88 GXL Project
 

Last night I traded my rusty 92 Miata for a well worn 88 GXL. My son really wanted me to get this car so I did the trade. Truth be told, I see potential in the car. Car is an 88 GXL with 183k miles. It does have a Mazda reman engine with unknown mileage. I did get a ton of maintenance and repair paperwork with the car to include the original memorandum of title showing a purchase date of 2-23-89 and 258 miles when sold new. The car came with all new pads and rotors in the box as well as a new clutch kit. It does run and drive and is pretty well worn overall. I do like the car so I'll document what I do with the car here. Figured it would be a fun little project. Now, on to some pictures:

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Nice find.

check for a rust hole behind the plastic cover in the wheel well (small cover by where your feet would go) i always seem to find rust there and its a pain.

The car is pretty rusty so there's a good chance that I'll find rust there as well. I'll check tonight after work.

The car was a decent find. I drove it yesterday and it does run and drive just fine. Needs rear brakes like right now. I'll do those soon. And the shifter bushings are non existent. I figure once I get the brakes, shifter bushings, tuneup, oil, change, and exhaust in order it will be a pretty decent driver. Not sure what I'm going to do about the body as of yet. It can be fixed but it won't be cheap and I'm in the middle of restoring my 10AE, so most of my spare cash is being put into that car. But we'll see. Its definitely a fun car.

Spent some time on the GXL tonight. Got the interior swept out and the plastics cleaned along with the door panels secured. Shame that someone put on doors with manual window regulators in them. I'll take the good with the bad and enjoy the car. Figured I'd share some pictures of the progress:

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Took the car for a short drive on Sunday and surprisingly it drove really well. It does need a proper exhaust system so I'm going to start looking for a stock replacement system to have the car quiet and smooth. The brakes are the worst part but I do have the parts to fix that issue. Still haven't decided if this is going to turn into a restoration or if I'm going to enjoy it in limited capacities as I fix it. The car has really grown on me. The blue interior is different and at first I didn't care for it. now, I kinda like it. If the rust were fixed and the body and paint were nice, this would be an excellent car!

Got a lot going on this weekend but I hope to be able to put a little time into the car and get some more pics of its progress posted!

Since this is going to be a project that I work in my leisure the updates may be small. However over the weekend, I managed to find and install one flash to pass lens that I had in a box of exterior parts, I polished the front turn signal lenses due to fading and oxidation, cleaned the wheels which are in surprisingly excellent shape, and I started cleaning up the engine bay a little. I also removed the front license plate bracket to clean up the front end.

I installed a power steering belt and tensioner and filled the system with fluid and found out why the previous owner had the belt off. The transfer lines on the power steering rack are puking fluid. So, it looks like if I want the power steering to work, which I do, I'm going to have to buy some transfer lines. They look easy enough to replace, but getting to them will be the tough part. A lot will have to come out if I choose not to drop the rack. I took a couple pictures to share and wanted to post them here:

One FTP lens installed :

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The start of the engine bay cleanup:

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The wheels aren't half bad really:

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Seems the power steering transfer lines will be tough to find as are the blue interior parts. None the less I've been pecking away. Will be replacing the steering wheel with a stock one shortly and I've been trying to track down the correct driver's seat. That is not an easy piece to find somewhat locally.

You could always paint non-blue interior parts if you can find a matching blue SEM or Duplicolor paint for your interior parts.

That's not a bad idea either! I do need a good driver's seat and a factory leather steering wheel and horn button. Once I'm done with my 10AE, I can put a little more money into this car and see where it goes.

I admit I painted several bits when I swapped my 80 from wine to black interior. I painted the headliner black because I couldn't find any non-sunroof headliners in black. My door panels were from an 83 (because I could not find any 80 arm rests with good chrome caps) with brown interior, I removed the brown vinyl and reupholstered it in black vinyl, painted the armrest and carpet at the bottom black.

If I run into issues needing blue parts that I cannot find I'll give that a try, thank you.

Looking forward for some updates... can't wait to see what you do with this

Thank you. My son an dI are going to his this car hard after I finish my 10AE restoration. The rust is really bad on this car so we'll see what happens. Would be a great car to restore though as it runs and drives so well

Awesome car!

Thank you!!