My Rex rebuild

[mikey-t]

some of my images are broken due t photobucket not being intelligent when i organised them, sorry

let the fun commence!

my stupid expensive wheel dollies doing there thing and moving the car into position to get it out the factory



hired a car and 18ft low level car trailer ready for the drive down to london and started packaging parts inside that the garage might need.

now i just need to get hold of a shit ton of money

[mikey-t]

car packed up and ready to go down to london friday, but first we have to take the wall down and try to do a million point turn on the dollies to get through to the outside.




got me a big 4x4 and a 18ft tilting trailer with winch so that should make it easier

[mikey-t]

So yesterday this happened, found a place in the West Midlands that got me a 4x4 a 18ft tilt bed trailer and insurance for £150 over a day and a half. Bargain I think.

So the wall came out lovely and quick ( I didn't put it back up right after I got the car in)




Soooo had loaded the car and got it out into the workshop car park, went to lock it up so I could go get the car and trailer from the depot and *thump* the lock barrel just pushed through the handle.

Looks like someone had just plastic cement the lock barrel to the handle from the inside. No clip holding the barrel in and my car has no lock on the passenger side,( previous owner had smoothed the handle) so now my car was outside with about 3 grands worth of parts on show alone while I had to go get the trailer.

Come back and the car was all still there, ( I think the thieving oiks round here get suspicious to things that are too good to be true) and spent forever loading her up on my own.




After a fairly interesting drive through high winds and such I finally got to redline motorsport / fc tuning and had a long talk with the boys there and had a nose at some of there other projects.

I am impressed at there work rate and knowledge and happy with my choice.

They have done me a favour letting me take the car down there as they are fully booked up right now but as you know I'm straight outa time.

Got back home to find parts had arrived that the boys at redline need bloody typical, can deal with that another day anyway.

So that's me finished last night at about 9 and then jumped straight in the truck and off out on tour.
I will give you updates as and when they come. The car is scheduled to be worked on in February.

My dm goodies big thanks to dan for sorting that out




And this will be my new power steering cooler, just a hollow tube but a massive amount of surface area with those heat sink style fins




See you soon my poor baby

[mikey-t]

so my silly expensive wheel dollies are now for sale, as has been said earlier in the thread ifty has first refusal, if they are still here in april colum gets them but for now ifty isnt answering his phone so there up for sale collection only from redditch. i paid £260 plus shipping which is cheap if you look around



so having been used once i think £190 collected from redditch is fair. im in no desperate need to sell these but if they will help someone out id rather them go to said person.

i will be selling these and replacing them with a nice sgs low entry jack, got to say the kit they knock out for the prices they do is proper.

no updates on the car yet as the guys are uber busy down in the garage and i have been touring non stop trying to keep the mrs happy, she is talking mortgages now so work is a priority (mainly so i dont have to hear her natter on about "oooh this house is nice")

[mikey-t]

Looks like the car maybe ready for a little of show season, just got off the phone with the guys and there work is slowing down now so once Easter is out the way and they have installed some new ramps etc it's time to crack on with mine.

Getting a full run down of what will be done and costs in the next day or two but I estimate maybe 30-40 hours work max. Including the breaking in etc.

I have requested that once running they put a few road miles on her for actual resistance and shakedown kind of tests and then do a overnighter rolling road break in.

Even typing this my bank balance is crying, this will cost me big time

[mikey-t]

so i finally have a day off and no car to work on but i do have bits so went on a cleaning rampage today and decided to do the rx8 into rx7 starter motor job, no idea if it works as i have no way of testing it but it looks good










yummy




looks a bit like a sting ray




cleannnnnnn






no wonder this one was slow, full of thick grease that had got wet and congealed



job done

[mikey-t]

as i still have no car and finally have a day off i dragged the mrs down to the unit to help me assemble and seal my split rims , tidy up the kick plates and i started plotting speaker mounts in the doors and rebuilding a strong parcel shelf. also had to try and mock up some new air valves that would fit the dish of the rim









she is gonna be PISSED when she opens the safe next

[mikey-t]

Back at work now but before I did come back I did a bit more, got the wheels all buttoned up apart from one where I am missing 10 nut and bolts. I was sure I counted them when I got them but hey ho, that's another order from Germany and they only do multiples of 50 "le sigh"

I also got hold of a parcel shelf as mine was missing unfortunately it was a Bose model, this wasn't to much of a issue as I always planned on re-lining it to a blacker thicker material.

