Part 3

As illustrated in one of the earlier posts, the rotors and calipers were pretty corroded. 

It also happened that the 1980 RX7 came stock with a open rear diff and drum brakes, neither of which are especially good for racing.

We started doing some research and round that the rear end from an '82 GSL had both a limited slip rear diff AND disc brakes, and it's a bolt-in mod.  It was back to the Internet, and before long we were once again rewarded by the Craigslist gods.  We found a guy way down in Toledo who was parting out a 1982 GSL, and he still had the rear end.

The soonest we could get down there was Monday, July 4th.  I had thrown my yearly 4th of July party the day before and we were all feeling the next-day glory of a keg of beer and numerous tequila shots.  Nevertheless, we drug our sorry butts down there and proceeded to crawl around in the dirt trying to figure out how to remove the rear end.  We'd never done it before (and in our diminished mental state we forgot most of the tools we might need), but luckily the guy helped us out.

An hour later we had a rear end, a working spare alternator, and a rear brake hard line.  Why a hard line?  I'd like to say it's because we had the forethought to know that the thread pitch on this rear end was different than our car, which is true.  But in reality, in a battle between a hard line and a drill bit, the bit wins every time.  Yes, we broke the one rule common to both drilling holes and shooting guns: Know what's behind your target.

We removed the front rotors and rear axle shafts so we could get a look at the bearings and replace them.  We found that we couldn't remove the bearings without a 5-ton press, so we left them on (they looked to be in pretty good shape, anyway).

We cut off any extra weight we could in the process.  Notice the standard safety clothing...

I'm not sure what the average time is to rebuild 4 calipers; I like to think that 7 hours is a pretty good first time.  I should have taken some pics during the rebuild but my hands were just too damned dirty.  Eventually we figured them out and got them all cleaned up, the seals replaced and packed with new grease, and installed with new brake lines.  The thread pitch issue is still plagueing us (we only have one working front brake at the moment), but we'll get that sorted out later.

With new rotors and pads, they don't look too bad.  Not sure how they'll perform, though...

Next step: Fun with Dry Ice!

Part 2

Our first decision was a tough one: Where are we going to work on this car? 

Two people live in apartments, so they're out.  The third has a garage, but only room for the one car that's already stored in it.  I have a two-car garage, but it already has two cars in it; one is the wife's Mini, the other is my 350z. 

I decide to test the waters, so I broach the subject with the Mrs.

"We just can't figure out where we're going to keep this car..." I say. 

She doesn't bite.

"I guess I could move my car out of the garage and keep a car cover one it...".

Still nothing.

"But then again, your car is driven every day, rain or shine, whereas mine is only driven when it's sunny", I say out loud to myself.

"No way" she says, not even making eye contact.  That settled that.

So with nowhere else to go (I was NOT serious about moving my car out of the garage), we set up a work area off to the side of my driveway.

If you've ever had to work on a car in gravel, you know it's not fun.  I have done it many times, but only when I was younger, and only on a Sunday when I absolutely had to get the vehicle fixed that night because I needed to get to work in the morning.  I'm not interested in doing that anymore.

So off I go to the hardware store to pick up some temporary work surface: four sheets of 3/4" plywood.

For the next couple months, this was our work area.  It wasn't bad, really.  It made it a LOT easier to find the nut that you dropped, and you could just hose all the crap out from under the car with compressed air.

The first step was to drain and remove the fuel tank; we don't want any unfortunate fiery accidents.  We pulled the rubber fuel line from the fuel pump and ran it into a gas can.  Turn the key on and let the fuel pump do it's job; the tank was empty in seconds.

Now we can start getting a better look at the car.  We get the wheels off and find a tiny bit of rust on the brakes.  It's a good thing we planned on replacing them.

We planned on stripping all of the air conditioning components out, so we pulled the fan and radiator to make room.  Then we pulled out the AC pump and condenser, and (a few days later, thanks to a very stubborn bolt) the alternator).  Lots of room now...

