WondrousBread's Rx7 FC3S (some Celica content also)

I continued to soak the bumper bracket fasteners in PB Blaster for several days, but at a certain point I just had to accept they weren't going to get any better. I broke most of the bumper studs as well as lots of other M6 fasteners in the front-end:



Bumper is cracked on this mount:



With all of the side fasteners removed the bumper started to come free. You can see a pretty significant color difference in this photo:



That's because the bumper was cracked in a parking lot years ago. The dad of the teenager who hit me knew a guy who worked at a Ferrari approved body shop and they did it for him for free. The work on the bumper itself is decent, but it was clearly a rush-job since there was no blending and they masked it rather than removing anything.

To be fair, you can't blend metallic single-stage paint. So they would have essentially had to paint the entire car. Overall I can't say I'm upset with it.

I then removed the top bumper fasteners:



And with that I could remove the bumper cover and put it in the cabin for now (until I find more places to stow parts).

The bumper foam underneath was in good shape:



Although this repair on the bumper is downright shameful:



I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure this is also the work of that same body shop since the bumper was deformed in this region after being hit. It's just a piece of mesh with something (JB Weld?) used to glue it to the back of the deformed area. The best way to fix this (short of replacement) would probably be to use heat to try and form the bumper back as much as possible and maybe glass the back of it for structure. I'm no bodywork expert so take that as my opinion, not a statement of fact.

The crash bar looks okay as well:



This material is weird. I think it's some sort of FRP but it feels like bakelite.

With that the front-end is pretty much naked, and I'm happy to say there is no major damage:



There's definitely been a bumper replacement in the past, but nothing looks too out of place. Well, except this:



This vertical where the fender mounts looks like it was bent in the past and banged back into place. Everything lined up so I'm not worried about it.

Unfortunately I now realize why the brake cooling duct on the driver's side came out so easily:



When I was trying to loosen, the nuts kept turning and turning. Then instead of the nuts loosening the duct just fell out. It seems that rather than loosening, the entire speed nut started rotating in place and snapped the mounting points off of the brake duct. Kind of a bummer, but certainly fixable. Then again I might not be able to use these brake ducts anyways. More on that later.

I noticed these brace things:



They're in fine shape and there's nothing remarkable about them - but they strike me as a bit odd. It's a tube that's been bent and then flattened at both ends. They seem almost like an after-thought. Nothing functionally wrong with that I suppose, but they are visually jarring. Fortunately they live under a bumper so I'll never see them again when the body is reassembled.

These are the frame rail ends to which I will attach the rotisserie:



I've ordered some steel to make the mounts, but I found that even on maximum power my welder can't weld steel that thick. I would probably be able to do it with a 220V hookup (I use my welder on 110V most of the time), which I don't have. I'll look into adding one for the garage but I think our panel would need to be expanded, so it might be costly.

Alternatively I might buy a 220V extension cord (if such a thing exists and is safe to use with a welder) and unplug the dryer for awhile to do the welding.

I continued on to the rear bumper cover. This time I didn't snap any bolts:



But uh, only because I already snapped them several years ago and the side brackets have been replaced with zip-ties since then...

The crash bar came off easily as well:



You might ask where the bumper foam is. Well, your guess is as good as mine.

While it's true that I have removed this part before, I had never taken a bumper off before. So I didn't actually know that there was meant to be any foam there. I put it back together the way I had taken it apart and didn't think about it again. I've been driving around with no impact foam for the better part of a decade. One more part to track down...



I might be crazy, but I actually think FCs look good with no rear bumper. Add some long stainless-steel muffler tips and it looks pretty cool.

The body in this area is surprisingly pretty good, although I'm sure I'll find otherwise when I dig into it a little more. The only rust I see is actually just transfer from the gas-shocks on the crash bar.

Since we're on the topic of bumpers, we should talk about S4 vs. S5 bumpers. Most Rx7 enthusiasts are familiar with the differences, and I didn't really care for the S5 bumper in the past. But as I've gotten older, it's kind of grown on me. Or it might be more accurate to say that I've fallen out of love with the S4 bumpers.

Before I say why, I'll tell you it's something to do with the turn signals. Take a look and see if you can tell what it is. S4:



S5:



Do you see it?

