83Limited

Ok, little background to me and this car. Way back in the 80's when RX-7s were the new and cool car, I was in high school...in mid1985 my dad bought me my first car, a used 1983 RX-7. I was delighted, happy as a kid could be. Here i am 16 years old with a chateau silver limited edition RX-7.....yee haw. Anyways, I played with the car, kept it all the way thru high school and sold it to a friend of mine after i graduated in 88. Best i remember the car had about 65000 miles on it then. He drove it a year or so and then his parents took it with them when they moved to Colorado in about 1992, and i lost contact with the friend, although he stilled lived here. Fast forward to April or May 2011.....I am driving down a road in town and see an old chateau silver RX-7 at a stoplight and realize its my friend. First time I had laid eyes on him or the car in over 20 years. He went thru the light and was gone. I thought to myself, it sure would be neat if he ever decided to sell that car to buy it and redo it (I could tell the paint was shot when I saw it). Anyways, time rocked on and in early August i was making a housecall on a job I was working on and saw the RX7 parked in the front yard....with a for sale sign on it. Knocked on the door, no answer, called the number, no answer. Looked at the car and realized it was in ok to fair condition, paint was shot, it was dirty, but seemed solid from what you could see thru the peeling 25 year old window tint. Couldnt see the seats because they had seat covers on them. Two days went on and I couldnt get ahold of my buddy to tell him I was interested. By then the car bug had bit, and i was scared somebody was gonna beat me to it and my car would be gone again (I actually found it listed on craigslist). Needless to say, i finally caught up with him, I paid him what he was asking for it (was a bit higher than I wanted to pay, but I am cheap, and hey, ya can only buy back your high school car once in a lifetime...

Brought her home and started checking her out. She was barely running. Battery was toast, carb was gunked up, shutter valve was raising cane, and it had a huge exhaust leak beacause of a blown gasket in front of the catalytic converter. Sounded like a sick rotary pulpwood truck. First thing i did was wash her, get ehr in my shop and then staret inventorying what had to be done to get her to driver stage. First had to get her running right. New battery went in, I researched Nikki carbs and tore into it, took tons of pictures, followed directions in FSM, Sterlings walkthru instructions, and most any other source of "tips" I could find to rebuild this foreign carburetor. Got er done, had a sticking needle valve and a fuel leak at the fuel line when i got it back on, simple fixes. She ran, but she still sounded like ***. Shutter valve acting up and exhaust leak make one hell of a racket. Anyways, finally figured out what was making the noise (research here) and took the carb back off (what idiot hid the back left carb bolt??? Thats a bugger to get off/on)...wired the shutter valve open and put carb back on. Got her runnning good, holding idle at 750, I'm happy as a pig in poop. Next biggie was to fix the dang exhaust leak....ordered a Bonez test pipe, drove the lil mazda to a buddy of mines shop who has a lift, snatched the cats off, put test pipe on and whoohoo....she sounded like a rotary again! Headed back to the house, did a few little things to her, but basically she has sat from then (September) until now. It was deer season, and during deer season I have zero time to work on hobby cars. Now that deer season is over, I started back working on her a week or two ago....have decided that I am stripping most of the car so I can get to everything to paint her. Basically everything that is attached to the body that can unbolt or unscrew or come unglued has been taken off. Interior is headed that way as well. All that will be left inside is the dash (dont wanna pull it), steering column and the front carpet (cant get it out cause its under dash). Thats the stage I am at now. Will post a few pics to show the cars progress as we go, any comments/ideas/tips/encouragement/beer are welcome.....thanks for following this cars rejuvenation!

cfamilyfix

iTrader: (15)

Great story...had a ltd as a parts car not to long ago. Always wished I could have saved but the previous owner had patched it beyond recognition. Anyway...in for progress. Good luck with your build.

83Limited

Thanks! I am pretty lucky with this one, she seems to be pretty solid, bodywork will be minimal to non existant (bit of rust at roof edge from losse windshield trim) and a dent about the size of a pen top on the passenger fender. Most of the paint prep time will be doing stuff like stripping the pinstripe, sanding down 30 year old worn out clear coat to a solid layer that I can repaint over....just time consuming, but simple....

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

its very cool you've got your high school car back! one of my high school friends still had his GSL-SE. you can't buy it twice!

83Limited

Another shot of the frontend from back in September....you can see that the paint is shot....

83Limited

HAd a guy ask me how long I was going to keep this car. I have a long history of keeping a car a couple of years and then selling it and doing another one. Told him I was probably gonna ask to be buried in this one...too much sentimental value to it to turn it aloose....

Banzai

iTrader: (13)

Congrauts, sounds like you've got a life long love affiar. Woman may come and go but your Rex is forever.

ray green

iTrader: (14)

Fantastic car and even better story Barron, that has to be the find of the century, no matter what you paid for it!

You should have no trouble and lots of fun bringing that thing back to new car condition, keep us posted and let us know if you need any parts.

Marx-7

I like the frontbumper and skirts. Still hoping to find them some day.

83Limited

These pictures are from back in late August 2011. In the first pic you can see the car is basically all stock, all emission controls are in place. Carb had never been off, as the other two pictures show, it looked it. Nasty. Accelerator pump was leaking a steady drip of gas, and car had been sitting more than it had been running for the last while, so carb got a complete rebuild,the fuel lines and tank were drained and fresh gas put in before even thinking about restarting the car.

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

i'm going to be following this closely. the next 7 i will restore will be an 83 LE. they hold a special place in my heart as they are the only 7 that has eluded me.

yours is exceptional because of the oem IMSA front bumper and rear spoiler. not a big fan of the o.e. side skirts.. i would repaint the rear spoiler chateau silver. it would look super nice. do you have all of the oem center caps for the wheels? those could be tough to find unfortunatly.

83Limited

The spoilers are not oem....I had them put on back in the day when the car was new. I think they were Pacifica?? Cant remember after this long. Rear spoiler more than likely will be going back chateau silver, it was black because as a high school kid it was easier to leave it black than pay somebody to paint it...I do have all the oem center caps, as well as 2 full sets of LE wheels.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

i've had 1 LE, and it was actually one my favorites. it was in about the same shape as yours actually, i sorted it mechanically and was my DD for a couple of years.

it was really fun, all of the controls were so well balanced, light and easy.

orion84gsl

iTrader: (5)

Awesome story. Make sure you check the inner fender are under the bins for rust spots. It's a very common spot for them to rust. Since your at the bodywork stage now would be a good time to fix them and or seal up the control arm mount so it doesn't happen later on.

83Limited

Bins are already out,I found a very small amount of rust, its already wirebrushed and rust encapsulated to stop it...control arm mounts on both sides will be sealed before long so hopefully thats the end of it.

83Limited

Pulled her out of the shop today to wash her in areas that are inaccessible when shes all put together...next step will be sanding/priming/blocking getting her ready to spray sometime this spring...99% of the minimal bodywork she required has been completed. There are a couple of very small parking lot dings that I have to mess with but I think everything else will block out....

ray green

iTrader: (14)

Looks like you're doing it right Barron, I'm taking notes for the White One, coming up this summer.

83Limited

ANy tips/tricks I discover I am more than willing to share with ya Ray....I owe ya! Thanks again for all your help in getting this far.

83Limited

Sanding and bodywork progressing better than I thought....will have everything scuffed and sanded in the next few weeks then gotta wait on some warmish weather to shoot some primer...

