thorsent

The little vents on the fenders. While replacing my passenger side fender I sliced through the last little clip that was holding the vent on. Can you get these at any old autoparts stores, and if so what are they called? Looks like you could hold the thing on with some long screws and washers. Got to assume OEM is going to be like a dollar per screw. (I can see the puns coming)

Now about the fender liner:

I'm replacing the front passenger fender, that is the *passenger* fender of a touring model, and I notice that the ducts have some sort of function via the fender liner. Hey that's neat right? Now I'm looking at the liner, trying to figure out wtf it was routing air from/to. I laid the fender down and traced the duct, must have been 5 times trying to figure out where the air was coming from and why. Only thing it could possibly be was brakes, but I just couldn't see how it could possibly route air to the brakes. Then I think maybe it's creating some sort of pressure zone to suck fresh air over the brakes? But the angle is all wrong, would actually suck the air so that it never touched the brakes. I'm crouched down, butt on heels and scratching my head. I must have looked like one of the monkeys from 2001, the fender liner as the perplexing black monolith taunting me.

Unlike the monkeys I have rx7club.com, so I go inside to look it up and find out about the venting for the oil cooler. Cool! Everything's in place in case I ever add that second oil cooler. Another nice move by Mazda. Now I want to check out the functional side, so I go back outside to take a look beneath the drivers side fender and doh! The liner's gone! Guess I need to add the second oil cooler so that the brakes overheat evenly .

Anyway, let me know if you have any advice on the clippy things. I now have all these body parts piled up waiting for me to attach this little functionless piece of plastic.

thorsent

Update. Another thread says they're called "grommets" and they're $2.55 per grommet (I know one screw is included there but not sure if it's the one I actually need.)

thorsent

Vents are back on. In case anyone wants to avoid the grommets, 2 #6 screws and washers in the big holes (the ones without the grommets). I tightened these up to hold the vent in place. Then put a washer and #4 screws in the holes where the grommets would normally go. These won't hold the vent in snuggly but will prevent it from falling off if the #6's ever broke, came loose, or whatever. Cost $1.16.

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Those plastic fasteners that have the plastic screw and the plastic pop-pin are tricky - they are commonly broken. Last time I was at the junkyard I went and hit up every '90s Mazda I could find there - walked out with a pocket full of them for free .

Actually, it did cost $1 to get in the junkyard...

Dale

ROTARYFDTT

iTrader: (4)

Malloy can get them, I orderd some replacements last year. I always go through Ray if I ever need misc. factory parts.