Amazing garage find FC turbo II

[Garath]

Hi all,

I\'ve been lurking on the futon for a number of years, some of you may remember I was involved in the restoration of Marc\'s fb, where I carried out much welding on it when he first bought it.

I have been note rested in rx7\'s for many years, in fact I started looking for an FD about ten years ago, I did lots of research at that time and spent two years trying to find an example I was happy with, for various reasons I didn\'t get one and bought an mkiv supra twin turbo, which i still own and has formed part of my collection of cars.

Over the years I have continued trawling the Internet looking for the right car to come up at the right time, around one month ago the right car came up, but the timing wasn\'t good for me because I had just relocated my mx5 restoration business to larger premises which cleared all my available funds out.

On Saturday afternoon my gf noticed that the car was back for sale by the original seller, the buyer never collected the car so it was available again and this time I was in a position to buy it!

Contact was made with the seller and I arranged to view it Sunday lunch time, but my mind was set, if it was as good as it appeared, I wouldn\'t be leaving without it!

Now this is where things get interesting, the history behind this car is amazing, it is a one owner from new car, the 83 year old lady owner was bought the car buy her husband for her 60th birthday, it has been garaged all its life, is completely original right down to the original stereo, has full Mazda service history and has only done 74000 miles, oh and to top it off, they are literally millionaires!! The car did have her personal plate for a while which was \'9P\' valued at £250k so I\'m told!

So she wasn\'t selling it because she needed the money, she just wanted it to go to the right person and get used, it had only done 70 miles in the last three years, for her, it was all about who bought it, and she knew her stuff to, I was expecting her to just think it was a nice car, but no, she knew about the engine and what it was, telling me how she loved the turbo and how much fun it is.

After a faultless test drive, carrying out the hot and cold start along with a champagne test, all finding no problems at all, we agreed a price and we was driving it out of her gated £20million estate with her standing waiving the car off with a sad look in her eyes

Well, I bet you want some pictures don\'t you? Here they are, it\'s not perfect, but bloody close especially when you consider it\'s age

You will be able to see an envious Marc in the background











My plans with this one are limited to keeping its originality, the non original stripe will be going and it will be getting a detail along with removing the pin dents in the doors and some very minor paintwork to bring it up to a1 condition

I hope you like it

[Gabor]

That looks like a very good find! Looks so clean and tidy...

[Garath]

I would normally be taking my mx5 speedster to jae, but the weather isn\'t looking good enough for a car with no roof this year, so this is going instead, which means it needs some attention

the upper red stripe isn\'t original, and neither is the word Carson (previous owners name) in vinyl above the turbo 2 sticker, so these had to go, I believe the lower red stripe is original, so this will get re done later in the week because it is damaged in places, so the stripe was removed and the whole car given a good polish

Before



After



I also cleaned, compounded and polished all the light lenses, this was done before the paintwork was polished, so ignore any dirt or marks on the paintwork in these photos

Left hand rear light before



After



Side by side comparison against the cleaned left hand light and un touched right hand light, a worth while improvement



Then onto the front lights, the upper front lights are not actually lights on this car, they are just lenses through to the main pop ups, the idea is that when you flash the main pop ups flash through these lenses without the need to pop up the lights, nice touch really, but they were looking rather tired.

I also cleaned the lower lights, there is an improvement there but it is less noticeable because they were not that bad to start with

Left hand lights Before



After



Side by side comparison



The paint on the wiper arms was also a distant memory, so these were repainted

Before



After and back on the car





The front spoiler was also hanging down slightly in the middle, you might have noticed that in a few of the previous photos, so I repaired that



So the car is now looking much cleaner, it\'s amazing what a few hours can do really

[fil_auto]

Clean, looks tidy, great find and work

[TiddlesRX7]

I saw this for sale and hoped someone on here would buy it ( mainly cause I was so bloody tempted myself!). Nice to see that every now and again one like this is found and enjoyed.

Ade

[Speedline Imports]

Good buy Gareth

Martin

[Garath]

I\'ve done a few bits to it today, the red stripe on the mouldings was damaged in places, so I\'ve re done that, I\'ve fitted new number plates, and had the pin dents removed from both doors and one of the front wings.

The next steps will be some minor paintwork, refurbish the wheels and a repair to the drivers seat bolster

[Garath]

Oh, who is good for parts on these?

I need the rubber boot that goes under the gear gaiter between the gear stick and the gearbox tunnel

[L18M]

Oh my days! i\'m in love!! Glad you keeping it OEM. Looks real nice! Not jealous at all.

[Garath]

I got the original stereo working last night, sounds surprisingly good when you consider how far car stereos have moved on since 1989!

[grinder]

WOW now thats a clean car

[the hat]

Very jealous sir good find

[richrx]

Love the FC shape more every day, and your cars not helping matters looks like a cracking find! And its new home will do it justice too

Rich

[Brett]

Top bombing!  Good find

[Garath]

I want this car to stay around for another 23 years, so it was time to protect it from the demon rust! So up on the ramp it went, everywhere was wire brushed down to remove any dirt, loose surface rust and failing underseal, then any remaining surface rust was treated with bilt hamber hydrate 80, all the box sections were treated with bilt hamber cavity wax and finally we protected all areas with dinitrol 4941.

We have been using all these products to great effect in our work with mx5\'s, so we trust them

Now for some pictures

Front nearside arch with liners removed, you get a good idea of how rust free the car is from these pictures



Just look at the area that was hidden by the arch liner, it looks new!



The same arch after it has been cleaned off with a wire brush and the surface rust areas treated with bilt hamber hydrate 80



Nearside rear arch before any work started





The same arch after a wire brush attack!





23 years of crap that came out of that one arch



Still on the same arch, showing the hydrate 80 treatment and the inspection camera going inside the sill, I tried to take a picture of what I could see on the screen but it didn\'t really work, in the end I just took a picture through the hole, which is shown in the picture after this one



Amazingly rust free inside the sills



More hydrate 80 treatment





The next series of photos show the same work but on the other side of the car

Offside front





Offside rear











The next series of photos show the underside of the car, mostly showing areas of surface rust, these did get treated with hydrate 80, I just forgot to take photos, notice again how rust free the car actually is















This area of expert (probably kick fit) jacking damage got bent straight and treated to



Rear sill end areas after a wire brushing





One of the many areas where we sprayed with cavity wax, this has a 1m lance



Finished arches









Finished underside of the car, you may noticed that we removed the exhaust to gain better access to areas around it















Exhaust and under trays refitted





Front arch liners refitted





And that\'s it, that should keep the rust demons at bay