After much cursing at the corner seals, the engine block is back together as one piece and making nice "vwoosch" noises when rotated. We learned a lot in the process (nice way of saying the darn thing didn't go together smoothly and we had to fight with it for about 6 hours).
The oil pickup bolt sheared off, so we stopped for the night. All that's really left is the flywheel & oil pan.
My new clutch & pressure plate *stabs* aren't going to be here till Thursday. So, I'm not getting the engine in until Thursday at the earliest. Hopefully I can get the intake manifold & such in place when we get the engine in, and try to start it. It's going to make a nice cloud of smoke for a few hours after starting (the insides are very well lubricated with oil & such during the assembly process) and not idle below 1200 RPM or so, and require a few hundred miles of breaking in with city driving (ick).
I was hoping to be in Ames for the 4th, but I don't think that will happen. MAYBE if every goes really well and I can get a lot of miles, I can show up late Saturday or something. Don't count on it though.
At this point I'm just hoping nothing goes wrong when we get everything in place. Hearing crunching or such would be really bad. I want my car running again, please.
-=Russ=-
Several days of updates, bound into one, because of 'net outages and such.
Thursday night SummerFest opened. I went. Summerfest is loud. Very loud. And chaotic. Very chaotic. I stayed for a bit, decided there was nothing interesting going on, and left. I then went to Mo's Irish Pub to listen to The Orphans play (or at least the better 2 members play). That was nice - good music, and a few people that showed up were fun to talk to - Jake, who works with Tiffany, who is Roger's fiance (Roger is a coworker of mine). Also some people who recently moved here from Ireland. I really want to go back to Ireland now (I went my senior year in HS with the marching band).
Friday I went to Summerfest again because The Orphans were playing. It was a good show, and I hung around for a while. One thing is very clear - Milwaukee is a beer town. EVERYONE had a cup of beer, including a good number of people that I'm pretty sure weren't 21.
Saturday I went back to Downers Grove for Heritage Fest. I wandered around there with my parents, which was nice. I've grown old enough to realize that my parents have a bit of useful knowledge to share.
Saturday night I realized I was sick. Either I ate something bad at one of the festivals, or my stomach finally said "Ok, ENOUGH of this crap you're feeding me!" I've been living this summer on fruit, yogurt, and light sandwiches. Heavy junk food is not the same.
Sunday was "project rebuild the engine." It didn't get very far, but everything is ready to go together tomorrow (Monday). Cooper is grinding the side seals down tonight on a grinder wheel, and then it should be ready to go back together. He also brought over his cruise control module, which is now installed. I'll put the cruise control actuator on when the engine goes back in, and I should have cruise control on the highway!
That's about it for now.
-=Russ=-
If I were to suddenly show up in Ames in a week or so, does anyone know of a cheap place I could stay until Aug 1st? Like... really cheap, or will take an IOU on rent?
-=Russ=-
I biked to 3 different auto shops today looking for two simple things: A fuel filter for a 1988 Mazda RX-7, and 7' of 5/16" fuel line for fuel injected engines (higher pressure rating).
First shop (NAPA) had about a foot of the fuel line & no filter.
Second shop (Checkers) had no fuel line and no filter.
Third shop (Auto Zone) had fuel line and a filter, and was somewhat confused about the other shops not carrying something as simple as a fuel line.
Also, the guy I talked to at the third shop was a former RX-7 owner (1st gen). He currently drives a Camero with a massively modified V8 putting out something like 760 flywheel horsepower.
Those who have owned (or driven hard) an RX-7 are familiar with the afterburn on high RPM shifts. It's often a "pop" or such. Now, without catalytic converters, this is more of a "flame shooting out the back." This can also be done on command. It's commonly used to deal with tailgaters, usually VERY effectively. In any case, the guy was driving down the highway at night, and a car was tailgating him with it's high beams on, generally being annoying. So, like any good RX-7 owner, he flames the car. And sees the distinctive lightbar on top of the police car in the glow of the flames.
After the officer pulled him over, the officer spent about 15 minutes digging around the car for the NOS tank, because everyone knows it's impossible for a car to pop flames without NOS, right? *grin* The officer was not amused.
Anyway, I've been cleaning parts up. The best parts go into the car, the not so great parts get turned into art. Fish tank, lamp, and a demo motor - an end iron, rotor, housing, and part of the eccentric shaft. Put a crank or small motor on it, and let people see what's actually going on inside.
