REsuper7のブログ一覧

Since setting up the Quickjack, working on rebuilding my car has been so much more pleasant than the past when i used jack stands. This past weekend, i had some extra time to work on the car so i made the most it by really tearing into the engine bay and removing all the parts i needed to in preparation to pull the engine. Since i'm planning to repaint the engine bay, i pretty much removed whatever i had easy access to along the way. After the first day, i had the fenders, headlights, airbox, battery, and radiator all removed.





Next up was the exhaust which i was a little worried about removing especially since the car had +130k miles and still had the stock exhaust. I was afraid the nuts and bolts would impossible to remove. Luckily, with a little PB Blaster and some breaker bars, i managed to remove the cat and the muffler without breaking anything.



From there i removed the ABS unit from the engine bay and pulled the engine harness through the firewall.



At that point, i took a break from the teardown and turned my attention toward something that had been on my mind for a long time, figuring out how to mount the RE雨宮 GT2 wing with the GT3 wing stands. After weeks of searching, i finally found a bracket i thought might be suitable for mounting the GT3 wing stands to the rear hatch.



To make it work, i had to drill out the ball joint so i could use a bolt to secure the stand to the mount.



After i finished modding the brackets, i finally got a chance to see what it would look like mounted to the car without having to hold the wing in place.







I gotta say, it looks pretty decent. It's even a little taller than i imagined, but still, my plan is to make a custom mounting plate for the wing so it sits a little higher and has more angle adjustments. The other thing i need to do is slot the holes on the bracket where it mounts to the stand so i can position the stands closer to the hatch so there's no gap like in the pictures above.

I finally got a chance to put together the Quickjack BL-5000 this past weekend and got some pictures and a video of it in action as well so i figured i'd post it up.

Assembled and ready to be put into action


This is the lift fully extended. There's a lock mechanism as well so in the event the hydraulic pump fails the unit won't collapse completely


A shot from behind. As you can see there's tons of room underneath the car now, plus there's added security that the car is held up securely and won't tip over.


Here's a quick video of the car being lifted and lowered. I confess, the video is sped up 2x. It takes a little over a minute for the lift to reach it's maximum height and a little over half of that to lower the car completely. Despite the slightly slow lift time, it's going to be awesome to be able to lift all four corners in one shot, whether it's for a tire rotation, suspension work, or any work that requires being underneath the car.


Besides the putting together the new jack, i also started working on tearing down the car. I began with the interior. Dirty does not even begin to describe what the inside of the car looked like. Here's the driver's side with the seat removed. Who knows how long this stuff has just been sitting and decaying in the car...nasty!


And here's the trunk...gross!


Luckily with a little bit of vacuuming i was able to clean it up a bit, but i think i'm still going to have to shampoo or steam clean the carpet at some point.


I also finally got around to playing around with the GT2 wing that i picked up. I thought about just buying the GT2 High Mount wing stands, but after finding out it would cost me $750 not including shipping for just the stands, i decided to try to find a way to make use of my GT3 wing stands instead. I did some mock fittings just to see what it would look like. I think i'm going to make some custom plates to make the wing sit a little bit higher than it does with the original wing mounts. I also need to find a way to secure the stands to the trunk since the GT3 stands aren't threaded underneath.

Since replacing my 2003 Camry with a C300 and 335D, I had always planned on taking the cars to the dealers for servicing mainly because i wasn't familiar with German cars and i was a little hesitant to do the work myself. But recently, after thinking about how much it will cost to regularly service these cars at the dealer, I decided i need to just man up and do the work myself. Not only that, i figured i could use the money i would save for a tool for my garage that i've been eyeing for a while, a portable lift! I don't quite have enough space in my garage for a real two post lift, so when i found out that they make smaller portable lifts, i was ecstatic. The lift i'm referring to is the Ranger Quick Lift made by Bendpak, a company that specializes in car lifts. They make two versions, a 3500lb lift and a 5000lb lift. The 3500lb lift would've been more than enough for my 2700lb RX7, but since i wanted to use it for the other cars as well i had to opt for the 5000lb version. I placed my order and a week later, i was called to schedule a day for delivery. Since the shipment was a 260+ lb freight shipment, i had to schedule a work from home day so i would be available to collect the shipment.

Good thing the truck had a lift gate with a hand truck because i would've had a hell of a time trying to get this thing off the truck myself.


This is what the lift looks like. You can see it's two separate lifts linked together so they lift simultaneously. It's designed to be really low profile as well so it can slide underneath lowered cars. I'll have to see if i have enough clearance once i put my bodykit on the car and lower it with my coilovers. Not only that, since they're not fixed in place, once i'm done with it, i can just store it underneath the car so it doesn't take up any additional space in my garage. I'm hoping to get it assembled this weekend so i can test it out on the C300, which is in much need for an oil change.


Since i was going to be home anyway, i also decided to schedule to have someone come pick up my RX7 shell that's been sitting in my driveway for the past two weeks, since i moved my replacement into the garage. Luckily, i found someone on Craigslist who will basically pick up any kind of scrap metal you may have for free, including cars. So in the end, i didn't even have to pay anyone to get rid of the trashed body and i didn't have to take another day off from work to get it done! It's these types of little things in life that really bring a smile to my face.





Seeing the car being hauled away was a huge burden off my shoulders, but at the same time, it was a little saddening. As i was helping the guy get the car onto the flatbed, i distinctly remembered the day i went to go pick up the car in Pennsylvania, which happened to also be a cold overcast day. But that sadness didn't last very long because now that i was back to 4 cars, i could officially start the rebuild!

I also finally get a set of replacement wheels for my TE37s. Since i didn't want to fork over money for another full set, i decided to just pick up two wheels to replace the two that couldn't be fixed. The only problem is, i ended up with a different color wheel!



If you recall, last year when i was debating which wheels to get, the wheels i really wanted but couldn't get were the TE37SL 2012 Limited, so i ended up settling for the RTs. Although i loved the RTs, i still couldn't get over the 2012 Limited, so when i found two SL limited wheels on YAJ in the size i needed, i jumped on them. When they showed up, they were in much better condition than i imagined, so i'm really glad i pulled the trigger. Now i just need to decide whether or not to keep the wheels two different colors or get my RTs refinished to look like the SLs. I think if i can find someone to replicate the SL look with my RTs then most likely i'll go that route. We'll see.

As a side note/rant, i recently found out that RAYS came out with the TE37RT Black Edition!!!! Oh boy was i JEALOUS! i couldn't believe it...well i sort of knew it would happen because they had the CE28RT Black Editions, but i just didn't know when they would release them. Unfortunately, my rebuild budget just isn't big enough to splurge another $3000 for new wheels especially when you consider i got the two SLs for under $1200 shipped. Oh well...

One last thing, remember the RE-Amemiya GT2 wing i won on YAJ last August, well i finally got it 5 months later! It's pretty beat up, but definitely usable with a little bit of TLC. It's basically on my list of CF parts that needs repair which is extremely long at this point. I'll get to it eventually.



Well that's pretty much it as far as updates go. Hopefully i'll be able to work on the car more extensively now that the old shell is gone and i have more room to work with, plus the added bonus of the lift. But there's still a long road ahead and lots of work to be done.

After assessing the damage at a high level, it was time to get down to the nitty gritty and uncover what other hidden damage there might've been. This meant pulling the engine, stripping out the whole interior, and every other possible thing under, outside, or inside the car. This was going to really push the boundaries of my experience with the FD for sure. The most I had ever done before was pull the engine out of my old 93 Brilliant Black FD to fix an oil pan leak, but this was taking it to a whole new level. Most people say to take pictures of everything so you know how it to put it back together, but that didn't really apply to me as I already knew I wouldn't be swapping over everything to my roller because the roller I got had the majority of the stock parts I was going to use. That's not to say I won't need to take pictures when I start tearing down the roller, it's just that I didn't have to take the extra time to do that during this phase of the teardown, which was great, because that meant I could work at a much quicker pace.



