Taistorms '72 1300

[Taistorm]

Fake news

This still exists, its not full of rat droppings and looks basically how it was left (bar some extra cobwebs). The boy was stoked to check it out.

 

Pretty happy as that the seats haven't been eaten up by rats and the engine still turns over all good by hand.

I've just moved back to NZ and now living up close to where it's stored. Slowly getting the new rental setup and shifting all the stuff that I left at mum and dad's over. I'll start sifting through the car parts and bits and pieces soon, then make a plan on the next step with the slow burn build. Stoked the shed hasn't fallen over yet as the posts have all rotted out haha. See how we go anyway.

 

Chur,

Tai

[Taistorm]

Almost a year later and still no real update but shifting things around is progress, I guess?

We are still in our rental as our house build situation has had major delays due to local council, planner being absolutely useless and north power issues as well. So I've decided to look at shifting the 1300 into our garage here.

I went through and took all the parts stored in the car across the last month and put them into the shed. Gave the shed a massive tidy up as well, as it's full of the kids junk and camping stuff.

 

 

I'll look at booking the tow truck to shift it here hopefully in the next 2 weeks. From there I'll make a list and plan where to go with the build as ive got a little bit of money that i can throw at it and get a bit of motivation hopefully. Hopefully it will be less than a year for the next update haha.

 

Chur

[Taistorm]

Big day today! Weather held out so I got the towie to come pick up the old beast.

Cleaned out the diy garage converted woodshed, the concrete has held up mint! Dry as as well.

 

The first time the 1300 has seen daylight for over 4 years.

 

Loaded up on the tow truck then a few kms down the road for its next temporary home.

 

 

Super stoked to say the least!

[Taistorm]

The kids were happy as with it. My daughter kept pointing to it saying 'cool' and 'sick' hahaha at least it's got their approval.

 

On the high of excitement I gave the engine bay and wheels a quick clean.

 

 

Then I mocked up the front end.

 

When I get a chance next, ill go through all the parts and make a plan to move forward.

I’ll have a go at  swapping the front end of the guards over (1300 front onto the 1000ute repro guards) and see what other rust work needs to be patched up. I'll also focus on the wiring, starting system and ignition and try get it running. Shouldn't take too much tbh but we'll see how we go. Maybe this will be the year hahaha.

 

Chur

[Taistorm]

Common theme here will be momentum. Haven't had any in years so any small bit of work towards this old gem is gold.

Spent a hour on it today. Decided to begin scraping the factory interior floor sound deadener bitumen off. Just used a scraper and cleared the left side front and rear, so i just have the driveshaft tunnel section and drivers side. 

 

To be honest it was alot easier than i was expecting. Small amount of surface rust on the front section so there must have been a bit of moisture under the sound deadener.   I have recently picked up a Wurth brush sander as well, so I'll tackle it with the wire wheel on that once it's all chipped off. 

 

Chur

[Taistorm]

I managed to scrape the drivers side floor sound deadener and the driveshaft tunnel. Couldn't be bothered removing the handbrake components to get underneath, so I'll sort that out another day.

It's pretty much ready to strip back the remaining residue and surface rust. Happy as though, I thought there were a few small holes by the pedals but besides some surface rust it looks solid!

 

Chur

[Taistorm]

Since the last post I have still been working through this mildly. 

I had a look through my gearbox bits as the shifter still needed to be fitted to the box as it had been shortened years back. Little did I know that only the shifter housing  and shift lever were returned to me, none of the other internal components including the lower and rear spring assemblies (I believe these are to stop you from over throwing into 5th and keep resistance from accidently bumping into reverse), also the shifter block and return spring. This was a pain to discover as I know it is gonna be a mission  to find spares to replace.

 

I then stumbled upon a s5 turbo gearbox for sale on trademe which I got excited about and ended up bidding way more than I had planned to spend. Looks like I'll be making a mission down to Morrinsville next week to go pick it up. In the background I'll find the other bits I'm missing to get the current gearbox complete.

 

Separate to this I have been trying to work out the gauge cluster. I previously gutted and split the original cluster as I had the custom speedhut gauges made up. The plan here is to reuse the oem dash lights (such indicators and oil light, I might modify the park to be highbeam). I can reuse the gauge circuit board to power these as I still have the original loom. I'll then remove the original gauges, make a mounting plate for the new ones and marry them all together.

