Michigan Rotary Club
Generation Specific => 1st Generation Specific => 1st Generation Build thread => : ~Groll69~ October 16, 2013, 06:51:37 AM
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Well i have finally expanded my tinkering. I have just received delivery of an 84 GSL-SE to my house to get running. I am doing this work for a gentleman named Mike out of Northville MI. He wants the car running again as a daily driver. It had some issues of blowing the 20 amp engine fuse in the interior fuse block. Since the issue of blowing the fuse, the car has sat in a garage for 8 years.
I will be bringing it back up to daily driving condition. I will post pics as i go.
This is the first year that mazda installed the 13B into the 1st gen. They only installed it on this variant for 1984.
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Sounds like, mice have eaten some wires and you have a short. I hate chancing wires, good luck.
Joe
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My first step is start with changing the ingition starter wires since that is where i here arcing upon turning the key. I am hoping that particular fix is all it takes.
Question Joe, do you know where to get the fusable links at that are in the engine bay? I found Atkinsrotary.com carries them. Is there anywhere else?
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Last night i moved the car formally into the garage and i started to put the to do list on my wipe it board. I removed the hood and hung it on my wall for better access to the engine. You can see how dirty the engine bay is. I plan to clean it up so i dont get as dirty working on it. It will also make it look a lot nicer when I am all done with it.
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Eight years of sitting, there are sure to be some things that need replacing. one example is this upper radiator hose connection. It has some holes rusted through it.
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Question Joe, do you know where to get the fusable links at that are in the engine bay? I found Atkinsrotary.com carries them. Is there anywhere else?
New, I try http://www.mazdatrix.com/index.htm (http://www.mazdatrix.com/index.htm) or http://www.blackdragonauto.com/ (http://www.blackdragonauto.com/) and don't forget local auto parts some times have what you need. For example; Mazdatrix sells an idler arm for over a hundred and autozone sells the same one for under fifty. I may be picking up a parts car this week if I do and you need parts let me know, after I get what I need everything else I going super cheep. Good luck
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let me know if you pick up the car. I really need to get this short tracked down. That is the number one issue with the car. turn the ignition and it blows the 20amp engine fuse on the inside of the car. I have gone through about 7 fuses today trying to find the short. I wonder if I jumper it that it would help me to find the problem.
Right now I made some non fused jumpers for the fusible links. That way I don't have to worry about blowing them since they are harder to get ahold of.
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Well, if you suspect the ignition switch, I'd start by disconnecting the battery, unplugging it & checking each wire going into the switch vs ground as you turn the key. There *shouldnt* be any grounds going through the ignition switch, but check the FSM to be sure. Then, check all the wires on the harness side of the connector vs ground.
How much leeway do you have with the FB? Would you be able to replace the fusible links with a more modern fusebox that would be easier to find?
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I could if it didn't cost him hardly anything to do. right now I figure to leave the fusible links. I have a few things that he will have to buy. I need to find the short first. I am not sure where the most likely wear spots would be. I switched the connectors with on from a 79. it was still blowing the fuse. the wr and bw connector was the same between them. The alternator is disconnected. The starter is connected though.
I know I wasn't getting any voltage to the starter solenoid. I did replace the positive and negative cables from the battery. I know there is power down to the starter. I am trying to follow the electrical diagram to identify most likely culprits that would short and cause the problem. Just frustrated with this part. That is the biggest issue to getting it going. everything else is fairly easy I am doing, replacing minor parts and changing the fluids, etc.
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I am hoping I found the short. I removed the starter and took it to be tested. There was a black with yellow wire connected directly to the starter, that had me wondering why it was there. After the starter checked out as it should, i consulted the wiring diagram and realized that the wire was connected wrong. According to the wiring diagram it had to be connected to the solenoid of the starter. I redid the connection so it would connect to the solenoid and then reconnected it to the solenoid. Now when I turn the key the starter tries to turn over the engine. It is not blowing the 20amp engine fuse either.
Still a lot of work to go, but that is definite progress. I replaced the clutch slave cylinder, but the clutch master cylinder is not pumping the fluid so I will have to replace that too.
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Glad you found it! Don't you just love hacked wiring by people who don't know what they're doing?
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oh yea, got to love it. there are some other wiring issues I noticed. I plan to try to clean some of it up depending on time. make it so both headlights work properly and all.
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If you need any cheap parts to fix the head light, let me know. I got the parts car, 1979 limited edition. Both light work if you need them. next week I am going to start taking what I need off then everything after that will go cheap.
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Joe, Yes i will need cheap parts. The drivers side light does not have the rod to push the light up. I havent checked to see if the motor on the drivers side works our not. I noticed the wiring was cut there so that would have to be fixed before making an assesment. What color is the parts car you picked up?
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It was grey but the guy i bought it from started to paint every thing black. I wish people would stop painting every thing black. Every time I look at a cars for parts, its blacked out. I got five limited edition wheels with this car, four are painted black. I hope I can save them.
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Black tends to hide a lot of stuff fairly easily. You should be able to strip the wheels with walnut shells and then re-clear them.
