Dismantling the Donor

Well here we are to date (07/08/05) my progress with the dismantling of the Rx-7. Many bits have come out. All of the engine accessories minus the air conditioning which I intend to leave in the shell. I won't be using the AC in the locost and this way I don't have to vent the gasses into the atmosphere. While I'm a rotary guy and can live with expelling a bit more from my tail pipe than many I can't abide doing damage to the ozone layer when it is avoidable.

After a brief stint of unemployment I have been able to collect a few more tools to help with the task of dismantling. I was stuck with trying to get the wiring harness out of the engine bay. You see to get the harness out of the engine bay I needed to get the dash board off. To get the dash board off I needed to get the steering wheel off. For that I needed a 22MM deep welled socket. Great I have that! Oh wait I don't have a 1/2in drive which turns the 22MM socket. Damn. Eventually I got around to getting an adapter. And here we are with the dash out.

There is a tricky bit in getting the dash out that I should share. Across the top edge just below the windshield there is a small strip which is a cover for the main dash mounting points. There are 3 one on the drivers side, one on the passengers side and the last one in the middle. The two on the sides aren't that bad you can get under them with a socket and get a open spanner wrench on the top. I will warn you here that they are two different sizes on top and bottom. In my case I didn't have the proper size for the top but a pair of robogrips did the trick. On the center one I couldn't get the robogrips on cause if the tight space and underneath I couldn't get the socket on cause of the air handler. It was getting a bit late in the day so instead of doing the right thing I got out the Dremel with a metal cutoff wheel and just hacked the bracket off. Yeah I know about as smooth as sand paper. Oh well, since the dash won't transfer to the project beyond the controls and instrument cluster it doesn't matter to me (until I need something in the exact shape and size as that bracket for something else).

Had a run in with the insider of the glove box when taking it out to get to the passengers side mounting bracket. I battled with it. Tugging this way, pulling that way, jiggling and generally just trying to coax it out, no go. To get a better look I splayed myself out my back on the passengers seat trying to look up underneath to where I could feel it was caught. More pulling and cursing. Then I just stopped and let go relaxes and just started to think about the problem. Wouldn't you know after about 30 seconds it just slid right out all on its own, right in to the bridge of my nose! Needless to say the profanities began to fly. Had me a nice little gouge in my nose that bled for a surprising long period of time.