Hi all
After weeks of lurking I thought I\'d drop in and say hello. I hope you don\'t mind if I use this space to document the trials and tribulations of restoring my 1990 TII.
Here it is:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-14130009.jpg)
I actually bought the car back in 1996, however things didn\'t get of to a very good start. After 2 months it blew a tip, a bit of which came out and also wrecked the turbo. It\'s a long story but here\'s the short version:
The car went back to T.W. Whites ( the UK\'s largest Mazda dealer - and a bunch of B......s) for repair. After 3 months of crap from them, I woke at 5:30 one morning to see it being pushed of the back of trailer outside my house. Of course the driver was ofsky before I made it downstairs. Not only did it run like a bag of sh.t, but they broke the front bumper, resprayed or swapped the bonnet and put a few other dents and dings in it.
And so started the 4 year legal battle......which I won :D
The car was brought back to a mechanically perfect condition back then, but I never got round to sorting up the bodywork because I\'d completely lost interest and other things in life got in the way. It\'s actually been SORNed for the last 5 years and only done 2000 mile in the 5 before that. It gets a run up and down the drive every month just to keep things moving. I don\'t think (famous last words!) the chassis will be in as bad a nick as some of the photo\'s I\'ve seen on here because the garage is heated and de-humidified, and this is where it\'s been for the last decade.
So here I am 16 years after I bought it with the time to finally return it to it\'s former glory.
20 years ago I used to be a bit of a rotorhead and know my way round an FC (N/A and Turbo) pretty well, but alas time has taken it\'s toll. I\'ve spent the last month pouring over the FSM and reading web page after page trying to regain some of the knowlege I once had. ( Talking of web pages, what happened to the TeamFC3S site? )
So any way, the plan is to restore to as near standard as possible... however there are exceptions. :D
I\'m going to remove the interior then start underneath, remove everything, clean/sandblast, repair rusty bits. Replace all bushes/hoses/pipes. The same for the engine bay. Then finally the body work. There is a small patch of rust at the top of the windscreen, so it means it will have to be removed.....which I\'m really not looking forward to. :(
(Anybody got a new spare one lying around)
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-17161559.jpg)
May 2011:
Everything on the car appears to be working with no error codes on the ECU. I was half expecting something like the lambda code up because it doesn\'t half stink on startup. It\'s done this ever since I got it de-cated and a custom built exhaust fitted many many moons ago. It doesn\'t seem to effect performance in any way though. Obviously something I\'ll have to look at at some point.
I\'ve started to strip out the interior:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-15214115.jpg)
and I found that the car has had a small rear end shunt at some point which I didn\'t know about:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-17161513.jpg)
It\'s not bad, but you can see where the rear bumper has bent in the metal about 1/2 an inch.
The dash was a bit of a pain to come out, but out it came!
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-15214046.jpg)
Hopefully get the carpets out soon and give the floorpan a once over. I had to weld a small hole on the drivers side years ago so I know it\'s not too clever, but I\'ve no idea what the passenger side is like.
To be contrinued.......
Welcome aboard mate! Hope u have a great time here!!
Syed
Looks perfectly serviceable to me!
Welcome to MRC :wave
Welcome and good luck with the project :D
Welcome to the club. Great news on another TII being restored, glad your finding the time to do it and not sell up. Best of luck and I hope you find all you need here on mrc, everyone is nice and friendly!
Welcome to the club.
I think the teamfc3s site lost it\'s webserver and the guy didn\'t have a lot of it saved. There\'s some bits of it still around.
Much the same has happened to 1300cc.com - another good site.
FC3spro is also a good one. Particularly for modifications.
If you\'re looking for a workshop manual look here http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=rx7manual
The car doesn\'t look too bad, i can imagine that rust on the roof will be a pain. Good luck, just a shame you made the school boy error of going to a mazda dealer
Thanks for the welcome everybody, and don\'t go too far because I\'ll probably have to pick your brains at some point.
Thanks for the links as well, much appreciated.
:cheers
Welcome to the club. Nice looking TII you\'ve got there and in the fastest colour too! I\'ll be keeping an eye on this thread as it gets updated.
Ade
Wow, surely you have to be a contender for \'longest owned FC\'?
Nice looking car, should be easy to sort IMO! Except the windscreen, but there\'re a few fabricators who could do so to a high level... It\'s definitely a job I\'d pay someone to do!
Welcome aboard :D
I cant see the pics due to the firewall at work :(
Cracking first post :) definitely can\'t wait to see how it progresses!! Hopfully oneday my fc can get the same pampering too ;)
Richard
Afternoon all.
Quote from: papercutout;763460Wow, surely you have to be a contender for \'longest owned FC\'?
Hmmmm.....I wonder what the record is? Anybody Know?
I\'ve had another session on the car this afternoon so I\'ll post more pics later on.
Cheers
Doc
Just a quick question.
Do you think I\'d be better updating my original post as thing progress, or just stick in a new post every time?
I don\'t think you can update the original post matey.
