Brian D. Cain wrote:

Ed,

Glad to hear that it came apart nicely without any problems.    
The flywheel nut has always been the major headache and
show-stopper for me doing any kind of engine work.  Perhaps I   
should evolve my tools collection to include air tools.  (smirk, 
bvvvvvvt!)

During the rebuild, you will have to remove the front stationary 
gear (once it's already been bolted onto the front iron during  
indexing of the front rotor) to get the thrust plate and
front/rear needle bearings on correctly once you've gotten the  
core block together and start doing the front cover and related 
stuff.  The factory shop manual doesn't say a thing about this.  
As a matter of fact, they list the components of the needle
bearings, counterweight, e-shaft thrust spacer, and thrust
plate.

You will probably also thoroughly enjoy the rebuild process in  
general.  You have to use a lot of assembly lube and/or
light-weight motor oil to dip *everything* in and coat all of   
the housings with; it gets real fun and real dirty!  Make sure  
you don't wear your Sunday's best doing this.

Some recommendations and tips:

- If you still use the factory oil filter stand on the rear iron
housing (which is a [I hope we can all collectively agree]
*crappy* design), when you install it with the two o-rings (get
the Hayes ones), use some hi-temp silicone sealant on the metal
portion around the o-rings.  This is a common failure on the
automotive side of the ballgame with using cruddy o-rings in a
hot, pressurized oil environment where the oil drips down and
hits the heater hose just below.  You guys probably have that
capped off or sealed shut so it might not be as much of a
bother, but I believe using something like Ultra Blue or Ultra
Copper to "pookey-up" the two metal surfaces around the o-rings
will help prevent one potential oil leak.  I've done this on an
engine with almost 6000mi on it since last rebuild and it hasn't
failed yet.  It seems to help out.

- Front cover o-ring - Use a good measure of hylomar to keep
this o-ring in place during installation;  otherwise, when
putting the front cover back on you may dislodge the o-ring from
its groove, get it half-way stuck, or drop it in the oil pan all
together.  The measure of hylomar will keep that o-ring in
place.  Speaking of which, I wonder if Hayes makes a more
bulletproof o-ring for this.

- Tubular dowel pin o-rings - I believe Hayes makes a more
bulletproof version of this o-ring, as well.  I've seen a few of 
these o-rings fail and lead to an external oil leak on the upper 
left side of the engine.

- Lube *everything* heavily.  I use a mixture of assembly lube  
and 30W motor oil in a pan for this.  The only things I don't   
dip are the oil seal o-rings really.  I don't dip them, although 
I do put some lube around the edges where they meet contact with 
the iron housing.  Make sure you goop up the rotor housings and 
the iron housings' combustion faces.  All of the compression
seals and springs will need it, too.  =)

- Want to paint the engine?  Now's a good time.  I recommend the 
Ford Engine Blue/Silver combination.  Mine's
blue/silver/blue/silver/blue with the '13B Mazda' letters, on   
the rotor housings, painted matching blue.  The front cover is  
almost painted, as well.

- In reference to the rear chamber containing more heat - I've  
got a theory on this, besides some of the obvious things.  On   
these engines, there's an EGR passage that comes out of the
sleeve in the rear rotor housing and follows its way up through 
a portion of the rear iron housing.  If you guys don't use this 
(I don't) it might be advantageous to seal that whole thing up  
and prevent hot exhaust gas from circulating through there,
*possibly* leading to more exchanging of heat from the casting
to the combustion face of that housing.  Paul Yaw may know more
about this than I do.

Anything past this is performance and reliability-rated as far
as going to different seals/springs, etc.  I would recommend
switching to the '93 and up corner seal springs, depending on
whether or not the rest of the fellow aircraft people advise
that.

Good luck and have some fun!  Get plenty of pictures and video.

B

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