I've been working on my 79 over the winter, and since everyone likes looking at pictures, I thought I would post a few.

I bought my rx about 3 years ago, and have been driving it basically as is the whole time, not much had been done to it. The car had been repainted about 4 years ago, just before I bought it, and I did the exhaust about 2 summers ago. Since I have a garage now, I thought I would start changing and replacing a few things that have been bugging me.

The first thing I changed was the interior. The interior was 2-toned red and grey, and was all faded and dryed up. I decided to paint everything black, and put in new seats and gauges.

Anyway, enough talk, here are some before and after pictures. BTW, I need to clean the interior already, I finished it about a 2 months ago, and it's already all dusty.

 

Next thing I tackled was the rat's nest. It was actually pretty easy to take out, thanks to the "how to" in the archives.

 

And this is what I'm currently finishing. New re-speed coilovers and stainless brake lines, with tokico shocks on all four corners. New balljoints and tie-rods. New brake calipers, pads, rotors, and bearings from an 84. And new tires for my 15" ROH wheels.



Next, I plan on swaping in a gsl rear end from an 83 I just bought a few weeks ago for parts.

 

call me crazy but I liked the red/gray better

 

Yea your crazy, hate the red

I am sure you like the black interior better , What paint did you use on the old red plastic ?

where did you get those seats ? I am enjoying the Ronins I bought off you . They look great in the Limted and feel real good. Just have to make sure my *** doesn't get any bigger

 

EL GRANDE LOCO!!!

Everytime I look on ebay or Craigslist at an RX, I look to see if it has "the RED".......If it does....automatic PASS!!!

 

Also love the seats!!!! I wanna know who makes them as well!!!

 

looks great!!! Red interior looks great in white cars.

 

I'm with the Hammer - the Old Skool 2-tone red is uber-70s and really makes those 78-9 SAs stand out. But: very nice conversion job, tho maybe a bit on the Glossy side. For the record, my SA is all black inside...
Hope you swapped out all those sure-to-be-cracked tranny rubber boots while you had it all apart!?
Great to see another SA on the Way to the Resurrection
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Only problem with the red plastic bits is that they chalk out horribly over time; they look swank when new.

You work looks very good, though. I can't fault a black interior - - that's what I had originally.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. I`ve always liked a nice clean black interior. And DivinDriver is right, the red plastic was starting to look pretty bad, and the grey was starting to fade and change colour. The dash had sections where it almost looked green.

I used Duplicolor interior vinyl paint for whole interior. It`s holding up really well on all of the vinyl parts and the top of the dash, but it`s not so great on the plastic parts. I might repaint just the plastic parts next winter with a different kind of paint. I`ll have to see how well it holds up over the summer.

Good to hear you like the seats Ray. The new seats I bought are actually APC seats. I know a lot of people don`t like APC, since they sell a lot of cheap stuff. But these seats are one of the most comfortable ones I`ve sat in for the price. I`m a pretty small guy, and these seats are pretty snug. They hold me in pretty nicely.

 

did you swap for the black or did you dye the same ones.

 

rotarycrazy, if your talking about the interior parts, I kept the same ones and painted them with dupli-color interior vinyl and fabric coating.

 

are those re-speed race or street coilovers?

 

im pretty sure those are the STREET coilovers. the RACE coilovers come w a lower perch that has to be welded to the strut housing.

 

Yeah I bought the street coilovers. I don't have a welder, and I'm not good enough to even attempt welding the perch on the strut housing, so that's why I got these ones. They are very easy to install. I can't wait to finish putting everything back on the car, so I can try them out.

 

Well it's been a while, I thought I would update. I finished installing the coilovers, stainless lines, and new brake parts. I got to drive the car once, until I decided to go on to the next little project of swapping the dizzy for an electronic one, and install an electric fan. The car drove really well on the coilovers. Anyway here are a few pics of the installed parts.



The front struts/springs before


And after


And the rear springs and shocks


I'll try to post pictures of the car tomorrow. I have to re-adjust the timing in the morning before I can take it for a rip.
I still have the gsl rear end with discs that I need to install on the car, but I have to take it off of the parts car first. That will probably be the last "bigger" project for the summer, aside from all the little things I want to get finished. It's almost June, I really need to start driving her soon.

 

She's finally out of the garage. The e-fan and the electronic dizzy made a big difference. The car runs and starts smoother, and seems to rev faster. The car handles so much better too, thanks to the coilovers.

Anyway, here are pictures of my Proform fan, and the harness I made for the dizzy.






And here are a couple shots of the car sitting low on my roh's, sorry the car is really dirty in the pictures.

 

did you to coil overs in the back also?

 

Yes I did. I dropped the car about 1"1/4 on all four corners. The car had original springs though, so they must have been sagging a bit already.

 

Lookin good, sir; lookin good!

 

this makes me <3 sa's

 

Love the car, very nice work. I too will be switching from a red (read: faded pukey green) interior to black. I will be using Dupont plastic/vinyl paint. The same Dj55b used in his brown to tan conversion. It's expensive and has to be custom mixed, but has proven to be very durable on his car, so I trust using it. I just have to get some motivation to pull my interior apart, clean it very well and get it painted. From here you should work on stripping the carb of it's nonessential components and the hot and cold start assists. They aren't needed either and will do wonders for the look of the engine bay.

 

Thanks for the comments guys. Orion84gsl, I'll have to add that to the list of things to do over the summer, it's a good idea. Everytime I sit in the car or drive it, the list gets longer.
Before the end of the summer, I want to :
- repaint the black metal trim around the windshield
- put my gsl rear end in
- install my act clutch
- install my wideband
- customize or make my own seat rails to lower the seats a bit
- and maybe thinking of tucking the bumpers in (not sure about that one yet)