As part of the AC removal, you have the heater and AC cores in the car that have to be removed, also.  They're fun, because they're buried in the dash board and bolted in from every direction in multiple layers.  You have to peel it like an onion unless you want to brake something.  We don't, because we want to try to sell some of this stuff to offset our other expenses.

We finally get the dash, heater, and AC stuff out; nothing but wires now.

That's enough blood, sweat & tears for one day...

Part 1

After deciding to build a LeMon car, we began scouring the interwebs for ideas.  We knew we wanted something small-ish and light, but we weren't really sure what.

 I have to say that we were a little more concerned with finding a candidate that would make a better race car than a LeMon.  In hind-sight, after spending countless hours prowling the LeMons forums, we came to the realization that while we are adhering to the rules of LeMons, we haven't exactly nailed the spirit of LeMons on our first try.  I think we'll get better with experience.

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, while we fired email after email back and forth with links to cars for sale/auction/come-and-get-this-piece-of-crap-out-of-my-yard/ etc.  Nearly all the cars we found that were under the $500 limit were going to need a lot of work.  I mean a LOT of work... 

There were the occassional cars that looked great, but had no engine and/or tranny; a good find now that I think about it.  But we seemed to be on a senseless mission to find a car that looked good AND still ran.  I guess good things do come to those who wait...

One morning Van sends me a link to a Craigslist post.  It's local (meaning literally on the way home from work).  It's light.  AND it runs!  So we stop by on the way home to check it out.  It didn't take long to decided...

Behold the glory which is the 1980 Mazda RX7, resplendent in all it's Aura White pallor!

Sadly, the beer did not come with it, but lots of other things did.  For the paltry sum of $400, our efforts and patience were rewarded.  It was originally sold in California, so the emissions stuff on the engine is an absolute rat's nest (in fact that's what they call it).  It had an after-market oil cooler installed that appears to have borne the brunt of some underbody impact, leaving a nice oil/road dirt sludge all over the lower half of the engine.  But we were buying it from the second owner, and he got it from his uncle who bought it brand new in 1980.  We knew the entire history of the car; at least we knew what they told us.

We borrowed a trailer and transported our baby LeMon to it's new home (aka my driveway).  Surprisingly, between my driveway and the warehouse parking lot two doors down where we unloaded it, it still had enough grunt to spin one of the tires!  That was a good sign (I think).

Upon closer inspection (some would argue that this should have occurred before bringing it home), we found even more good news.  It seems the previous owner's ambition for restoring this beauty to it's former glory was short-lived.  In short, nearly everything except the pedals, wheel and driver seat had been previously removed then hastily tossed back in.  And the seat was held in only loosely with two fasteners.  The headliner and some of the trim were still attached, but not much.

There was a mountain of change scattered about, both foreign and domestic.  We haven't counted it yet, but it's in a bag and rest assured, it will be tallied and subtracted from the cost of the car.  Fun park tokens, tokens for buckets of balls at the driving range, miscellaneous parts and tools, TWO instrument clusters; neither of which are OE for this particular car.  A box of styrofoam peanuts, a bra that was never installed, some antifreeze and brake fluid, a Pioneer CD player that had been installed at one point.  But it did have the original spare tire, and the tools and jack; all of which I would have thought would be gone by now. 

We knew we had a long way to go, but at least now we had a car and some idea of what needed to be done...

First Post

So now we've gone and done it. 

After hearing about the 24 hours of LeMons (and not spending a lot of time contemplating it), we decided to start a team.  That was six months ago...

We now have a car, a garage full of old parts, replacement parts, tools and tires (in addition to the two daily drivers that call the garage home), and we're so deep there's no turning back.

We finally picked a team name, so now I can start this blog to document our exploits. The first several won't necessarily be in the exact order they occurred, mostly because they were all kind of going on at the same time.  I'll do my best to post on a regular basis...