The S4 ones are just rectangles. Also, they're huge, and very very orange. They're actually not rectangles - if you look closely, they have a curvature and one side is not parallel to the other. But they are so large as to be kind of distracting. Also the "trim" on the S4 bumper is slightly smaller, but the ridges make it more conspicuous. Overall the S4 turn signals and grill region feel like a bit of an after-thought to me. Speaking of which, the S5 also has factory fog lights that look like they fit (since they are designed for that opening in the bumper) rather than the S4 ones which quite literally look tacked-on.

Now I didn't feel THAT compelled to replace the bumper. I still liked my car just fine even with S4 trim. But if I'm painting the entire car then I may as well swap now if I decide I want to. Plus my S4 bumper requires some repair before I can reinstall it.

So those were among my justifications to pick up a set of much worse condition S5 bumpers:



I know - pretty clapped out. But the price reflected the condition, and it was a set with the rear bumper as well. It also included good condition side brackets to replace the ones I just destroyed when removing the S4 bumper. It's currently bolted on only along the top with no side brackets, but one thing I noticed is that the driver's side doesn't quite line up with the fender. Meanwhile, without moving it, this is what the passenger side looks like:



Hmm, there's some shrinkage going on. Perhaps this bumper was in the pool...

I found that the S4 brake ducts are too long and won't fit with the S5 bumper:



I'll either have to trim mine or find some S5 ducts. I probably also need S5 ducts if I decide I want fog lights, but since they seem to block most of the brake cooling ducts I am not sure that I want them.

The center grill is completely missing:



But that's okay, since I kind of hate the center grille. Most likely I'll glass it and then smooth it so that it looks like there was never a grill in the first place. I might also try to find some inconspicuous mesh so that rocks don't hit the heat-exchangers.

For the rear bumper it's more of the same. One crack here that's been fixed with hot glue (or possibly snot):



And a hole rubbed / burned through from the previous previous owner's exhaust tips:



But it also included all the brackets, so overall this purchase nearly paid for itself:



I'm still not 100% certain on the S5 trim, but I am about 95% certain. In addition to the visual improvements on the front bumper, the S5 has OEM side skirts as an option, and reproduction trim is available for most S5 parts but very few S4 parts. Almost all aftermarket parts also match S5 rather than S4 (skirts, fiberglass fenders, half-bumpers, etc). While I have no particular desire for aftermarket body panels, having the option is nice.

Will I find more clapped out parts for the body to further add to the work ahead of me because I'm a masochist who dislikes bodywork but somehow always finds a reason to do it?
Will I snap more expensive fasteners forcing me to spend hundreds of dollars buying OEM from Japan?
Will the title of my thread on Rx7Club ("A Series of Less Than Logical Choices: An S4 Build Thread") become a lie?

Find out next time, when I have the steel to weld up those mounts for the rotisserie.

The steel came in, so I set about getting the mounts ready for the end of the Rx7's frame rails. I had started to design these in Fusion with the idea I would get them laser cut, but apparently the free version of Fusion no longer exports DXF. So I'd have to find some sort of workaround and then just hope the dimensions were preserved. Instead it just made more sense for me to buy rectangular plates and drill holes in the appropriate locations. I did both front and rear at the same time, but I'm only going to photograph the rear for now:



I'd been using a $300 Canadian Tire welder for years. It was decent enough, but the wire speed was audibly inconsistent. Also the 4 voltage settings did make it frustrating to weld when the correct voltage is somewhere between two of the correct settings. Lastly it didn't really have the power to weld thicker steel.

My brother and I went half and half on a Lincoln multi-process machine awhile back. It's a 240V unit, but included a 120V adapter. I thought I would need 240V supply to the welder in order to get a good weld on the 1/4" steel I was using for the mounts, but it actually worked really well on 120V:







Not beautiful, but strong. This did unfortunately warp the base, so I put it between some bricks and hit it with a hammer until it straightened out:



Next I set about modifying the rotisserie. It already did everything I needed, but I had some ideas to make it more convenient. It started with a tube welded right below the rotating joint:



Then a simple platform and gusset:





This makes a little stand for this bottle jack:



I'm sure you already get the idea.

Next I needed another platform and gusset at the bottom of the main upright (I don't really know the best word for what it is - the upright at the back of the base with the wheels):





And a similar square tube is welded to the back of the vertical sliding part that bolts to the car via the mounts.