And I want my rebuild kit to get here. :-/
-=Russ=-
I've learned I hate driving in heavy traffic. Cruised through Chicago to pick up some housings & such for my engine.
*shudder*
I can't live in a big city. I'll go crazy if I have to drive in that often.
-=Russ=-
The engine's apart, in pieces. Rear rotor was shot, rear housing was shot. I'm getting new parts this weekend, hopefully a full set of irons & housings (the rest of the parts weren't in that great of shape).
The engine was all carboned up, and the front rotor didn't look to be terribly far from failing either. Nasty looking carbon buildups that were starting to peal away - that rips up the apex seals like none other if it breaks free.
The good news is that I'm getting parts this weekend (hopefully a new set of housings & end plates - the old ones were questionably reusable). So, it should last a good long time. I'm also dropping the stock oil injection system in favor of premixing gas + 2-stroke oil every tank. This prevents engine oil (not designed to burn cleanly) from being injected into the engine, and generally helps keep the insides clean & well lubricated. And, I can run synthetic oil in the engine without worrying about how well it burns.
Anyway, I'm hoping to have it back together by either the end of next week or early the following week, depending on when parts come in. Then I get to cruise around for a few tankfuls of gas breaking it in doing city driving, maybe make a varying speed trip out to Ames and Chicago to finish the break in process, then it should be good.
Oh, and the guy helping me had a spare cruise control unit (pulled from his car because it won't fit with the different engine he has). So, I get a cruise control! *happy* I missed it on highway trips.
-=Russ=-
Well, as Tony pointed out, time to rebuild the engine in my car. As of right now, it's ready to be pulled out - I found someone here who is willing to help me do the engine pull & rebuild (fellow RX-7 owner, works at an auto shop, enjoys working on them). Right now most of the engine parts are inside the car, and we're going to pull the engine tomorrow. I've already ordered the rebuild kit, as well as some other stuff.
Specifically, while everything is apart, I'm replacing the sections of the exhaust pipe that contain catalytic converters with some nice aftermarket parts (with no catalytic converters) that are also good for a 10-15HP gain. I'm cleaning up the 5th & 6th ports that weren't working before and putting in some inserts that help smooth the airflow & increase power (fixed and with the inserts, 25-30HP from where i was before). And, because it will be trivial to do, I'm replacing the clutch & pressure plate. They're theoretically OK, but while the engine is out, there's no good reason not to replace them. I debated a lightweight flywheel, but I'm spending enough as is right now, and really can't justify the $400 for one.
Anyway, I'll have updates here as I work on things and get parts in. It's a good project to keep me busy in the evenings (cleaning parts & such - I'll have a clean engine for once!), and I'm glad it failed now instead of last week while I was romping around the midwest. It's a pain finding places to park the car though!
-=Russ=-
Not that it really matters, since I'm fairly sure nobody except me reads this anymore, but after my wonderful time with my car's battery yesterday, today the engine died. Rear rotor has no compression and the engine barely runs. So, rebuild or replace.
Overall conclusion? I should have stayed in Ames. Or found a significantly less expensive car. Even with working a full time job, I'm going to end the summer at least $2000 more in debt than I started it. The goal was to work a nice internship and *reduce* debt, not increase it. I think I hate computers too, which is always nice to figure out right before graduating with a computer degree.
-=Russ=-
So, you get in your car, turn the key, and it clicks once and doesn't start. What's one to conclude? That the battery is dead. So, one gets a jump start and drives happily off. Until the highway onramp, where one is idling in the line for the "metered entrance" light to turn green. Where the voltmeter promptly chitters around 12 for a while, drops to 8, and then everything gets really quiet. With not even enough power left to drive the 4-way flashers.
What's one to do?
Well, the obvious solution is to call a tow truck or such, get the car towed somewhere, and have it fixed. Right? Unfortunately, that's an annoyingly expensive solution that involves waiting for someone else to fix the car.
Oh, and for those who don't know me terribly well, I keep a full auto kit in the back of my car - I almost left the emergency kit at home, but decided to bring it since it had jumper cables & such in it. I also keep a reasonable sized tool kit with a wide variety of sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers, and other things, all in a mixture of english and metric sizes.
So, the Russ solution involves the following logic: "The car ran fine until the RPMs dropped for long enough, at which point it died. It ran fine until such time. Therefore, if I keep the RPMs up, the car will run, and I can get to a parts store."
