welcome to the Club!
What Trex said - check for rust, rust, rust!
There are a few very ropey TIIs out there some mechanically good with really bad rot!
Hi guys, thanks for the help and the welcomea. Cheers Donato for moving me to the right section,had a funny feeling when i looked a little closer that i was in the wrong place....(sorry)....going to look at the car at lunch tomorrow so will give it the once over for all that has been mentioned and more,and let you know how i get on.If its the right car and i buy it maybe some one could help me post some pics....or if you want to see it now you can always go onto //www.carone.ie and on the left hand side of the page it gives you a small search option (search used cars section) make: Mazda...model: RX-7 and hit search its the last one on the bottom of the page last time i looked.White...
Let me know what you think,by the photos i think it\'s sitting quite high on the back?? any opinions.Thanks to all :guinness
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=442782 :guinness
Hi Mullins cheers for the link,am useless when it comes to trying to add inlinks and all that kind of thing,did you see the car??Any thoughts on it?? am going to see the car in an hour.Nice to see your fond of the Guinness too....lol :cheers
Hi guys went and viewed the car today,i have pictures of the bad bits and good,would anybody be able to host them for me if i email them??? The rear right wheel arch is rusty but nothing that can\'t be repaired as its still the early stages.There is also surface rust starting to form on the inside lip of the roof (can only be seen with s/roof open). The car started up first time and even when left to cool for 35 - 40 minutes and then started again it seemed spot on.
The d/side door can\'t be opened from the outside as the guy that owns it said he thinks the little rod has come off and fallen into the door,also the d/side pop up light stays up all the time he thinks it might be a motor (doesn\'t know)is this expensive to fix?? .Therewas a very light puff of smoke out of it upon starting but literally only for about 2 seconds and when rev\'d there wasn\'t a puff out of it at all...
The temp gauge went upto halfway pretty quick and stayed there steady,idle was a bit eratic and i thought that it would have been quicker than it was didn\'t seem to have a huge amount of pep,bought it to 5,000 rpm in most gears.He\'ll take 3,500 euros for it and has all the receipts for the rebuild which was done 30,000 miles ago by rotatechnics and jimmy\'s also worked on the car....Sorry for such long thread just not used to these cars and any help and advice is much appreciated...
Could i do better for the money in the UK?? :Hammer