202,000 miles worth of wear and tear. I'm pretty sure there was an accident or 2 thrown in there...
Driver's side



^some of it ground away

Accident damage? Whole thing kind of looks like it's bent upward





Lots of Bondo in this area...

 

Driver's side rear wheel arch


Bonus behind driver door


Driver's seat mount (scary)



Pass. side


Spare tire well


Not even the 3rd brake light is safe


I wish I would have looked the car over better before buying it (I'm an idiot, I know ) I've been trying to make the best of it, spending the last few months learning alot about rotary engines (tore it basically down to bare block to pull and clean injectors, replace gaskets, etc). This is my first of hopefully many rotary-powered cars. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

 

go go gadjet body work one on one,,man ive seen worse being in the industry..this is nice compared to some..

 

EEEK cut it out!!

You can buy the rocker sections from Mazda, or make your own. The quarter you'll probably want to make yourself a patch for as the OEM panel is prohibitively expensive.

Thats pretty rough though. The worst part is because everything's been "repaired" at one time or another, alot of the nastyness won't be found until its stripped completely down

 

HOLY DANG IT! Was that thing parked in a lake or something!

How in the WORLD would a car get THAT rusty? I didn't think that was possible. Just wow.

 

I really have no idea how it happened, I got all the service records with the car and the first owner took really good care of it. He sold it in I think 2004 to the guy I bought it from for $1000, so that leads me to believe it wasn't in the best shape at that point. What I think happened is the original owner got another new 'toy' car in the mid-'90s (maybe an FD? ) and the FC just sat and withered away until he sold it. Then again it does have alot of miles, so maybe it was just driven alot year round. It came from Illinois, then ended up in Michigan, both states with snowy and salty winters. We'll see what happens, I want to get this car driveable and just mess around it until I can afford a cleaner one, then use this one as kind of a 'parts car', since I have replaced alot of electrical and engine components. It's sad to see an authentic Sport (no sunroof, manual everything) go this way though

 

That's Michigan for ya.
Up in Traverse City where my brother lives, the common strategy is to buy a POS beater for the winter and just let the salt have it's way with it.

 

time to find another shell.

 

one reason why i will NEVER buy a northern or florida car

 

Your telling me you are not thinking that is a photoshoped picture! That that could even be seen more then once in a lifetime!

Wow.

 

man i REALLY love living in arizona, i feel your pain though, i bought a Colorado car and had to strip and scrap it, was pretty pissed

get a new shell if you want this to be easy, swapping parts over to another shell is A LOT easier than dealing with the cancer you have.

When you get the new shell, strip the stock crap off the undercarriage and coat it with POR-15 EVERYWHERE. Then driving in the snow will be less of a death sentence.

 

man imagine what the rear subframe looks like

yah id suggest buying another shell, people tend to sell good shells cheap like $200 bucks around here in socal etc.

 

Yeah I've noticed, that's sooo far away though

 

those rust spots cant even compare to mines.
My old 7 was a rusting up onthe frame, on the driver front,where the lower arm boltsto the frame...my sway bar mount was just hanging.
I junked that and bought another rx7 and undercoated the entire bottom.

 

Next one I buy will be getting POR-15 to the max.

 

get a shell and have it shipped the price would be worth it, id sell you mine but it already has a down payment on it.

 

I have that metal. Starting to cut the car up tomorrow so if you want it let me know and I'll cut it out for you.

 

Why florida? the humidity?

and I feel your rust pain. My turbo vert is a MI car.

 

No issues here in Florida? Just purchased my GTUs a couple weeks ago and it has no issues. 140k all in Florida. They had another 2, 1 Red S4 vert and a AS S4 GXL.

Both very well priced.

Maybe your shopping from the wrong area

 

Slight update, Me and my dad have started some bodywork to get it looking decent. We put fiberglass behind the holes in the door, and bondo on the rear quarter. I know it's not 'the right way' to do it, but It'll look good until I can afford a beter shell, or whole car. I can also have my uncle paint it for really cheap, so I think it'll turn out well. I'll take some pics of the progress tomorrow.

 

that makes me feel sick

I hate rust.

 

you can learn a lot from fixing this shell up... stuff that will make any problems down the road a lot easier to fix... i say at least practice up with some of it since you have the shell, learn some... if you cant fix it all sell it for scrap and get a new 7... but you already have it, give it a shot man

 

Yeah, I have learned alot already, both about body work and mechanical stuff. In addition to the body stuff I've done so far, I've pulled all the manifolds off the motor to pull injectors and have them cleaned, soldered on new injector plugs, pulled gas tank, removed rat's nest, ACV, EGR and air pump, replaced the starter right when I got it. Right now I'm waiting on putting the gas tank back in (can someone please answer my question about the check and cut valve in my other thread? )
This is a good learning experience, teaching me alot for my hopefully very long future in RX7s and rotaries.

Realistically, it's probably not best for me to have a really clean FC anyway, since I'm 16 and this is my first car. I'd probably have to kill myself if I wrecked a really clean FC

 

F*CK POR-15

I undercoated the whole underside and not 3 months later some of the rust was coming through already. 3 coats.

If I ever do it again I am Rhino-Lining it!

 

Dude dont spend a penny on fixing it or a minute worrying about it.
non running S4 fc's are 100-300 bux out here in cali and dont have rust.
Most of the shitty parts and cars I have seen come from all the mid and east coast states.If your looking for good parts or nice FC's better move to cali.