Mazda Rotary Club

Ive been talking about it for long enough, I thought it was about time I did something about removing my engine and rebuilding it starting today!
Some of you might have seen my "redoing the rats nest" thread. This would sort of follow on from that as I never actually put then engine back together again deciding instead to rebuild it.

Hopefuly this will provide an insight and some tips for other DIYers on how to cary out the rebuild and re-install the engine.

So couple of nights ago, I finally went and got myself an engine hoist! (well thats a lie...the truth is I went to see Steve (dubber91) and borrowed one off him! Cheers again matey :) )

And this morning, I put the Plenum back on the car and got the process going and removed the engine. To be honest, it wasnt anywhere near as hard as I thought it might be. At one point, I have having a few issues with the downpipe fouling on the steering arm. But I got around that by dropping the engine back into the bay off the mounts and jiggling the engine while a friend used a prybar to pull the downpipe clear of the turbos. I managed to remove the engine with the mounts still attached to the engine.

Other than that, the engine came out relatively easily. You may notice that unlike some, my loom is still in the car as it was easier to do this from where I was when working on the rats nest.

So heres a nice shot of the engine on the hoist coming out:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33293900.html

I made a couple of tiny errors here as I forgot I had removed two of the bolts on the engine hooks and both hooks as a result are slightly distorted from the weight. Remember to use loads of rags to stop any oil or coolant left in the block from spilling out onto your lovely paintwork!! I found that the bonnet didnt need to come off to remove the engine.

So next step, get the engine into the garage. As you can see, my garage isnt exactly big! And I had to buy a desk to carry the rebuild out with...luckily I found that white desk on ebay for £1 right next to my girlfriends house!

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33293897.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33293895.html

Anyhow, I was quite pleased that the engine came out nice and easily so decided Id have a got at trying to get the engine down to the bare block after lunch! And within a few hours, Id removed this lot in the following order:

Second Turbo Inlet Pipe, Plenum, Both Injector Rails, Y-pipe, Turbo pack, Turbo Manifold, Engine Mounts, Lower Intake Manifold, Water Pump Pulley, Water Pump.  And here we are on my £1 desk lol!

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33293899.html

And this is what my engine now looks like! Quite a contrast to a few hours earlier!

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33293896.html



Tommorow, my aim is to remove the rest of the bits left on (Oil filter base and Oil lines, Oil Injectors, Injector Diffusers, Crank Pulley and possibly the sump but only if my girlfriend can spare me her cat litter!) Hopefully I can add some more piccies tommorow of the work. Its a shame Im working at the moment so Ill hopefully be able to start the strip down of the block next weekend! :)

nice one jit looking good glad to hear you finally decieded to crack on it. have the dvds come in useful yet lol?

Not yet....hopefully weekend after next I reckon! Sorry to hear bout your running probs :(

It\'s definately worth doing - I\'m having a few teething troubles, but nothing major. And it starts sooooo easily when hot now. It\'s looking very good on my front. Done 20 miles now! :)

Things will get better Nikp. I did my own rebuild, still going strong 5k later!

Right following on from yesterday, I havent really got anywhere near as much as I wanted done :3Confused

Started off by removing the oil filter base (2 10mm nuts), Oil injectors and what I think is the oil metering pump (from the front cover - 3 10mm bolts), the coolant temp sensor (12mm deep socket), oil pressure switch, Crank Angle Sensors (2 10mm bolts) and the two remaining spark plugs.

Next step was to remove the sump (17 10mm bolts). I was surprised at just how much oil was still left in the sump even though i had drained it! :3Confused Sump was held on with plenty of sealant so needed to use a plastic mallett and a filler knife to remove it carefully.

Next step was to remove the oil strainer from the block (2 10mm bolts) and the oil pressure regulator and spring and piston. I should really have a snapped a pic but it basically looks like a large bot that sort of sticks off th sump mating surface. I used an adjustable  wrench to undo it...the spring should come out with the nut and youll need a telescopic pick up magnet to grab the piston from its bore.

