On Friday the 12th, I had the downpipe adjusted so I no longer have an exhaust leak at the manifold. I still need to replace the gasket between the downpipe and the midpipe. When I was leaving the exhaust shop the starter decided to start to die. The starter got to the point that I had to climb under the car and tap on the starter to get it to start the car. I was able to get the starter replaced last week once it came in.

For the past month my car has been smoking on startup and I was having no luck figuring it out. I did figure out that it was burning coolant. I started to fear the worst. The thing was, I had no coolant in the oil and no bubbling of the coolant in the radiator. I was loosing some coolant though.

I borrowed a friend’s coolant pressure tester a couple of weeks ago to see if I could figure out the problem. I fount a small leak at one of the hose clamps for the lower radiator hose. That turned out to be my cause of coolant loss. Once I figured that out, I wasn’t loosing any coolant pressure. I was stumped.

Yesterday I was thinking maybe I should check other possibilities. The only other thing that has coolant in it is the subzero start assist. Last night I disconnected the start assist and started the car. The car smoked like crazy but I figured it could possibly just be residual coolant in the motor. I let the car run and got the air out of the coolant. I took it for a drive to finish burning off the coolant.

This morning I started the car and it didn’t smoke at all. The car is fixed. All I can figure is the sensor was shorting out causing the pump to go on every time I started the car.

I has some back and forth with the insurance about the car. At first the insurance adjuster said that most of the repairs due to the hail could be fixed with PDR (paintless dent repair) with only the front bumper and headlight lid repainted. I took the car to a body shop and the PDR shop they work with said PDR is not possible with the car. Because the car was repainted, the PDR shops will not pull the dents from the outside and there isn’t access from the underside. A new adjusted then inspected the car and came up with an adjusted price. The insurance company threatened to total the car. I spent a few days accumulating information and they agreed to pay the repair.

I dropped the car at Mr. Body Shop in Colorado Springs to start the repairs. I was told the car should be done in about 2 weeks.

Well the car has hail damage after yesterday’s storm. It seems like everyone who was in downtown Colorado Springs was hit with hail. The car has minor hail damage over most of the car as well as a chip and crack in the front bumper and a chip on the headlight lid. I also ended up with a cracked wiper arm and the front emblem came off.

I’m not very happy about having to deal with this especially now that the car is basically finished.

The car broke down on me this morning on the way to work about a mile from the house. It turned out to be the trailing ignitor. The car didn’t even sputter, It just shut off.  I spent about an hour waiting for the tow truck to show up. Once I got the car home, It too me less than 30 minutes to dig out the ignitor and swap it out.  I’m lucky I have about 8 of them in the garage.

The trailing ignitor runs the tachometer on all 1981-85 RX-7’s but on the GSL-SE it is also the crank angle sensor of sorts and runs the fuel injection system. When it died, the fuel system completely shut off. The easiest way to tell if the trailing ignitor has died is looking at the tach. If the tach sits at zero when the car is being cranked than there is a high chance that the trailing ignitor is shot.

It looks like I’m going to need to replace the heater control valve. I’ve been smelling coolant slightly since about January but I haven’t seen any moisture. I have the replacement that I installed in my black car (removed it before I scrapped it).

I’m going to have to remove the entire dash to do the install and at that point I might as well swap out the carpet that I’ve had in the garage for a while now.

On Friday, I replaced the injectors. The car definitely starts better. I still need to get it tuned right, I’m having a lot of trouble getting it right. I’m open to suggestions.

Sunday Dwduc from Colorado Mazda Club and his friend helped me bend the cat pipe so it lines up right and stops causing an exhaust leak. I still need to replace the studs at the manifold to down pipe with ones that actually fit the car right.

I also still need to fix the drive shaft (one I brought in is not fixable) and fix the negative camber on the driver’s side. The camber bolt I purchased does not fit.

I dropped my extra drive shaft off at Driveline Services in Colorado Springs yesterday to have the u-joints replaced and the shaft balanced. I also picked up the output shaft seal two days ago. I just got a call from Driveline Services, my other drive shaft is completely shot. The joints are ovaled out.

I’m going to need to just work with the one I have in the car right now until I can afford to replace it.

I’ve been struggling to get the car to run right. I continue to have trouble getting the car to start after it has sat. I tried tuning it but nothing seems to help.  I’ve narrowed part of my problem down to my injectors leaking. I had these injectors cleaned a couple of years ago but the car sat for almost a year and a half during the painting process with no fuel stabilizer and the painter started the car and moved it around the shop. The bad fuel in turn clogged the injectors again.

I sent my extra injectors out for a cleaning to RC Engineering, I should get them back by the end of this week. I also received an intake gasket set, exhaust gaskets, and a camber cam bolt kit. The Mazda brand output shaft seal should be here today and I plan to have the extra driveshaft worked on this week.

I needed the camber cam bolt kit to help offset the 5% of negative camber that I have on my driver’s site front wheel. I assume it is from the leftover of the previous accident.

I’m planning the get the work all done on the car this weekend. I’m really tired of the injectors leaking and flooding the car. I’m also hoping to get the exhaust leak fixed this weekend or next week.

I was running errands on the 10th and I sat in the car and the driver’s seat broke. The metal frame of the seat actually cracked (never heard of this happening before). The crack was in the seat bottom where the seat back bolts in. The metal actually stretched and cracked. I’m not a big buy by any means, just average. Saturday morning I spent taking the seat apart down to the frame to prep it for welding. Saturday afternoon I spent driving around trying to get hog rings for the seat upholstery. I got the pliers but never found the hog rings. Sunday my neighbor welded the seat frame. Once the frame was welded, I painted it black just like stock. I than swapped the seat bottom foam that was bad from a spare 84-85 passenger seat I had. The foam was a direct fit with no modification. I reused the old hog rings and put the fabric back on and put the seat back together. The repaired seat definitely hugs better with the foam replaced. Now I just need to have a section of the vinyl replaced.