You might be able to revive the ash tray with some Mother's Back to Black. That's what I've used on mine over the years with great results.

 

i bought a new ashtray for my TII from mazda and was pissed to find out the button you push to open it didnt have the orange letters on it that say "PUSH" why the **** would they not put that on there? i paid like $50 bucks for the thing lol

 

Soldering the cpu was a .........success! Took about an hour. It's not too bad of a job. I swear the ignition light never was on before now, but that could be my imagination.

 

ill keep sunday open. its up to you if you want to bring the booze or not. you got a steal on those struts.

 

and camber plates too! woot woot!

 

really making some awesome porogress on this car! the wheels look great! i hope to see it in person some day. also wanted to add that on the ashtray, instead of painting them, i use armorall a few times a year and it brings the color right back. it has gotten down to only having to put a very small amount of armorall on the ash try in my 10AE once a year. i would eventually like to get a new ash tray though.

 

I painted my asssshtray, might be a bit much for some

 

I painted my ash tray as well, but used a flat black as another poster pointed out, and it was a perfect match. The cost of the paint was $5 which is much better than shelling out the $50-$60 for a new one plus there is the satisfaction of bringing it back to life, while at the same time saving money for another project on the car, which there usually is at least one on the "to do" list.

 

I don't know why this didn't work for me. I would scrub that old stained ash tray once a week. It always stained my cleaning cloth but never looked any better. On a slightly stained tray, armorall or back to black might work. I'm afraid with how bad his is, it is a wasted effort.

Not to mention, the paint is a perfect match, cost very little and gives instant results.

 

I think what happens is that over time, sunlight causes the plastic on the ashtray lid to break down and turn brown. Everyone assumes they're brown from tobacco, but even in the FC that I owned for 11+ years, bought with 8300 miles on it, and didn't smoke in, the ashtray eventually turned from black to brown. I think this is why you can never scrub all the brown off; you're just removing layers of the damaged plastic.

Painting would be the most permanent repair. (Rob_XX_7's piano black finish is superb!) The Back to Black makes the lid look almost black again, but is really more of a super dark semi-gloss brown. The paper towel turns an icky tobacco brown when I freshen the Back to Black as well. It looks close enough to me though.

 

you might be right, I've NEVER seen one that wasn't a little brown.

 

the browning of the LID is simple oxidation of an inferior plastic bit.

you will notice it's only the lid section, not the ash cavity.

clearly mazda sourced one subpar item.

the krylon looks very very good.

the lid on my vert started fading in ~1992, no doubt because the top was down 95% of the time. so i purchased a 2nd tray, which did the same after 3-4 years.

over the years i've tried several things that work for this issue on other cars as well as the rx ash lid.

meg's gold class trim detailer lasts much longer than mother's BtoB and gets closer to the original black black...

http://meguiarsdirect.com/detail/MEG+G10810

this stuff OR the mother's lasts much longer (up to a year) IF you wet the lid generously then wrap in saran or a zip lock bag for a few days saturation, then wipe off the residue.

griot's makes a product for coating plastics with black, applies sort of like liquid shoe polish and works very well on old cars with faded/scuffed black trim and it works on the lid pretty well too.

http://www.griotsgarage.com/product/...2C+4+ounces.do

the griots stuff works well on small scuff in the black door/bumper trim on the cars without color matched trim.

for those that wanna SPRAY on layer, this product bonds better than paint and doesn't scratch or chip like paints may...

http://www.autogeek.net/black-bumper...ding-coat.html

the human eye tends to blend minor color variations, so looking at the lid after applying any of these goops looks pretty good.

but a properly lighted/exposed photograph will usually still show the browning.

henry.
________________

it's great to see this car being brought back to life and the cost list is very useful, since it reveals the budget beyond purchase price.

how's the underside? several of the photos suggest rust coloring inside the exhaust tips, so i wonder how the rest of the exhaust looks.

while the previous owner may have rekeyed some of the locks, many of these cars came originally with 2 different keys.

one key set worked on every lock (door/ignition/trunk/hatch/dash)

the other set was 'valet cut' so it worked on the door/ignition but not the trunk/hatch or glove box.

the 2 keys look very similar at the cuttings, and were originallydistinguished by the shape (one was round, the other squarish) of the key grip

 

Just read through all that and I have to say, it was nice. I'm glad everything is working out so well. Looks like you've got a great car there!

 

wow rob that looks great! what did you use to smooth out the texture? just alot of primer?

 

I used epoxy primer, but first I sanded the texture flat.

I would not put dressings on the ashtray lid, that will make it harder for paint to stick well to the lid if you decide to paint it.

A can of the flat or semi gloss spray paint is cheaper then most dressings anyhow

 

That is one classy post, openrx.
Chock full of info, it shows what the forum should be.

 

in my experience, dressings eventually sap the color from the plastic and make it look more "milky" overtime anyway.

Especially in hotter places like TX and AZ.

 

it's important to understand that not all interior trim is made from the same compounds

and not all topical goops are equal.

auto interiors were 'high vinyl' in the 70s and up to the early 80s...

so using products with vinyl-plasticizers had some value, since one could replace a tiny bit of the plasticizers that evaporated over time.

but newer synthetic interior base materials (ignoring metal and leather) are not vinyl based, which is a good thing.

most 'plastic' interiors now have significant uv inhibitors and remain flexible much longer, and without treatments.

this ash tray lid is an exception, unfortunately.
____________________________

it is true that some topical treatments are harmful, especially to older plastics.

usually the harmful products contain hexane, xylene, benzene derivatives, other solvents and so on...

BUT the reality is most cleaning agents with name like purple/green/409/armor, and so on are just as harmful to interiors if not more so.

i tend to use distilled water sprayed on microfiber for cleaning only,

with the occasional spot treatment for hard to remove stuff.

and the 2 goops i linked above don't contain anything that zaps modern plastics...

the meg's contains a food grade emulsifier (used in hair care products too) and mineral oil derivative, that eventually evaporates...

http://www.meguiars.com/msds/G108.PDF

the mothers b2b contains a fruit flavoring and wax based food coating...

http://whatsinproducts.com/informati...9cca71eb10fc28

and NEITHER would interfere with DIY painting,

since the prep for painting includes a surface sanding and solvent step which would remove all residues.

still it's hard to know the long term outcome of using most of these products till many years pass.
_________________

the krylon looks great and seems to be a reasonable cosmetic option.

but 2 of the guiding principles in old car maintenance are...

1. don't make it worse
2. don't make irreversible changes, unless there are no other options.

thanks for reading, i've been very impressed with the archives here and the level of commitment to good info on our 7s.

henry

 

if you are a painter you would understand how hard it is to actually get ALL of the things off the surface that will not only affect adhesion but also surface defects such as fish eyes.

unless it states "body shop safe", it will have a bad reaction to paint. The reason they use all these food products and other items is silicone based dressings are starting to become banned in some areas.
One of my favorite tire and rubber dressings is no longer sold due to this reason.

 

Rob, I gotta ask, what's that stuff on the left vent opening to the door vent (left of the light switch) in your picture? Some sort of air freshener (yes, no clue)?

Back on topic...this thread made my mind up to paint the ashtray, finally, so one more project there.

 

Met another member tonight - can't remember his handle, but he lives like 7 houses down from me! He's got an 87 RX.

Anyway, hot rodding the car tonight equaled a noisy exhaust leak. Sigh. So the money pit continues!

Stopped at Pep Boys tonight, they didn't have any semi-flat black paint.

 

oh i understand this issue with 'body shop safe' products and how siloxanes cause trouble in paint shops...

but how can one assume a tray lid or dash panel, that is 20+ years old hasn't been coated with a variety of goops over the years?

ya can't and that's why good prep is important.
________________________

if you really want to know why a SPECIFIC favorite dressing is no longer available, name it and i'll explain why; 90% chance it's got NOTHING to do with silicone.
_________________________
the reasons for using food grade products are MUCH different than you've suggested,

and while siloxanes are a problem with painting, it's the SOLVENTS (volatile organic compounds) in your favorite dressing that are being banned (VOCs)

just like they are being displaced in the paints and other film coatings.

in fact MANY of the 'safe' food grade compounds are STILL siloxanes and contain silicones...

(if it says "methicone" , "dimethicone", "cyclopolysiloxane" or any of a dozen other similar compounds) those are ALL silicone products...

this has been a long time confusion regarding the negative side of dressing with silicones,

because it is NOT the siloxanes that are a negative for rubber or plastics but the VEHICLE (solution) in which they are mixed....

it's the oils and petrols and solvents, NOT the siloxanes that are detrimental to rubber/vinyl and plastics....

oily products have an OIL/solvent base and newer product have water or alcohol bases. it isn't the siloxanes that make these products feel oily, it's the base.

well don't over look the lighter/12volt outlet then...

because the small ring/bezel around it is made from the same material as the butt lid...

and usually has the same gray/green discoloration from aging and oxidation...

look closely at it.

henry

 

On the S5, the trim piece around the lighter is metal.

 

I know that over the course of 20 years the plastics have been subjected to many dressings, what im saying is dressing is not going to solve the issue, so instead of applying fresh dressing paint the plastics instead.

shield- try a home store, they sell the same aerosol paints including plastic paints

 

I noticed this on my S4 as well.