My oldest son who is almost 12 had expressed interest in a 1st Gen this summer and had decided he wanted to part with the 88 GXL that I got for him. He said he liked the look and feel of a 1st Gen and that he wanted one. A friend had this 84 SE that has been sitting for some time and offered to sell me the car. I showed the pictures to my son and explained what would be involved in this car's restoration and my son said the car was perfect. The deal I made with my son is that he is to help with the car and learn how to assemble and restore an RX-7. If he follows through and helps the entire length of the project, I will give the car to him to keep and enjoy, but not to drive to school all of the time and not to go out and destroy. I explained the potential collectibility of the car and explained how significant the car was to Mazda and the sports car world in the 80's and how great of a car this will be again. He understands.

What we have is an 84 SE that's straight and only has very minor rust issues. It has no engine or transmission and the harness has been pulled through the firewall and the engine bay has been relieved of...well...everything. Not to worry though ad the car came with most of the parts that were removed..minus the engine.

We inventoried the parts yesterday that filled the car, organized them, swept the carpet real quick, bolted the seats in, and tossed a couple things in the engine bay for now. We will continue to work on the car and hunt for the parts we need and continue to update this thread with plenty of pictures. Here are a couple pictures I snapped of the car yesterday as we finished up. Unfortunately I didn't take any before pictures but in the upcoming posts it will show how much this car needs. This will be fun!

 

Congratulations mazdaverx713b, your son sounds like he has some "car guy style". IE, 2nd gens are hideous lumps.

I am 47 and my oldest boy is 9. I am trying my hardest to get him into my hobbies, so someone will care for my babies when I die. My lovely wife has already told me she will just have a "best offer" sale for all my $15k Trap guns and rare cars, antique tractors, and other expensive hobbies. Luckily my boy is a jock and has started to show an interest in cars (at car shows he can tell the difference between Corvette C5, C6, C7.... Haven't seen a Fiero 2.0 in person yet (C8)).

I hope he keeps or sells-for- a-good price all my toys. You sound like a good Dad.

 

My oldest son owns a 78 model that we put a rebuilt 12a into a last weekend. Not fully installed at this point. Keeping an eye open for my youngest.

 

My oldest son is all about cars thankfully. I've been raising him around multiple restorations of multiple makes that I own. I take my boys to car shows, take them on cruises in the cars, and let them help me work on the cars and teach them as I diagnose issues and fix them. I bought the boys tools and toolboxes and have been giving them the gentle nudge towards rotaries. My youngest son loves riding in the cars and going to shows but isn't quite focused on repairing them yet. He will get there. I figure that if they spend their money on cars, they won't have money or time for other harmful things. Cars keep me out of trouble and keep me broke haha!

 

That's great to hear!! Seems like your sons love rotaries the way you do! It's good to hear that you and your boys are working together on the car. I feel as though it helps to build a stronger bond between a father and a son.

 

We've been fairly stagnant on the project as of late. Debating on rebuilding an S4 13B I have in the garage as I have had no luck finding a good original GSL-SE engine. I'd prefer tonstick with the original engine to be honest. I'll keep looking. Once I finish restoring my Nordic Green RX-8, this will be front and center this summer. Next step is painting the engine bay.

 

Got some paint on order to start touching up a few areas. The car needs a good cleaning once again and I need to go through and organize the parts I have for the car to see exactly what we will need to get the ball up and rolling. Engine bay paint and color matching the red parts will be a good start.

 

I’m glad to see that you and your son are working on a restoration together! Very cool.

 

Getting him motivated has been a challenge. He's a teenager and he is always making plans elsewhere. My youngest son is 9 and he's more than willing to help with the car so either way, the car will be restored. Once my health worsens, I'll give the car to one of the boys.

 

We decided to get the car out and give it a good washing. Surprisingly, the whats left of the original paint isn't awful. It would likely buff out and look nice. We can try that after I paint the sunroof and nose panel.

My youngest son had a great time washing the car and was very excited to help.









We have a long way to go but it was a good first step. Surprisingly, most of the parts are there to rebuild the car. It came with quite a bit of parts and the entire hatch is filled with boxes of parts that came off of the car.

 

Finally after catching up on a few things, my boys and I pushed the SE into the garage yesterday. It's a big step to have the car inside and ready to clean out and begin working on. I still have other things to do on my other 7's, but the time spent with my kids will be invaluable to all of us.

 

The first car I ever worked on was my father's SE, I have had the rotary bug ever since.

I see you painted the moon roof, the car is looking good!

 

I found a replacement moon roof in my parts collection that happened to be the same color. It's somewhat rusty and has some bubbling in one corner and staining on top. I buffed it by hand and it came out nice and matches perfectly. When the car is finished I will install a glass moon roof on it and keep an eye out for a clean steel roof that I can paint the original color. Then I can keep the steel roof in a bag in the back when I'm storing the car in the winter months.

 

Figured I'd post a pic of the current roof panel. It's not great but it at least matches.



I also removed the window tint from the side windows. It had turned purple and was peeling and smelled terrible. Once I run the harness I'm going to power it up and roll the windows down to finish removing the tint.



I started touching up areas of the engine bay. The previous owner had primered the entire engine bay. I started in the corners and have been testing the paint. I'll clean up all the overspray as I go.

 

Pulled the headlight motors and painted a little more of the engine bay tonight but ran out of paint. More is on order which will help me finish under the hood and then I can start running the harness.

 

Looking good Dave. What did you use to remove the window tinting? I have a car I want to do that to. Thought about just changing out the whole window.

 

I peeled off what I could, which ended up being a fair amount. After that I used label remover, which is similar smelling to kerosene, and wiped the entire area. I let it soak for a few and then went over it with a plastic razor blade. It was only somewhat effective. I then used a rectangular shaped razor blade and carefully removed the rest of the tint. It literally just scraped right off.

After the purple tint was gone I sprayed brake clean onto a rag and wiped the adhesive right off the glass. Once the adhesive was gone I cleaned the window inside and out with foaming glass cleaner.

The rear quarter windows are next. I have to empty the hatch out first though as it's full of spare parts for the car. Shame a good engine isn't among those parts lol!

 

I have a couple of 12a’s that you could use if your looking for an engine.

 

I just need to come out to your place. You've always been amazing at helping me out and I appreciate that very much!!!

 

You better come soon. The supply of spares is dwindling quickly.

 

Today I installed a good steering wheel, an original radio (missing the volume **** unfortunately) , replaced the ash tray, threaded a shift **** on, installed the ecu and cover, installed washer squirters, and cleaned, re-dyed, and installed the black plastic vent under the wiper motor cover panel. Definitely will need to find some brown interior parts though. Many are broken and missing.

 

The rear is by far the worst part. The plastic panels are super faded and the carpet is in horrible shape. I will try and find some color match spray dye to get the plastic parts looking good again. Any suggestions are more than welcome. Likely will be super difficult to find used S3 brown interior parts so I fear I will have to make due with what I have.

 

I ordered a can of SEM Color Coat in Cordovan Brown and I started coating the rear trim pieces. They came out looking nice and are almost an exact color match to the original brown interior plastics! Will definitely post some pictures of them later today!

 

Looking forward to seeing that. Every time I see interior parts here in the forum that are refurbed with the SEM, they look amazing. Great project.

 

Here are a couple of pictures of the dyed parts. I replaced the original right side shock/speaker cover with an earlier part from a tan interior car. The tan took the brown coating well. Once a clean the rear area I will assemble the rear and get some pictures posted!