dabuzz

so ratty - so mid 80s evil car movie vibe - love it! Actually looks like a really good clean up would make a huge difference alone, before pouring much $$ into it.

Coilovers are back from remanufacture, had to supply another set of struts, and he has rebuilt to 2023 specs, with new shocks, reused the old springs and camber plates, but all machined correctly and the proper spacers added so the top actually pivots now. After finding the wheel bearings nearly void of grease, and cranked up waaay too tight, I bought a new set of bearings, greased and fitted up the hubs in anticipation for the struts to come home. Once they arrived I attempted to fit the hubs to find that somewhere in production mazda upped the inner stub axle from 25 to 28mm (new struts must be 2nd gen), meaning the brand new inner bearings were now useless, which also meant buying 2 more at a price 3x as much for an uncommon size ffs! Anyway, all sorted now

Oh - look what ive found now! Easy fix once again, but just showing how lazy they were Some of the reason is that they fitted a s4 rx7 box, but retained the rx4 bellhousing, I guess so they didn't have to buy a new clutch and flywheel. Stupid thing is that this puts the box on an angle so pushes the lever over, hence they had to make a dog leg gear stick, then fully fab a new gearbox crossmember, so much extra work. This iin itself isn't an issue, it works perfectly fine, just looks ugly! but still no reason to hack so much out if it, and not put any steel back

Was hoping to not have to do much at all considering the initial cash outlay. But it's still worth what it's worth. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of 'look what ive found now'

Yea it's had a wee knock, and has some filler, but most 50 year old cars have had something happen over the years. Im ok with it. Main thing is there's no rust in it

There's more, ill share as I go. Definitely, only RX model I'd even consider going this size, much bigger car can handle the 18s with ease.

Question- Where is the best place to run your main battery earth cable? Answer- not your boot lock........

its begun - going from a near perfect car to someone else's build I knew I'd find things not up to my standard - but jeez Ripped out the coil overs as I knew about a bent strut, and that the coil overs were constructed in an unusual way. but F-me, this is rough_ all certed by the way haha First thing I noticed was almost zero grease in the hub bearings, right wound up tight, and were rough as, then pulled apart the coil overs to find- Top hat for the camber plates jammed against the top of coil over (no spacer)so they didn't turn at all - instead spun the whole spring/shock assembly Struts have collars welded to them , with a slip over threaded tube grub screwed to the strut tube, all completely on the piss, and top of shock just angle grinded to suit. so have bought another set of struts and am having them done properly and safely, plus fitting new wheel bearings etc

Really interesting! thanks for that. I found a few old images of it probably when you owned it @re10 certainly has a history this car, oh I wish it still had the original interior but it is what it is

Paint is definitely nice, the colour flops are mad. Theres a few nastys around the car, but ill just work through those at some point.

Couple of changes straight up, fitted rear seat belts for the kids, changed tail lights to full red, as well as fitted red rear reflectors, and 1/4 'Mazda rx4' badges. Biggest thing was ditching the ugly black wheels, im not really even a Simmons fan, but these 3 piece FR18s popped up and I knew they were just right for the car. There's a bunch of other things I need to do, including having to rebuild the coil overs as they are not great, and get a custom rear boiler for the back as its obnoxiously loud. But she's looking much better already.

It does now - first thing that went in

Introducing the new addition to the garage - 1974 Mazda RX4 coupe I figured as this is not going to be a big build, ill just carry on with this thread here So after selling the 2, I paid down some debt, and searched for a cheaper car that was supposed to be more family friendly after looking at a bunch of Rx4 sedans with various degrees of rust I remembered a coupe that was for sale last year, and I didnt think it sold, so I found the owner and turned out he de-listed it as CBF with all the Trademe and Facebook "experts" chiming in with their 2c Car was in Tauranga, went down had a look and agreed on a price. 4s are much bigger inside, so the kids fit in nicely, but the 2005 spec tan interior isn't exactly friendly to 4 and 6 year old boys who really just don't give a shite. Overall the car was a good buy though, has been professionally painted about 2 years ago, and has been well looked after. there are a few issues both mechanically, and visually that need attention, and ill get to those as soon as I can I have no idea what to do about the interior, might just black out the body coloured dash parts, fit new black carpet and leave the rest, it isnt quite so offensive in person. I hate black wheels - so those will be going asap Rest of the specs 13b Bridgeport rebuilt 1500km ago s4 gear box Hilux LSD s6 rx7 front, and primera rear disc brakes coil over suspension All fully certed etc

Yes sold - after spending 10 years building it, after driving it, I realised it was just a little bit too nice, and didnt quite suit my needs anymore. its beautiful to look at but in reality (I thought) I needed something a bit more user/family friendly to just chuck the kids in and go for an ice cream etc, and that I wouldn't be so precious about. its gone to a really nice home, and will be well looked after, I got to pay a bit of debt off, and still have enough for another nice car that wasn't 100k++ Have been looking at RX4 sedans, but all have had various degrees of rust with a 60k price tag and I really don't want to go down that road again if I can help it. But I have just this weekend made a handshake deal on another car, which makes a semi-liar out of me from what I have just said above Will post more on that in a few weeks once I get the new car home

Headed off to a local V8 car show, managed to pick up a trophy, which was nice, but unexpected.

Some of the unedited pics from the shoot.

I would normally say rotor everything- but in this case id say a GTX 1.8 turbo conversion would kill anything rotor powered, and be way more of a sleeper. Either way, get stuck into it- ill be following the build

Trumped by an Imp to main cover car , issue out next Monday.

If you have FB, this link might work. Classic car mag walk around, will be in next issue. https://fb.watch/jIjCvxtS6H/

You are fking crazy I love it IMO You really should get both halves blasted and epoxied before going too far (like you haven't already), makes life so much easier in the long run

You are right about the design flaws, they are prone to separating at the front as they are just bonded, and can open up at high speed. The first bonnet I had I split and dipped, but found it full of pin holes in the outer skin where the frame bonding was applied and just pitted out from the inside. I wasn't keen to go down that potential road again. But to be fair, this was a fairly good south island bonnet, needed some welding done to repair cracks and a small amount of damage, biggest issue was it was oil-canning badly, but all was able to be repaired without having to split.

Yea pretty much - I went through 4 below average bonnets before finding anything good enough to restore. The one on it is not correct for the year or series, it should have small bulge and vents (series 1), but paying $2.5k for one of those before you even start repairing it is ridiculous Even still the one I have has cost me a fortune by the time it was done, and tbh, I gave up caring about being correct a while ago, I just needed to finish the car