Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

More Pictures

I sure the hell didn't go out looking for this but it popped up on CL Tuesday and caught my eye due to the wide body and price. Also I'd been thinking about how I would like to own a car from my birth year and how it would neat to participate in this. Being honest with myself I didn't see me finishing my V8 FC until September or October which means another driving season at the track basically gone. This car holds the siren's call of being track worthy in about 2 months with minimal cost outlay and time required for prep.

From looking over the car tonight the following clearly needs to be addressed:
Seat mounting
Electrical and switches
Gauges
Tires
Seat Belts

In the worst case scenario the following might also have to be addressed:
New engine
New downdraft plenum
Replace brake master and slave cylinders and calipers
Replace struts

Other misc things:
Body was in great shape for age. Appears to have been primarily covered but does have some surface rust on the roof from paint peeling. Car already has a 13B in it instead of the 12A and was told that it had only been seized for about year. Previously used as a SCCA race car with podium finishes. Carb is known to be working as current owner pulled it and placed it on his truck to test. Car comes with another set of old school 2 piece rims for slicks that I didn't grab any pictures of.

mannyvidal

iTrader: (2)

very nice find , good luck with this beast , its a keeper

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

looks to be from model year 1980 based on the vin plate on the firewall and the rear bumper..looks like a nice find with a lot of potential. keep us updated on your progress!

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

Possible. Title is still being sorted out with the state as it has to be re-issued. The car identification plate in the driver door says the date of manufacture is 79. Granted cars are often built in the prior year to their official model year.

Rotor_king

iTrader: (2)

Found this in dallas? Thats awesome i want a widebody project to work on

takhay

That body looks like its in EXCELLENT shape, g/l with getting it up and running again, i'm sure we'd all love to see it when you do!

Cmdpapichulo

Hey i have a Mariah motorsports hatch that im willing to sell for the right price if u want if interested pm me.....Nice Find Good Luck

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

Yes was on DFW craigslist. Car was actually in Terrel.

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

I plan on having a full cage in it one day. And it's my understanding that a full cage doesn't co-exist with the Mariah hatch.

duffman692002

iTrader: (5)

So this is why I never got a response from the seller, lol. I saw it a few days after it was posted but obviously you beat me to it, glad another rotary guy picked it up though.

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

There Ain't No Justice? A Niven fan, by chance?

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

Still haven't had a chance to spend much time with the car yet. Did find a possible rust issue where battery acid had been spilled but not properly cleaned up when the battery had been relocated to behind the passenger seat area. I'll need to get it on a lift to get a better feel for the extent of it. At that point I'll make a decision on the whether it's worth fixing or just parting/selling the car. It really sucks since the rest of the car has no rot in any of the normal areas.


Yeah really enjoyed Niven and Heinlein both when I was growing up.

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

Nice score, have fun making it into a track ****.

rotordogg

iTrader: (4)

I need to start combing CL. I would love that wide body car. All though I would consider a TII engine and tranny swap with some wider tires if they make them that small.

Magnus Berglund

Cool!
I'll follow this thread!

I wounder how many Mode 1 cars there are?

//magnus

duffman692002

iTrader: (5)

In the bay or the passenger compartment? If it's inside it shouldn't be too hard to patch i wouldn't think. Looks like it sat ouside for quite some time, was there any rust where the trailing arms attach to the body? Good luck with it but if you do decide to sell please please please PM me, lol. I was so ready to ****** this thing up.

food7373

iTrader: (2)

whats the update on the project?

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

An update! HOORAY! Only 21 months later.

Cliff notes for the missing 21 months. Lost my garage space (with lift) a few months after acquiring car. Had only gotten to get the car up in the air once to inspect undercarriage. Confirmed that the rust in the passenger bin area is bad (for a Texas car) and extends all the way back in the body rail to where it curves up before the spare tire well. Languished a few months looking for new garage space. Found new garage space. New garage space ended up not being ideal. Just to far away and terrible access. Absolutely no work done on the car during this time. I move. Still living in an apartment and now am another 30 minutes away from bad garage. Start looking for something closer to me. Lament my lack of a good garage on a local car forum and find another lost soul who lives near me also needing garage space. We continue to look. Find a shop with air and two post lift but it’s 30 minutes away. We decide lift trumps driving time and give the owner a call. Find out space has had a deposit put down already. Leave owner our name and number to call us back should the deposit fall through. We go back to looking for a place. Two weeks later we get a call from owner of shop with the lift and air. Deposit fell through and he wants to know if we are still interested. We drive out the next day to look at the place. Put down deposit. Wait a few weeks for prior occupant to get the rest of their stuff out and the landlord to do some general maintenance and repairs. We return, pay the remainder of the rent, sign the lease, and get keys! I have a usable garage again with a lift! HOORAY! Takes about month to get stuff moved in and to make arrangements to get both of my project chassis and my shop mate’s car moved in. I actually turn a wrench for the first time on the car on October 30th!

More updates to come. Have a few weekends worth of updates to get caught up on. I'll do photos and such at a later time as I need to pull them off the camera and fix my image hosting.

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

Now for actual wrench turning updates. (Don’t expect a whole lot of photos. I generally forgot to take them and when I do it’s only to photo something before I take it apart so I know how it’s supposed to look like when I put it together again.

Weekend of October 30th: Got both my project cars moved into the shop this weekend. My track FC will be mothballed for the duration until I finish the SA. First item for the SA was general clean up. It had sat outside in the yard behind my uncle’s place for the past year and half. Most of that time it was covered but not all. So it had it’s share of grass clippings and ant hills in the wheels. So I spent some time with the vacuum cleaner and air nozzle cleaning up the loose stuff stuck up in the front nose, drainage lines, body crevices etc. I took apart the wiper assembly and fresh air intake panel and cleaned up in that space and the two smaller chambers on the passenger and driver side as well. On the drivers side the smaller compartment was filled with what looked like sound deadening. Synthetic fiber matting etc. I thought it was odd that only that side had it. I’ve later come to the conclusion that a mouse had lived there as I have found similar material on the driver side body rail behind the spare tire well. That chamber also shows some signs of surface rust and some larger rust where the corner of it meets the fender area. Also one of the welds that attach the support member to the exterior sheet metal is broken and has trapped moisture to cause rust all the way through the sheet metal to the exterior. One of only 2 or 3 spots on the exterior chassis (not the doors or sunroof or damage from leaking battery) that has rust coming up from the underside. That’s basically all that got this weekend as most of it was spent moving vehicles and tools into the shop.

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

Weekend of November 6th: Spent some time organizing the shop and re-arranging things. Typical still getting moved in stuff. As far as work on the car not too much but made some headway. Got the car on the lift and did further cleaning underneath. The car has obviously been repainted since it has a wide body and that paint is peeling and flaking off. The amount coming off the car is minor compared to underneath. While repainting the car they also appeared to have undercoated/painted the entire underside as well. (Quick side note: It’s my belief that everything sans glass was removed from this car when the wide body was installed and the car re-painted. All the hardware underneath has been painted separately a different color than the under carriage. To include all the bits holding hardlines in place, the drive shaft, the rear axle, and the front diff cover. Someone spent a fair amount of time on the wide body conversion.) Well that paint on the underside is coming off, in droves. Who needs a sand blaster when you can use just plain high-pressure air to knock the stuff off? So after spending some time knocking out the cobwebs, old paint, dust, dirt, ant hill in the front driver caliber, grass stuck in other places, and sweeping up that entire mess I got to inspecting the underside of the car again as it had been ages since last looking underneath. Car has aftermarket suspension and springs with an adjustable roll bar in the rear and a beefy unit up front. The polyurethane bushings used for these are toast. They have begun to rot with one of the bushings up front having disintegrated completely already and another crumbles when touched. No clue on the brand but I’ll get pictures when it comes time to remove them. Car has Bilstein’s in the rear and Koni’s up front. Neither appear to be adjustable. Did confirm that the car has a 4x110 bolt pattern so I’ve got a small rear end. I believe it does have a LSD as when I turn one wheel the other turns in the opposite direction. However if I go to the other side of the car and turn the wheel the other side does nothing. So can anyone comment on that?

Now on to what I actually hoped to accomplish this weekend. I knew that the engine was seized. I couldn’t turn it by hand nor by breaker bar and the guy I bought it from said he attempted to turn it over (/me puts face in hands and cries) with no luck. So my goal was to get the exhaust off, continue spraying Amsoil Power Foam into the spark plugs and exhaust ports in hopes of freeing the engine. Exhaust came off without to much drama. Engine has a Racing Beat header welded to a custom setup from there back. Entire exhaust welded together as one piece except for the muffler. Based on the muffler I expect this car was very loud. After getting the header off it’s pretty apparent that the rotors are all gunked up. I spray some Power Foam and Gibbs Brand into the chambers but I really don’t have much hope of recovery. So I move onto my next goal which is to determine if the 13b is a 4 port or 6 port. I proceed to remove the various lines attaching to the carb and the throttle cable. Leaving the carb attached to the LIM I take off the LIM. Coolant gushes everywhere. I had assumed the engine was dry but apparently it wasn’t. Also didn’t know that the coolant passages opened up on that side. So I run around dropping kitty litter to stop coolant from running all over the shop and spend some time cleaning up. The coolant that did come out looked great. Nice bright green with no discoloration or rust. Could have been fill from the prior owner who did say he drained the old stuff and put in new. I got further confirmation that on my assumption that the engine was toast as there was a small amount water/rust/sludge in the front housing intake. At that point I called it a night.

I returned the next day with the intention of pulling the motor. But before doing so I wanted to give another shot at freeing the motor. I get out my handy dandy giant breaker bar from Harbor Freight and lean into bit by bit. I give it two or three tries and suddenly it moves! Three or four easy turns with the breaker bar I go grab the socket wrench. It turns easily for about three quarters of the rotation and locks up again. Take the breaker bar to it again and it goes the rest of the way with a bit of resistance. Then off to the socket wrench again and am easily able to rotate the engine in both directions. It puked a fair amount of stuff out of both rotors. I’m sure it was a fine collection of coolant, Power Foam, and Gibbs Brand that I had been squirting into the engine. I poked my bore scope up the exhaust ports and looked around. No obvious gouges from my small point of view. Everything covered with a thin layer of “mud” which I’m sure is mostly rust sludge that the penetrates broke down. So now I just need to get a new intake gasket, reattach the LIM and carb, confirm the fuel pump works and is ethanol compatible, check out the fuel tank, replace the fuel filter and lines, and possibly rebuild the carb before I can attempt to fire the engine up.

Also does anyone know if the Manifold Water "O" Rings (as Mazdatrix calls them) are re-usable? They unseated when I removed the LIM and I don’t know if I can re-use them or need to order new ones. They were light gray in color and more flat then “O”.

food7373

iTrader: (2)

Nice to see you got it un-siezed! Keep up the good work, can't wait for more updates!

duffman692002

iTrader: (5)

Awesome, glad to see you're back working on it. I'm not far from where your shop is so if ya ever need a hand give me a shout.

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

I'm sure I will give you a call when I start in on the carb. IIRC you've got a Holley setup too. I've never messed with the things so it will be a learning experience for me.

Directfreak

iTrader: (2)

TL: DR

Pics?

Tanj!

iTrader: (5)

Weekend of November 13th: Starting this week and for every day until the end of the year I’ve got Friday’s off so I get 3 day weekends! Hopefully most of that time will be spent working on the car. Didn’t get a whole lot done this weekend. Spent only a little time at the shop Friday evening, worked at the race track Saturday, and then got some stuff actually accomplished Sunday. Got the hood removed so I’d stop bumping into it while jacking around in the engine bay. It has numerous rust holes in it. The original owner had grafted a NACA duct into the hood to feed fresh air into the carb. That process had broken most of the welds between the hood skin and support structure. It was around those broken welds that most of the rust through had developed. So I’ll be in the market for a new hood before all this is done. My goal for this weekend was to investigate the fuel situation. I knew that the car had sat for some time so I needed to check out the fuel tank. I also wanted to find out what model fuel pump the car had, confirm it was ethanol compatible, and verify that the pump still worked. So I started in on the fuel tank. Ended up just cutting all the fuel hoses. I also had to cut the fuel filler accordion hose. I spent the better part of an hour and half trying to get it to budge with no luck. Here is to hoping the part isn’t NLA. Upon getting the tank out I found that there was no liquid in it. The prior owner had mentioned that he had drained the fuel tank. The tank did have strong gas fumes and the bottom of the tank was discolored and wet. I quick look around the inside with the bore scope did show the bottom was a dark brown about the lower fifth of the tank but nothing else looked out of place. Hopefully a quick boil and recoat will make everything happy. Not much else accomplished. Still need to pull the Holey fuel pump and find a model number on it to confirm its ethanol compatibility. Goals for the coming weekend are to pull the dash and start mapping the electrical. I plan on replacing the current brittle wiring with a new generic harness and converting everything other to GM Weather Pack connectors or something similar. I might stick with the stock Mazda connectors if someone can link up the place where we can buy stock connectors again. I’ve had way to many just disintegrate in my hands from UV damage to be terribly excited bout putting them back into the car.