FD3S Rebuild: Take 1

[Wav]

Well after my friend got completely ripped off by some Southern hill billy slack jawed red neck trailer trash texan, we have no real choice but to go ahead rebuilding the old engine we took out a few months back now :eek

However on the plus side it means you'll all have lots of piccies to look at while we strip the engine, clean, measure, check tolerances and re-assemble it:cool ;)

So here is the first pic:

Loosen main front nut on eccentric shaft then remove all oil pump/chain retaining bolts.

[Wav]

Take out pulley flange and tap lightly with a rubber mallet to break the gasket seal, then lift off.

[Wav]

Revealing oil pump and chain sprocket assembly:)

[Wav]

Remove the oil pump sprocket assembly and carefully lift off the thrust washers, spacers and roller bearings from the eccentric shaft.

[Wav]

Once oil pump is removed and you've left the front stationary gear in with one bolt retaining it, turn engine over so that you are looking at the rear rotor end plate. Undo the rear stationary gear and remove it.

P.S. Disclaimer: these descriptions are to just roughly give a general gist of what you have to do and in what order and are no means real instructions on how to strip down your block:rolleyes: ;)

[Wav]

Using a 1/2 inch 3ft long breaker bar and a 17mm socket, undo the long retaining bolts; to start undo each one by approx. 1-1 1/2 turns ins a criss cross manor.

[Wav]

Once all the bolts are out, knock the end plate with a rubber mallet to break the seal. Then lift off revealing the internals of the rear rotor:bandit

[Wav]

Rear rotor in housing top view. Unusually this rotor and housing is in mint condition. BUt just wauit until you see the front one:eek: :rolleyes: ;)

[Wav]

Then take the two dowel pins out at 5 and 11 o-clock. Again knock the housing to break the water seals and remove the rear housing. Then carefully twist the rotor from side to side to prevent the corner seal from sticking and lift off and over the eccentric shaft.

[Wav]

Now repeat steps to remove the centre plate but you have to lift the shaft up a little to get the housing to come off. Then our worst nightmares become true as we start to examine the condtion of the front rotor and housing:o :( , lol

[Wav]

again repeat steps and remove housing then eccentric shaft then rotor. Leaving just the front end plate on its tod ;)

[Wav]

Now look at the state of the front rotor housing!, something went bang big time:eek: Bits of rotor tip are stuck in the surface and have gauged out massive channels in the nicckle plated surface. Do you guys think it can be sorted with a little elbow grease and some wet and dry?????? ;):rollin

[Wav]

The rotor is just as bad and this thing is made of some fairly high carbon steel:eek:

[Wav]

Now the cleaning up process begins. First off removing all of the old water seals and cack from the side plates. All the plates look in fairly good nick, so fingers crossed they will be within tolerance:)

[Wav]

These rotaries are so much simpler than a piston engine, it can all fit nicely spaced out on my workshop table ready for a damn good cleaing:D

[Wav]

Now only one other thing worries me. It is the amount of wear on both stationary gears inner eccentric shaft bearing surface. There are no scraps, scratches or gouges, but it does seem to have worn through some of the white metal plating where the engine would usually lay to rest once turned off. Meaning that it has worn from the eccentric shaft winding down on to it due to gravity once the engine has been turned off and has obviously had a lack of oil around them.

Can anyone tell me if this looks normal or ok? and if not is it possible to get new bearings pressed into the stationary gears?

Hope you've enjoyed the first installment:D

Kind Regards,

Paul:)

[igy]

I personally would not reuse that bearing as there looks to be quite a bit of "brass" showing. Yes, you can press a new bearing in. I use the Mazda special tool and a hydraulic press. The bearings are very easily damaged, so I would either find a shop that specializes in rotaries, or buy the special tool if you are going to try to do it yourself.

[Davegtt]

Proper job mate!!!

excellent pics and expination, very simple engines !

Brilliant mate :cool

[yonner]

do ya wana rebuild mines when ur finished :D

[Adam]

Glad to hear you took the plunge paul..... not too hard when you get stuck in. Make sure though you get the parts checked before rebuilding. I did all the measurements and inspection, but when i took em to pip he took one look and scrapped em :( he was right, there were bits i missed but a specialist will know what they are looking for. I ended up having new rotor housings and plates. Mine are being ported as we speak and i will be picking them up on saturday with a bit of luck.

You can pop round one night and have a look if you wish. Have you git your rebuild kit yet?

