Bear's bangers: Insight gets GAZ'd for spring. Well, shocks. Bonus blue content.

[Bear]

Hello, code... IMA having a sulk after the plugs were changed. Mystery, but I thought perhaps the 12V battery was a bit low as it was below 12V when idling.

But with the little worn out sticker from the long-washed-off supagard paint product removed... it does look tidier at the back.

The battery reminded me I'd planned on fitting Ctek pigtails. Which entails removing the battery terminals.

Which resets the battery management.

Which meant that when I started it after reconnecting the battery, it idled for a few minutes and recalibrated the SoC meter. No IMA error.

We'll see how long it behaves, but it's been fine for ages and it really does sound happier with the new plugs.

Next: rear dampers.

[Bear]

Warmish weather! Plus wind which is good for drying...

Now I'd actually gone outside to check what bits to order next...

I mean apart from a wire brush and some rust treatment.

The coils look okay but those are old dampers. The bump stops also look reasonably intact.

This is what I wanted to know.

Because now there is a pair of custom Gaz adjustable dampers on the way, two for less than one genuine and NLA part from Japan.

I'll also get a rubber before getting too involved.

[Bear]

It's warm, it's sunny! It's time to take the Insight's skirts off!

 

[Bear]

I have to say, I'm a fan of aluminium bodywork...

Drain, then charge...

But, I do wonder - am I missing undertrays?

Even the steering linkages and inner wings clean up well.

[Bear]

I googled.

There are supposed to be undertrays.

Now I need to find some.

JOY.

[Asimo]

On 22/02/2025 at 18:01, RichardK said:

I have to say, I'm a fan of aluminium bodywork

Yep, owning an Insight spoiled me and I can't bring myself to buy another water-soluble car.

Not whilst living in this salted mud-wallow anyway.

[Bear]

Apparently the DVLA are awake.

I wonder when the logbook will arrive though...

[Bear]

Decided to do some Mazda bits. I figure if I remove a piece every so often eventually I'll have got to the thermostat housing and might forget where everything went.

Intercooler out, the degas tank has been given a bath.

Urgh, lots of crud. It will clean up.

This crossbeam will get removed, de-rusted and painted.

I can almost see how to get to it! Perhaps a few more pieces need to be removed first.

We're still a long way from the engine itself.

Speaking of engines, this car visited a specialist in 2008ish for some work because it had lots of misfire/fuelling type issues.

Those are probably not related to the coolant loss that put it off the road, I am waiting to see the paperwork but it had the issues before and after visiting the specialist.

Nearly every hose or pipe I have touched has been strong and alright condition. I've yet to investigate the notoriously awkward solenoid and vacuum hoses, but while working out routes of parts I spotted something.

That is the brake booster. The split is ahead of the one-way valve. Now, yes, this hose could degrade in the time it was in the garage parked up but /nothing else seems to have done so/.

This hose looks absolutely done for and basically crumbled apart. I can easily imagine that in 2008 it may not have looked quite as bad, but was starting to split and perish, and it sure as hell isn't a new part changed around the time of trying to diagnose the running - it would probably be one of my first things to check when diagnosing poor running alongside gaskets and vacuum pipes...

I wonder if I've found the problem it had all those years ago. Either way, it has a new one on the way - once I have the thermostat replaced and have flushed the cooling system out, I'm going to squirt some mineral oil in the plug holes and turn it over by hand, then if that feels like it was smooth, free of anything worrying, I'll see if I can make it run... The problem with this model of RX-7 is that just taking the air cleaner and intake off is a hugely involved load of things to deal with and I suspect trying to start it without those parts is a really dumb idea.

And these arrived:

I should get an air filter too but the genuine one seems expensive, so I'll check what condition it is.

Gutted that the oil is not green.

[Zelandeth]

That hose on the brake booster makes me wonder if the servo has failed.  Brake fluid will *very* quickly attack and cause the vast majority of types of rubber to disintegrate.  The hose on my P4 which had been exposed to it turned essentially to powder within a few months of the brake booster failing and allowing it to be drawn through that hose into the engine.

[Bear]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

That hose on the brake booster makes me wonder if the servo has failed.  Brake fluid will *very* quickly attack and cause the vast majority of types of rubber to disintegrate.  The hose on my P4 which had been exposed to it turned essentially to powder within a few months of the brake booster failing and allowing it to be drawn through that hose into the engine.

Good point, but the fluid levels seem alright and the metal/painted areas would show more damage I'd have thought? And it's degraded more on the other side of the one-way valve. But I'll check it anyway, the car's going to be fairly comprehensively gone over one way or another.

[Zelandeth]

Odd.  Wonder if someone has fitted a non fuel rated hose there and the petrol vapour has just got to it then.  Or it just happened to be from a batch of more crap rubber than the rest... we'll probably never know!