Had a whirl at trying to crack the crank pulley until i looked up what torque its done up to lol!! I think ill be buying a slightly bigger breaker bar and a proper flywheel stopper!!! And an engine stand lol!!
So far so good though...heres what my engine looked like when id done all the above:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33326790.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33326791.html

Top stuff :Thumbs-up  - another thread im following with interest! :)

The way i did my front eccentric shaft nut and flywheel nut was i got a transit wheel hub socket, and i think a 19mm impact socket (for front nut)

I used them both on a 3 foot breaker bar, with another 3 foot scaffold pole slid over it to help leverage. To stop the flywheel i used a 5 foot piece of angle iron with holes drilled in it - one hole slid over the dowel sticking from the flywheel while the other was screwed into the flywheel itself. Using this bar, my 6 foot breaker bar and 2 fat friends to stand on the engine i managed to break them both off. Bouncing on the bar is a good idea, youll never get it off just pulling it.


Good luck!

and you know how small i am!!! We managed to get one off Steves (dubber91) TII engine between the 2 of us so ill prob try and enlist his help!!

Nice one :D Make sure you have a 54mm socket btw as you\'ll need it! I\'ll be doing mine in a couple of months hopefully so I\'ll be watching your progress with interest.

Right an Update. Bit of a long post this one, so you might want to get a cup of tea or something lol :guinness ! Would have updated on the weekend but didn’t really get all that much done on the weekend! All I managed to do was loosen off the Front Eccentric Shaft Bolt and also the Flywheel Nut. I got stuck somewhat on Sunday as I was unable to get the flywheel off the shaft. I didn’t want to hit it too hard otherwise I may have squashed the pilot bearing. To hold the flywheel locked while removing the nut, I used a tool that was sent to me by Ian Elvar (cheers again mate lol! :Ladys-man ).

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33747354.html

Anyhow, Carl (Bobfish) came round yesterday and helped me remove the flywheel (cheers again mate…ill drop that tool round in the morning once I got the van power steering working!).

All of this meant that today I could crack on with dissembly of the main engine block… which I duly did! Time to find out exactly what re:worx put into my engine! :flamed

First thing to do today was to remove the Front Cover. This was a relatively simple case of 7 or 8 bolts. With the cover off, the next thing done was to check the oil pump drive chain slack. I measured the slack in mine to be ¼ inch which is within specification.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33747353.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33748667.html

With this done, next job was to remove the Oil pump chain assembly along with the accessory gear.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33748668.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33748670.html

With that off, next the attention was turned to remove the front counterweight, front washer, front thrust bearing and front key. These just slid off the shaft.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33748671.html

Next came the 6 front stationary gear bolts. After undoing these, I removed the centre plate and the spacer (the spacer is used to set the end play upon re-assembly) and the rear bearing and washer. The spacer removed was noted to be a “c” spacer.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33748669.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33748672.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33761474.html

So up until this point, we have removed the following components. From top to bottom in this picture ( http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33761475.html ), we have:

1. Oil Pump Chain and accessory gear assembly
2. Front Washer
3. Front Counterweight with key sticking out.
4. Front Engine Thrust Bearing
5. Stationary Gear bolts (only 5 shown in that picture as one was put back in to hold the front stationary gear in place during dissembly)
6. Centre Plate
7. Spacer
8. Rear Engine Thrust Bearing
9. Rear Washer

After this, the next step was to remove the Oil pump held on by 4 bolts.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33761473.html

After this came the main dissembly of the engine block….once my photos have uploaded onto fotopic, ill finish the write up. :guinness

Right, now that the photos have loaded, Ill carry on! This bit is the main block dissembly. First thing I done was to tape up the eccentric shaft threads to protect the threads and the bearings (according to the dvd I was following).

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33764083.html

First I removed the Flywheel key and then I removed the six retaining bolts for the rear stationary gear and used a trim tool to pry the gear away from the rear end plate. So the assembly pile now looks like this:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33764081.html

And the rear end plate looks like this!:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33764086.html

I then followed the Haynes Manual Guidance on the order for loosening off the tension bolts. Just to be on the safe side, I cracked them all half a turn first in sequence. I then went and done them all another half turn and finally removed them. I think that was a bit excessive but rather that than warp any components. The number 2 tension bolt is slightly longer than the rest.
So we now have a rear housing that looks like:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33764082.html

And a Components layout looking like this:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33764085.html

So I now removed the end plate. I was expecting to have to tap it with a deadblow…hell I even bought one in preparation (guess itll have to go back then lol!)…as it transpired, I didn’t need it as the whole assembly seemed to come apart as soon as id loosened off the tension bolts! Im not really sure if this is normal.

So here we have the Rear End Plate removed:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33768924.html

Looking inside the housing, we can see the rear rotor.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33768927.html

Next step was to remove the rear rotor and then the Intermediate Plate. This was done by pushing the E-Shaft rearwards (from the front) and rocking the Intermediate plate over the Shaft Lobe.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33768928.html

Finally, I removed the Front Housing, Eccentric Shaft and Front Rotor (in that order). That concluded the dissembly of the engine.

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33768926.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33768923.html

The plan for tomorrow is to start cleaning all the parts….well maybe ill buy some parts cleaner first lol…. :Hammer

Awesome write-up! Keep it coming.

Looks good Jit, good to see your cracking on with it! Those end plates definately look ported, but i suspect (by the looks of them) those housings were re-used at rebuild. How many miles did it do after the rebuild? you shouldnt get a finish like that on the rotor housings until after about 20-25k at least.

P.s i have all the measuring gear if you want to check your end plates and bearings (calipers, micrometers, dial indicator on a magnetic base etc) give me a shout if you want me to come up and show you how to do it/borrow them.

Did you still want to take me up on the offer for those end plates mate? Email me at work about it if you like

Carl

Looking good mate.

Carl, Im gona take what i got (once ive cleaned it) into uni and measure it there...im not sure how good the plates are...once i measured them, ill let you know! Ill tryand get that tool to you today as well....trying to fix the PAS on the van as the pump fell off on monday night and i lost the belt :( So as it stands, i cant get around lol.

Hello mate

Sweet write up! Looking forward to the next installment. Glad the tool worked for you. :Thumbs-up

Nice write up and pictures mate. Always good to see someone getting into the engine.

Right, today became clean up day for the engine. I was gonna have a pair of hands to help me with this....however, when my girlfriend saw the level of grease that was on the end plates, she rather wisely decided against it cleaning and went shoppin instead!

So another lonely day in the garage for me then lol! Anyhow, first thing I did today was to clean up all the stationary gears, engine thrust bearings and washers using soapy water. I used the compresser to blow them all dry. Now I did have photos of all the spangly bits but I cant seem to find them on the camera. Nevermind, ill take them again tommorow.

I also used brake cleaner to clean up the End Plates which I bought from Tim down @ RX Motors on Saturday. Inspection of those will begin tommorow but things are looking good for those since the coolant water jacket o-ring walls are nice and thick all over. Unlike the one on the centre plate which came out of the engine. I can see why the car might be exhibiting white smoke....it had been welded really badly and the builder hadnt even bothered to grinf the weld flat so as to create a flat mating surface.

Next I moved onto the Oil Pump Inspection. After removing the little key for the oil pump drive sprocket, Using a set of Imperial feller gauages I measured the following:

Oil Pump Front Inner Rotor to Front Outer Rotor Clearance. This was measured to be 0.006 in
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33932334.html

Oil Pump Front Outer Rotor to Housing Clearance. This was measured to be 0.006 in
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33932338.html

Oil Pump Rear Inner Rotor to Rear Outer Rotor Clearance. This was measured to be 0.006 in
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33932333.html

Oil Pump Rear Outer Rotor to Housing Clearance. This was measured to be 0.006 in
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p33932336.html

So from that Ive deemed it fit to go back in the engine.

The only other thing of substance I have done today is drawn up a spreadsheet of specifications and clearances which changes some values (mainly the ones I will be using a micrometer or verniers to measure) from imperial to metric.

Tommorow will be inspect the end plates day. Stay tuned and Ill also reveal what I found to be wrong with this engine!

Excellent thread, I\'m watching with interest :)

Cheers,
Alex

Great thread, have you got a link to where you got the DVD from and the Haynes manual?

Good luck with it but it looks like its well in hand :)

Gary at rotaryart.com does the dvds :)

Im not using the dvds that gary sells.....im considering purchasing them tho...

At the moment, Im using the Bruce Turrentine DVD which I got from rotary avaition (//www.rotaryaviation.com) to help me with the strip down and cleaning process.
Haynes Manual is the one I got for my FC (its the US version)

Quote from: one2watchI can see why the car might be exhibiting white smoke....it had been welded really badly and the builder hadnt even bothered to grinf the weld flat so as to create a flat mating surface.

Yes there are some rebuilders that do this, crazy to go to the whole effort of a rebuild and then try and save a few pennies welding up a trashed end plate.
Who did the original build?