I started first with the engine because I at least had some experience pulling the motor, albeit 11+ years ago, but nevertheless it wasn't a completely foreign process. I decided to pull the transmission together with the engine because it meant less steps to do. It turned out to be a fairly straightforward process and before I knew it I had both the engine and the tranny out of the car. With the extra room and visibility in the engine bay, I could easily go through and tear everything else out such as all the a/c lines, wiring harnesses, and brake lines. Since I had to drop the front subframe at the time, I went ahead and removed the front suspension and chassis components as well.



With the front end taken care of, I started working my way back with the interior being the next focus. Having pulled most of the dash previously when I was wrapping everything with carbon vinyl wrap, I had somewhat of a head start, but this time I had to take it a step further and remove the full front dash, all the hvac components and the carpet. With the help of the rx7 forums, I managed to get everything out without too much drama. After I removed the carpet, I realized I was foolish to ever think this frame was salvageable because with the carpet out of the way I found a significant amount of damage throughout the cabin, with the worst of it by the trans tunnel. At this point, having a good roller sitting outside on the driveway was a huge comfort. I forgot to mention that I took the doors off as well to make the interior that much more accessible. After tearing out all the interior harnesses and removing the rear hatch, I was ready to move on to the final section of the car, the rear end.

Some serious damage to the trans tunnel




I started first with removing the rear axles from the diff, which meant removing as much of the brake components as I could first. Luckily I had a nice long wedge bar to separate the axles easily from the diff. From there I removed the diff, then the fuel tank, the rear subframe, and finally the fuel lines that ran the whole span of the car. As I removed the subframe I also noticed additional damage there as well. It's a good thing I opted for a pretty complete roller because if I had just gotten a shell I would've still had to fork over extra money to buy a lot of chassis components. Also, while removing the fuel tank I found an Easter egg! When I bought the car, the seller listed the car as having a Walbro fuel pump which I wasn't too fond of because of reports of inconsistent performance or short life spans so I always had the intention of swapping it out for a supra fuel pump which is a tried and true plug and play upgrade for the RX7 capable of supporting up to 450 rwhp. Turns out when I went to pull out the fuel pump that I had the supra fuel pump all long! That's one less upgrade to have to worry about at least.



After I finished removing all the major components, I went back over the car to look for any nuts, bolts, covers, grommets, etc. that I could find and removed those as well. By the time I was done, the only things left on the shell was the front windshield which was cracked and the plastic clips that I couldn't remove without breaking them.



With the shell fully stripped, I dropped it onto four dollies with my old bike tires to cushion the body. Finally after nearly four months of being the immovable object occupying 90% of the garage space I was finally able to roll the car around, but first I had to clear out all of the parts that I had removed from the car that were just scattered all over the garage floor. All the parts I was planning to use for the rebuild I kept in the garage and all the spare parts I was saving I moved into the trailer. After spending a day cleaning and rearranging stuff I managed to clear enough space in the garage to actually park two cars again...the first time in 6 months! Success!!!





With this post, I've finally caught up to present day. The next steps are to swap the two cars and get the roller into the garage and the shell onto the driveway so it can be picked up. Once that's done, I can start preparing for the revival of REsuper7!

I started my search for a replacement FD with a few simple requirements:

1. No sunroof or moonroof! I don't know why, but this is always my number 1 requirement for an FD.
2. No body damage or frame damage - obviously right??
3. Any color. No real preference because I was planning to paint the car white anyway.
4. Preferably something with suspension and wheels so it could actually roll, but I did consider shells at one point too.
5. A clear title so that I could register the car to drive on the street.

