Saturday, July 22

Once again, it was an 8am-12pm work day, this time with Gabe C, Mr. Garcia, and I.  On this particular Saturday we continued working in the rear aluminum firewall (see post on 7/23/17 titled “Tuesday, July 18”).  We began by mocking up the firewall and tracing on the body where the panel should fit.  Then, I cut a piece of aluminum angle and bent it to make a mounting point on the sidewalls for the panel.  Meanwhile, Mr. Garcia and Gabe were putting the final touches on the panel and cutting it so that it could slide easily in and out of the car without rubbing.  Then, we anchored the aluminum mounts into the sides of the chassis with rivets and inserted threaded rivets into the mount and onto the chassis where the panel would sit.  Finally, we screwed it in.  Job complete!

I'll post a picture of the final product in the near future.  I forgot to take one right after we finished.

Tuesday, July 18

On Tuesday, the 18th, Mr. Garcia and I put in a couple hours into the RX-7.  We adjusted the transmission mount previously installed on the Saturday prior in order to gain proper alignment of the drive-shaft and differential.  We then heated up a point on the exhaust pipes and bent it upwards.  Previously, the muffler would have been scraping the road, but now it will properly expel exhaust fumes out the rear, hopefully aiding in the aerodynamics of the rear end (more on this in a later post when the muffler and ground-effect panel is installed).  After the exhaust pipe cooled, we proceeded to bend and shape the aluminum back panel/firewall (mentioned in my 6/20/2017 post “Excuses”) in the most DIY way possible.  We used a metal pipe handle for our bending point with the weight of the Mazda holding one end down and my body weight the other.  It actually worked pretty well, however, we did have to do a few minor tweakings to the curvature to get to the desired radius throughout and to the sides of the panel for it to fit properly.  Thus ended Tuesday, the 18th.

   

Saturday, July 15

As of these past two Saturdays our hours have been cut down a bit from 9-4 to 8-12.  We’ve found (Correction Mr. Garcia found) we are more productive in the first few hours in the morning before lunch time.  After lunch we tend to slow down and progress is not considerable.  And so, on Saturday the 15th during our 4 hours, we were able to install the transmission mount, prime the interior, and Bondo (a product we are using to fill in the uneven surfaces of fiberglass) the dashboard.