Hey Guys,

Okay, so this is the beginning of Project Keiko. It starts with a friend of mine who dumped many thousands of dollars into a project FB which now looks like it may never be finished because of some really rotten luck and problems with the shop doing the work. (I can't get more specific than that because of issues between my friend and the shop right now).

After hearing that he most likely won't get his car back or finished this year, my friend was -really- feeling let down. His "dream car" was fading into just a dream, and a chunk of cash that he may never get back. Then the transmission in his alternate car (a family member's vehicle actually) blew out, and other crazy bad-luck things have been happening to him.

So I rallied together a bunch of friends to come up with an idea to cheer up this friend. Somehow we came up with the idea of trying to take my Parts Car FB and actually making it road worthy, then surprising my friend with an FB he can drive this summer. Sure it won't be his dream car, it won't be perfect, but it *will* be an FB and a car that he can drive, which is more than he has right now.


So today I did a once-over of Keiko, my parts car, and began the project of figuring out what it needs to become road worthy. Amazingly, it's got much less rust than I originally thought, and isn't missing a huge amount of parts. Now I'm not swimming in money, so I'm hoping that on $1k or less I can get this car running, inspected, plated, and driving. It will take a lot of work, but I am willing to put in the time and effort and I'm hoping some folks have spare parts laying around that will help keep costs low.

WTB thread is in the Canadian section classifieds here:
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=770145

---Edit: Here are the other chapters of the project, for easy reference---
Project Keiko - Helping a friend
Project Keiko Part II - Exterior, Seals, and Engine Bay Teardown
Project Keiko Part III - Engine Removals
Project Keiko Part IV - Tri-Engine Teardowns I
Project Keiko Part V - Tri-Engine Teardowns II
Project Keiko Part VI - Engine Build I
Project Keiko Part VII - Rotor Seals Assembly
Project Keiko Part VIII - Week Of Crazyness
Project Keiko Part IX - End of Season Update
Project Keiko Part X - Spring 2009 Update
Project Keiko Part XI - Another Engine, Ready to Start
Project Keiko Part XII - Up For Sale
---/Edit---

So here are pictures to kick off Project Keiko. I think she's in pretty good shape considering she's a parts car I nabbed for less than $200







More pics to come

Jon

Jon

 

So as you can probably tell from the first round of pics, the car was originally Tender Blue Metallic (V3) and someone repainted it Tornado Silver (K8) at some point in its life.

It has been rust proofed, I can see all the little caps that cover the holes they drilled to shoot the goop in. Nonetheless there is some rust. The most severe of which is the TOP of the driver's side wheel well. The insides of the bins at the bottom of the wheel wells are remarkably solid though, but one looks like it has been patched before already.

Why someone would change a car from what is, in my opinion, the *best* stock colour (V3) to what is, again in my opinion, one of the least appealing stock colours (K8) is beyond me.







Jon

 

A bit of metal work, some sanding, some touch up paint, and some TLC in the engine bay and I think we may have something here.

A couple of interior panels, some tail and side lights, a distributor... Nothing huge, I'm sure we can get this car back on the road again.

 

Excellent.

 

First order of business after cleaning out the interior a bit was to remove the Rat's Nest.

What the car needs mechanically:
- Carb needs a rebuild
- Gas Tank and fuel hoses
- Distributor, ignitors, cap, rotor, wires
- Reinstall Rad, Shroud, Fan
- Coolant, Oil Change
- Brake Master Cyl
- Clutch Master and Slave Cyl

And that *should* get it started if the engine has compression. If not I have another one coming this weekend that should be good. And if THAT doesn't work, then I'll tear both apart, measure tolerances, grab the best from both and a soft seal kit for $200 and build the ultimate el-cheapo rebuild. I'm hoping I can skip that because there's much more to be done.

What the car needs structurally:
- That upper wheel well needs new metal
- I have to start poking at things with screwdrivers to find soft spots before the inspection guys do and get new metal in there

What the car needs cosmetically:
- Interior Pieces (Rear Panels, Door Panels)
- Trunk Pistons
- Sunroof lifter (this one's busted, you can push the sunroof from the inside and raise it up and it won't stay up)

What the car needs for other reasons:
- Headlights
- Door Seals
- Midpipe, Muffler

Wish me luck! I'll keep you guys up to date as the project progresses. I'm hoping to have this wrapped up by the end of the month. I have a week off at the end of July and I want to dive into whatever is left by then and get this thing drivable by August.

Jon

 

Looks better than my frikin car. Glad to see canadians helping canadians lol (or just people helping people) and FB owners no less.

I may have some parts you need for cheap. Ill check your wtb. Speficially headlights etc.

 

great to hear! Good luck.. keeping my fingers crossed for good compression.

I'll check the wtb thread as well... I have an 83 gsl parts car

Pete

 

Good luck man

if I were there I would volunteer