Turk’s Buildup, One Dream & Endless Nightmares by Turk82 | builds

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Turk’s Buildup, One Dream & Endless Nightmares by Turk82

By diyauto

( 1 )

7 minute(s) of a 202 minute read

11-13-2013

I had been thinking about converting to a manual steering rack for a while to clean things up in the engine bay because I love simplicity. I never really had a real reason to do it though until I dropped the power steering pump during removal and broke the pulley. I had two options Option 1: make a replacement. Option 2: convert to a manual rack. While making a pulley would've been simple enough I decided to go manual rack since it would cost nearly 0 dollars. While I was waiting for the date to drop the car off for frame assessment was the perfect time to do it.

These lock washers for the inner tie rods are impossible to find

I also did the mod to the door handles that relieves the stress on the worn linkage for easy opening and ease of mind that I wont snap them off.

Then it was time to drop the car off at the frame shop to have its fate decided. When I dropped it off I was hopeful and after looking it over with the owner of the shop it seemed like the car really wasn't in bad shape. I informed him to measure it and then call me to decide whether it is worth fixing or not.

I thought so too but the car had been aligned at Speed 1 and I measured the wheelbase on both sides of the car before it wen to the frame shop. The rough measurements showed the driver side wheelbase to be roughly 0.750-1.000" shorter than the passenger side. And I can tell the driver side front corner was bent up because the car never sat on all 4 corners on jack stands.

Here is a picture from before the first time I had it pulled. You can see something is pretty off. I didn't notice this when buying the car because the wheel was always turned.

I also feel like the whole car is crooked. I took these pictures to try to capture it with the wheels dead straight. My calibrated eyeball says the driver front sits inside the rear and the passenger front sits outside the rear.

Driver

Passenger

1-19-2014

An Update!!!

Over two months ago my frame guy informed me that he wasn't confident that he could get it right because of the plate welded to the rail and that it some other oddities that he found. I didn't see it to be a good investment to put money into a car that wasn't in anywhere near good shape to begin with and have no guarantee it would be straight afterward. Yes the car would still have a clean PA title but if I were to sell it I would sell it as an R title because I have morals. So the search began for a suitable replacement.

Originally I was searching for a stripped chassis. This was nearly impossible to find so I began looking for a roller. My requirements for a roller were clean body and nothing else but finding a reasonably priced roller with a clean body is pretty tough as well. I then started looking at upper end rollers and at 7-8k I was turned off. In this period of time I made contact with many owners with rollers, non-running, and running cars. one of the cars I stumbled upon happened to be no more than 5 miles from my apartment. This was as close to a barn find I will ever see when it comes to Rx7s. This car was modified right around 2001 in the F&F days, had 44k on the clock, and had been stored for the last 3-4 years. I pursued that car for a while but the owner was delusional about its condition and value.

I then went back to a car that I previously passed by since it was a complete running car. I had a friend that lived no more than 15 minutes from the cars location go check it out for me before I made the drive. He put it through its paces, snapped a bunch of pictures, and gave it his seal of approval. I then arranged my own visit yesterday and ended up leaving with the car.