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1976 Mazda 121 Ma turbo (efi at least)


yetchh

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Ok, time to start another project thread.. just drove my 121 back from storage with the plan to revert it to its former glory which, wont really take tooo much, fingers crossed..

Discuss.. https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/33439-yetchh-121/&

Former glory (circa 1999)

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present day, back in the garage after a 10 year hiatus.. felt very dodgy driving with one headlight and lapsed reg and some crazy grinding noise from the rear.. anyway, pics

Temporary storage..

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Back home..

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12 years worth of dust..

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what it had was a turbocharged 2.0 Ma, rx5 5 speed.. standard had about 80hp, not sure what it had after we turbo'd it but it was lethal. So that engine has also been in storage and looks a little worse for wear externally but has only done about 2000ks after a rebuild (leg out of bed) so should be ok.. the whole lot (including the silver 121 on trademe) was gonna be sold, blue one put back to standard with auto but no buyer could be found for the price so into storage it went.. until now..

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Gave it a clean, it amazes me how your brain forgets the little thing over the years.. removing the dust revealed a 6/10 paint job, lots of little nicks, stone chips and a couple of pressure dings etc, still looks good but the fine tooth comb is more revealing.. some pics

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black interior, center console is def different from 78 model

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27mm of fuck off body roll... next to a standard bar

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Had this sway bar made up, Nolathane actually had bushes to fit..

bit of comparison with my falcon rear discs.. might have upgrade I reckon

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Those discs are from a Borg Warner rear that I upgraded to a 9" on my wagon, has a 4 pinion lsd that I reco'd.. only has 15ks on it, am seriously thinking about having it shortened for the 121..

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Picked up my engine gearbox and diff yesterday and gave it a clean on the trailer out front, gearbox was fucken dirty but came up good, left a bit of an oil slick on the road and down the gutter haha..

Shit on the trailer,

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Storage is pretty full with the landau now in there,

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All cleaned up..

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Box still needs some cleaning and the engine some paint, no sure wether to paint the same colours or change to more modern styles..

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got my ball joints sorted and stripped all of the front suspension parts to paint. Was gonna powder coat everything but being that I have only a small amount of funds allocated to this rebuild I decided to paint everything with POR15 and then chassis black. Have read a bit about this stuff and there's about a 50/50 split on whether it is a good product or not, thought I'd give a go and if it is shit I'll bite the bullet and powder coat..

anyway, pics..

New ball joints

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From this to this

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To this

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So far it seems to be quite good, nice and smooth (bar a few runs but hey, its fucken suspension) even looks like powder coating, just need to assemble it and reinstall it, whould like to have painted my springs yellow but it seems generic paints don't like POR15..

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  • 2 weeks later...

installed rear springs today,

pain in the ass to get to shock towers..

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gonna look kind of crap compared to the now freshly rebuilt front suspension,

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springs in and on the ground..

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on the original lowered springs.. no where near as low as I'd like, lowest point is about 125mm

but there isn't much room between the diff and factory bump stops.. the fronts are captive with

shortened struts but I'll have to find some rear shocks shortened by around 75mm..

gap between diff and b/s resting

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The rain fucked me up today so I spent most of the day finishing the front suspension...

painted the discs/hubs,

before and after...

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cleaned up the calipers and gave them a lick of silver.. they're gold from factory but I

reckon thats too bling.. also installed tie rods, idler arm and p/s box

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Pulled my axles today and discovered the cause of the grinding.. 10 years of not moving must have collapsed the bearings in the back, they're very clunky, already have a bearing for one side so just have to find one for the other.. decided that while everything's off I might as well clean up the brake assemblies.

not really much to go now, I have a small list of things I'll need to buy, they include shortened shocks for the rear, a flywheel, link loom and I'm also considering a pc link upgrade for my link as hand controllers seem to be as rare as hens teeth and for the price of them I might as well convert as it'll be easier to tune with a computer.. also a small list of things to complete to be ready for compliance..

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Some uninteresting pics..

cleaned stripped backing plates ready for paint..

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gay axles..

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here you can see just how much room there is between the diff and bump stop..

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might have to try and relocate the bump stop elsewhere..

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Big thanks to Pete (Valiant) for pressing my bearings and finding a collar.. thanks bro, I owe you one.

Finished rear brakes etc, although i have discovered some cracking on the rear discs, not so much the disc but the edge of the drum. I can only assume its from have the hand brake on for 10 years while in storage.. its a fucken good hand brake so the pressure must have been too much for the drum as it seems to have cracked directly opposite each other, yes.. 2 cracks in each drum, bullshit as new drums are about 300 each. Its not really that bigger issue as I'm gonna shorten my borgwarner diff to fit.. pics

newly pressed bearings

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cracking..

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Also sorted my shortend steering column for the power steering upgrade, now have to buy some shortened shocks to captivate the rear springs and the rears done, get a flywheel so I can install this friggen engine.. gonna be some slow progress as I have to fly to auckers on and off for the next four months to build some shops up there..