So as the shelf was rather flimsy I lines it with some board on the top and covered it in a foam to give it a softer touch. I may also add some weight / deadening to keep it from resonating in the future.

This is how far I got










I was going to emboss a design on it or install vinyl covered sections but I think the subtle route is better

[mikey-t]

soooo
continued on with the parcel shelf covering, obviously i am no master trimmer, the cuts and glueing are awful but from a distance and from the top it looks good








and because I'm a bit of a tart and have a purple thing going on i replaced the nasty looking black strings to lift it with purple braided leather






got the tyres sorted and wheels bolted up and then had a nightmare
no one was willing to touch them as they were scared of damaging them and had issues with the valve placement





i had replaced the valves with what i thought where the same ones but they were not the valve bolts on the inside and there is quite a length of excess which the bead would not be able to get over. that is more of a problem as the tyres have to be mounted on the wheels backwards due to the face lip being 18" which will not work obviously.



after 6 hours and hitting up all the tyre shops i found a guy who would try. it was a bit of a ball ache but we got it sorted once he got his head round reverse mounting and directional tread.

[mikey-t]

so looking at my wheels today i have realised that the colour match is actually awfull and there is not a lot i can do about it.
this leaves me with a problem do i leave it as is and deal with it, try find a colour match and paint it or paint the centres black???

most of this is down to the flash on the camera




also have a few of the black chrome bolts left over if anyone is doing anything similar



also started planning my audio build and the rx7 doors are horrific for this so  i started building block off panels for the big holes, i will insert threaded rivnuts to make them removable and sound deaden the back of them when i get the car back and have a better handed template







bit of a test panel but yeah it worked well ,will obviously trim it all up and maybe use more layers on the actual piece, the contours have all caught well and should be a good seal with a bit of dry silicone as a buffer.

[mikey-t]

Not been so busy this week apart from spending silly money on parts, got water injection sorted . My rad caps have finally arrived, my mechanics have been keeping in touch with bits and bobs and I just ordered a set of coilovers off Patrick at quantum racing suspension.

I think I should rest my bank account for a little while now

[mikey-t]

right as ever no real progress as i have been away and its all in the hands of a rather busy mechanic but i did come home from months of touring to parcels.


uber expensive but awesome cool zilla gear knob



thanks to matt p got myself a water injection kit. missing a tank and controller but bargain price, plus my ecu can control it as standard and i would have got me a diffrent tank anyway





new tank and many litres of water meth mix





send me all your stickers im going to cover this thing

[clive]

Ah ha, so does this kit mean your looking for serious boost then ,

Keep the pictures coming , great detailed build 

[mikey-t]

I wasn't going to at first but the project seems to keep progressing! I am now buying parts to future proof my build also

[mikey-t]

so my mate who constantly mocks me for having a jackstand car popped round last night and got my car building urges going again,

he owns a toyota mr2 that looks like dog dirt has been painted with a roller and blackboard paint and is half inch thick with quarry dust, BUT the money he does spend all goes into the workings, probably the best set up car i have ever been in, no boy racer mods just improves lightly on the factory research and development, standard sized wheels etc. maybe a bit more power at 400+


ANYWAY a challenge has been set so even more upgrades for the car

big thanks to tom today great seeing another enthusiast locally, sorted myself out with yet another bumper / splitter . spats etc and a couple of other things...


hopefully once i have finished this tour the car should be nearly done, if not a few local guys have volunteered and i now have the money together to see some specialists so yeah exciting times. watch this space








think i will mount this externally somehow but thats way in the future, will get it running first