Cheers

adam

[grinder]

thats fantastic matey

superb piccies aswell :)

keep up the good work

[Wav]

Thanks for the kind comments guys; keep them coming;)

Yeah i think i'm going to take all the parts into University to get them measured properly using all the correct equipment. Hopefully everything will be ok as the rear rotor still had very good compression before we stripped it and there appears to be no chips on the side plates just a little wear. And no we haven't got the rebuild kit yet, but would definitely be interested in calling round sometime to check over what you get in it and to also look at your project:cool

Cheers, Paul:)

P.S. Anyone know the part numbers for the stationary gear bearings that the eccentric shaft runs on? how much are they? and where can you buy them from? and/or do they need to be a specific size to compensate for the eccentric shaft wear? sorry bout all the questions:rolleyes: :D

[efiniste]

Part numbers are NF01-10-E04 to NF01-10-E26 in ten steps from 1.980mm to 2.000mm. I assume that's oversize. They're about 40 quid plus VAT for the pair (front and rear)

Personally, I took mine to Pip who pressed a new set in for me.

[efiniste]

BTW, who did you take it to in the states and what happened?

[Wav]

Cheers for the info:) What size did you get? just the standard ones? I think usually you'd only get over sized ones if the crank/shaft has had a regrind and how much did pip charge for pressing them in etc?

And regarding the dirty southern rotory guy (Brent) :rolleyes: It is a long story m8, but basically we were just going to take the engine out and then he had arranged to send the block over to america to get a rebuilt exchange one back with stage 3 porting and race bearings. Anyway due to it being relatively cheap for what he was promised (mainly to do with the weak $ at the mo) my friend sent off his money, but never recieved the exchange engine and had had no e-mail replies back since apart from ones with excuses saying that the engine will be ready next week then the week after that, after a while the e-mail replies have stopped altogether:(.

A lawyer is now on it as another guy from Norway is in the same boat. The weird thing is that a few people in the US have had engines from this guy, maybe he just thinks that if the customers are outside of the US then he can get away with scamming people:reallymad.

So the moral of the story is don't trust ebay or dodgy americans without having a lot of positive feedback regarding their legitimacy. My friend has lost out on over £1600 :eek:

You live and learn, Paul

[efiniste]

ouch!

Not sure what size mine are tbh I gave Pip all of the parts and he measured tolerances, ported and skimmed the plates and fitted the bearings. I'll try to dig out the invoice and get back to you.

Steve

[mids]

great pics !

http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif

[Wav]

Just adding a few more pics of the cleaning up process, am stil waiting for the rebuild kit to come over from the US.

Cheers, Paul:)

[Wav]

Illustrating maping of all the old seals and springs for each side of the rear rotor:)

[Wav]

Ok here are some actual pics of the build:cool

Pic 1: Assembled rotor (N.B. is a pain in the ass to grind all the side seals to the correct length ;) )

[Wav]

Assembled rotors take 2:

[Wav]

New eccentric shaft stationary gear bearings:

[Wav]

Start of "big Mac" rotary sandwich build up:rollin :

[Wav]

Combustion and Water seals held in using Hylomar:

[Wav]

First burger (rotor) in place:

[Wav]

Second burger and relish in place ;) :

[Wav]

Burger bun top and retaining :censored::censored::censored::censored:tail sticks torqued up in sequence:

[Wav]

Rear oil U seal with sump ready to go on:

[Wav]

Sump on:

[Wav]

Now enter the wiring loom and piping from hell:rolleyes: I guess the sesame seeds on top of the bun with extra salad, lol:

[Brad]

Awesome pics and explanations, this is getting bookmarked incase mine decides to go bang.

[ds2000]

Wicked thread, how much time have you dedicated to her so far?

[Wav]

Well you guys will be pleased to know that she started on the first turn of the key with both rotors running:cool , but then we stalled her after about two mins while trying to bleed the power steering:rolleyes: So now she is flooded on 3 1/2 month old optimax:(. We're just cleaning and heating the plugs now and we put some booster and new optimax in, so fingers crossed:)

Oh and i think the neighbours are going to love us if it starts now:eek: , Wav;)

[Brad]

Congratulations mate :D

Glad to hear everything went well.

[Wav]

She's alive:bandit 10litres of new optimax, a whole bottle of octane boost and a set of brand new spark plugs and she started first turn of the key after allowing the petrol to evaporate out of the chambers over night:bandit

Has been left idling for an hour now while we put the bumper on etc, my god does that nurspec exhaust with full 3inch straight through cat replacement sound awesome have only ever heard it run on one rotor before, lol:rolleyes:

Cheers for the advice and positive feedback i've had form everyone on the boards:D

Just have to go for a test run in now:cool , Paul:)

[moakesr]

Superb ! Well done Paul.