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  • 4 months later...

Ok, been a while since my last update, spent 3 months in auckers shop fitting, no real time to come to a meat, then a wedding in aus+xmas/nys=no time to do anything.

Meanwhile in that period, scored a good bonnet and nose cone off a guy in kaiapoi, also another f/ma with a flywheel (finally), a power steering column with proper firewall shroud. Just today got my flywheel back from being lightened and my pressure plate converted to a holden 1 ton plate.. no slippage now,all good. This afternoon pulled the old f/ma and auto, found out that Isuzu MU's apparently have the same shock I need to captivate my rears, have yet to confirm this but preliminary examinations of my old ladys truck seem to confirm it.

Plan for the rest of the week is to get the other engine and box in, get the shocks sorted, get the painted cross member in and do up all the tie rod etc bolts... and some fishing.... pics

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good chunk of metal off the back

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sides trimmed a bit

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one ton plate

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ok, got the front off today, as I already knew it had been in a prang at some point i was expecting some "things".. I'm not really sure how the beaters managed to get everything back on and looking straight coz the nose cone is fucked.. glad a bought one when I did.. so I'm going to paint the front good valance panel, nose cone, bonnet and plenum cover satin black so I don't have to fuck around trying to match a "so 90's" colour.. also cleaned up the cross member and painted it as its better than the other one I was gonna use.. put my p/s bracket on a diet as its big and heavy, painted it black but now it makes the blue and red engine look naf.. if I can be arsed I might consider painting the whole engine black with some chromed, polished and silver coated ancillarys,, see how I go..

anyway time for a pic dump.....

p/s bracket

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removing front..

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this rail strut is supposed to be straight

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some shots comparing two nose cones..

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someone else thinks so too

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these,

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should look like these,

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comparison of valance panel,

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Small update

"other" crossmember painted up and installed

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yes this bit looks shit, not sure if I'm gonna paint it or not..

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my nice clean box.. mmm

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tappet cover, before..

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deffo going black, that looks pretty sweet..

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going satin black block, head and half inlet manifold, gloss for tappet, and silver/polished alloy for other stuff, prob shouldn't waste my money but I feel I need to for some reason..

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put the engine in today, ended up being a bit of a cunt with me pulling it in and out about 4 times, for some reason the flywheel was fouling the bolt bulges on the inside of the bell housing, had to grind some relief's to get it to fit, pics

before paint,

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loaded,

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get in the hole!!

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Pretty happy with the black, now I have to clean up the ancillaries..

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  • 3 months later...

Mmm, been a while.. somehow managed to buy a surf for my missus that, despite going for reliability, had a minor overheating problem (why does this shit follow me everywhere?) which I then had to throw money at.. leaves the bank empty I tell ya.. So this is a small update as the last few months have been pretty busy..

Couple of pics...

painted the inlet/exhaust manifold, polished the efi emblem but one can of paint I used gave a funny matt look, painting it twice made the paint thick and my solution for keeping paint of the polished mazda efi failed slightly, so don't look to close..

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polished the the oil filter mount,

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Also found some old photos of my 929 that I resprayed which is good as the only other photo I had was going past a speed camera..

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dunno why but photobucket seems to have made it really difficult to copy and paste images...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok a small update,

 

 

finally managed to buy a controller,

 

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while the weather shit itself this afternoon I cleaned, polished and painted my starter, prob shouldn't have worried

about polishing it but it looked to plain black..

 

shit vs good

 

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Plus, after 6 months of thinking I lost them, finally managed to find all the fuel and ignition mapping I had for it, as it always happens it was when I was looking for something completely different.. means I don't have to go through all that tuning, fucken phew...

 

Also have a small pile of things to get chromed, aaand.. thats about it hahaha...

 

 

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Did a small amount of stuff today, finally found some sway bar links that fit, tho I had to cut them down about 50mm as they were for a falcon.. so front end is finished suspension wise. have decided now to just nickel plate most of the stuff I have as chroming polishing is pointless for half the bits.. 

Spent half of sat getting some parts for my MS75 which included a boot floor, all I need now is a running 4M and that could be put back on the road very easy..

 

new links for sway bar, you can see the length of the link bolt on the ground.. front is very stiff now

 

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The starter now makes the gearbox look plain.. typical

 

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pile of bits accumulating to be plated, just gonna chrome the water pump, p/s pump and alt pulleys as well as the alt bracket, the rest can just go back to factory nickel.. black gold and silver bling haha..

 

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Well, today I cleaned up the alternator and installed the oil filter mount.. Yesterday I went to buy some seals for the clutch slave and master but then discovered that I could buy a new loaded slave from partmaster so went ahead and bought one only to discover today that it has the wrong thread for the hose.. pffft.. so cleand up the old one, gave it a hone. Seal seemed ok so I left it.. pretty interesting stuff..

 

Pics..

 

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Spot the difference..

 

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Find it strange they changed the thread.. oh well, saved 30 bucks should put it towards a link loom..

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