[Bear]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Odd.  Wonder if someone has fitted a non fuel rated hose there and the petrol vapour has just got to it then.  Or it just happened to be from a batch of more crap rubber than the rest... we'll probably never know!

I honestly think it's the original part and was failing when it was 14 years old, which is entirely reasonable, but the specialists never spotted it. The engine hasn't turned over, moved fluids or made vacuum since 2008, after all.

I'm looking forward to putting the new one on!

[Bear]

Postie has been

Old one off

New one waiting

This also got something

NOS genuine mats. Polishing a turd,  but... it helps.

How do you say Fiat in Hungarian Japanese?

Looking at bits that have to come off to do the clutch if needed

Ah, cable ties. Should the subframe really be like that?

I guess it should!

Sunny day means cleaning and prep for rustproofing as well.

[Bear]

Two former owners (plus the chap I got it from who had it a month). 98,000 miles. 2009, Four wheel drive.

It's mad that these are worth so little as they're a really clever 4.1m long 4x4. The 1.6 petrol has a timing chain and on mine sounds smooth, the suspension is pretty good for ratty roads, and the visibility isn't bad given the big windows. You sit a bit low.

It is starting to look like a car you wouldn't think twice about replacing a clutch on.

Very pleased to be rid of the old-fashioned, wrong-size wipers. The passenger side is a comedy 13" next to the driver's side 26"

Look at the wheel/wheelarch/window line ratio and proportions and tell me this isn't a better design than the Ford Ecosport or the smaller Hyundai and Kia crossovers...

Of course elsewhere in the world the Sedici and the SX4 were pretty popular.

[Bear]

What would you make of this?

The gunk in the thermostat housing felt like jelly. Not oily. After so many years maybe oil smells would dissipate, but the inside of the water passage on the engine side was water and rust smelling. It wiped off easily.

Now I could be deluding myself hopefully, but the thermostat housing was full of this jelly crap and crucially, the degas part was so blocked with a jump of orange-tinged jelly that I had to run a needle file down it and flush it through a lot. I also note some silicone seal and a re-used thermostat gasket, suggesting when the car was worked on for the turbo/misfire issues suspected they popped what was on it back and... topped up the coolant 😕

[Zelandeth]

Looks like what ancient antifreeze often turns into if left sitting for long periods to me.

[Bear]

A productive day!

Started by cleaning a drain in the yard that's been blocked for ages. It's a sharp bend and goes up, I'd tried many things but in the end, the solution was a Karcher wet vac and a pressure washer. Wet vac the rocks and crap out, pressure wash, wait for more to flush down from the pipe, vacuum, repeat.

Now with a functional drain, I thought it was safe to wheel the RX-7's nose out of the garage and put water through it.

Every smallish pipe was blocked. The heater matrix pipes were clogged - I have no idea if the matrix is flowing yet, but the pipes were just full of old antifreeze and jelly.

Even the T-piece on the water pump outlet needed a pipe cleaner taking to it to clear the way.

But I did it. I got the radiator flowing clean water in both directions (I don't assume it's by any means /good/, but it isn't blocked), I got the heater pipes flowing, I got the water pump turning without noises or resistance, and I got the expansion tank and return pipes clear and flowing.

The water running out was a bit brown on first flush, the deposits mostly cleared easily, but crucially I did not see oil sheen. Anywhere. Just manky coolant (interestingly the rad coolant was slightly green, the rest, is OAT. AFAIK the Mazda should have OAT).

I ran water through it for ages, I've probably paid for a water company director's lunch. And then I checked the oil.

The oil is unchanged.

Then I got brave. I very gently tried turning the engine. Very carefully. It turned without problem. I heard it breathe a bit. I turned it a bit more. Yep. There's some compression (not sure a 19mm ratchet is any measure of compression, particularly as rotary engines need to be spinning fast to 'breathe' and get a good reading). There are no horrible noises. The alternator turns. The things still on a belt turned. Nothing broke. I put it in reverse gear and moved it back into place by turning the engine (there's no battery so everything's off anyway). It moved.

I'm going to change the oil and filter, put a new thermostat in and some coolant flush, and some fresh petrol. And then I'm going to try starting it. Next week I think.

[yes oui si]

Really want to hear this go brap

Fingers, toes and cocks crossed. 

[Zelandeth]

20 minutes ago, RichardK said:

... (interestingly the rad coolant was slightly green, the rest, is OAT. AFAIK the Mazda should have OAT).

 

There is likely the reason for the jelly then.  If someone has mixed coolant types that's one of the ways they can react with each other, and why it's important to thoroughly flush the system if you are switching.

