Walking Through the Wankel Wilderness

Life seems to happen when you want it not to sometimes.
Circumstances bully you for your time when you'd much prefer they leave you be.
Problems arise in the midst of jubilation and RX7s can and tend to fail at the most inconvenient times.

I don't have any special story or epic tale to tell of me having decimated a V8 muscle car and shown the Mitsu and Subaru boys tail lights for the quarter mile stretch. Nor do I have the experience of maxing out Sarah, spitting fire until the Mazda factory buzzer stopped remembering to tell me I shouldn't be at this speed.

I hadn't gotten there yet.
Yes I knew the car's potential but I just hadn't gotten there.
And so when driving down to work on the highway that morning and I heard this sickening pop from behind me and felt the car lose power and slow down to a near halt and I had to mosey on to the shoulder lane, the last thing on my mind was that the engine had given up the ghost.

I knew what I heard, I knew that I lost power, and I knew that I was getting great trouble to start this engine again.
I also knew the sun was scorchingly hot and I had to get to work.

I tried Anil, to see if he happened to be home but didn't get through.
I didn't have anyone else to call, so I tried and tried and finally got the engine to start.
But it was a very slow, almost funeral march home.
I didn't know what was the issue, so I parked Sarah home and went to work, figuring I'd have to look into that later on.

Even though I didn't know the extent of the damage I knew that the dynamics of the sale transaction I had previously considered had changed without a doubt. What I had no clue about was how much.

There was however one person, who had expressed great interest in Sarah when I had put it on Trinituner, but we had not as yet met for the usual test drive etc.
He was from the South land and said that he and his brother had been to visit Anil the one time that Sarah was there, to get an engine for a project his brother was working on and they saw it at that point.

He apparently had liked the car then and was happy when he saw it go up for sale on the forum.
So he had expressed his interest and I said no problem we'll see how things will work out.
But when this happened, I thought it best to alert him because I knew that the price could not be the same and I didn't know what his interest would be after hearing the news.

Strangely enough he was still interested.
And why is that?
Well as he reminded me the license plate of Sarah is PBG 5531
The license plate of the RX2 RE project that his brother has, PS 5531.
As he put it, it was fate for them to be together.

So since this was part of destiny all we had to do is adjust the pricing.
So we spoke about that and struck this deal in a mixture of online and telephone conversations.
There were only two issues to this agreement.

Firstly, he at that time did not have all the money.
He explained that he and his brother were building a business and they had a shipment coming in about April, this being late January and post the sale of items in that shipment he would be able to complete the purchase.

And the second more weighty matter was, we had never met.
I had only the information shown in the 100 plus page thread on the Mazda forum and the other posts on trinituner to go on.

Either he and his brother were for real or this whole deal was shot.
Either this transaction would be completed and it would be a story to remember or nothing would happen and it would all fade away like dust.

I figured two things.
One I bought this car to learn and so time is on my side in waiting for him to complete his business. Either he is for real or not but either way I'm in no hurry.
Secondly, I really didn't have a secondly, if he wasn't for real then I'd sell to someone else if I couldn't fix the issue.

So that was my rationale at that point.
And trust me lots of persons could not comprehend the decision that seemed simple to me.
Nobody was losing here. Whilst he did his part I would continue mine.
Either after April we linked up and did the deal or not.
It wasn't like he was asking me to hold my breath for six months.

All I had to do now was try to figure out what might be the issue and let time pass.

And so I researched online.
I searched local websites, tried to get contact numbers for different persons.
I hunted I asked, I went and saw some persons.
I did all of this very cautiously mind you, because I knew that not everyone was likely to be honest and reasonable with sharing information.

And time passed, and I learnt more.
Everything pointed to a seal having blown and caused a loss of compression.
So since for the most part the car wasn't moving, I focused on gaining confidence and increasing in my comfort level with automotive mechanical things.

So through that period I accumulated a lot of tools and a great deal of knowledge about cars in general; much more than I had previously.
And this was the point of this whole jumping in all Gung Ho into this rotary business.
To learn about cars in general and survive the learning process.

April came and the shipment arrived as promised. I think it had been delayed by a week and a half or two weeks but it arrived.
I was kept up to date on the progress and the January deal remained in tact.
Some of the initial sales were slow but as before, waiting was not hurting either of us.

What most people, including my parents did not comprehend was my willingness to wait for a virtual stranger.
Truly virtual since my initial introduction had been online.
I tried to explain my reasoning but that fell on deaf ears.
At least they let the car sit in the garage so I knew they didn't think I had completely lost all of my marbles :)

And then one day the required sales were almost complete and the savings were almost there.
And I got a call, shortly before I had to leave the country for a bit.
The guy and his brother and a friend wanted to come up to just see the car before we closed the deal.

If my friends and parents thought I was losing it I figure the same was occurring on his side, cause he'd never met me. Who was to say I was for real?

So we arranged and a Wednesday evening they came up, inspected the car and we talked like we'd known each other for years.

Who was this person and his brother you may ask?

Well none other than Khaleel and Khayam of Maztune.
And their friend who came to make sure everything was on the up and up?
Rana a true rotary enthusiast.

See Maztune's facebook page here Maztune

So I left for vacation and when I came back we closed the deal the Saturday after I came back.

And well that's how I met Maztune and how Sarah got the home she now has in Southern Trinidad.

The real question was how would I continue to learn now that Sarah was gone?

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Coming Soon: And there was 2 before 7

Previously:
3rd Gen's a Charm
Sarah's First Service
Bringing Home Sarah (Part II).
Bringing Home Sarah (Part I).
Rotary Owner and Loving It.
Is She The One? (Part II)
Is She The One? (Part I)
Rotary Revealed
Frustrated Wannabe Amateur Tuner
Navigating The Financial Labyrinth
European Exodus
RX7 Genesis

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Email me at safeq@myrx7story.com