Just a minor update here before some major work gets done on the RX-7.
It’s starting to have some difficulties getting into gear, but I do not think that it is transmission related as it will go into gear smoother than silk if I jam the clutch into the floor, starting to think the clutch master cylinder (and/or the clutch slave cylinder) are finally biting the dust. Luckily, I’m replacing both.
All of the parts I’ve ordered are finally here, including some miscellaneous other things; such as a new air cleaner, new defrost switch, and a new driver’s side tail light so I can get the outer lens back. All rear brake components have arrived and it’s now time to get to work.
I’m still a big noob when it comes to this kind of stuff, so a work buddy is going to help me out and teach me how to service drum brakes and service clutch cylinders. Should have an update on that stuff tomorrow or sunday as we are meeting up to work on stuff tomorrow. edit: My work buddy texted me earlier stating that, due to personal reasons, we will have to postpone the meeting until a later date. In the meantime I will likely change the diff fluid and possibly replace the clutch cylinders on my own, but the brakes will have to wait
The new air cleaner (“air cleaner” is ‘carburetor’ speak for “air filter”) actually seems to have netted an improvement. Not necessarily any yields in torque/power, but it is misfiring at warm idle less and holds a more consistent idle speed. Probably just my imagination, but she sounds a little happier now that air is clean and less restricted from the ancient and dirty cleaner.
I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it earlier, but at some point the outer lens/cover for the driver’s side tail light fell off while driving around one day. So it looks a little tacky right now and is missing a rear reflector. In the SA/FB RX-7 discord there’s a guy who races FBs and has like 11 parts cars; he doesn’t need interior bits and has more cars than he’ll need for lights and stuff, so he hooked me up with a driver’s tail light off one of his parts cars (the outer lens isn’t cracked, which is actually pretty rare) and he just happened to have an S2 with enough interior left to have a rear defrost switch.
My defrost switch had melted at some point (don’t think these cars have an automatic turn off for the rear defrost, so you have to remember to turn it off at some point) and so the electrical part of my original switch was missing. We got the new switch installed and rear defrost is now fully functional! Makes me feel better about driving in the dark and when it’s cold/raining as I now have better rear visibility (the side mirrors on these cars are borderline useless, so the interior mirror is basically the only viable way to see behind you).
And I of course had another small photo shoot. I love taking pictures of this car.
Yesterday we took a trip to a local junkyard to look for a middle row seatbelt and a rear bench for my friend’s Astro. Due to various reasons, we could not take the Astro with us, so we had to take my Prius. Somehow, we did manage to make the rear bench fit and we were able to upgrade the Astro to 8 person carrying capacity.
We found a 1995 (same year as the Astro) GMC Sierra that was fairly new to the junkyard. The rear bench was in great shape and we salvaged a middle row seat belt attachment that we retrofitted to the driver’s side of the middle bench so he can now have 3 people with seatbelts in the middle row. We also grabbed floor mats from that Sierra, but they were filthy and are going to get cleaned before they go in the Astro.
Crap quality, but aesthetic pic from the rear bench:
Stay tuned for updates on the RX-7!