Great thread this fella! Really usefull and inspiring, i\'m almost getting the guts to do my own rebuild! What are you doing at uni?
Hope the rest of the rebuild is a straight forward (???) as it has been so far.
:Thumbs-up

Cheers for the support....its not working yet tho!!
Ive finished Uni in May...I graduated with a BEng (Hons) Automotive Engineering

Quote from: one2watchCheers for the support....its not working yet tho!!
Ive finished Uni in May...I graduated with a BEng (Hons) Automotive Engineering

That\'d explain knowing one end of a spanner from the other unlike most of us on here :)

yeah, to be fair though, they dont teach you how to wield one! In fact, I only rememeber one modeule which involved working on an engine and that was a 3 hour lab...other than that, no practical experience....well apart from doing all the work on my integra and servicing the missus\' dads car!!

where are you studying? I\'m doing mechanical engineerig at the mo and hopefully doing automotive engineering at newcastle later this year? It\'s it a good course?

Ive finished studying now...I was studying at Hertfordhsire Uni (same uni as D1 WTF and dubber91 off here)
Automotive Engineering is definitely a good course...as long as you are decent at maths, I cant see any reason why you wouldnt do well. Its a course which definitely opens a lot of windows for once youve graduated.

If youre expecting it to be a doss on any level, trust me it aint! I used to find myself in the library at seriously stupid hours scrambling to get coursework in...and i used to be at uni all the time!!

Quote from: one2watchIf youre expecting it to be a doss on any level, trust me it aint! I used to find myself in the library at seriously stupid hours scrambling to get coursework in...and i used to be at uni all the time!!

The student union bar doesn\'t count :Giggle

lol, actually thatll put it nicely into perspective...I went out about 3 times over the course of my final year....(although having a demandin gilrfriend whos already graduated one year earlier doesnt help)..first year I went out quite a lot...well itd be easier to count the nights in....

Another update...last 3 days have been spent scraping and cleaning the plates which I got from Tim @ RX Motors.

By scraping I mean, the O-Ring Grooves for the Coolant Seal o-rings to remove all traces of old o-ring. I used a small soft screwdriver to do this. I then used Normal Engine degreaser on the rear of the plates to remove all the grease and grime!

I also used a trimming knife blade to remove all the traces of sealer around the water jacket area and mating surfaces with the aluminium rotor Housings.

Next step was to use brake cleaner to soften off any bits of o-ring left in the O-Ring grooves and remove it all!

This process was done on all four surfaces of the plates (front, rear and intermediate). The plates are now ready for inspection! Its already looing good for the inspection since the walls for the water jacket area are nice and thick!

Heres what 3 days worth of scraping and scrubbing has got me!

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p34081175.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p34081172.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p34081173.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p34081174.html

Job for tommorow is to clean up the Stationary Gears and a few other bits including the Oil Pump and accessory Gear and counterweight. Tommorow I will also be re-die-ing the Threads on all of the Bolts on the main block.

Whilst your Scrubing and cleaning the Water seal grooves keep an eye out for any Pits (they can be sorted with liquid metal) they are quite comon (check the Rotor housings too).

Also it would be a good time to run a tap down the Main bolt holes on the Front Plate (helps get an Acurate Torque)

Cheers!

I have found a few pits in the grooves and was wondering what to do with em!...do you mean just apply a small bit of liq metal and then file it back?

Im getting brand new housings. I was gonna redo the holes on all the housings just to be safe!

What i did to fill them in was to get a Plastic Car body filler spreader, then cut a strip of it that fit tightly into the groove (its important to get it a nice fit and with sharp corners so you don\'t get lots of liquid metal in the corners of the groove) it may take a cupple of atempts but once its a good tight fit put a small blob of Liquid metal in the pit with something like a Match, them smooth it in with the spreader.(take your time and get it as neat as poss becouse you dont want to be sanding it too much)

Then once its gone off (proberly take 24 hours) get some flatting paper (i used 240 grit) and smooth it in so there is no rased bits or sharp edges (make sure you get in the corners of the groove becouse this is where the Liquid metal tends to build up)

Easy..... But the Secret to it is to get it all clean and dry and also to get the Liquid metal in as neat as poss before it goes off, Don\'t panic if its still a bit low you can always go back and do it again, but you don\'t want to over apply as you want as little rubbing as poss (you don\'t want to open the Groove up)

Right, I havent updates in this some time..probably cos I havent actualyl doen much mainly due to nagging girlfriend, trying to sell said nagging girlfriends car, trying to sell my van and general laziness etc :flamed
Oh that and Im generally broke lol and still need to buy a few bits!

