My Rex rebuild

[re japi]

Looking good! 

[mikey-t]

Postie has been today, just need to sort out some top mounts from somewhere, so far dealers are a no go, secondhand all look very worn and even normal suppliers are dry. Anyone else running a similar set up or know where to source new / good pattern top mounts

[mikey-t]

So at 01:30 am this very day my engine turned over and fired for the first time in nearly 3 years!
After a couple of turns to check pressures et. It fired right up and for somethin that has been sat freshly rebuilt for 3 years it sounded great, so happy right now

[boosted]

Sweet!

[mikey-t]

Lots of noise and smoke made mikey very happy
Getting back at home at 4am with no car still makes me less happy

[clive]

Argggggggggggg, what happend 

[mikey-t]

garage staff undertaking a bit more than they can chew, lack of communication, leaky braided lines, exploding oil sandwich plates you name it we had it,


BUT
my engine builder is a god, started first time after sitting for 3 years, sounded great , the haltech took to it very quickly and my god does it sund like its got compression!

[boosted]

Youve come this far bud....just a bit more patience. Give the garage a few more days to iron out any niggles...you dont want to be finding them on drive home!
The end is nigh though! Welldone!

[mikey-t]

been a week from hell with this bloody car, i know all projects suffer at the final stages but this is ridiculous. it has got me so down right now. i will run this post in order though

so the deadline was approaching and the guys had got nowehere near where i wanted the car to be at so i was ready to just go and get it as i was getting fed up and nice shiny parts where arriving, anyway i went down there and we fired the engine, bang on first time all sweet and lovely but there was just too many niggly items left to do that prevented me bringing it back so we agreed i would return 2 days later.

all that had to be done was a brake bleed, replace a blown slave cylinder and a base map , good to go



new toys arriving










few pipes being made up in hard pipe etc





new filler from TGS with solid hard pipe to rad



then the oil sandwich plate failed as did every single fuel line so they all got replaced for the 3rd time

and it was idling, running etc etc base map loaded all the failsafes set so we didnt break anything and then continued assembly

http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v479/cruisemidlands/mazda%20rx7/09BCE398-529B-434C-AD04-B6AF3584A3B3_zpsqyveq5vo.mp4


http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v479/cruisemidlands/mazda%20rx7/AAC6A194-4E6C-4A86-AF30-11B82D80F40A_zpssqbap190.mp4

leaks and pressure tests in progress etc etc


springs arrived and could fully assemble my new suspension so that made me happy again





and she looked and sounded beautiful went through the gears on the ramp clutch was good, gears all good but still only half the rad was getting hot and it seemed like no flow, no leaks loads of pressure, didnt make sense so we spent ages burping it,

nothing, discovered the brand new thermostat was junk so we got rid just for testing purposes and was still having the same problem , spent hours burping the car and was getting air all the time but seemed to just be going in circles. checked the rad to make sure it wasnt blocked, blew through the top tube water came flying out the bottom, so no problem there, same with bottom tube to water housing no blockage, just no flow,

the water pump pulley is spinning just fine, and is fitted with a underdrive belt and pulley system so maybe throught it was under / over speeding but would expect some flow at least,

i know the water pump blades are metal on these so now i am totally clueless as to what it could be i have set up another topic on the subject and everyone seems to be saying the same, air lock but we burped it for hours, just makes no sense to me,

oh and the engine is still running fine, plugs are dry coolant is clean, if anything the only issue we have is flooding the plugs due to constant starting and stopping to keep temps sensible.


so yeah i have no fricking idea right now

[mikey-t]

ok since i have been home and trying to take my mind off my car attempting to boil itself i have started playing around with my new in car multimedia set up,

received my new mini itx case, with quad core processor and a basic set up, also installed a solid state drive to ensure vibration doesnt kill it and a in car power supply which senses ignition, waits 2 seconds then boots, full windows boot up is sub 10 seconds.

it will power the pc as normal but when the ignition is turned off the system will shut down safely, i can program the power supply to either full shut down and power cut or hibernate making a quick resume easier on short trips.




