Rebuilding XLJ181X slowly

[Casey]

Well done! Another couple of steps forward in getting your car properly sorted

[RX7Mazdaman]

So ... the story continues. The last outing for the car, months ago now , has turned into an expensive task.

Only drove a few miles, then clouds of smoke from the engine bay, decided it was not coolant but brake related. Sent off the calipers to be refurbished by BCS as I had used them before on my RX7 convertible and they did a good job that time. This time very expensive and took a long time as they had to get rebuild kits from the USA.

Finally got the calipers on the car, I couldn't get the handbrake to work right, so took it to my local garage, they have diagnosed one of the rear calipers as leaking and even after that, they still cannot get the handbrake mechanism to work correctly - does anyone have "working" 2nd hand rear calipers for a FB (series 1/2) they would like to sell to me ?

I plan to argue / send the rear calipers back to BCS to resolve , but would be nice to fit a known working set to the car to confirm nothing else wrong in the cable / handbrake mechanism. I have tried RX Motors and they don't have any.

Whilst doing this, I worked out the loud clunk I used to get when going over bumps - one of the rear bump-stops must have disintegrated in the past and two lots of replacement springs / shocks fitted to the car in the last few years to fix the issue and those people had not noticed it was missing. Had to buy some powerflex generic ones that are nearly correct and fitted to the car - now the loud clunk has gone ! I did not find any online for Mazda original bump-stops apart from eBay USA 2nd hand , which seemed a bit stupid as they would be just as likely to fall apart based on age.

Oh and whilst I was doing this, there was a loud clunk from the clutch and the pedal flew to the floor. On investigation the clutch slave pin had gone through the metal plate it pushes on and clutch fluid everywhere. Turns out a few months ago I replaced this slave unit from eBay and it has cracked on the rim where the rubber boot slots in, piercing the rubber boot and is now useless. Replacement ordered from racing-beat Europe, which the bleed nipple leaked on, swapped nipple from old slave and that's now sorted.

Oh and finally, the radiator still leaks from the lower hose joint, no matter what I try, so I will be fitting a race radiator that I bought from Mazdatrix a few years ago and hope that it will do the job.

My love for the RX7 is still there, just a bit jaded at the moment.

[RX7Mazdaman]

So after reaching out to many UK places I know and getting no success on finding RX7 FB rear calipers. I have ordered two 2nd hand ones from Canada (Riggs Vintage Mazda) - I hope they work and then I can return the ones I had refurbished by BCS to them to 'fix'

Ok, I will have a spare set at the end of the work that will be rough, but if it gets the car back working, it's only money into the pit.

Oh and the Mazdatrix race radiator I fitted, when I added coolant, has a hole in it, so that needs a bit of welding this weekend. Is the car trying to tell me something ? Oh and don't believe that it will just be a straight, fit the end brackets need a bit of sculpting and drilling to fit.

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[gt_james]

I have the same rad, mine was leak free, but did do some simple fettling to fit.