With this small list of requirements, I began scouring the forums and Craigslist for another FD. But before I go any further, I need to talk a little bit about how I managed to convince my loving wife who, according to her, had not even gotten over the shock of my accident. Whether you agree with me or not, as a family man, it's already difficult enough to justify having such an expensive hobby as cars, so then, how can you possibly justify spending more money to buy another car to replace the one you crashed, especially in my case where the insurance company wasn't cutting any checks for the accident? Not only did it take a lot of pleading, and fighting, and more pleading, but I knew there was only one way I could justify going about reviving REsuper7, and that meant selling off my Ducati 848. This thought first crossed my mind soon after the accident, but it took two months before I could come to terms with actually doing it. Having had a long history with bikes, and this bike in particular because it was built to perfection in my eyes with all the right parts, the idea of letting it go was only second in difficulty to losing my car, but I knew if rebuilding my car meant that much to me, it had to be done. Finally, after receiving my wife's blessing (sort of...it's not something I want to get into here), I grit my teeth and started listing my bike parts for sale. The reason I chose to part it out was because I knew no one was going to pay what the bike was worth with all the upgrades I had, and even if they did I would still make more money parting it out. Within the first week of the listing, over half of my stuff was sold, but the most difficult part was the night I stepped into the garage and started to take the bike apart piece by piece. Before I turned the first bolt I stopped myself and walked back into the house to ask my wife if I should really go through with it to which she confidently replied, Yes! So I went back out to the garage and started taking the bike apart. I'll be honest with you, I felt dirty afterwards. I was basically cannibalizing my bike, but i knew I had to keep my eye on the prize, which was, by doing this, one day I'll be able to drive around again in REsuper7. The goal was to raise at a minimum $15k in order to fund the revival. I haven't quite reached that goal yet, but I've raised enough to buy a decent roller.

My poor bike...or what's left of it at least.


So going back to my search for a roller, I kept at it day after day but always coming back empty handed, or worse, finding the only available rollers all had sunroofs!! 😡😡😡 I eventually stumbled upon a Craigslist posting with no pictures but was somewhat local so I contacted the guy. He was quick to respond so I asked him to send me over some pictures. Turns out it was a 93 automatic base model, red with no sunroof or wing and 100% stock with full black interior. The caveat was it had been neglected since 2006 and it sat out in the sun for just as long. Nevertheless I was interested because in comparison to what else was out there, this was considered unmolested. The asking price was $7500 which was on the high side of what I was looking to spend for a roller, but considering it was more of a full car than it was a roller, I thought it was worth taking a look at. I set up a day to check out the car, and armed with my camera, I drove over to take a look.





The car turned out to be basically as the guy described. It was 100% stock, but the most amazing thing about the car was that it started on a dime, cold or hot, idled smoothly and pulled good vacuum (I brought my boost gauge so I could check it). I think in the end, the running motor is what really sold me on the car because I knew a spare long block alone in good running condition could cost close to $3k. Unfortunately I couldn't test drive the car for two reasons, 1. The car hadn't been maintained since 2006 which meant the oil was probably from that time as well, and 2. The car had no brakes. The brake pedal would just go all the way to the floor when depressed. Knowing that I was planning to tear the car down and use my own motor anyway, test driving the car wasn't a huge deal to me. I inspected the interior of the car which was pretty dirty but at least it had all the parts there, including the elusive driver side map door cover. The paint was in poor condition as expected but also a non-issue because I was planning a respray. Lastly, the cherry on top of the whole deal was it came with dual oil coolers! I know only R1's came with dual oil coolers but they also came with a rear spoiler and didn't come with leather. This car had dual oil coolers, no wing, a rear hatch cover, and leather interior. So to be honest, I don't really know if this car was a base or an R1.





As expected, the price was unnegotiable because apparently he had just listed the car when I contacted him which is why he didn't have any pictures up yet and he had a bunch of other buyers lined up eager to buy the car sight unseen. So I paid a deposit and told him I will arrange another day to come back to get the car as it needed to be towed back to my place. Not really having many known towing options besides calling random tow truck companies and with the seller being eager to get rid of the car, I struck a deal with the seller to have him tow the car back to my place for a reasonable fee. A few days later, I met up with the seller again, paid him the remaining amount, got the title transfer notarized as required by PA law, and drove back to my place with the FD in tow.

The donor car heading to its new home in preparation for a full makeover


Unfortunately with my old FD occupying 90% of the two car garage space, I had no choice but to park the car on the driveway. Officially becoming the owner of 5 cars and with only one car in the garage meant I had to keep 4 cars on the driveway at all times, and with it being January, this meant lots of snow on the horizon. But alas, I didn't have much choice. The only thing I could do now to rectify this parking nightmare was to finish tearing down my old FD and get rid of the shell ASAP, then I would be back to equilibrium...relatively speaking...owning four cars is not exactly normal either, but I digress. With perhaps the biggest check box of the revival process checked off, it was time to finish off phase 1, the teardown.