did a quick mock up with a normal psu and vga cable and loaded all my haltech software onto it and some media playing software. tested the screen on my tivo box with hdmi and it looked incredible. obviously resolutions have to be played with here




now the screen itself can run on anything from 3v to 24v and is fitted with a dc jack but i want the screen to turn on and auto sense source with the computer so found a power supply set up on the control board but could not find a connector to suit for love nor money so in the end i quickly knocked one up. i will obviously make this lead properly when fitted but its just a standard USB lead positive and negative into a 4 pin connector with 2 pins stripped out. a stable 5v on system power up.


monitor control board has this handy power in





the cable i quickly knocked up

[mikey-t]

sooooo
those who go on the fduk facebook page know that i went down south and got my car back this week.
i wasnt happy with the progress being made, costs were spiralling and to be honest the work was piss poor.

i got them to get it to a state where it was able to drive and i got it back.

i have had a quick look round and there is a variety of horrors to put right, but right now i am still having problems with the cooling and the alternator. t

the alternator is properly fudged so thats being rebuilt hopefully tomorrow.

what isnt helping is a half dead battery in the morning and a base map that is already very tough to start the car on from cold anyway, this makes for lots of whirring starters, swearing and gun shot style backfires for my lovely neighbours,

as for the coolant, at first the angle of the belt was too shallow and wasnt getting much purchase and then when it did it was just sliding on a smooth pulley so i put the old underdrive back on.



you can see here how shallow it is and the cuts i had to try and put in to get it home


after a short while of traditional bleeding from the old throttle body coolant line we had a car responding as you would expect, temp was rising, thermostat opening and fans cooling and repeat.

it all worked well for a day and then a small traffic jam brought it back again.

same again top up the water squeeze some pipes get a bit of air and tp up again.

luckily i had some pulleys hanging around, so the dm underdrive went back on



trouble is we are just chasing it round. after a bit of advice off facebook we have come to the conclusion that the rad definitely needs a bleed valve. i was going to tap one in today but after looking at the rad the skin looks a little too thin to do this so now i am left with very little choice.
the only option i think i have is finding someone who can tig weld ali and get them to weld a boss on drill it to make a nice bleed hole and run it to the ast . or i could cut a thread in the welded boss and install a ali bleed screw.

finding a local ali welder is proving to be a bit of a challenge at the moment.

i know its all to be expected on a modified rebuild, shaking down the engine and curing the problems but i just dont seem to be catching a break with this car. one thing after another.

[boosted]

Could you get a solid pipe with a bleed into the top rad hose? But ideally need to sort the cause not the symptom.  Ive seen this rad fittings in Demon Tweeks cat.

[mikey-t]

i thought about that but i think it would still be lower than the top of the rad due to the top hose aiming down. the other thing i contemplated was one of these lol,...
http://www.easibleed.co.uk/video/4572089443
in all seriousness though i dont think that would have a fine enough thread or enough material to grab onto

[boosted]

Not sure mate....Clive a few threads back suggested swapping out the tgs filler. I think i would be trying this or at least giving them a call. Your not getting enough flow and/or aerating water. Fitting a bleed on top of the rad that you open to atmosphere will be a pain as youll continually be bleeding it....other option is a small 8mm hose tail welded on top of rad hose to filler again with a 8mm tail welded on...rad would self bleed then. But it shouldnt be doing so im more incline to treat the cause not the system.....that filler looks suspect no1 to me.

[mikey-t]

I think I have found the problem and either I'm being very stupid and it's right or the guy who assembled it is very stupid.

Bear with me.

So the rad has no bleed, that's an issue and it will be sorted BUT I have a tgs ast delete filler, that is perfect except the mechanic routed a hose from it to the factory plastic expansion tank, lovely I thought until I looked at the cap. It's a 0.9 bar rad cap. Surely for this to work the water expands, and pushes out down to the expansion tank past this cap, but it will not draw back in due to the cap closing when pressures released.

So in theory if I got rid of the pressure cap,filled the filler bled it and then put a flat seal filler cap on the ast delete that would seal allow expansion and contraction into the expansion tank and bleed off air into the expansion tank separating it from the system??

Or am I being incredibly stupid