My 1983 Mazda RX-7 GSL is my toy; I have had more fun in this car than any other. I have always had a love-hate relationship with my RX-7 although I would never get rid of it. There are days that I wish I hade a new car than I look at the price of a new and think of all the things I can do to my car with that kind of money.
I bought the 7 from a good friend of mine named Brian in April of 2001 for $450. Brian got the car about six months before from a friend of his for free. His friend was moving, he had to get rid of the car, and it didn’t run. We replaced a spark plug wire, put a new battery in, and did a tune up. The car started right up and ran great. Not long after he got the car, Brian was stopped at a light and the radio shorted out. He shut the car off quick but it still melted a number of wires under the dash. Someone had wired the radio up with no fuse.
We had a great time driving all over mountain passes pushing the car to its limit. One day Brian’s brother Mark was driving the car home from work late at night and hit a dear on I-70 going 75 mph. He didn’t just hit the dear, he flew over the dear. He then slid down the interstate sideways and did not roll the car. He hit the dirt and bent both passenger side wheels, the tirod, and axel. All the dear did was put a dent in the gas tank.
When I bought the car the damage from the dear was fixed. Brian had been driving the car for a month with no working brake master cylinder and was using the parking brake to stop. That was the first thing to be fixed. The car had about 115,000 miles on it at this point. Over the years I have done a lot of work to the car. Everything that has been fixed or modified on the car, I have done myself with help sometimes.
Since it is an 1983 GSL car, it has the 12A motor, rear disk brakes, power windows, A/C (I removed), cruse (I removed), and sunroof.
This is what the car looked like when I bought it:
List of fixes:
-Repaired most of the interior
-New starter, alternator
-New tie rods, etc.
-Clutch master and slave cylinders
-Rear wiper replaced
-Rearend work a number of times
-Drive shaft
-Brakes and tire obviously
-Tune-ups
List of mods:
-Racing Beat lightweight steel flywheel
-Centerforce II clutch
-Carter Super Street Fuel Pump
-Accel Superstock Coils
-Racing Beat Header
-Racing Beat Muffler
-No cat or other emissions
-Removed AC
-Optima Red Top
-KYB GR-2 Gas Shock Absorbers
-Eibach springs
-Royal Purple oil in rearend and transmission
-Alpine CDA-7875 stereo, JL 4” components in front
-FC main fuse block conversion
Then in January of 2008 I was on my way to the car wash and I hit 5k and the car started sputtering. I went and washed my car at the mall, I even got the motor all nice and clean. After the car wash the car started fine but would not run right. I thought it might be the carb. I took it for a quick drive around the mall parking lot. I then stopped in a parking space and the car stalled. I went to try and start it back up and it would not turn over. I tried to turn it over by hand and it wont budge. My guess is it blew at least 1 apex seal in the rear and jammed the rotor. The motor had 178k on it so that wasn't bad.
It was then time to start pulling the motor out and clean the engine bay from the 178K Miles of grime.
This is what I started with:
I started with pulling the battery and draining all the fluids:
Next came the air cleaner, carb, and distributer:
I then removed the alternator, fan shroud, fan, radiator hoses, radiator, and radiator supports:
I then removed the exhaust system and anything else that is attached to the motor and transmission:
Time to remove the motor and transmission:
