Got a text with images from the place that's refurbing my SSR 13x8 Speedstars. The wheels went from this:





to this:




These guys are miracle workers!

fm

 

Did this last Sunday.

fm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDIg...ature=youtu.be

 

wow

 

Now post a picture with a $100 bill on the lip!

 

Oh my....

 

It was a tedious PITA

 

some more.
Anybody know were to get the plastic inserts for the square holes that the trim clips attach to?

 

He can't. He spent all his money on those rims already. Maybe try a 1 dollar bill!

 

Wow. There's a current windshield thread. Black Dragon. Or the dealer.

 

Wow those look great!!! I'm planning on sending my wheels out to be refurbished soon.

 

walk into any Mazda dealership, and ask for 9991-00-402

or go to a junkyard, they use these up into the 21st century. the FC has 10,000 of these things just to make me wonder what other interior parts i'm missing

 

Went to the junkyard found a gslse completely stripped, except for right front hub assembly snatched it up, then went home and installed it on my gs, mounted the 3rd wheel on, a 16x7 +42 offset wheel, fit tight and looks hot, now I need to find a front left hub assembly

 

OK, this time we try packing tape and fiberglass.

 

Heres pics of the rims on

 

What company are you guys using to refurbish your wheels?

 

OK, that didn't work, either. I am temporarily out of ideas.

I'm trying to make a mold of the seat-back interior foam cushion, so I can make new ones. I have ONE high-back cushion that is in pretty decent shape, and I have a source for pourable urethane foam that would make a good new cushion... but I just can't come up with a process for taking a halfway-decent mold from the original foam without harming it, either by mold material penetrating it & bonding or mech-locking to it, or having to soak the foam with release agent (which would just wreck it anyway).

I've tried several methods for shaping a barrier material over the foam that I could then stiffen with an agent outside.

Paper mache doesn't stay flat while curing.
Plaster would soak the foam.
Aluminum foil won't lay flat enough.
Saran wrap sticks to itelf but not to the foam.
I even tried to vacuum-bag the foam cushion and then coat it with spray foam to rigidify it; that worked kind of half-assed as the foam shrank while hardening and also had too many voids.

Today I tried polyester film tape that bonds well to itself, hoping to build up a barrier that I could then lay fiberglass over to make a shell mold. The tape won't conform properly to the complex curves of the foam.

FM, if you (or anyone) have suggestions, I'm open. Even the tech support people at Smooth-On weren't able to come up with anything good.

I don't want to go the traditional method of carving a foam block to shape because, frankly, I don't think I could get good enough results - - the cushion shape is very complex.

I'm not used to being stumped on a project. It's making me irritable.

 

DD, this may sound crazy. Assuming water wouldn't damage the foam, (rinsing out afterwards) you could use honey as an adhesive for Saran Wrap. It wouldn't soak in far, and should come out with very warm water. Anyhow, the best I can come up with.
Edit: Foodservice cling film is 18" wide. Costco or SAMs club.

 

Sew a vinyl cover that conforms to the cushion smooth side against foam, do a two piece fiberglass shell so it will split in half , cut vinyl along seam to remove finished shells and the vinyl will make a smooth surface to apply a release agent to. And you've got a good reusable mold. If you have extra factory cloth laying around you could disassemble it to make pattern for vinyl

 

The only thing I can think of is to make a plug with glass.

Take a temporary negative with glass (and the poly film tape), and then take a form out of that. The form will not be 100% perfect, but you can shape the fiberglass form with a sander (or other tedious methodes). When you have a form that you like made up then make a real negative.



I...
-drove my SA to my freinds house where my cars live
-Washed my FB
-fired my OTHER SA up (I can't believe it fired up!!!)
-and I droped the S5 Tii engine in my FB
It was an RX7 day

 

He hit the nail on the head. This wasn't cheap, but it was worth it. Gonna have to sell the Volks so I can buy Hoosiers.

I used a place up on Walnut Creek, CA called Rite-Way Wire & Wheel Specialists. After a thorough search in my area (still 2 hours away), they were the most highly-regarded refurbishers. Judging by how these came out, I can definitely say I made the right choice.

Last night, I finally finished cleaning the carbon and boogers out of my 13B rotors. They're sealed up in plastic bags for when I'm ready to assemble the engine.

This evening, on the suspicion that my trailing coil may be bad, I pulled them and tested them. The part where the H-T lead goes in trailing coil was so corroded, I could only get a resistance reading on one small section of the inside. I put a set of MSD Blaster2 coils I've had sitting on the shelf forever and tested her. She still starts hard (not surprised as I didn't expect a bad trailing coil to affect startup), but she does run smoother once she warms up. Took her out for a quick jaunt around the block. Man, is she ever rowdy!

Tomorrow I'll pull the carb off and start swapping goodies from Pierce Manifolds onto it.

fm

 

Couple interesting ideas, there... TenaciousR's is far more effort than I'm willing to go at this point for a mold (I'd just carve foam first, but thanks for the input) but a couple of the others have me thinking interesting thoughts.

One of my main interests in making a mold is that I figure there are a few people out there that may need new new seat-back foam (especially on the driver side), and that a mold good enough to do two units would probably be good for a dozen or more. Seemed like a useful thing that could help defray project costs.

The SA seat backs are interesting in that the same foam piece was used for both driver and passenger side. So one mold works for both.

But if the mold process is too involved/expensive/time-eating, I may end up back with the carving knife & a block of foam.

 

oh lemme know when you want hoosiers, we get a deal on em

 

oh you should scan it into the computer and have a mold made. i'm surprised a vacuum bag thing didn't work, its that complex of a shape?

 

I take it that the foam cushion isn't expendable in the process? The trouble with soft foam is that I can't think of any good way to make the foam suitable for making a mold from without destroying the foam in the process. If you didn't mind destroying the foam, I'd spray it with some Super 77 spray glue, use saran wrap on it and give it another go.

I'll bounce this off my friend who did this for a living for years and see what he thinks. It sounds like you've come up with some really good ideas that, unfortunately, didn't pan out.

fm

 

I have an idea. Paint the surface with silicone RTV pourable mold making material. This stuff doesn't stick to anything but itself. You can use it as the barrier layer between the foam cushion and your fiberglass. The one I use is http://www.ebay.com/itm/Silicone-RTV-Mold-Making-Rubber-1-2-Gallon-Kit-/300607140539?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fd94f2bb
You can get it in a quart size but you only save a few dollars. It doesn't seem to have a shelf life when you open it like a lot of other versions of this stuff have. I would paint it on as a thin layer and let it cure a day. Then fiberglass over it to make your mold. The fiberglass will not stick to this stuff and I am pretty sure it won't stick to the original foam. It is a non critical 10:1 mix by weight and smells like blueberries. I suppose you could make a wood form around half an inch oversize and just make the mold out of this stuff.

Good luck!