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Getting ready to drive to Phoenix tomorrow to get the family from the airport, so if you see something winning blue and blurry down there on Saturday, that was me going by ;-)
Gave her a bath and wax and took off some water spots. Stupid water spots are a scourge on this earth. Anyone know a good clear coat technique to use after using a touch up pen for small paint marks?
I wandered out to the garage to make sure the battery tender light was green. It was. I shuffled back into the house. If she had good shocks, I would be taking her to the track on the 21st, but she doesn't, and I wont. Bummed. She looks good sitting there, though. At least that's something.
I either jack at the pinch welds (take a hockey puck, cut a slit in it, and use that to prevent damaging the paint on the pinch welds) Or I jack where the lower control arms/front cross member meet) The placement of the yellow jack stand or the one shown between the jack stand and the jack. I don't use the frame rails because I'm afraid of slipping (like what happened to you) or scuffing the surface leading to rust.
Last edited by ouimetnick; 11-13-2015 at 10:29 PM.
Oh no, what a bastard!, how did you do that to your 8?
I started jacking the car up without double checking that the jack was square on the frame rail. The jack slipped, I started cursing like a sailor. In 25 years of working on cars, I've made some stupid mistakes, but never this preventable. On a positive note, what I was working on, changing out the cat, was exactly what the car needed. Even after coils, plugs, wires, sensor cleaning, etc etc etc the car still had no power and wouldn't rev over 7k, turns out the cat looked like this:
Can I ask why you dont jack the car up at the front cross member / subframe ?
I drive my car up on some plastic caravan ramps so I can get my trolley jack under the car and then jack it up on the cross member, the small lump in it acts like an anchor point for the jack so it cant slip off.
Although I dont have the front undertray so it makes it possible.
Agonized over the work I did yesterday. Still have misfires and error reports from the SSV valve. So... I took out the Airpump got my hand on the accuator and it moved freely. I decided that I would take a few more parts out and clean up the engine compartment. *Totally filthly. Found there was no connector to the passenger side electric fan just wires pushed over a terminal. So - went into contact cleaner mode with all of the connectors I could get at and the ones to the selenoids that control things like the SVV valve. Used a roll of paper towels (most of it) wiping up grime. Noted that the previous owner who claimed to have had lots of work done didn't put things like screws and nuts that hold the nose on back. A missing Mudflap and other sorts of important stuff.
Today I'm scratching my head over the weird stuff you need to do after a battery is removed and the car powers down fully. Wheel to the left. Wheel the right. Start the engine and turn out the (idiot) light. Now I stumbled onto the reset the AC so it works after a battery pull. I guess there is another bit of "Voodoo" to really remove errors the ECU has recorded into memory.
So - two things I would do different. No icons. I understand having a dash in the US that says Low Air Pressure in left tire in english is not useful to someone who bought an RX8 in Japan but.. Geeze!
Having some rational input scheme to tell the car your battery got disconnected so please don't start up with the AC screwed up or these stupid Idiot lights that come on giving you incorrect.
Rant - over.
So - today I take the car out for its first run post SSV valve jiggling and contact cleaning to make a run for cat food that the cat will eat and some metric bolts to replace the varirious missing ones or those covered in rust. Also some Marvel Mystery oil which I'm told will clean up metal with the white crust on it.
I am hoping not to see anymore P0661 errors (Or the random misfires) If the later I suppose the one thing I didn't change was the wires. If the former? Argh... Getting that out seems to be a lot or removing everything else to get it out. Wish I had a list of what the previous owner did other then loose bolts and nuts...
Yes, I'm a bad bad man. Always double check that the jack is centered on the frame rail.
Is the proper place near the right edge of the cross bar near the door? I don't know if I've got the actual jack that came with the car but it has this dip so last it click onto the body but lifts where the bar goes to the body. On the yellow Jackstand. I thought you need one on each side to be safe? Wouldn't this car tend to tip to one side or the other and possible have the jack stand slide out. *One side down, jack stand scoots the other way and crunch goes the head?
Pulled apart the rear brakes and suspension. Drivers rear shock is blown. Konis are ordered. This is gonna be fun. Not to mention that parts cost so much less than my last car (911)
I've looked at those FRS / BRZs out there and thought they are the only thing that looks close to the better-looking RX-8s. But no suicide doors, and they just don't sit the same. Hopefully Mazda makes a RX-9 in some years so I can have one of each. Nothing like a rotary!
Something we have in common with those boxer engined FT-86? It needs an engine rebuild before 100,000 miles! Apparently, through searching, these non-turbo EJ's head gasket will eventually wear and cause both oil and coolant to intermingle over time.
11-06-2015, 01:40 PM