I do have to say i like the rims on Mike's car. They could use a good cleaning though. I plan to try to get back out in my garage tonight and work some more. I have new o-rings for the injectors to put on. Figured I can get that on and maybe see about a new vbelt for the air pump too.
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Well its been a busy weekend, so i havent gotten to get to the car at all. I did do some work last night. I put squirted some oil into the rotor housings with my oil can. I then tested the engine to ensure it spun freely and properly which it was doing. The test resulted in no blown fuses so gives me a pretty good idea that i have the short figured out.
I removed the clutch master cylinder and then installed the new master clutch cylinder. I then bled the clutch so that it is now operating properly. i figured not bad for only a couple of hours of work. Maybe i can get a few things done tonight when i work on it.
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Last night i spent two hours figuring out and re-assembling the ignitition assembly for the car, since when i took it apart a while ago, everything fell out of it. They say third time's the charm and this was the third time i sat and tried to re-assemble it. Now i can use the key agian to turn over the engine of the car.
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I pulled the intake assembly off. At first it didn't want to disconnect itself, but it finally decided to come apart. I noticed the water connections had left remnants of leaking in the past. Upon pulling off the hoses, I noticed the hose connections were completely blocked. I managed to get it cleaned out, but the lower hose connection was horribly corroded. while trying to clean off the corrosion the hose connect broke off. Looks like I need to try to figure out a way to repair it.
I also cleaned off a lot of nuts leaves and other dirt that was on top of the engine under the intake. Hopefully this Friday I can get the two hose connections repaired that I have come across with this car.
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Well its been a few days since I updated the progress, finally bought the mpt adapter for where we tapped the hose connection. I have replaced the fuel filter. I had to grind off the bolt holding the filter in place since it was too rust to get off with a wrench. Otherwise, i havent done alot of work on it. I hope to get back to it and get the last little bit buttoned up and then try to start it for the first time in eight years.
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It has been a long cold winter. My garage would not retain heat very well with the extra cold weather we have had, so I had been avoiding working in it. Not to mention over 90% of my floor eventually became covered in a sheet of 1/2 inch thick ice. I spent the last two weeks on the nicer days breaking the ice up and shoveling what I can from around the car so that I can safely utilize my garage and give me incentive to work on the car.
Today I had Will come over to help me unload my trailer and after that, we started to work on the car. I replaced the radiator with a much better one. Will helped me track down the electrical problem. He has a picture of what we found, but after over two hours we found where it was shorting out at. Now the fuel pump runs when you try to start the car. The wires need to be properly replaced yet. The bad part is we found out there is a hole in the fuel line and it will just dump fuel onto the ground. So the result is one item replaced and two problems found. Overall though it was a good evening.
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Man its been a long time since i updated this effort. Well I have replaced a lot of things on the car over the summer. Unfortunatly it has been frustrating and hasnt had much of my attention the past two months since i concentrated on my own 87 rx7. It does breifly start up.
Last night Fidelity came over and we tinkered with it. Determined that the issue is in the fuel delivery system. The current thinking is that maybe the injectors are stuck or resistence is out of spec for them. I will be pulling off the upper intake to get down to them and see if i can clean them or even replace them if need be. The extra hand has re-energized me to get this project off of my plate.
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Many Thanks to ItsWill for coming over this past friday. Between the two of us, we figured out the issue with the car not firing and running properly. Resoldered some cold solder points on the computer board, straightened and connected pins off of the ignitor, tested and verified operation of the fuel injectors and a few other things. We spent most of the day going over it all. We removed the BAC Valve and verified that it is not working at all. Now have to await for the new part to come in.
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Found out the BAC was bad. After a couple months of searching, got a new/used BAC for the car. Installed it. The car can currently hold an erratic idle between 1100 to 1600 RPM after being fully warmed up. Just need to see about dialing it down to a proper steady idle. At least i can move the car in and out of my garage on its own power.
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This week it is time to get back into working on this car and trying to get it out of my driveway. If anyone wants to come over and help me try to get this idle straightened out, i would appreciate the extra hand.
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Well i can get the car running and it will hold a bouncy idle around 900-1050. Haro2488 came over and helped me with it. We then ran another compression test on it and was getting 60s on the rear rotors and 35s on on the front rotors. I am going to try some atf and seafoam in it to seal if it is just the seals stuck or not. Otherwise the only hope for this car is a full rebuild.
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I wouldn't seafoam that engine or use ATF on it. Do some research on ATF and you will find it's no good for the engine. I ran seafoam on my RX7 one time all it did was make it run like shit. I recommend putting a little oil in it and rotating it everyday for a week or so to loosen up the seals, then retest the compression. Last I remember the compression on that engine was borderline but even between rotors and every face. If anything the seals could be carboned up from running like shit and then sitting. I guess with that said I still recommend rebuilding that engine like i did over a year ago.
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Itswill, I agreed with your re-building assesment. The guy keeps wanting to bandaid. I will try what i can for band-aiding. The biggest issue is to try to get the buildup off of the seals, the cleaner is the better way to start. I am still iffy about the ATF, but I will be researching more tonight before i move forward.