Quote from: BenRX;763652I don\'t think you can update the original post matey.
Yip well spotted. No edit facility....Darn!
That solves that then :rolleyes:
Well the carpet is out!
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19200353.jpg)
I ended up having to take the heater out, which meant draining the sytem. I also had to remove the intercooler because I could\'nt get the hose clips off which sit right up against the bulkhead in the engine bay. You can see in the photo that the bitumen pad where the heater sits has melted slightly effectively gluing its-self to the plastic liner on the carpet.
However with the carpet gone I was able to have a good look at the floor pan from the inside.
On the passenger side you can just see a small trace of rust along the Sill.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19193551.jpg)
The drivers side...well:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19193637.jpg)
This was the area I had to weld a plate in before. It\'s about an inch along the sill but it still looks in really good nick both inside and from underneath.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19194442.jpg)
( I sort of went mad with the underseal at the time)
So, so far it doesn\'t look like I\'ll have to do any welding :Thumbsup!
I thought I\'d remove the rear bumper and have a go at repairing the ding where steel inner bumper bolts to the chassis.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-17161513.jpg)
All the bumpers nut on the inside of the car looked like new, but yip the four on the outside under the the rear all sheared. The first of many I assume.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19194128.jpg)
No great problem, I\'ll bore them out and replace it with M8 stainless when I put it back on.
Two of the inner bumper bolts were a bit of a ..... to get to which meant taking off both the rear silencers, and as sods law would have it they sheared as well. (The bolts not the silencers) You can see in the pic that it\'s had a rattle at some point. If I can pick up one cheap enough I might just replace it rather than waste time straighten it.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19193855.jpg)
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-19194022.jpg)
Apart from the dent in the body things don\'t look too bad at the back. A bit of surface rust, but that\'s about it.:Thumbs-up
Welcome to MRC,
Good to see this car being brought back to its former glory,
Shall follow this with interest :)
As for the rust you point out in the sill, mine looked like that and once I got it back to the metal it was just too thin so it got new metal welded in!
looks fairly clean to be honest.
You think you can sort my fc out after yours? Lmao!
Quote from: Skifledanabit;763928You think you can sort my fc out after yours? Lmao!
You might want to wait and see how things go with this first.
You may not want me near yours. :chat
Quote from: Dr Hoo;764036You might want to wait and see how things go with this first.
You may not want me near yours. :chat
I\'m sure you\'ll be fine mate, best of luck. Let\'s hope you don\'t do too good a job or you could be a very busy man helping us all out with our own projects!
But seriously, good luck mate. Great to see another person putting time and effort into a FC.
Quote from: BenRX;764066I\'m sure you\'ll be fine mate, best of luck. Let\'s hope you don\'t do too good a job or you could be a very busy man helping us all out with our own projects!
But seriously, good luck mate. Great to see another person putting time and effort into a FC.
Thanks for that mate.
It might take me a while, but I\'ll get there in the end.
I didn\'t have a lot of time over the weekend, this working for a living thing is a bit naff. However I did get the bumper straightened :
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24163750.jpg)
And the dent knocked out a bit:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24163450.jpg)
They\'re not up to much cosmetically, but it\'s not as if anybody will see it.
I also soaked every nut and bolt I could see on the car in "Easol" (release fluid).
Yesterday I managed to generate a small pile of bits, and they all came off without too much trouble. :Thumbs-up
The right hand heat shield will need a bit of a repair where one of the bolt holes had corroded away.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24154011.jpg)
It\'s a pity I can\'t say that about today. These little sods gave me hours of grief:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24153906.jpg)
The speed sensors were well and truly corroded in. I spent ages heating the surrounding metal with a blowtorch, soaking it again in Easol and inching it out a fraction of a millimeter at a time. I wouldn\'t be surprised if they were knackered after that. But out they came in the end:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24155034.jpg)
I also got the petrol tank out without too much trouble. The only minor disaster was breaking the bolt that holds the filler pipe bracket. Ah well another one to drill out. I was quite surprised how much petrol was left in the tank considering the gauge was just above empty.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24171126.jpg)
BIG space !!
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-24195643.jpg)
Luckily there were no nasty surprises on the chassis just a little bit of light surface rust here and there, in fact the area above the tank still looks like new. :D
One thing that has struck me as a bit odd, is that any M6 and M8 bolts I\'ve removed so far have been 1.5 course pitch, and yet the M10\'s are 1.25 fine pitch?? I wonder why that is?
I know I said I was going to keep the car as standards as possible (with a few exceptions ), but gees I\'m going to have to stop reading other peoples posts about the mods they have done to their cars.
It is sooo tempting........
:cheers
Fingers crossed the speed sensors are ok bud, They ain\'t cheep to replace apparently. Whats the reason for taking them out?
Quote from: TiddlesRX7;764693Fingers crossed the speed sensors are ok bud, They ain\'t cheep to replace apparently. Whats the reason for taking them out?
Just my OCD :D
The plan is to dismantle as much as possible, have it sandblasted then powdercoated or painted.