As speedhut have a sale on, i have ordered another speedo that runs off vss, as opposed to the gps one I have already, as this can't be run legally, so if anyone is after a gps speedo let me know and I'll do a mean deal on this one.

 

Chur

[Taistorm]

Said gearbox from above. Made an early morning mish down to pick it up yesterday.

Nice to have something that can actually shift... I'll still be on the hunt for the other remaining bits to compete the other shifter.

[Taistorm]

Grafting the front guards together. First off i had to trim around the mount area at the top and the area by the scuttle panel/a pillar, this was to get the repro guard to fit better as it had a bit of excess material, fouling on the body. Next, working out how to go about cutting up the guards. I thought it would be a good idea to make the cuts around the body lines where possible to try and reduce warping.

Measure and mark it out close-ish.

 

Cut and mock up.

 

Welder up and clean the welds up.

I wasn't super happy with this. Turned the mig down as much as I could, running 0.9 wire so probably too big for panel steel. Had a prick of a time chasing holes from blowouts even when trying to stagger it. I don't have much experience with panel steel, usually work with 3-20mm but atleast it won't need too much bog.

 

Mocked up.

I still need to clean up the inner of the guard. May even send it to the blaster up the road to strip and epoxy it but we'll how it goes. I'll get started on the rh guard next week.

 

Also I ordered the programmable vss speedo from speedhut, then received an email saying that can't make one to suit their older style gauges as they have different leds and tech, so it won't look right. They suggested for me to post my current gauges back to them in the states and they can upgrade all of my existing gauges and convert my gps speedo to vss programmable for the same price as the new gauge, so that's what I'm gonna do. I'll try and send them off next week.

 

Chur

[Taistorm]

Progress has been slow. We have been trying to sort out the relocatable house/build on our section which has chewed up any free time and we've had all sorts of setbacks and issues but I won't go into that...

 

Anyway onto the Mazda.

 

A while back I posted my gauges over to Speedhut in the States to get upgraded and have my gps speedo converted to vss signal. This has all been sorted and I now have them back in NZ.

I finally got a moment to spend some time on it today and tackled making up some seat base mounts. It turned out to be alot more involved than I was expecting as the seats that I'm using have offset heights for the sliders. Also the mount holes are in an awkward position to the original base mount positions so I had to offset these to make it work.

 

I started off by cutting some 50x5 angle for the uprights. This was also slightly annoying as the front mounts are angled.

 

Measure and cut some more steel for the mounting plates. Test fit, tack and recheck. Then weld up. Refit, check and trim down any excess meat.

Here's How they look in place.

 

And with the seat mounted.

In hindsight I wish I had the mount top plates slightly longer out the rear and positioned the mount holes a bit further back so we could gain a bit more legroom. However I'm only about 5'10 so it works well for me. There's also minimal space behind anyway as the car is tiny as shit. Clearance from the trans tunnel as well, except for when it's at its most forward position where it slightly rubs against it.

I'll get the drivers side done tomorrow and throw some black paint on them I reckon. It should be a lot quicker doing the drivers side as I can mirror the passenger dimensions.

 

Chur

 

 

[Taistorm]

Repeat the process from yesterday, but mirrored to suit the drivers side. However I made the top mount plates 20mm longer to get a slightly better rear position.

Mocked up before paint.

 

One gripe i have with this old mazda is the steering wheel position being off centre from the seat but i can't do anything about it being such a small car. Clearances are really good but also very tight. Head clearance is maybe a fist and my thighs are not far from the wheel. Would love to set them slightly lower but i can only drop the back mounts and due to the closest forward recline position being at a rear sloped angle, you would be leaning back way too much.

 

now the mounts are hung, waiting for the paint to cure. I'll fit them properly at a later point.

 

Chur.

[Taistorm]

On a roll..

 

2 productive evenings after work. Decided to graft the rh guard together.

My original guard had a bit of bog in the front area and was a little beaten up. I had a hard time trying to get it to line up well with the repro ute guard. It also didn't help that I rushed through cutting it out so there were some big gaps to fill with my welder that can't go low enough for shitty panel steel so lots of chasing holes. Not pretty, I'll need to improve it down the track.

 

But damn it's nice to have it all looking somewhat together/correct.

chur

[Taistorm]

Another mock up with the front valance and lip.

 

Also caught up with a fellow 1300 owner and was able to get a quick template for the rear guards sketched up (very rough but close enough to work with).

 

Next step will be to get some panel steel from work and have a go fabricating something up.

 

Chur