The onramp was two lanes, and it wasn't terribly heavy traffic - I wasn't really blocking access, though the right lane was useless with me in it. Someone eventually stopped, got her jeep turned around (on the onramp), and gave me a jump start. It rapidly became obvious that if I took my foot off the gas, the car would stall again, so she successfully disconnected the jumper cables, closed the hood of my car, and the hatch, and off I went.
Driving when one needs to keep the engine RPMs over 2000 is interesting. As I rapidly learned, it involves keeping the right foot on the gas pedal, and using the left foot to work the brake & clutch. Braking involves stepping on the clutch, putting the car into neutral, and braking. Stoplights involve the car in neutral at 2000 RPM, followed by releasing the brake, pressing the clutch, waiting for the synchros to drop the input shaft speed to zero, and accelerating off. I managed to do this all the way to the parts store I discovered last week, and promptly stalled out in the parking lot while trying to avoid other cars. Coast into a parking spot and call it good.
I took the old battery in to the store, and they load tested it. It failed - horribly. It showed fully charged, and under load dropped to somewhere around 1-2 volts. I also noticed when taking it out that there was no hold down strap - once I disconnected the cables, I lifted the battery out. And the negative terminal involved just pulling it off - I didn't even have to unscrew the bolt.
The current solution involves a new battery, pieces to hold it in place, and a new negative pole connector. It works just fine now!
So, two hours and $60 later, my car's back to running just fine.
This brings up an interesting point I debate with the guy I work for on occasion. His feeling on cars is "I drive mine. If it doesn't work, someone else takes care of it for me." My feeling is "I drive mine. If I'm driving my car, I rely on it to get me from point A to point B. If the car breaks somewhere between A and B, if it's simple, I should be able to fix it. If it breaks at A or B, I should be able to attempt to fix it if it's not something major."
In this case, having the tools & such in the back of my car and the inclination to go replace the battery myself saved me a large chunk of money and quite a bit of time. Towing isn't cheap, and I'm betting that parts & labor for a new battery if it was installed would have run me a LOT more than $60. Plus, I doubt I'd have my car available in the morning to go to work.
If you're still reading, go ahead & post a comment on your most likely reaction to your car dying while on an on-ramp. :-)
-=Russ=-
No, it's not me. I'm not crazy enough to escape from academia yet. I like it there.
My brother's graduation party was this weekend. On that topic, we get along a lot better now that we're not living in the same house & fighting for phone lines & such. I got to see a whole bunch of people I haven't seen in a while, including a few of my old teachers from High School. On the plus side the English program has been changed around to allow a LOT more (read, more than zero) student-selected reading. So people can read stuff they enjoy. Apparently it has really improved book checkout, both at the school library, and at the public library. I pretty much stopped reading after having books crammed down my throat during high school.
I had a wonderful drive back up to Milwaukee, It was about 75F outside, and I had good music on (For the Better), and there was very little traffic. I realized that I really do enjoy the night, and would probably be very happy as a darkness dweller. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't function on that schedule. Maybe once I graduate? Wake up to drive a bus during the evening, and function at night.
Also, I'm coming up to graduation in a field I don't really enjoy any longer. Yet, I'm supposed to get a wonderful job somewhere in the computer field. A field with basically no job security, and cutthroat competition for what few jobs there are. *sigh* Sadly, I have no other ideas other than "keep driving a bus."
-=Russ=-
Formerly known as the Chicago Highway System.
At some point in the past few years, the speed of the Chicago highways seems to have gone from "fast" to "plain nuts." I tend to match speed with traffic. All well and good, but when the speed limit is 55 and traffic is doing somewhere over 80 (depending on what highway), something's a bit wrong. Especially when I'm doing 85, and get passed like I'm standing still. 110? 120? Somewhere in that range.
Fortunately, my car is perfectly happy at those speeds (or, more accurately, it's not happy until it's at those speeds). However, I'd love to test drive one of the hybrid cars at speed - they get great gas mileage, and work great in the city, but I question how a 1.3L piston engine is going to handle driving a car at 100mph (or merging onto the highway when traffic is doing 80). I'm not sure it's up to the task.
Ah well. At least as of now I have a few things I can work on with my car (5th & 6th port actuators are stuck, needs new oil/transmission fluid, I'm sure it could use a new fuel filter, and it needs new brakes).
-=Russ=-