There are times...

[connor66]

Feelin\' your pain mate...I know what it\'s like to sink a lot of money into a rex only to be slapped in the face - at least you\'ve still got your sense of humour (couldn\'t help but laugh at your own posts). Keep your chin up, deep breaths, count to 10 and all that...is there anyone near you who knows their way round a rotary who can help diagnose your problems?

[leon]

The air pump has a magnetic clutch in it, during idle from my understanding it will be engaged and you can see the inside wheel spin, its job is to push\'s extra air into the cat to help it do its job correctly, Once you hit around 1.5k (dont quote me ive been drinking) it shuts off and will spin freely, there is a grey electric connector ontop of the airpump that controlls its power.

I guess if your airpump isnt working that might also explain why you get a smokey car too.

[20B_boy]

I don\'t think many people here will know who Job is!;)

Ofcourse they will - he\'s referenced in MI2!

[Rotaryguru]

The air pump has a magnetic clutch in it, during idle from my understanding it will be engaged and you can see the inside wheel spin, its job is to push\'s extra air into the cat to help it do its job correctly, Once you hit around 1.5k (dont quote me ive been drinking) it shuts off and will spin freely, there is a grey electric connector ontop of the airpump that controlls its power.

Its stops at about 3K I think....

[rx7veilside]

these cars will make u skint and put u in an early grave as well i honestly can say i wish i had never purchased one..i have spent a huge amount on mine and really wish i had purchased a tvr or supra..prob the tvr as body and styling wise they need nothing ..ok the engine can be tempramental but the rx7 is hardly a paragon of effiecency and reliability is it

[Nik da Greek]

The air pump has a magnetic clutch in it, during idle from my understanding it will be engaged and you can see the inside wheel spin, its job is to push\'s extra air into the cat to help it do its job correctly, Once you hit around 1.5k (dont quote me ive been drinking) it shuts off and will spin freely, there is a grey electric connector ontop of the airpump that controlls its power.
 
I guess if your airpump isnt working that might also explain why you get a smokey car too.

Okay, so why isn\'t my airpump working? Like I said, the clutch seems to pop in and out slightly when the ignition goes on, but doesn\'t seem to engage once the engines running. What\'s going wrong? Can it be fixed? Or do I just need an entire replacement pump?
 
rx7veilside, I know exactly what you mean. After three years of just throwing money into this and the previous RX, it\'s really getting to the point where the good times when it\'s all running as it should just don\'t make up for all the times like this, when it JUST SIMPLY DOESNT BLOODY WORK for no good reason. It\'s a beautiful car with a great engine. When it works. It used to give me a thrill of anticipation every time I went into the garage and saw it, but now I just wonder if it\'ll get me to work without breaking down. If I could get just a fraction of what I\'ve paid into it back out, I\'d walk away right now and never look back once. I\'ve never had such an unreliable piece of sh!t in my entire life, and that includes £200 Fiat 127s!

[leon]

As much as youd walk away you would soon get bored. These cars are somthing special and as a friend said they are definatly an enthusiasts one. I\'m already dreading the sale i will have to potentialy go through when i buy a house

Rotaryguru: Your right :o

I dont think there is much you can check with the airpump other than it has the power connected, usualy you can hear and see it click in and out when your under the bonnet and rev the engine.

The good thing is airpumps should be EVERYWHERE! and cheap to  get too as people often take them off their cars.

[Nik da Greek]

Yeah, it\'s weird! I spent about two hours wading through thread after thread via the search function last night (most of which just randomly contained the words "air" and "pump" in totally separate contexts three pages apart, grrr!). Many, many threads about what to do when you delete the airpump. None at all about how to fix/test one, though. Am I the only muppet who still has one of the damn things? Particularly ironic that it doesn\'t work, then!
 
You\'re all right, of course, I don\'t really want rid of it, I just want it to work! I know I\'d always regret it if I did have to let it go. And I know it\'s a performance car, and an old one at that, and things go wrong, but honestly this particular one has a curse from Satan himself on it!
 
Don\'t envy you trying to get on the property ladder just now, dude, especially if you have to flog your pride and joy to do it. House prices are just stupid atm.

[Jit]

have you thought about deleting the air pump Nik? and maybe taking it to an MOT test who...knows how to set thecar up so that itll pass emmissions?....
Maybe your mot tested equipment is "faulty"?