I also sent my Injectors to be cleaned and flowed about a week ago to reworx so should hopefully have those back soon!

What I did manage to do today was measure up the plates which I got from Tim @ RX Motors.

I measured each plate face for Side Seal Wear, Side Seal Overlapping Oil Seal Wear, Side Seal outside Oil Seal Wear and Oil Seal Wear as per the FSM. These were done using the dial gauge with magnetic base (kindly lent to me by Carl - Bobfish). I also used a micrometer (borrowed from bobfish again lol:Thumbs-up ) to measure the thickness of the coolant o-ring walls so as to make sure they werent too thin. I also used an engineers square and a 0.015in Feeler gauge to make sure the plate faces werent warped. None of the faces were found to be warped. I dud have a photo of the square and feeler gauge method but my digicam threw a woopsie and deleted it! :spank

I found the plates I got from Tim to be in extremely good shape..its as though they had hardly worn!! A very happy man to say the least!
Ive summarised the specs at the end of the post for the plates Ill be using.

Heres a couple of random pics of a dial gauge and micrometer I used:

http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p34519374.html
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p34519375.html

And here is the spec found for the plates:

Rear Endplate:
Side Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Side Seal Wear Overlapping Oil Seal Wear: N/A (Mazda Specification 0.01mm max)
Side Seal Wear Outside Oil Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Oil Seal Wear: N/A
Minimum Coolant O-Ring Wall Thickness: 2.03mm

Front Endplate
Side Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Side Seal Wear Overlapping Oil Seal Wear: N/A (Mazda Specification 0.01mm max)
Side Seal Wear Outside Oil Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Oil Seal Wear: N/A
Minimum Coolant O-Ring Wall Thickness: 1.72mm

Intermediate Plate Front Face
Side Seal Wear: 0.02mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Side Seal Wear Overlapping Oil Seal Wear: N/A (Mazda Specification 0.01mm max)
Side Seal Wear Outside Oil Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Oil Seal Wear: N/A
Minimum Coolant O-Ring Wall Thickness: 1.82mm

Intermediate Plate Rear Face
Side Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Side Seal Wear Overlapping Oil Seal Wear: N/A (Mazda Specification 0.01mm max)
Side Seal Wear Outside Oil Seal Wear: 0.01mm (Mazda Specification 0.1mm max)
Oil Seal Wear: N/A
Minimum Coolant O-Ring Wall Thickness: 1.60mm

Tommorow, Ill be cleaning up both Rotors and measuring those (I hope...unless the missus has other plans that is:3Confused )

Its been er....over 6 weeks since i updated this thread..and the main reason for the lack of work is er...money. No change there then!
Ive been saving up the last few weeks for all the money to buy all the rebuild bits and then ordering them!

And thanks to my wonderful girlfriend (yes the same on who in the last post was a nagging girlfriend :spank)  who bailed me out while my credit card got cloned :( , I now have some nice new rebuild bits sitting in my garage:

I have also bought a few other parts which Im putting in the car to hopefully maintain reliability!!

I was having at one point having trouble deciding wheter to go with the atkins rebuild kit or the genuine mazda...however, a couple of conversations with Tim @ RX Motors and Carl @ Hayward Rotary swung it for me and I decided that everything was going to be genuine mazda....who else have put millions of pounds worth of R&D into the parts!

So far, I have gathered together the following bits:

12 x Genuine Mazda Corner Seals inc Rubber Plugs
12 x Genuine Mazda Corner Seal Springs
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p36197484.html

12 x Genuine Mazda Side Seals
12 x Genuine Mazda Side Seal Springs
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p36197482.html

6 x Genuine Mazda 2mm 2 piece Apex Seals
6 x Genuine Mazda Small Apex Seal Springs
6 x Genuine Mazda Large Apex Seal Springs
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p36197483.html

1 x Genuine Mazda Water Seal Kit (contains Water Jacket O-Rings plus all internal Engine O-Rings inc Dowel Pin O-Rings, Rear Stationary Gear O-Ring, Tension Bolt O-Rings, Front Cover O-Ring and a few others)
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p36197485.html

