O.K. guys if you have any good tips or tricks for assembling or disassembling, that may help everyone out post them here.





Don't chat in here, I'm trying to keep this a info. only post....thanks

when dissassembling the front cover, place the engine with the front cover facing up, and remove the Stack in order. Then take a zip tie and zip them together so that when you want to want to re assemble, they're in the exact order.



Got this trick from Dragon...

When putting the oil pump on, use super glue and super glue the oil pump sheer key in place so that it doesn't move.



Got this trick from Scott(head)

when finally putting on the oil pan onto the bottom of the engine, don't use the mazda gasket...use a 1/2" bead of silicone RTV on the oil pan. Play close attention to where the front cover is and where the motor mounts are...put a TON on those two particular areas.



Got this trick from IGY himself.

if you don't have a second person available when placing the intermidiate plate AND you are assembling on an engine stand; sit in a chair and use your knee to lift the eccentric shaft up the 1 1/2" required to tilt the plate in place. John https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png

don't even think about taking apart your engine before you get the shop manual or the video. pay close attention to keeping things organized. many small parts can be mixed up and cause trouble. be thorough on cleaning and inspection. you wouldn't want to put a **** part in the engine which is the most important part of your car

^thats why I have a Mazda Seal case! https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png

A good cheap, but effective tension bolt tip for you guy's.

The tension bolt are normally a potential weakness on a modified rotary engine (they tend to break under stress due to harmonic vibrations at high rpm's). To avoid this Mazda compeition sells a set modified with a rubber coating in the center of the bolt about 3 inches long designed to absorb the excess vibration. The problem is this set is very expensive and is cut into the center of the bolt, thus weaking the bolt slightly(which is just what we are trying to avoid. So I made my own using the exsisting bolts (which are plenty strong), and simply ran 3 inch tight fitting rubber hose down over the center section of each bolt to acheive the same result.



This set-up ultimitely works better than even the aftermarket item, because in my way the rubber is fitted around the outside diameter of the exsisting bolt, without machining into it at all, thus allowing the benefit of the rubber protection without weaking the bolt itself. The trick is finding the right size rubber hose because it has to be thin and tight around the bolt, to be able to fit correctly into the dole-pins on assembly.



https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/bigok.gif Let me know what you think.

Couldn't you just apply like a silicon RTV or something to the bolt that would dampen the vibrations as well?

Yes. In the centre, for the length of about 1.5 to 2", you can apply a thin coat of any kind of RTV. It will dampen the vibration the bolt goes under at very high RPM's. The problem is the bolt will vibrate like a guitar string because it's only tight at the threadding and at the base of the bolt at the head. What happens is the bolt breaks at the threadding (just above it) and then works its way out, inducing a coolant leak as well as a funky cool 'event' if the flywheel smacks it. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png



B

Would High Quality heat-shrink work?

umm nother thing. if your nuts and bolts are lookin pretty scummy....don't use them again. at least try and clean them off and lubricating them before re-installation. you don't want any broken bolts/studs......

^ Buy the proper taps and dies and run them on all fasteners and threaded holes. Use Anti-Seize on all fasteners. I use a cheapo ultrasonic cleaner to get the threads SQEEKY KLEEN before aplying the anti-seize

1 BUY ALL NEW HARD SEAL AND SPRINGS (I KNOW IT WILL MORE THE TRIPAL THE PROJECT BUT ONLY A DUMBASS WOULDN'T)

2 INNER AND OUT OIL SEALS FROM ATKINS NOT MAZDA

3 APEC SEALS FROM ATKINS

4 ALWAYS A NEW OIL PUMP THE TOLERANCE BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD ARE TO CLOSE AND REUSING YOUR OLD ONE MIGHT MEAN PROBLEM BEFORE THE NEXT 100,000 MILES..AND IT ONLY AND HUNDRED SOMETHING ITS WORTH IT.

5 USE THE RIGHT LOCK TYPE ON BOLTS

6 USE MAZDA OR K&N OIL FILTER OINLY OR ANY WITH A PROPER CHECK VALUE IN THEM

7 USE VASOLINE TO LUBRICATE PRETTY MUCH THE WHOLE ROTOR IN INSTALLATION.

8 TAKE YOU TIME BE IN NO RUSH AT ALL

9 CHECK WATER PASSAGES FOR WHOLES( EVEN ONES AS SMALL AS A NEEDLE AND SOME WHAT DEEP WILL LEAD TO TROUBLE.

10 UNLESS YOU HAVE A FIRST GEN UPGRADE YOU RADIATOR($350-700) AND CHECK YOU OIL COOLER FINS.

Heat shrink will work fine, the plates should never exceed much over the temp of the water that is flowing threw them just over 100'c max, so the heat shrink will be fine. I've never actually seen a torsen bolt fail however.

When installing the air bleeds in the injector holes on a GSL-SE, be very careful. They're EXTREMELY fragile https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...1047683358.gif



J

If the teflon encapsulated combustion O ring keeps wanting to pop out of the hylomar-laden groove, take it out and stretch it by hand a little. Sometimes they are a tad too tight as delivered from Rotary Aviation and don't quite fit the groove.



When gluing the corner piece on the apex seal, put a shim under the seal, place the seal between your micrometer which will be set at the housing width minus the published clearance, put some super glue (lightly) on the corner piece, and slide the corner piece between the apex seal and one end of the micrometer. It's a good idea to lock the micrometer to your length setting before gluing the parts. After a few minutes, cut off the excess glue from the sides using a razor.

I haven't written a web-page on it, but I've got pictures listing all of the parts detailing the front cover assembly job (needle bearings, thrust plate, washer, and spacer, front cover o-ring and teflon ring, etc.).



http://bdc.cyberosity.com/pictures/1...CoverAssembly/



I need to make special note on the oil pump assembly:



It has a very tiny keyway on it that is used to index the drive gear for the oil pump chain. When placing the drive gear on the oil pump's shaft, the keyway has a tendency to be pushed out and then dropped on the floor. This is made particularly more difficult as it's hard to see the keyway when aligning the drive gear with the timing chain on it (aligning everything to slide on at once). If this happens, the drive gear will spin but not spin the oil pump shaft with it. This will result in no oil and immediate failure of the crankshaft and related bearings.



There's two methods (that I use) for getting around this annoyance:



-) Superglue the keyway in the keyway slot, making sure it's rock-solid tight before placing the drive gear on



-) Assemble the drive gear w/ the oil pump removed from the front cover (not bolted on yet). Assemble the drive gear for the oil pump chain that slides onto the crankshaft, then place the entire thing on at once.



B

Front eccentric shaft thermo-pellet:



This pellet is a temperature-actuated (enabled at 140F degrees oil temperature), spring-loaded unit that allows oil to flow into the front rotor's oil jacket (that's used to pull heat off of the rotor faces). It is used as a way to accelerate the warming-up process of the engine and engine oil.



Sometimes, this pellet can fail and remain stuck, allowing some to no oil from entering the cooling jacket and thereby over-heating the rotor. If you don't have the machined, aluminum pellet replacement, you can substitute it with (5) M7 flat washers stack atop the pellet, opposite of the two springs. This will permanently disable it and allow oil to enter the jacket at all times, even when cold.



http://bdc.cyberosity.com/pictures/13BFron...ypassPellet.Jpg



B

Do you guys normally buy new tension bolts when rebuilding?



I've always gone by the rule of never reusing a bolt that's been torqued to spec before in a critical application. A 10 to 20 year old tension bolt certainly falls in this category.

I have a follow-up to the original post I placed on the "tension bolt modification".

I found that the clear "hobby" hose found at most pet shops (of all places) works well. The trick was finding something with both the right inside dia. (1/4inch in this case) and the right outside dia. (3/8inch). The hose has to be tight, but flexible enough to fit tightly over each bolt and then thin enough to slip into the dowel pins.

I still had to shave the outside of each rubber a little for it to fit cleanly, but this size seams to work the best.

PK797@excite.com

Ya with regard to the apex seal springs:

The trick is to do the springs last. In other words you start with the front housings (rotor+side) in-place and attached to each other on your stand etc, and then you install a assembled rotor minus the apex seals, apex seal springs and rear side corner seals. Once the rotor is in place inside it's respective housing you can now install your seal and springs. Starting with the apex seals themselves, followed by your springs and then once everything else is in place you can put in your back side corner seals before moving onto the next housing.

P.S. You guy's should really get your hands on the workshop manual for your car. All of this stuff is explained in great detail inside.

PK797 NYC

When taking apart your engine block, make sure to account for EVERY seal and spring, even the little triangle pieces of the apex seals. It is easy to have them stick on the plates due to oil tension and then fall off and disappear to "who knows where" like INSIDE a rotor or something. They could then fall out later after you have rebuilt it with terrible consequences.



Another tip... any time you're working on the car, keep all the holes plugged with paper towels or a shop rag. It is easy to accidentally drop a nut or small part down an intake runner. Also, if you are doing a rebuild and trying to mess with the key on the oil pump, be VERY careful that it doesn't fall down into the oil or water passages! This is easy to have happen if you have the engine standing up on the flywheel. I lost the key down one of the passages once and it was jammed in there good! Luckily I was able to retrieve it by tipping the engine over. Keep those holes plugged or covered at all times!