An inspiration to all of us who might be tempted to have a go if the worst happens.

Richard

[Wav]

Originally posted by moakesr
Superb ! Well done Paul.

An inspiration to all of us who might be tempted to have a go if the worst happens.

Richard

Aii m8 I hope so:D Just been for a cruise, it idles just sooo soo smoooooth:cool I'm now officially "Suckin' Diesel" ;)

Cheers, Paul:bandit

[Donato]

Well done guys!

Hopefully mine will start first time when it goes back in! (im leaving the rebuild to Pip) and then putting it back in the car myself, not looking forward to the rats nest!! :eek:

Congrats again on a job well done!

Regards

Donato

[BlitzBoy]

Nice one Paul :)
best Thread I have read on here
Glad it started first time

[TheJackal]

Nice thread, you make it look easy, I bet the hardest part is putting all the 500,000 vacuum pipes back in the correct place.

[spanerhed7]

ah, that takes me back to my re-build last christmas. Dont know why you removed the stationery gears though. I never do.

[yonner]

dude thanks a million my dad wants to rebuild our engin and i thot it was never gona get done but uve gave me hope that it can be done cheers

edit: Donato thats 3 poped in scotland lol WHEN WILL IT END WHEN!!!!!!

[Andyp]

what an achievement well done! :D

so when do you start offering rebuilds for £1000 then ;)

[Wav]

Thanks for the thumbs up guys:D

After this I thought I was going to have a well earned break from fixing cars for a little while. However the mk1 golf I did up for my girlfriend knackered a gearbox:(, so I had to put in a new box at the weekend. Me being me decided against putting another 4 speeder in and went for a 5 speed box from a polo coupe:rolleyes: After alot of messing about it all went in and I managed to drive it up to chester on Saturday evening no problems:). Just have to fabricate a left front engine mount for it to be perfect:bandit

Cheers, Paul:)

[Wav]

Here's a vid of the first start up for anyone interested, right click and save target as:

It Lives (http://www.3rotorfd.com/supra%20sale%20day%20007.avi)

Regards,

Paul

:cool

[scientist1968]

Top article...just hope i never need it !!!!

I know this topic has been dicussed b4.....but what oil did you use ???

[fdman]

Dear Wav,
Thank you for this remarkable post. An inspiration, and an
education.

Best wishes,

fdman

[Glenn Butcher]

Paul,

Good on ya! really well done, great pics. etc.

I'll make this a sticky thread for a while!

[Wav]

Cheers all and thanks for all the kind comments:) The car is now fully run in at 1200miles and we're just waiting on a few things so that it will be able to pass the SVA.

Thanks again and I'm really glad you've enjoyed it, am now finding it difficult to find an excuse to go back into the garage:rolleyes: lol

Regards,

Paul:)

[the lemster]

texanz hey!!!!

rooting tootin high felooting sons of guns!!

anyway bets of luck with the rebuild...

in the words of the great philosopher...

god speed gentlemen

oooh maybe you could fill in the gouges with some baco-foil...

worth a try at least!!

[scooby_si]

was guna take pea then outa the http://www.smiliegenerator.de/s26/smilies-29922.png thing but then strangely a strange figure appeared at the door, didn't know you had a twin? <a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/15/15_8_109.gif' border=0></a> pmsl
Congrats thou bud good stuff :god
Si

[Pete C]

Excellent thread and great pictures - congratulations! :)

I was getting bored of the sight of the inside of piston engines :D

[Wav]

I have now put up all the rotary rebuild stuff onto my website, if anyone is interested then check it out. Obviously me being a car geek there is some other rotary and car related stuff on there too e.g. rotorstock 2004 pics.

Wav's Rotary Rebuild (http://www.theburbz.com/Rotary%20rebuild%201.htm)

Enjoy,

Paul:bandit

[Martiny]

Well done, guy.

An inspiration to those who want to have a go themselves. Great pictures, and a good reference. If you are going to do it yourself, also get the video by Bruce Turrentine.

[Gefunk]

Its a great site, and that video sounds spot on, going to order mine this weekend :D

Gav

[Wav]

Originally posted by Gefunk
Its a great site, and that video sounds spot on, going to order mine this weekend :D

Gav

Good good, the video is extremely helpful, but you will still need to follow the mazda workshop manuals for torque figures and for another point of quick reference.

Also thanks for the kind words about the site, it's nearly there just need to add the coolant change and gearbox oil change to the rotary section amongst a few other non rotor things:cool

Cheers and good luck,

Paul:)

[Gefunk]

Wav,

Hi where can you get the mazda workshop manuals from ?

