Do I really want me to answer that???

 

Any updates?

Love the wheels on it!

 

Updates, well I'll be removing as much of the interior as I have time for this weekend and I'll start cleaning it all up. I'll be sure to get pictures of it. I'm also taking those wheels off the car this weekend so I can get some tires on them. I'm going to clean them up and have the center section re-finished if I need to. Just crappy used ones, but at least they'll hold air. I won't be driving on them so I can't justify buying nice tires yet. I'll do that once the car is up and running.

Thanks for the compliments Maztrix.


Wacky, no comments from the peanut gallery!

 

From what I've been able to find, Gloria O. Hays was a folk singer... I'm excited about this restoration guy. That looks like this Alfa Romeo thats parked in a field close to me.

 

I ran across the folk singer name too but I wasn't sure what to make of it. From what I saw that person was from and lived in Wisconsin. This car has no signs of rust or anything so that rules out Wisconsin winters. Hopefully I'll be able to find out more info about the original owner.

 

Great find!!!!! And at a great price...Make sure you send the family friend a nice gift for Christmas.....

 

Oh yeah, he's going to get one hell of a present. Not to mention that he just got married and his wife is pregnant. That's actually why he had to get rid of the car. So I'll be sending an X-mas, wedding, congrats on the baby present all wrapped up in one.

 

Ok, I only had a couple of hours to work on the PA this morning but here's what I got done. I pulled the Weds off so I can get the rotted tires removed. Then they are going to get taken apart so I can get the dishes re-polished and get the center section re-powder coated. I'm also going to see if I can find a shop that can re-work the center caps. They are starting to show their age.



Front wheel well:


Rear wheel well:


Dirty wheels off the car:


One clean wheel after simply rinsing it off for a couple of minutes:


Check out the added bracing they bolted onto the bottom of the car:

 

Then I went ahead and pulled the driver's door panel off and took it apart. This way I can get the original cardboard panel replaced with new cardboard. I'm also going to get the carpet and grey vinyl replaced with new material. Everything else should be perfect again once I get a chance to clean it really well.

Driver's door panel installed:


Driver's door without the panel. I guess this makes it official that the car was white when it left Mazda:


Door panel in one piece:


Door panel in two pieces:


And door panel fully torn down:


Here's the Alpine speaker pod that was on the door. It holds an electrostatic tweeter as well as a soft dome. Seems to be some really nice gear, especially when you consider how old it is:


This is the only work I got accomplished today. I'm sure that I'll have more progress to speak of after tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do but other than take off the passenger door panel and remove the speaker pods from where the storage bins would've been in a normal FB. I might remove the speaker pods on the front kick panels too. I'm going to talk to Elemental Designs about new speakers that will fit behind the original Alpine grills.

I probably won't be including such small progress pics anymore, but I'm still all pumped up about owning this car. I'll just add text updates for little things like this and pictures for the bigger milestones. Thanks for reading through all of my babble.

Zach

 

If you need any stock parts for the car let me know. I'm willing to donate to this project.

 

zack, do you plan on lowering the car an inch or two? it would look really nice!

 

wow added bracing to the bottom ... i didn' think they'd do that ... I like the tweeters thouch i was going to ask what they were but you answed that.

Even looking at that rear wheel with no real rust or anything is great.

What other mods have been done?

 

Thanks for that offer. I'm sure that I'll come across something that I'll need. That's really cool of you and I greatly appreciate it.

Preston, nah I'm not going to lower the car. I don't want to mod it at all in regards to things like that. It would probably look nice sitting an inch or so lower, but since it didn't leave Pacific Avatar that way I don't want to do that. Remember, the only mods that I'm going to do are mods that will make the car more reliable.

I'm not quite sure what mods you are asking about. But the car is exactly the same as it left Pacific Avatar late in 1982. That company took stock GSL's and worked them up into a custom car from there. If I answered your question wrong just let me know and I'll see if I can answer it better.

Zach

 

I meant by like reinforcing, and stuff ... did they do the bracing to all their cars?

 

This is what I found about Gloria O Hays, it might be a completely different person but oh well...
From http://www.city-data.com/elec/elec-UPLAND-CA.html
O Hays, Gloria MRS. (SELF/TELECOMMUNICATIONS), (Zip code: 91786) $300 to VICTORY 2004/CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY on 02/10/03

or a singer from http://www.folklib.net/index/discog/...2_gloria.shtml

Anyways.. The car has great potential, hope to see it up and running (in perfect condition of course) soon. Good luck.

 

Gotcha. Yes, PA did all of the bracing to the car. The rest of the mods were performance or looks and they're all mentioned in the first post of this thread. But it seems that the more I look at the car the more things I notice are different. So a true full mod list is something that I'll probably have after the restoration is finished.

Druken, thanks for looking that up for me. I'm going to talk to the previous owner this week and see if he can get me any additional information about the original owner.

Zach

 

i might have missed it, but were the weds the original wheels that came w/ the car or the previous owners put them on the car?

let me know if you need help on anything. there's a shop here by socal that does lip/center or total wheel restoration for less than industry pricing. last time i talked to one of my buddy's he said it was $20 a pop for re-polishing/condition of a wheel lip.

keep nice pics comin'

 

Thanks d0 Luck. I'll let you know if I need to send the wheels down to you. Yes, the Weds came stock on the car from PA.

I'm about to go out to the garage now and start working on the car some more. I'll have some updates this evening.

Zach

 

thats cool, i asume you are going to replace the suspension though any ways right?

 

btw it looks like the FD needs to be washed :P

 

If you want interior parts, let me know. I will be parting DoLUcks GSL-SE. Its black with burgundy interior. Exterior is OK, interior is as clean as my other FB. Im just taking the entire drivetrain (motor, tranny, rear end and suspension). You can have the rest. I dont need any more junks.

 

Thanks Wacky. But I think that the interior parts out of the GSL-SE are different than mine aren't they?

I'll have a new batch of updates and pics posted within the hour!!

Preston, yeah the FD needs a bath. All of the dust flying off of my PA is making the FD filthy!

Zach

 

UPDATE TIME!!

I started off by removing the passenger door panel just like I did the driver's door panel yesterday. Nothing new to speak of there. I did notice that I counted wrong the first time I did a count on the Alpine audio system. It's a 10 speaker system instead of 8 like I originally thought. This car was WAY ahead of it's time! Here's a pic of the passenger door just for posterities sake though.



Then I started work on removing the speaker pods where the stock storage bins would normally be. And did I ever find one hell of a surprise once I got that stuff out!! Here are the pods before I got them out.



After I got them out. Here's the passenger's side pod.


And the rear shot


Here's the carpet that covered the whole area. And the second picture is the metal frame work that was under the carpet.



To be continued in my next post...

 

Here's what was hiding behind those rear speaker pods. This really blew me away. I bet this was one of the best audio systems in any car in 1983!! 3 amps and a pre-amp to split the signal up. PA really went all out with this system. I think I am actually going to email Alpine and show them what I have here. Then ask them if I could send them all of the speakers and amps and have them refurb the amps and replace all the drivers with new ones.

The amplifier setup:


And the top of the amps and pre-amp:



Here's the 6.5" subwoofer that was in the rear pod:


And the 4" full range that was in the same pod:


And here's the pod once I got it apart:


The trunk is next!!

 

Here's the trunk:



Without the carpet or insulation mat installed:


And now for yet another part that really impressed me. When I went to remove the carpet from the sides of the trunk I found that they made custom panels for most of it. In total there are 7 carpeted panels that make up the side and rear walls of the trunk. PA had incredible attention to detail!!
Here's the empty trunk now that all of the carpeting has been removed:


And finally my spare tire. The tread pattern on this tire looks odd. Like it isn't the original tire.


I made some pretty decent progress today. I still only had about 4 hours to work on the car though. But it should go back together as quick as it came apart. I have a seperate labeled zip lock bag for the hardware from each seperate area that I work on. This will really be helpful when it comes time to re-assemble the car! Thanks for reading through my most recent batch of updates. I'll be working 12 hour shifts and I'll be training still all this week so I won't be working on the car until next weekend. But if you have any questions ask them and I'll answer as best I can.

Zach