So here's the idea.

First I'll need to lower the stand (on both inner and outer adjustments) to it's lowest point and bolt the adapters to the frame rails:


You might notice the square tube on the adapters is very shiny - that's because it was just a little too big to fit into the receiver and needed to be shaved down slightly. I intend to grease it so they don't rust together.

It looks like I'll need to have the car either on ramps or stands even to meet the lowest point. But from there I will need to jack it up using a floor jack, at least enough to fit the bottle jack onto the platform:



Then I can adjust the car up on the inner adjustment using this bottle jack with a socket adapter - essentially, this will allow me to center the car more easily. The inner adjustment locates the car relative to the rotating joint.



But I already hear you saying "What if you run out of height on the bottle-jack"?

Well, then I temporarily lock these bolts down:



Then I can lower the jack:



And insert one of these extensions I made:



And loosen the bolts before continuing to raise the car:



I don't think I'll ever need the longer extensions, but I made them just in case.

Then once the car is centered (using the innermost adjustment), I can use the same technique to raise / lower the car (while remaining centered relative to the rotating joint on the stand):



And that's that for now. I have a second identical bottle-jack, and I still need to modify the other stand in the same way. I'm hoping to get that done tomorrow.

My stretch goal for tomorrow is to actually have the car on stands. But since that means removal of both subframe assemblies as well as doors and hatch, I think it's unlikely.

Until next time

I made a bold statement about my goals for today. But instead of getting work done, so far all I've done is add more work...



I spent some time with my dad at the town-wide garage sale today, and I found this guy looking a little dejected on someone's lawn. I can tell it's a Honda (logo on the seat) and it's likely from the 80s, but not the model or displacement.

At first glance it has all the parts, but the stator cover was sitting in one of the cardboard boxes and has clearly been off for some time. The owner was upfront about there being some water in the engine - he kicked it over and some droplets flew out. The engine turns freely and has at least some compression, but beyond that it was a bit of an unknown. Apparently he purchased it complete (though disassembled) from the previous owner and has done literally zero work on it since.

We talked for a bit about how much he'd want, and he asked for $100. I ended up getting it for a pretty reasonable $50, considering that literally every part of it will need to come apart and be fixed. Once I got it home, I spread everything out to make sure I had all of it:



I probably should've done that BEFORE buying it, but hey, it was only $50. I knew it had a seat and fuel tank since I could see them in the boxes, but I was pleased to find the wiring harness and a speedometer. The wiring harness is a little mangled, but nothing I can't fix. Why do people always seem to cut wires like 2" away from a convenient connector?



And then here's the stator cover. Not entirely clear why someone would remove it and then just leave it off for years, but here we are.

Not pictured are some other parts. Three ignition coils with wires, two new spark plugs, a new carb, the handle controls / levers / cables, and an assortment of hardware that (hopefully) belongs to this bike. I don't have time to start working on it today, so I just washed everything off and I'll tuck it away in the shed for now.



I kicked the engine over a few times to try and expel any water. I got a few drops out, but nothing crazy. I can definitely feel some compression, but I'm thinking it's probably wise to just tear it down anyways. For now I'm going to let it dry out awhile, then add some MMO before parking it. The engine code HD05E seems to correspond to a 100CC engine:



Which makes sense, because just before driving away the previous owner gave me this:



Look at how nice this bike is supposed to look! Maybe it will once I'm done.

Hypothetically I could even add signals and a headlight then drive it on the road. Not sure what the legality of that is in Ontario though, and I'm also not sure that I'd be comfortable driving a tiny bike like this even out here in the country. Every car is huge these days, and people routinely do 100+ km/h down my road.

It's a nominal 100cc, and there will probably be an actual displacement (97cc or whatever) cast into the cylinder somewhere. If the bike was born as a 100 rather than 75 or 80, it'll have 16/19" wheels rather than 14/16 that the little bikes had. The steel rear fender and speedometer help confirm that it's a street-legal XL, and would have come with all the lights, turn signals, horn, battery, all that stuff. So yeah, it's an XL100S. And if that seat cover and front fender are original, as they appear to be, then it should be a 1981 model, exactly like you see on the cover of the Clymer book.

The XL variant is less common than the XR, but they share a ton of parts with the contemporary XR80 and XR100, so you should have pretty good support.

Looks like fun!