[Bear]

2 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

There is likely the reason for the jelly then.  If someone has mixed coolant types that's one of the ways they can react with each other, and why it's important to thoroughly flush the system if you are switching.

Yep, that's been my assumption and why I noticed it, but I have never encountered mixed-coolant mess before – I've dealt with old dry coolant, blown head gasket coolant, but not 'mixed, dumped the coolant, parked up for 15 years', so I really WANTED it to be the mixed coolant and not, say, a quirk of rotary head-gasket-like failure.

But the blocked degas pipe with a lump of jelly in made me feel confident of the issue, the blocked heater matrix pipes and the fact that the old thermostat gasket had been reused with some silicone seal (I can't wait to get the invoices and history for this car), and that pipe has to come off to work on turbo pipes and things... I have a very strong suspicion the last visit to the specialist it had to cure the occasional poor running (which I am really feeling is going to have been a perished booster hose) and diagnosed (well, billed) as all manner of work, was when it was topped up with the wrong stuff and inevitably died not long after.

[Bear]

[Bear]

With the Sedici slipping and the HR-V gone, the Boxster is on daily driver duty.

Or is that faily driver.

Maybe it's just because the weather got dry enough to spot it weeing from the wheelarch after a drive, because that stain says it was probably dripping coolant very slowly all winter.

Bugger.

It has chosen evil. £80 seems like a waste of money right now but I'm tempted to swap plates.

So I am relying on the Insight. At this rate I'll probably end up MOTing the RX-7 if the coolant stays in.

Though, the Insight is not exactly a punishment. Need to sell some stuff though, expect many roffles. Wonder if anyone needs a 420W solar panel and 3kWh battery with 3kW inverter system.

[Bear]

Making some progress on Rip Van Wankel

Removing the old engine oil in anticipation of trying a startup

Making some space to take wheels off and clean up the brakes (before it goes back on the road I'll change the flexy hoses and brake & clutch fluid, this is more about working out if I should save time and order rebuilt calipers as well as discs and pads, then I only need to worry about the join to the hard brake lines).

Then I need to deal with:

Crusty area on offside inner wing

With daylight visible on one lower edge of the strut tower. It's not an easy bit to get to.

And then the historic London bus or bollard bump.

[Bear]

Well that's cleaning up nicely, and just the right time to clean the loose rustproof paint off the rear of the inner sill before it traps stuff and makes it worse...

Wheels clean up nicely, this is not even properly done.

[bangernomics]

Total garage envy in several ways.

[Jazoli]

Who is bear and why have you changed your username Richard(k?)

RX7 looks fab.

[Bear]

8 minutes ago, Jazoli said:

Who is bear and why have you changed your username Richard(k?)

RX7 looks fab.

Bear is what people (family and friends) have called me in person for years, I never liked my name so I decided to change it. My byline is Bear on recently published work, even

[Bear]

10 litres of Mannol 10W40 at £17 for five litres and free delivery seems like a no-brainer for whizzing some oil through the RX-7 - two K&N filters bought so I can put fresh oil in, check if it runs okay, then change it...

Tomorrow, depending on work, I'll see if I can change the brake fluid. Left the caliper bleed nipples soaked in WD-40 overnight, and I have patience and good tools for this sort of thing.

So I'm now pondering actual rarity. I've seen two figures quoted for genuine UK RX-7 FDs - 210 and 124. Mazda says 210.

Is there a way of wildcard searching DVLA for a VIN sequence? UK models are different to imports... @LightBulbFun?

[LightBulbFun]

34 minutes ago, Bear said:

Is there a way of wildcard searching DVLA for a VIN sequence? UK models are different to imports... @LightBulbFun?

when you say UK models are different, as in part of there VIN numbers are/unique to UKDM cars? if so and if that part is static (as in the same across all UKDM cars) and you know what that string is, then in theory you may be able to get away with a DVLA FOI request along the lines of "how many Mazda RX7's containing XXXX as part of the VIN where ever registered with the DVLA"

read from this post and pages 53 n 54 for an example of something like this done before

https://autoshite.com/topic/23298-93-mondy-thread/page/52/#comment-2530965

 

if the VIN numbers (or any part of the VIN number) is *not* unique to UKDM models then a different method would have to be figured out (but ill save you the barrage of questions related to that for now ) 

 

[Bear]

9 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

when you say UK models are different, as in part of there VIN numbers are/unique to UKDM cars? if so and if that part is static (as in the same across all UKDM cars) and you know what that string is, then in theory you may be able to get away with a DVLA FOI request along the lines of "how many Mazda RX7's containing XXXX as part of the VIN where ever registered with the DVLA"

Bingo - that's exactly it, UK models have a different format for manufacturer and model to JDM and elsewhere. So if I ask for the first six digits that will nail it for sure – thankyou!