8 x Genuine Mazda Metal Oil Control Rings
8 x Genuine Mazda Oil Control Ring O-Rings
8 x Genuine Mazda Oil Control Ring Springs (not in photo awaiting delivery)
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p36199134.html

2 x Genuine Mazda Torrington Bearings (no photo..awaiting delivery)
1 x Front Cover Gasket
1 x Metal LIM to Block Gasket
1 x UIM to LIM Gasket
Various other Gaskets seen in the photo!
http://jitesh512.fotopic.net/p36199131.html


In addition to the parts Ive listed there, Ive also bought a Brand New 3 Piece Clutch Kit (pressure plate, Friction Plate and Release Bearing) to put in the car.

Finally, to aid reliability (of the sequential turbo system), Ive bought some HKS Intercooler Hard Pipes which will be sent of to be highly polished. Im also going to be buying an Efini Y-Pipe which will also be sent off to the polishers!

The reason im listing the above is mainly for reference and also so that if and when I decide to sell the car, any prospective buyer can see that this isnt no half arsed rebuild which was done on the cheap! Im estimating that by the time ill have finished, this whole exercise will have cost over 2 grand....certainly a stark contrast to the "rebuild" (if you can call it that..) which this car supposedly had! :flamed

On to what else has been done:

Since the last post, the first thing I had done was to clean up the rotors for inspection. However, from inspection even while covered in carbon, it was apparent that the apex seal grooves in one rotor were far too wide to be 2mm! The clearance was more than 20 thou! I shall have to take a trip down to Tims Den when I go to pick up the new Housings and see if we can strike a deal to get another 2mm rotor since Im not overly keen to use 3mm Apex Seals, especially not when I should be able to find a decent 2mm Rotor for less than the cost of the machining (well I hope! :Typing )

Cleaning the other rotor basically consisted of removing all the carbon from the combustion faces. For this I used a wire brush wheel since the faces of the rotor are very hard. I also used a brass wire brush to get into the pockets. The other step was to clean out all of the seal pockets to remove them of carbon (ie the apex seal grooves, side seal grooves, corner seal pockets and oil control ring slots). To do this i used an old side seal which I ground a point onto (to clean out the oil control ring slots and the side seal groves). I also used a small screwdriver to help with the oil control ring slots..
To clean out the apex seal grooves, i used an old Apex Seal which i ground to make a bit sharper. I used a small screwdriver to clean out the corner seal bores.

Tommorow the plan is to start measuring the good rotor which I have now finished cleaning (i know its good already! but ill post up the exact measurements so you can see it! :bandit ). However, Im not going to start grinding the side seals until I have assembled the Metal Oil Control Rings (which I cannot do until the Oil Control Ring Springs arrive!)

Hopefully in the next few days, I will recieve said oil control ring springs and then can start the dry assembly and grinding of the side seals!

In the meantime, Ive got to find a day when I can do down to Tims to buy the new housings and hopefully source a rotor from him! Ive also decided to send my plates up to Pip @ WGT to have them lapped (Pip has assured me that the plates will come back flat AND square with the bearings...i had initially been worried that lapped plates often came back flat but not square with the bearings and thus accelerating bearing wear!). Ho hum more money being spent lol :Talking1

Your looking good :yes

Oe Mazda is the way to go if you can afford it.

I just noticed you haven\'t got an Oil pump Chain on your List, Its well worth replacing that too.

O yeh and you have to do the vasaline run to the Chemist lol "can i have the extra large tub of vasline please" then watch there face when they think whats that for??? ;)

yp, im definitely in agreement with you! I am replacing the oil pump chain! I just havent ordered it yet. Ill be ordering that from the states together with my new Mazda OE Ignition Leads.

Lol, maybe I should go to the chemist where my girlfriends dad works.....

How much were the mazda items?

lol!! VERY expensive...

I think i paid something along the lines of 850 for the lot inc vat :(

still need to get myself down to Tims to get my housings

on the plus side, pip has had a look over the rotor which i thought was dead and seems to think its good! so maybe i wont need one after all....although i could swear he must have got it mixed up with one of his good ones!!
And my plates are back from grinding and pip reckons theyre realy good! so all in all, im quite happy!

hi, i wonder if you could do me a favour... have you got the part number for the water seal kit? you can just about see it in one of the pics, however the code is slightly covered!!
 
Is the engine back together now? is it still goin strong?