When rebuilding an FD tranny there is a step in the manual that says to hold the mainshaft in a vise and to engage 1st gear.... this lets you prevent the shaft from turning so you can remove a large bolt. If you don't have a vise, you can remove one or more of the roll pins (using the PROPER sized punch and a hammer) for the shift forks and then you can manually engage more than one gear at once (say 1st and 4th). This will cause the transmission's shafts to lock in place so you can remove the bolt without the vise. Use new rollpins on reassembly!



When doing a clutch/tranny/engine job on an FD make sure you understand how the pull type clutch works. Also make sure it will properly engage before you go shoving the engine/trans back in. You can do this by removing the release bearing from the trans and then using your hands you can see how it engages the pressure plate and confirm that it WILL properly lock in place when you put it all back. There are always posts from people complaining about the fact that these two parts won't lock together when the WHOLE problem could have been avoided if they had confirmed 1) how it works and 2) that it will work.



Brian

What a story!!! This thread, and the many others on this forum, are of the best out there. There is so much helpful information on here that I will be printing it all out, reading it twice, then rebuilding my engine:)



Question, has anyone every done a "dry" run when rebuilding their engine for the first time? Like just stack all of the pieces to get an idea of how to do it? I might try that just to understand it a bit better for my first rebuild.

If you screw up clearnecing a side seal, and make it a few thousanths to large, try it in the other side seal locations, they are all slightly differnt. This can save you from buying another side seal.

when measuring rotor to faceplate clearance,measure rotor housings in approx. 8 different places & pay particular attention to the exhaust port area of the housing as this area is commonly a different size due to the heat in that area...

a few for those that a building something that will work much harder than stock ...



simple:

use Renesis bearings



not-so-simple:

teardrop the oil passages on the eccentric shaft

port the oil pump passages

use the FD rear oil pressure regulator

When rebuilding an engine that uses an aftermarket engine management system, dummy assemble the front half of the engine and confirm TDC. Clearly identify TDC on the front pulley, particularly if you are unsure on the origin of the pulley, that way static timing will be correct.

One thing I use is a Racing Beat/rx7.com underdrive pulley. This aftermarket pulley is actually a main crank pulley and front hub combination all in one with known-good timing marks that are directly indexed to the front keyway -- from right to left: 20BTDC, 10BTDC, TDC, and 10ATDC.



I use it to double-checked the timing marks on a stock pulley/hub combo as sometimes a mismatched set can occur. You can manually align the motor to TDC w/ the Racing Beat pulley, remove it, put the stock pulley/hub combo back on, then chisel a new TDC mark on it. Works very well and ensures the spark is firing exactly where ya want it.



B

My assembly lube of choice: Lucas Engine Oil Stabilizer, non-synthetic. It's tacky as heck and will not rust over time. It allows the placement of seals and springs w/o allowing them to spring out and all over the place. Works very well and is designed for use in engine oil. Will burn out after initial start.

...before reassembly...glue 2 piece apex seals together.



...relace everything that normally comes in a master rebuild kit...reuse nothing!

For disassembly. How many times have you found yourself just beating on the flywheel trying to get it to break loose of the eccentric shaft?



Well this has worked perfect on the last 3 engines.



Take the flywheel nut nearly all the way off the treads with the engine sitting on the floor. Ensure the area is free of oil and fuel. Use a small propane torch on low heat and go around the center of the flywheel in a circular pattern. Do no heat the eccentric shaft, just the flywheel. Once you feel the edge of the flywheel start to warm up, remove heat. Use a small prybar between the edge of the rear housing and the flywheel. Make sure the prybar is aligned with the keyway, pry on it slightly and lightly tap the flywheel with a hammer opposite the prybar.



Heat makes the flywheel expand away from the e-shaft and a couple of gentle lovetaps vibrate it loose, no more damaged threads or bearings.



I hope is works as good for you as it has for me.

i was wondering if u could do that,cool.



another one though,how do u best measure apex seal length when re using 2 piece seals,just hold them together and ,measure or what?



the glue would be no good cos it would add length to the seal stuffing up the measurements sice we are talkin 0.001 increments we are measuring.



whats ur tricks there?

As was stated before, the oil pump key can fall out when fitting the drive sprocket. A better solution is DON'T undo the drive sprocket nut, undo the 4 pump bolts under the sprocket. If the pump looks OK there is no need to full disassemble it.

For a newbie like myself, I found this site extremely useful:



http://www.rebuildingrotaryengines.com/