Before I go drilling into the hatch, I'd figure I'd ask if somebody has ever done this spoiler before.

Trying to finish off the body work of a 86 S4 N/A . .. . Been a long time coming.


Fiberglass . .. rattle canned with Duplicolor. . .2 coats. . .sanded 600 grit between coats.



Location .. . . . Does this seem about right?


Looks to be a M5? or M6 bolt .. . You have to supply the nut.






I like this stuff. . . .Dries relatively quickly. . . .I would call it run resistant if you are putting down consecutive coats. I like the nozzle. It sands well. . . I think they rebranded it as hot rod black.




Had 3 or 4 coats of Mazda 1A satin gold on it over the years. It was time to fix it before the thing started to rust away. . .. This whole rear quarter was smashed in an accident when the car was 3 years old. . . .Somebody rebuilt it and used it as a trade in at a cadillac dealership. When the dealership finally got the pink slip they realized the person traded in a salvage title. The dealership then sued the person in court and the person used his lawyer to contact me. . . I had bought the car for $5300 in 1990 when it had been rebuilt. I got it from a dude that bought cars at auction and resold them. . . .Wholsale Mark . . .. .I got it from this guy because the dealership sent the car to auction. .. . .. I got it at 58k miles and now it has 303k miles on it


Obviously the answer is more Bondo .. . . .


Lay it thick and sand it hard !!!!!!. . . . I had to prep the area pretty good before applying more bondo.

 

By this time I am hating sanding paint. . .Still more to go.

The sunroof is rusted pretty hard. . . I need to find a replacement. . . .I lost an auction on Ebay for a white one with gasket .. .Now it looks like I'll get a carbon fiber one and pony up the money. . .Finding a decent OEM metal one for a good price is surprisingly hard.

Sunroof has seen its last days.


Might as well do the gasket. . . . I was smelling exhaust fumes in the cabin so I changed out the tail light seals and third brake light seal.


Back to the sanding.. . .. ****. . . .Because there are some many layers and the cracks are deep, sometimes you just have to sand what you can and float the rest. I had to go back and fix some bad spots. When laying down Bondo, your lowest spot can be problematic when matching angles. . . .This is the first time trying such bodywork.

 

Checking the body line

 

Getting closer. . .

 

Getting the body line to look good took some effort. I had to get a long planar hand sander to get it right. Hand foam and orbitals were making it lumpy.

You can see how I brought the black over the door a little bit. The clear coat is messed up on some sections of this car. Particularly the top sections.

I'm trying to decide if I pony up the money for the external door seals/moldings and windshield moldings. . . .The moldings I want to replace literally total a cost of 700 bucks.. . .ouch !!!!

 

You can see the extent of the crash in this photo. See how the sheet metal is bent and somebody actually tried to bondo it on the seal area. I bent it out as straight as I could as it probably does not help the taillight seal when it is bent. The car will never be concourse grade but it doesn't have to be a rusted shell either.

 

Your bodywork is pretty good. I keep procrastinating on mine, since I'll probably need to take off enough paint on the drivers quarter to necessitate an entire paint job. And at that point I may just save up and take it to a professional shop.

As far as the hatch spoiler, I would just mount it with 3M tape instead. I have my sport spoiler mounted with 3M body mounting tape and it has worked great. I can shake the rear end of the car by grabbing the spoiler and shaking it up and down. This avoids drilling any holes. Just my $0.02.

Great work as always though, I really enjoy reading your threads and watching the before / after transformation.

 

It's the sanding. . .The sanding took me forever.

I bought a box of N95 masks too. . . .I'm glad I did. . . . . .I probably went through 12 to 14 cans of black and a couple masks you could noticeably tell it was black.

I did the hood as well. . . .. Wet sand with 1000 grit and then rubbing compound. . . .followed up with wax.

I like the matte black look but it stains too easily. .. . .finger oils .. etc. . .

Ultimately I think I'll wet sand, and wax, and leave it at that.

 

Well, finally got the thing attached . . .Amazing what a few beers will do.

First off, the bolt on the spoiler does not go all the way through the hatch. (The hatch is actually two pieces of sheet metal.)

When you drill, you have to drill the right dia. hole from the top side and go through the hatch completely,

Once you do that, you have to use a dremel and make the back side hole large enough to get a nut/socket in.. . .Placement is paramount.



I then used Butyl tape and made a thin bead to go in between the spoiler and the hatch. Even with the bolt, you need something that keeps the spoiler from bouncing and vibrating.

I ultimately decided to drill a hole in my hatch for safety. 3m tape could have worked just fine. .. But about 15 years ago, GTO made a spoiler out of tinted acrylic that was taped to the hatch. After 2 years, that spoiler flew off the rear of my car on the freeway. Most likely because I did not apply it properly. Point being, this time there is no way this 4lb. piece of fiberglass is going to fly off my car at speed.

 

Its coming along nicely! I love that you've had the car for 32 years and have driven it regularly! Does the car have the original engine? Has it been a reliable car over the years?

 

Howdy Mazdaverx,

The car has been surprisingly reliable over the years. The engine was rebuilt at 267K. If that is not reliable I don't know what is. The failure mechanism at that time was a bad water cooling path corroding into the exhaust port. It would pressurize the water system and push all the water to the overfill tank causing the low level water alarm to go off. (side note, I always used castrol gtx 20/50 oil)

I drove it regularly up until 7 years ago and then it basically sat on the side of my house. So many things needed repair simply due to the age and miles and I did not have the money or facilities to get it going again.. . (303K miles now). But now I have a decent paying job close to home ,and a garage, which affords me the luxury of getting her fixed up again.

She's only the lowly 4 lug early model 86, but the car has rack and pinion only. No power steering. That's probably the only reason to own a S4 base. With rack and pinion only, the car feels like a go-kart on the road.

I've dumped about $4k into it over the last 6 months in parts/paint alone. . . ..At some point I have to ask myself when enough is enough as it's not an overly valuable car.

 

I'd say that the car has been very reliable given the mileage! 267k on the original engine is fantastic and had it not been for the corroded housing, it would have likely went longer! Typically I've seen corroded housings starting between 140k-150k so based on my experience, you're car has done quite well.

On a side note, I also use Castrol GTX 20W50 oil in all of my 7's. Its served me well over the last 23 years of RX-7 ownership.