FDs selling w/o a battery tie down has become an epidemic
 

I'd say half the cars I look at don't have a battery tie down, WTF.

That says a whole lot about the owner to me. Don't be that owner selling your FD without a battery tie down it could potentially ruin your sale because some jackass like me is going to assume you are an idiot.

If you aren't worried about your battery what else are you not worried about especially when it comes to a high performance sports car?

Lots of slacker FD owners selling cars :icon_tdow

How about two oil caps?
OE cap stuck down near the block and a Stant cap on the fill tube. LOL!

LOL.........It doesn't take long for an experienced car/FD owner to go :scratch: No thanks you can keep it

The battery tie down is likely just a car that hasn't run much and or the battery is draining for some reason but either way PLEASE don't ever drive your FD with out the battery tied down. It could flop and bounce all over the place causing major electrical issues or worse, FIRE!

Not like battery hold downs are expensive either. Or hard to install.

At the very least, make an effort with a generic Autozone bracket or something. Even if it looks bad, at least have it held down.

The bracket and J-bolts are cheap new from Mazda people watching this thread and wanting one :).

Dale

I do the tech inspections for the local SCCA autocross events I go to. Guess what's at the top of the list and will keep you from being able to join in on the fun that day....A PROPERLY SECURED BATTERY.

Lol I can' say how many cars come through my shop without a tie down or have a battery relocated and just bouncing around loose in the trunk or bin.

I should have known when I bought my white car when I showed up with a battery flopping around in the bin. Like Fritz asks.. "What else are they NOT worried about"
The answer is always ALOT and it always leads to large amounts of $$ and time for you to straighten it all out.

You would be surprised at the absolute lack of Maintinence on these cars. All these little things add up. But the owners know people aren't going to pay any more for the car just because you changed the hatch dampers, pillow balls, had it aligned and corner balanced properly etc.

^^^ Same for me doing tech at my local auto-x club. #1 issue is battery not tied down.

And here I am having had to switch to a dry cell because I kept sloshing the electrolyte out of my lead acid batteries cornering...

... at least it shows the current owner isn't driving the car hard.:lol:

Think the real epidemic is modifications for the sake of modification

I'll admit to being one those without a tie down but it doesn't mean I don't take care of my car. Just haven't had time to put on a new tie down yet.

Thats what they all say. Doesn't justify neglecting a simple yet major safety issue.

:icon_tup:
I understand but I don't believe it'll be exploding anytime soon. I will fix when I get the chance.

I'm sure it's an oversite and you will take care of it; but how long has it been this way?
You don't have to answer; it should tell you about how well you maintain your car.

I understand that other priorities take precedence of people's time and money. It's also that same fact that keep these cars; that aren't worth big $$ to continue to circle the drain. They got so cheap that anyone could BUY one. It's a different story on maintaining them.

It's difficult to justify the huge expense you will never get back and most people will drive these cars and ignore the things that don't stop them from actually driving the car.

It's simple economics but us old guys who have been driving them for decades remember when they were all nice. It's hard to see the neglect of such a fine and rare car.

It's been without a tie down for about 2-3 weeks now. The tie down disappeared when I was moving but like I said it will be fixed. I was just admitting that I am one of those who are without a tie down at the moment.

I just want to state that (in my opinion) just because most FD's are missing their tie downs, does not mean that all those who are missing their tie downs don't treat these car with respect. Once again this is just my opinion.

I think it's more along the lines of obvious neglect.
A battery is an out and in replacement that is very simple in comparison to other automotive tasks. Being that it is such an easy job, leaving out the step of reinstalling the hold down is asinine and the fact that someone can ignore something that simple extremely degrades their owner credibility.

Nahhhhh. The real epidemic is the rx7 page on Facebook.

My pet peeve is a broken plastic hood prop rod holder. You know, the thing that the prop rod snaps into when you put the rod down. Its not a safety item, but shows neglect in my mind. Its a freakin $3 part, yet so many I see are broken.

What does a missing valve stem cap indicate?

Some of the gems I saw when I was looking a few months back:

• Battery relocated with some braided line and a ceiling hangar. Unsurprisingly it rocked around a bit, and the DS rad was pretty banged up.
• Ebay intake with a hole rubbed through the side as it was right up against a HKS BOV. Engine unsurprisingly had low compression, I guess sucking up metal isn't good on the old apex seals.
• All the interior wiring corroded because the guy parked it outside and couldn't be bothered to replace the door seals. Also had a nice moldy smell.
• Rear wiper blade removed. Metal arm left on and in direct contact with the rear glass
• Hood latch rusted? time for pins!
• Multiple poorly painted interiors.
• Locked off suspension for maximum hellaflush. Amusingly the wheels were still sliced up.
• Interior fuse panel relocated to the interior storage bin with the battery. If you're thinking "wait, how did he get the fuse block harness to run that far?", it was manually extended. The extension was also done with a single color of wire.
• FMIC with no actual mounting hardware. It was being held in place by the hoses. Though to be fair, basically every FMIC install I saw was bad.
• And my personal favorite: "Dual BOVs". No Charge Relief Valve. They were even both T-connected to a boost controller.

This is a pet peeve of mine as well.
When my recently acquired FD was delivered, it had a brand new Odyssey battery in the rear bin, with no bracket or hold-down.
Before I even titled the car, I built an aluminum battery bracket and added a cutoff switch to the bin as well.
For some reason, the builder put the battery on the driver side. :scratch: It really should be on the passenger side for better weight distribution, but since the bin was already cut up, I decided to leave it where it is.

What does a missing valve stem cap indicate?

If all 4 are in the ashtray its an Auto-xer's car.

If rando car pieces are missing it is a sign of neglect.

-16 08:34 AM
Vectortrex Some of the gems I saw when I was looking a few months back:

Battery relocated with some braided line and a ceiling hangar. Unsurprisingly it rocked around a bit, and the DS rad was pretty banged up.
Ebay intake with a hole rubbed through the side as it was right up against a HKS BOV. Engine unsurprisingly had low compression, I guess sucking up metal isn't good on the old apex seals.
All the interior wiring corroded because the guy parked it outside and couldn't be bothered to replace the door seals. Also had a nice moldy smell.
Rear wiper blade removed. Metal arm left on and in direct contact with the rear glass
Hood latch rusted? time for pins!
Multiple poorly painted interiors.
Locked off suspension for maximum hellaflush. Amusingly the wheels were still sliced up.
Interior fuse panel relocated to the interior storage bin with the battery. If you're thinking "wait, how did he get the fuse block harness to run that far?", it was manually extended. The extension was also done with a single color of wire.
FMIC with no actual mounting hardware. It was being held in place by the hoses. Though to be fair, basically every FMIC install I saw was bad.
And my personal favorite: "Dual BOVs". No Charge Relief Valve. They were even both T-connected to a boost controller.


Holy crap! Were you looking at FDs or 240s? That described 95% of the 240SX in my area.

Timely thread, my parts list for the dealer on Saturday includes a battery tray, battery hold downs, and hood prop clip. All items missing/broken on the car that I bought late last year.

Someone kept stealing mine, I'm on my 3rd set now. They wouldn't even steal all 4 either, first was 3, then 2. I mean cmon, if you're going to take one, then just take them all.

And this is why it took me almost a whole year to find a clean one. I'm hoping I just got unlucky and this isn't becoming a trend though...

Sometimes kids steal them for their bike.

When I bought my car the Odyssey battery was just sitting behind the drive seat on the floor, hold down by the + and - cable :squint: First thing I did was moved it back to the front till I have time to do a proper relocation, I think that was my first purchase from Fritz, a battery tie down :D