[Nik da Greek]

Dunno that even the tamest of MOT testers would be willing to ignore double the limit on emissions, dude. Hard to set it up when it\'s on the standard ecu. I don\'t know where I\'d be able to get much adjustability to the mixture without a programmable ecu to furkle with. Unless anyone knows better?
 
Just come in from the garage after getting halfway through putting the pop-ups back in (one done). Damn, if it ain\'t a lot harder than takin\' them out! They obviously adjust through three planes, so getting them to sit back in the right place is certainly a lot less fun than ******g a monkey! I\'m actually quite liking the look again, though. Never did like the bugeye ebaytastic lights so much on the red FD, they blended in a lot better on the Montego blue one. So it\'s not all bad news! See, optimism!

[leon]

What year is your car? Get your airpump running right and id say push some injector cleaner through as well, oh and give it a good run there are some threads from people on tips on how to get the car through the test emmisions wise. i run a knight sports ecu and it ran pig ritch at idle so if i can get through with that yous hould with standard. :wiggle

[SiH]

I\'ve got an air pump i don\'t need dude, cover the postage and it\'s yours. Bit of a pain as I\'m in Sussex this weekend but didn\'t bring it down!

[Nik da Greek]

Thanks again, guys, for all the words of wisdom. I still don\'t understand why the airpump won\'t run. The fuse is intact (I understand it\'s on the same one as the aircon) the relay clearly works cos the clutch fires on the ignition, it just won\'t run when the engines running. No comprende, how can this be?
 
Leon, the car\'s a \'92. Can\'t give it a run. No MOT. Had a wek left to run, in the old days that\'d have been ok cos I could\'ve blagged it witht the old certificate if I was pulled, but it\'s all centralised on computer now. All a rozzer\'s got to do is put my reg number into his black box and I\'m bang to rights, and a lot poorer! I can only drive it to a pre-arranged MOT retest. The way my luck\'s been I don\'t dare risk anything else!
 
SiH, thanks for the offer, chap. I\'m going to try to get my tame mechanic to have a look at it on Monday, cos it\'s obvious I\'ve no clue what to do next. If it turns out the pump\'s knackered, I\'ll take you up on that kind offer.
 
Plus point, at least I\'ve refitted the pop-ups and re-wired them ok. The wiring hasn\'t caught fire yet, so hopefully job\'s a good one. Not so chuffed about the chip of paint one took out of the bonnet when I tried the motor before aligning the headlight cage properly. Doh! Never thought the motor\'d have that much clout!
 
Next job is to wind up the coilovers so \'kin tight there\'s no way the springs\'ll move when the tester bas!ard waggles them. Should be a nice comfy ride quality like that!

[Nik da Greek]

Bit of an update to my tale of woe! I managed to convince my mechanic to have a go at getting the car through the MOT whatever it took (ie bodge it!) cos at least then I could use it and it\'d give me the luxury of time to get it sorted properly.
 
He is an exceptional mechanic, utterly concientious and does fantastic work, but unfortunately, not an RX7 expert, which is a shame. It means he doesn\'t have the right data to work from, which makes everything more tricky. However, he got the airpump working. It turns out that the driver for it in the ECU has burnt out (apparently this is fairly common, weird, I thought I was the only one who still had a $%*!ing airpump). You can basically frig the pump to run permanently by grounding it out (which is all the ECU driver does anyway) which obviously would be a very bad idea for regular use, but sufficient to get two miles up the road and through an MOT retest.
 
Well, it still put out well over 4% CO, which made the whole exercise rather bloody redundant. On further investigation, the Lambda sensor says the car\'s running well rich, which it clearly is (rather than the O2 sensor being duff, that is). Arse!
 
I\'ve had enough of titting about trying to wallpaper over the cracks, so it\'s gone back to Super 7. I\'m going to do what I should have done long ago, which is get an Apexi ECU put in it and map the bloody thing properly so it should never be an issue again. Ha! We\'ll see about that!
 
The other good news is that the firm that "refurbished" my wheels have grudgingly agreed to get them sorted, so hopefully that\'s one less thing to worry about. And it\'s not like I need wheels when I can\'t drive the car anyway! Now all I need is to find an insurance company who don\'t feel justified in raising my premium by over £200 above what it was last year for no reason whatsoever, and I might just start feeling positive about Satan\'s RX-7 again!

[Jimjitsu]

Sorry to hear about all the problems there bud it will work it self out in the end as for the wheels ditch the lacquer thats what i did with me rz rims they look much better all you gotta do is autosol them and wax them after i can show you some pics of mine if you like much better shine than with lacquer