HarryB

This whole thing has ground to a halt a number of times now; last year has been particularly hectic, had almost zero free time to play with the car. Decided to keep the -74 Rotrex for now, and maybe upgrade later on, as I want the car done in a reasonable timeframe, and that is not happening if I keep moving the goalposts. Quick updates on what happened since I last posted:

Impulse COVID buy, Morette tail lights. Decided against them and sold them.

Made a set of drilled wiper arms and had them powdercoated.



Powder-coated engine mounts and water pump pulley.



The crank pulley/damper will be replaced with a brand new one, and the power steering one is not removable, so I will have to live with it. Engine block wire brushed and painted. Potato-quality content:







Quite happy with how it turned out, although I would prefer a less glossy finish (that one was supposed to dry on a satin finish). Not too worried about the water and oil pump as they will be replaced, and the sump will get soda blasted.

Pulled the oil pan from the VVT engine, happy with how clean the engine looks.



Designed my own baffles, just because.



Laser-cut from stainless, using viton M3-style flaps





And installed with the OEM top plate.





AC compressor gave up the ghost, replaced it with a used one from a friend which works really well, meaning that mine was half-broken for the last 5 years without me knowing. Thankfully, it is a newer scroll-type compressor, so it is quite efficient. Want to properly refresh the system at some point, maybe using a more modern compressor; we shall see.

Driver's side window regulator shat itself; the plastic clip holding the top cable on the regulator mechanism sheared off. The cable then moved and broke the plastic pulley, which is riveted on the frame/rail. This also dislodged the cables in the electric motor drum, which became jammed...great! Picked up a spare regulator rail, so that I could use the pulley. Got hold of it, cleaned it really well, and re-greased it. I then pried back the motor assembly cover, and managed to free up the jammed pulley and cables (something that both professionals I talked to advised against as they said it could not be put back properly). Mazda's FSM says otherwise, so I decided to give it a go.



I managed to straighten the cables (fortunately they have not frayed), lubed them up with silicone grease, and put them back together. I have no pics of this, as it was a really messy procedure with all the grease. The last piece of the puzzle was the clip that caused all that mess in the first place. It is not available as a spare part anywhere, you can only buy a complete regulator assembly. I would definitely do so if said assembly was available anywhere near, but that was not the case, and in the meantime, the car would have been inoperable, so time to fire up the 3D printer.





These are basically sleeves, with the original clip captured inside. Printed in carbon fiber infused polycarbonate, which is plenty strong. I also cleaned up dried grease from the window guide rail (which was the root cause of the failure, as the window was incredibly hard to move), replaced the rollers with brand new OEM ones I have had for over a year, and reassembled the whole thing.


That basically brings us up to date. Need to finish the engine, and get started on the loom for the swap.