My son has joined the ranks of the rotary brethren and procured himself a GSLSE of the 1985 flavor. Sunbeam Silver on grey. I'm trying to figure something out, the faded wheel well covers in the back and the rest of the hatch trim. Is it really supposed to be black? Parts number says so. What a spectrum of grays in this car. medium grey carpet, light grey headliner, two tone door card with dark grey vinyl and medium fabric, same goes for the seats. then to tie it all together is black trim in the hatch?

this is a mild head scratcher.

 

the stuff in the back is a dark gray, Mazda calls it off black. if the car was new i think the colors would be closer together (the lighter stuff would be darker) the vert i'm working on is like this too, the carpet is really faded

 

Fading is a thing. I had to repaint a lot of my black vinyl on the SA due to fade. Of the 37 years its been in my possession. 31 have been garaged the whole time. I still had faded vinyl. So get the right color vinyl paint and go at it. You may want to spruce up the other areas in the cabin as well. That pain works on a lot of the interior surfaces too.

 

Hey there, i'd like to do my interior as well. BUT i must know, what paint do you guys use. Ive been reluctant to do this because when i painted an interior years ago, probably 16 or so now, the paint would all just flake off once it got a chip. Is there a new stuff thats better and lasts?

 

I repainted the rear hatch plastic trim on my 1985 GSL-SE. I found Dupli-Color Trim and Bumper paint in the dark gray shade to be an excellent match to the original trim color on the back hatch trim. Here is the before and after photos.



Before


After

 

How has that stuff held up? im worried that if it was to get a scratch it would start flaking

 

You will see that the interior parts for the grey interior have the suffix 65, 64, 63 or 09 and the description "off black" which as j9fd3s correctly noted as Mazda's description for dark grey. The 65, 64, 63 and 09 do in fact refer to different shades. The 09 colour is the lighter/bluer colour in the carpet, where 65 is the darker bluey grey colour on the interior plastics. 64 meanwhile is the grey colour on the roof lining and going down the interior B pillar sections. So yes, these different colours you point out are all deliberate.

The actual hatch plastic do carry the 65 suffix for "off black" eg the plastic wheel arch trims are 8871-68-861A 65 and 8871-68-871A 65 (for 2 seater models - note the export models have different rear trim part numbers as they have rear seats and needed provision for the folding rear seat latch).

Interior bits in actual black with typically have the suffix 00. 00 interior parts were available in 78-83 RX-7s, but not 84-85, although some interior bits that remained black in 84-85 but were black against the three interior colour options (off black, red/wine, brown).

 

thank you all for the information.

 

Don't fret about the colors, Every single part in my car is a different color because things fade, and no every part fades equally. The maroon on my car is supposed to be uniform in nature, but some of it faded into pink, and some of it faded into brown. The bits that were spared from the UV look to be a really nasty brown maroon. I'm going to paint the pieces a more velvet maroon and call it a day!

 

So far it has held up fine. But then again it has not gotten scratched.

 

I used SEM paint with duplicolor adhesion promoter and that stuff is rock solid. I accidentally slipped trying to screw the top trim piece in and my screwdriver slid across the part, I thought it would have chipped or brought the paint up, just light scuff.. If you guys are going to use SEM, you are going to need 6 bottles to redo your entire SA dash trim and door card handles etc. for a FB style dash, def going to need 7 cans. IF you are just doing the trim bits 3 is fine if it's heavily discolored, or two if you have minor fading.
How to get the BEST results. Wash your parts with simple green/dove platinum and then rinse them, I took a towel with 99% alcohol to them after, make sure the parts are DRY .

Then in the shade on a hot./ warm not humid day Spray the duplicolor adhesion promoter on ONE part until it drys, it will look chalky, doesn't have to be uniform. Have your SEM color in hand because once that stuff drys you have ten mins to spray the first coat of sem on top.

Get your part and dust the color coat three times from about 8 inches away waiting 2 mins between coats on a warm day in the shade, then moving the part into the sun for 15 mins ( half if teh part is black/dark grey) You should get see-through coverage.
After waiting go back into the shade and give the parts a little to cool down/ inspect for no dust. Then you're going to hit it again with the SEM but this time at 6 inches going fast , do this step twice waiting 5 mins in-between coats or until dry. , then do another dust coat from 8 inches away.
If you went too heavy in any given step the sem will develop what looks to be orange peel with white spots, DO NOT TOUCH IT OR FREAK OUT, let the paint dry another 15 mins and dust that area another 3 times. and then do the final dusting.
If you follow the steps You will get solid coverage and sheen this way and the sem will hold up well against scratching, Although I DO NOT recommend you use this on door pull cups, shifter *****, or any high touch areas UNLESS you use BULLDOG adhesion promoter , but that stuff is 30$ a can. SEM stuff is awesome.