RXFORD

80s hatch park up.

Convinced @piazzanoob to dig his Piazza out of hibernation and bring it along. My buddy Mark drove my ute there and Kirk with the blue 2 sedan met us at the shop and we cruised down to Mobil Quay Street to meet some up with some of the dorito boys.

Got my wof a couple weeks back, just in time for the New Years Jap meet. Did some not very sensible things to the suspension on the Friday night, gave the paint a quick hand polish and the glass a clean Sat and took it for its first fuel up in a couple years.

The guy I got them off made the set from 2 separate pairs, and one pair one alot more oxidised the the other, but both were pretty average. I gave them a quick huss with the d.a to make them a bit more presentable. The cars not perfect, so can't see myself getting them re-diamond cut anytime soon, so this will do for now.

A few months back, after a couple years of keeping an eye out, I managed to score a set of these ultra rare Nz only stock Sigma 14s. They were made under licence of Cheviot, but made locally for the launch of the 1984 Sigma SE. Theres a bit of a write up about them and the launch of that model Sigma in the book 'The University on the Hill' which is about the Todd Family.

Back togethor and on the ground. My 10 second colour eye match decision was a bit off, but meh. Wof booked Thursday so will see how it goes. Tyres are are bit old, so I'm half expecting to get knocked back on them. Need to pick up a new battery for it on my way to way to work too. Fuckin money pits.

These things have an odd rear suspension arrangement. I believe they were Mitsi's first irs, and had a trailing arm setup that were connected through the centre with one tube inside the other. I assume there must be grease or oil in there and the rubber boot that covered the 2 halfs was wasted. New parts are pretty scarce for these cars, and I didn't like the idea of having to pull the whole rear assembly apart to fit an universal boot if I was able to match one up. So I boogied up a strip of 2mm rubber sheet, wrapped it around and hose clamped it. Pretty ghetto, but will do for now. I'l have to revisit this another day.

Orig speakers were falling apart, so thought I'd better grab some new ones. Just so happened the local supercheap store had some 5" in stock that bolted in and just tucked in under the stock speaker grill. Cheapys but better than the stock ones. Got all the inner boot panels, the false cargo floor and carpet cleaned and refitted. Also gave the hatch seal a really good scrape out and clean. Needed to get the bits of rusted flange out.

Bits going back on. Swapped out the original black garnish which had a broken mount, for a spare I picked up a while ago. These get broken often as they attached to body, but people grab them thinking its the hatch handle which is exactly what a mate did with this one.

Heated up a scribe and stabbed the holes through. Bloody beaut fitment.

Picked up some good quality 6mm closed cell foam from James Walkers who are a local gasket maker, and got a couple trimmed out and dressed up.

The main reason I parked this up way back, was water getting in the boot. Cordias had a pretty crude foam gasket and mine were pretty cooked. I managed to get the best of off in 1 bit, mapped out the light mounting holes and used it to make a cutting template from Ali.

Confirmed for Sunday 15th. https://facebook.com/events/s/16th-new-year-japanese-oldscho/742566323878343/

I'm a metal guy, not a body work/paint guy so I was a bit lazy and broke my own rule of no filler over bare steel. Seeing as this thing needs a full repaint one day, and it was only a little bit of filler compared to how much fuckin resanding I'd have to do if I Epoxied first, I figured I would wet on wet the primer/paint. So smashed down some Dp40, seam sealed where needed, and shot some 2k silver.

Got it prepped late last week. The serial tapist strikes again.

After painting the insides, the car sat for a week or so in the lead up to Xmas but I went in on Xmas day and got the inner latch panel welded to the outer taillight panel, and dressed it all up. Thats where its at currently, but now with the Nz Stockcar champs out of the way I'm aiming to have the silver sprayed this week sometime.

The inner latch panel only needed a 200mm long weld flange repair done so one that was sorted I gave it all a good clean, brunoxed the welded seams, masked off the rest of car and got some Epoxy/seam sealer and top coat down.

Welded and dressed rear panel then prepped the corner gussets and welded those in.

Didn't have a third hand to hold dolly, so clamped and bit of plate to the panel and hammered up the weld seam before fitting panel back into place ready to fizz in.

Cleaned up lower flange and weld through primed. Did same with rear panel once it was back from blasters.

Starting this post so theres a bit of notice as its less than a month away now. 15th Jan 2023 Hopefully @AE25 can chime in.

Hell yeh! Congrats mate, epic achievement. Clean as a clean thing. Looking forward to seeing it in person one day.