83Limited

Not a ton to report in the last week or so. Did some more sanding and spot puttying on the body (not in too great a rush, as I will be painting the car outside and need weather in the 70+ range to do it, and in February even in GA we dont have to many days that hit 70. Will spray primer in the mid 60's, so will hopefully be able to prime the places I plan to prime on the car in the next few weeks or so. Did do a few things, got the rear spoiler primed and wetsanded, then reprimed it yesterday, will wetsand it again and i will be ready for paint. (decided to go black on it). All windshield trim is sanded and ready to be sprayed. First chance i get i am going to hit it with epoxy primer and then topcoat it with single stage black so they will be completed and ready to go back on when i get the car painted. Also this week i stripped the front spoiler back to gelcoat, reinforced the backside of the lower lip with some extra fiberglass mat and resin, fitted my new foglights in the holes (that was a pain in the **** finding a set of lights to fit the hole correctly. Dont remember having that kinda trouble when I bough them the first time 25 years ago. Had to modify the mounts on the new westin lights to get them to fit properly, but all looks good now. Next I sprayed the entire front spoiler with epoxy primer to seal it good, let it cure and put a good coat of filler-primer on so i can fix the few chips/etc a fiberglass spoiler collects over the years. Will sand it out next week and then reprime and re sand and have it ready for paint soon. Tonight I decided to clean the little bit of debris out of the inside of the hatch around the spare tire area. There was a bit of surface rust in the spare tire well and the very very thin factory paint/primer was peeling in it, so i decided to coat the entire well with carrolless rustkilling paint so i dont have to worry about rust there anymore. Will report back later as i make more progress. Most of my parts are here, have a few on order still and have to get a few more Mazda parts and i will have everyhting (I think) to put the car back together this spring. Did finally find something that I have been looking for since I bought the car back...defroster grilles for the dash top at the windshield base. Mine were toast. One was falling to pieces and the other had turned green. Hated em. Seemed impossible to find, until I stumbled on a set on Ebay made by a company in Austrailia. Only bad thing was shipping to get them here cost me about 4 times what the part cost, but hey, now (hopefully, when they get here) I wont have that ugly hole into the defroster staring at me and driving me nuts.....the things we do to restore a car......

Siraniko

iTrader: (13)

Question:
the clear coat in my son's tornado black 84 is sun baked, but the sides are fine. My son wants to get rid of the ugly flaking clear coat. Can you recommend something he can use such as grit and what not? Thanks

83Limited

Unfortunately if the clearcoat on the top is toast, the basecoat under it will probably be as well. Without seeing whats going on with the car, the only thing you might be able to do is try to sand what you can of the rest of the clearcoat off with 600-800 grit sandpaper, being careful to not cut through the basecoat to primer. and then respray the clear. This might, maybe. possibly let you salvage the paintjob, but is risky, and iffy at best as to final results looking like you want. Sanding with that fine a paper will cut down on the material you remove, but its barely enough "bite" for the new clear to stick to. Best bet might honestly be to simply plan on a new paint job. Or, another option... Get a good paint store to color match the car (with a scanner, not by paint code, because the paint code does not take into effect fading by weather). Sand the ENTIRE car with 320-400 grit paper, to fix the peeling areas of clear and give you a flat surface, and to rough up the older (but good color) sides of the car. Repaint with color(after sanding with the rougher 320-400 grit paper) the entire TOP of the car, then clear coat the entire car. Tons of work, results will all depend on how good the paint matches,and you will spend almost as much time/money to do it as you would for a complete allover paint job, but unfortunately when it comes to peeling clearcoat there is no easy fix once its spread to a big area.....and paint aint cheap anymore....The paint I am going to use on my car is a "value priced" mid grade paint and clear and will run me about 500 bucks, plus the primer,etc i need.....I will end up with a grand in materials before its all said and done. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, and if ya have any questions be sure and ask, I have messed with paint and bodywork long enought to pick up a few tricks here and there.....

Siraniko

iTrader: (13)

thanks for the info. it will be be painted with a rattle can for now since it is his toy

DreamInRotary

iTrader: (49)

Awesome project and greater story. I will graduate in June and my 7 is going no where. Family and friends keep telling me again and again to sell it because I could make double what I paid for it. But I know better. Reading this story only helped to to prove the point. Thanks for the story and keep me posted!

83Limited

If you are gonna rattle can it, let me give ya a couple of tips. Biggest prob with rattle can paints is the fact that they flash way faster than true auto paints and you will generally see "streaks" caused by overspray laying on top of the last passs of paint. You can minimise this by getting one of the "colormatch" blacks you can find at most any auto parts stores (duplicolor, plasticoat are two brands). Try to find a black that needs clearcoating. Reason being is the black "base" will not streak as bad, and for some reason the clear spray will not streak as bad either, and you will end up with a bit more gloss, that is actually easier to touch up if needed (you can respray the clear if you notice any "fading" and generally prolong the life longer than straight black)....just be sure as with any paint work to scuff any areas that are going to be painted and get it as smooth as possible....