Cheers
Andy
Quote from: Dr Hoo;764687It is sooo tempting........
what exactly are you tempted to do?
I bet he wants to put an ECU, exhaust and filter on there. And then lower it. Just subtle like :p
Quote from: papercutout;764831I bet he wants to put an ECU, exhaust and filter on there. And then lower it. Just subtle like :p
I hope you\'re not extracting the urine :D
....but yes thats exactly what I was thinking :evillaugh
Not at all, basically the same mods as mine, but to a far less extreme degree :D
Got a little bit more done, but not as much as I\'d hoped.
Some of my "retail therapy" arrived the other day:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0075.jpg)
Some POR15 paint, which I\'ve never used before, but the general feeling on the net is that its the dogs danglies, and my polyurethane bush kit http://www.energysuspensionparts.com/proddetail.asp?prod=11%2E18101
I removed the fuel filler pipe and as per sods law the mounting bolts sheared. This isn\'t the easiest place in the world to get into, but I bored them out using a small rightangle drill.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0087.jpg)
With the filler assembly off, I removed the clamp ring for a small experiment.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0088.jpg)
Having never used electrolysis to remove rust before I thought I\'d give it a go.
So you need one battery charger, a plastic bucket, 5 litres of water, 500g of washing soda and a piece of sacrificial steel (not stainless). The negative goes to the rusty item, and the positive to the sacrificial piece.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-06-03220717.jpg)
Mix up the water and washing soda and drop in the metal work, although make sure it doesn\'t touch. Turn on the charger and leave for 12 hours.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-06-03220908.jpg)
When you take it out the rust just flakes away. Give it a good scrub with a wire brush and ...Hey Presto!
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-06-04115903.jpg)
I must say I was quite impressed.
However I wasn\'t really impressed with this though:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-29152447.jpg)
When I removed the underseal and paint from the spare wheel well there was some heavy surface rust. To make matters worse the bottom of the wheel well was like a tea bag, so it looks like I will be doing some welding after all : :reallymad
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-29152507.jpg)
I\'ve also hit a small snag so I\'m hoping someone with more experience can chip in.
When removing the hub from the trailing arm on the passenger side of the car, the large washer was on the front side of the lug, and with a bit of a wiggle the hub came off no problem.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0086.jpg)
However, On the drivers side the washer is on the rear of the lug which means I now have zero "wiggle factor" so I can\'t get the bolt bush over the sholder of the lug (Does that sound as clear as mud.)
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0085-1.jpg)
I know the bolt bush hasn\'t moved, because it\'s the same as the passenger side. The only difference I can see is the placement of the large washer which doesn\'t give you enough movement to slip the bush over the lug.
Any ideas?...or am I just being really stupid :o
Got a little bit more done, but not as much as I\'d hoped.
Some of my "retail therapy" arrived the other day:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0075.jpg)
Some POR15 paint, which I\'ve never used before, but the general feeling on the net is that its the dogs danglies, and my polyurethane bush kit http://www.energysuspensionparts.com/proddetail.asp?prod=11%2E18101
I removed the fuel filler pipe and as per sods law the mounting bolts sheared. This isn\'t the easiest place in the world to get into, but I bored them out using a small rightangle drill.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0087.jpg)
With the filler assembly off, I removed the clamp ring for a small experiment.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0088.jpg)
Having never used electrolysis to remove rust before I thought I\'d give it a go.
So you need one battery charger, a plastic bucket, 5 litres of water, 500g of washing soda and a piece of sacrificial steel (not stainless). The negative goes to the rusty item, and the positive to the sacrificial piece.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-06-03220717.jpg)
Mix up the water and washing soda and drop in the metal work, although make sure it doesn\'t touch. Turn on the charger and leave for 12 hours.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-06-03220908.jpg)
When you take it out the rust just flakes away. Give it a good scrub with a wire brush and ...Hey Presto!
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-06-04115903.jpg)
I must say I was quite impressed.
However I wasn\'t really impressed with this though:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-29152447.jpg)
When I removed the underseal and paint from the spare wheel well there was some heavy surface rust. To make matters worse the bottom of the wheel well was like a tea bag, so it looks like I will be doing some welding after all : :reallymad
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/2011-05-29152507.jpg)
I\'ve also hit a small snag so I\'m hoping someone with more experience can chip in.
When removing the hub from the trailing arm on the passenger side of the car, the large washer was on the front side of the lug, and with a bit of a wiggle the hub came off no problem.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0086.jpg)
However, On the drivers side the washer is on the rear of the lug which means I now have zero "wiggle factor" so I can\'t get the bolt bush over the sholder of the lug (Does that sound as clear as mud.)
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff442/fudnut/IMAG0085-1.jpg)
I know the bolt bush hasn\'t moved, because it\'s the same as the passenger side. The only difference I can see is the placement of the large washer which doesn\'t give you enough movement to slip the bush over the lug.
Any ideas?...or am I just being really stupid :o
Any chance of removing this double post?
Dunno what happened
:cheers