i try to work quicky and thoroughly to bring 7's back to life. my major hangup with this ol' girl is the lack of a good SE shortblock. i have a complete SE engine in my garage that has excellent compression in the rear rotor but the apex seals are carbon'd up in the down position on the front rotor. i've had the sucker soaking in mmo, sea foam, pb blaster, and wd40 for months trying to free it up. no luck so far. i turn it over daily just hoping. worst case is a rebuild..which will cost me gaskets, coolant seals, oil control seals, and possibly apex seals...which is more than my meager budget allows for. so i think my best route to take is to buy a used shortblock. i'm going to try to get a lot more done before work today and i will have plenty of pictures to share of the progress.

Are you serious? I could have sworn the were the same? Since my car is an 85, I guess I have "Custom Silver"?
If you can, please post pics showing the difference. Thanks.

If it's the front rotor, you can just "partially disassemble" the engine and repair it.
You would only need to remove the front cover and front plate. Fix the problem and reinstall.
You wouldn't even need to remove the e-shaft.

for now, while i'm watching the kids and cant easialy get to the shed without them in hot pursuit, here are the color listings from the 84 and 85 brochures:

1984:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00664.jpg

1985:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00663.jpg

here are the few picsi took of my progress yesterday. in the body work, i'm further but forgot to take pics.

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00653.jpg

the interior after a short vacuum:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00656.jpg

got the hatch cleaned out and replaced the mat, installed a spare tire and replaced the rear bumper access panels:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00657.jpg

ok, as promised, here are the gas doors in the two shades of "gray" the one on the left side is tornado silver (color code K8) and the one on the right is custom silver metallic (color code V9):

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00665.jpg

tornado silver:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00668.jpg

custom silver:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00669.jpg

here is the progress today. i got the headlights put together, the under body heat shield installed, battery tray installed, the main relay set and variable resistor installed, got my better wiper arms installed, installed a new hood release cable, installed an occillator, replaced the hood seal, and pulled up the swamp infested center carpet section and started drying it out. luckily though the floor where the water was sitting is not rusty.

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00676.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00678.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00680.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00681.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00686.jpg

where the water puddled on the floorboard:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00687.jpg

nice to see completely untouched insulation:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00693.jpg

TX inspection sticker from 1989:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00694.jpg

At this rate you'll be driving it down the street before I finish this post! Your shades of grey color comments struck a chord. Actually, I believe that the Tornado Silver is just a slight variation of Beat Black (E-6). And I mean slight. I have a car in each color and you can almost switch fenders and not tell. You have to realize that colors will vary slightly from batch to batch. Even from the factory new cars do not necessarily all match up 100%. I can imagine Mazda changing the E-6 formula by a few grams of this or that and renaming it Tornado Silver for 1980. Same sort of thing might apply between K-8 and V-9. Add in the variations with every time a color is mixed up and you can get all sorts of overlap.

Thank you soooo much for doing this! I always wondered why my car looked a "little different" than other tornado silver cars, and now I know why - because it probably isn't!. I'am more tempted to keep the stock color now too. I seem to recall there might be be a way I can confirm the color via the VIN?

color code is on the firewall tag...

glad i could help you out! i do prefer the custom silver to the tornado silver, but thats just me. like Mike said, the color code is stamped into the vin plate on the firewall. its bleow the vin number. yours should be V9.

its been a few days since my last update. i got the dash and carpet completely pulled. i found rust on the firewall and the fresh air duct that i have been repairing. once i finish that, i have to weld in new sunroof tab mounts as teh old ones are completely rotted through. my plan is to cut the metal off of the black parts car. here are pics of the interior removal process:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00713.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00715.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00718.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00720.jpg

worst spot of rust i've found and am currently repairing:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00722.jpg

body plug that fell out. i cleaned both mounting surfaces to bare metal and epoxyed the plug in. then once the epoxy was dry, i used por 15 to completely seal of the area:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00723.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00724.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00728.jpg

i'll get more pictures today of my rust repair and overall work progress.

Looking good.

Never seen a dash that rusty Dave, it has that look like it burnt then rusted lol.

I agree, that is a lot of rust.

i agree with the both of you. i have a maroon interior thats going in the car. i had to drill the heads off of some of the screws in the dash in order to remove some parts. the dash is pretty trashed. like any good pack rat i'll save it and see if it can be brought back. its currently sitting under the black 85 thats on jackstands.

Ya say it's a Texas car, I wonder if it was coastal. That would explain the rust, I haven't seen many FBs around here that rusted like that. Heck, mine sat for over 4 years and is rust free. Humidity coulda caused your dash to look like that. :dunno:

the car sat for years here in ohio and the interior was open to the elements from a leaking sunroof. the spare tire well and hatch area were filled with water up to the bins..the carpet was growing plants...the undercarriage is perfectly solid. light surface rust here and there/ wheel wells have zero rust and control arm mounts look like brand new

today i pulled the complete front interior from the black donor car and continued my rust repair on the SE. i got the front and middle carpet sections installed on the SE today.

padding laid out for middle carpet section:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00729.jpg

middle carpet installed:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00730.jpg

front padding installed:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00732.jpg

front carpet installed:

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...b/DSC00734.jpg

Install looking smooth Dave. :icon_tup:

thanks Mike! next step will be to install the heater core, evaporator, and blower motor. after that i'm going to replace the pedals due to their rust and then install the dash and seats. following that i will install the rest or the rear maroon interior and fix the rust on the roof.

I confirmed today that is is indeed V9. Now that I saw a nice shiny version
(on your gas door) - I think I might end up keeping the stock color, If I cant verify what color this Rare color is for the STi.

Thanks again - your rebuild is moving along nicely!

Im dying to do this exact same thing! I have two cars with pretty significant rust (one being my daily) and I REALLY wanna find a rust free gsl to put my engine and interior into. btw you must throw some crazy parties cuz it seems like the cops are always at your house lol. Awesome build and good luck with the resto.

well Joe, the cops are always here and another guy form my department lives around the corner and a deputy sheriff lives caddy corner from me..so its a pretty safe neighborhood ;) i did chase down a young kid last weekend that was breaking into cars in my neighborhood. i just so happened to be off and was in my driveway when he walked right up and started trying to get in my cars..i chased him down and pulled him over a fence, placed him in a restraing arm bar and the guys showed up and off to jail he went, lol. 801 there happens to be my work car and a fine machine it is, lol.

and don't hesitate to start any restoration. they are always a blast and you learn SOOO much when restoring a car!

That should be Steel Grey Metalic (SGM). Introduced in 2006 for the 'pig nose' STi but since that's a photoshoped pic there's no telling what kind grey it actually is.

SGM:
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/714/img0006br.jpg

Coming along nicely Dave. :icon_tup: