1983 RX7 S2 - Flo

[Tepper]

love that in tank setup.. shouldve went that route.. only reason I wont is budget is too tight now... haha

looking good

Thanks! I got a good deal on the kit and I figured by the time I'd bought the fuel pump, swirl pot, plumbing and factored in any fabrication time I wouldn't be far off the cost of the kit. Having said that, my fabrication skills aren't up to much so if you know what you're doing I'm sure you could come up with a cheaper solution.

Stereo mods are something that I quite enjoy, I think it's nice to be able to keep an original or period head unit. Here's a write-up I did for adding an AUX jack to the OE radio in a Peugeot 309: http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/201 ... tte-player

If this Hitachi mod turns out well I might keep an eye out for similar units and offer them for sale if there's any interest?

The Hitachi might be for sale anyway, probably won't be able to hear it given what's arrived today:

[Tepper]

New front to rear brake line fitted today and made a start on the fuel lines:

[DWNUNDR]

nice.. working on the fuel line myself tomorrow...

[Tepper]

The flying beetle has clearly gotten a few ideas from a certain Disney film...

Not a huge amount of progress to report, just a few bits and pieces.

Fuel tank straps and front suspension arms painted:


Most of the box sections have been treated with Bilt Hamber S50 cavity wax, waiting on another delivery to get it finished:


Remember a while back when I said there was no significant rust on this car? Err... yeah, about that. I noticed a little bit in the rear inner arches so started prodding. Before I knew it, holes had appeared. Balls. I figured I may as well get it sorted before it gets any worse, so here goes:

Spot welds being drilled out of support plate:


Underneath the plate:


The rear of the strengthening plate - not sure if this can/should be repaired or if I should make a new piece:


And the other side:


By all accounts this doesn't look too bad compared to most, I think I'm lucky to have caught it early. In terms of the repair, I think I'll probably end up cutting out most of the area underneath the plate, seam weld around the sides of the patch then replicate the original spot welds to hold the support plate with weld-through primer between the layers. Does this sound like the right way to go about it? Should I use seam sealer around the support plate to keep the moisture out? Any advice would be much appreciated as this is the first time I've tackled something like this.

[spirit r]

sprayed some würth body sealing compound and built the rusty part new.

SV100199.JPG (115.22 KiB) Viewed 7930 times

[ian65]

Fairly typical rot there Will..... when you put the reinforcing plate back on you will have to seam weld that all around as well even though it was only spot welded from the factory.... anything within 300mm of a mounting point ( suspension arm, subframe etc etc) needs to be seam welded to pass a mot. Anything outside of the 300mm limit I prefer to plug weld as it then replicates the original spot welds.
Looking at your plates I'd just make a new pair out of some heavier gauge steel.

[codge]

Pics of our repair.....done some years back by a professional.
Sorry but I don't know detail of exactly what he did. (It's passed MOT's for about 10 years).

Hope that helps
Dave

[Tepper]

Good point Ian, I hadn't thought about that. What gauge steel would you recommend? Thanks for the pictures Spirit & Codge, useful stuff

[Hobbawobba]

I recently done this job. I believe I used 1.2mm steel aye. It seemed slightly thicker than the standard stuff. Roughly replicated the OEM plate and seam welded it

Nice job on the cavity wax aye. I should get something like this done also aye

[Tepper]

Thanks Hobbawobba, will have to see where I can lay my grubby mitts on some 1.2mm steel.

The exhaust manifold and wastegate arrived yesterday from Aus and I couldn't resist giving it a trial fit:




It fits! For some reason the holes on the manifold flange don't line up with the holes on the turbo - they're both supposed to be T4? May have to slot the holes a little bit unless I can figure something else out.

Clearance on the downpipe is going to be tight!




I was going to use a 6 bolt to V band adapter for the downpipe but may have to look at welding a V band flange directly to the turbo housing due to the lack of space. Also finished the cavity wax and got the front crossmember bolted back up ready to start getting the front end back together.