Cheers

Gav

[Wav]

Originally posted by Gefunk
Wav,

Hi where can you get the mazda workshop manuals from ?

Cheers

Gav

I luv my rx (http://www.iluvmyrx7.com)

Paul;)

[Gefunk]

nice one cheers chap

Gav

[FDDreamer]

Wow!! Someone give this guy a medal!! Talk about putting back into the community! Brilliant, concise explanation and great pics to boot. Happy it all works great too!

Quick question though, i've often heard the phrase 'porting' used in context with the 13B...how does this work? I've read a little about the work done for this on a standard engine, but how does it work on a rotary? Also, there are different 'stages' it seems, street port/race port for example.

Off to check your site now, appetite well and truly whetted!

Thanks again and good work fella! :D

[FDDreamer]

Oh...sorry about a bit of post whore-ness here, forgot my other newbie question!

Is it possible to carry out the work you've done without actually removing the 'rat's nest' etc? Can you simply disconnect the appropriate hoses etc then re-connect then after the re-build? Everything looked OK until the relish! :confused:

[Wav]

Glad you like it Mr Dreamer:D

Porting on a rotary works in a similar way to on a boinger, widening/lengthening (increasing the area) the ports allows more air and fuel to get into an engine per stroke and quicker exit of gas out, if the exhaust is ported aswell. However on a rotary there are no vlaves blocking flow hence making the ports and runners bigger has a much more direct effect on the gains, i.e. is a very good way of gaining power in a rotary engine, if of course the engine is tuned and optimised to take full advantage of the porting. But the problem or perhaps gains of porting a rotary is that it will also effect the timing i.e. the longer and/or wider the ports allow the inlet to either/and/or open early or close later again allowing more air/fuel to enter. But this can also cause overlap and loss of low down power.

So basically porting is a pretty complicated business and there are multiple factors to consider. I have never done any porting, but is something I'd definitely like to try in the future. There are a few different types or extremes of porting and these are summerised on the rotary engine illustrated website.

Ports and types of porting (http://www.rotaryengineillustrated.com/RE101pages/4-ports101.html)

With regards to the "rats nest", I'd say that you have to disconnect quite a lot of the pipes in order to get it off and removed from all the adjoining components unfortunately:( However you can leave a few bits left attached. If you're put off with doing that bit, then I'd suggest you convert it to a single tubby at the same time, that way you'll get rid of most of the "nest" ;)

Hope that helps a little,

Paul:)

[zevans]

Wav, you da man.

I need one of those keyrings to look at whilst reading that American site though... head hurts. :rollin

[FDDreamer]

Ah i see...another brilliant explanation, makes a lot of sense now. I had it totally backwards, was thinking that without a valvetrain etc it would be something that would yield only minor gains, but after reading about it i can see how the opposite is true! No wonder it's such a popular mod, especially for people who are going through a rebuild anyway!

Those green and purple lines are waaay over my head though! :p

Thanks again for clearing that up though! Don't have an FD yet (hence the username lol!) but i'm intent on learning as much as poss prior to getting one, seems to me the only way to have the car is if you are aware yourself as to how to maintain it! Hoping to get a project car reasonably soon, then spend about a year building the car up, then having it to coincide with my 25th birthday (and therefore cheaper classic insurance)!

[grinder]

what a superb read !

and you make it look soooo simple ( but i bet it isnt ! )

i would love to rebuild mine ( when the time comes ) - but i will probably chicken out , throw it away and buy another one :)

keep up the good work

stu

[skim41]

Nicely done mate, keep me informed about DSR.

What did you do with the rotor and housing? Throw them away right.

[scooby_si]

moved to FAQ cause i think it's a good thread :god
Si

[RobMatthews]

hi guys and gals im on a roll tonight with this being my 2nd post!! im thinking of doing a rebuild on a spare engine of mine (1993 tt), you will come to find i cant sit still for five min without wanting to take something apart to see how it all works (and im sure a lot of you are the same!)Anyway i was wondering if there are any good guides or dvd's anyone can recommend as essential viewing, im thinking about tollerences recomended torque settings and alike, and where to buy rebuild kits.

[ro284]

Thanks Slowboy, for replying to this thread, iv'e been a member for 2 years and missed it!:Hammer Well done Paul,:Thumbsup!
Bob

[Jas]

ill have to keep an eye on this one

[fd3szhi]

mate such a good write up and pics im think of diy my own when the thing is around 60k so finger cross and wish me luck where bout did you find all the spec for that thing cos i never knw which manual i should go of