1974 RX-4/929 wagon. Upgrades Round 1

ewokracing · **Posted:** Mon May 09, 2011 3:59 pm

^ what John has said. I took my ball joints in to work and had them pressed in to the control arms, everything else will gradually get tighter and tighter as you do up the nut.

I really had to make sure the ackerman arm holes for the tie rod ends were nice and clean though (I had my powder coated and there was a slight dribble inside one hole), same with the drag link.

The hardest part was probably fitting the ball joints into the control arms. Very fiddly to set up and get right.

Eeyore · **Posted:** Tue May 10, 2011 12:41 am

I was nearly thinking of leaving the control arm ball joints as is. They seem to move fairly freely while on the other hand the tie rod ends were stuffed. I mgiht have to see if I can actually source them first.

Sorry for the thread hijack

ewokracing · **Posted:** Wed May 11, 2011 11:06 pm

Thread hijack is fine because I haven't done anything (lack of $) in ages!

balljoints - do yours have the grease nipple on them? If you don't fit new balljoints, you can still get new rubber boots for them. Aaron Hogan got some from Repco.

Eeyore · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 12:42 am

Yeh the lower control arm ball joint have grease nipples. They move ok, I probably should replace them seeing I'm going to all this trouble. I'll see if Repco can order them.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 10:53 pm

Try and get TRW or 555 ones.
The roadsafe ones just look plain cheap and nasty.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Fri May 13, 2011 4:31 am

PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE!

Windscreen clips have been ordered. Paging aaron hogan...

ewokracing · **Posted:** Sun May 29, 2011 10:20 pm

windscreen clips have arrived.

I have bought more POR15 and metal ready.

I just need to work around other cars and find a week where I can get the windscreen out, prep the frame and then get the windscreen back in again.

I bought more this time as I want to use it on my Rover as well.

These are the areas that I want to attack and fix before they get any worse.

I was hoping to have the windscreen out this week but that didn't happen and my next chance will be in three weeks time, by then I will nearly have finished moving house, so I may as well wait until July anyway and do it in my new garage.

works 510 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 29, 2011 4:42 pm

How we going with this geoff?
Over in Seaford already?
Sorry havent called, My phones ratshit and ive lost all my contacts

ewokracing · **Posted:** Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:30 pm

Dandan.

yep, in seaford, half my stuff is still at brothers house, some is here in seaford. Bit painful at times but I'm slowly getting there...

PM me.

In other news, finally found a windscreen company that was happy to come out and remove the current windscreen so that I can repair the frame. Bit annoyed really, I thought I'd try a few local guys rather than a big national firm, none of them wanted to know about the job or fobbed me off as I wanted it done on a Saturday morning. In the end I went with the big company who were more than helpful and were happy to do what I wanted on a Saturday. Oh well.

I haven't done much with the wagon apart from start it and move it around, but I did buy myself a small birthday present:

One day I'd love to build a flared and fast 808 coupe with an MX-5 drivetrain, I just really like the look of flared arches and wide wheels.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:03 pm

Finally some progress.

One thing that had been annoying me for a while was the rust around the windscreen.

Here's what removing the windscreen uncovered:

That's the worst of it

The other corner on the driver's side

Top of the windscreen frame

Bottom of the frame, note the newer plastic trim clips - apparently they're from a mitsubishi.

More rust

Along the top of the frame.

What beats me is, this car obviously had mild surface rust at some stage and the rust hole in the bottom corner, and someone has put a new windscreen in straight over the top of the rust.

I haven't touched the wagon since, I've been busy fixing things around the house and with the other car, but I'll get onto it soon.

Stationwagonguy · **Posted:** Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:06 pm

Love this thread. Keep up the good work!

ewokracing · **Posted:** Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:51 pm

First off, I've bought a few things.

1. Ctek battery charger. Brilliant. Brings dead batteries back to life. I keep it trickle charging the Mazda and Rover batteries now.

2. Cheap jack from Cost Co. It's a little better designed than the other alloy jack I have (which is leaking). Worked a treat so far.

I also wire-wheeled and sanded back a hell of a lot of rust from the windscreen frame. This is about halfway through getting rid of the rust

Then gave the frame and most of the surface rusted areas in the scuttle area a good coating with POR15.

I've been careful not to slather it on around the frame as it dries into a thickish layer if you're not careful and I didn't want it stopping the trim pieces from snapping back into place. I got most of the surface rust up and under the scuttle panels and the back of the guards. I'm also going to pour some POR15 down the inside of the windscreen frames through the rust holes, then fibreglass the rust holes over.*

**when I finish an essay I have to write and fix a multitude of tasks around the house!

timmy201 · **Posted:** Thu Sep 29, 2011 6:20 am

I hate rust so much.

Good to see you are getting on with it though

ewokracing · **Posted:** Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:46 pm

Same here. This is probably the most there is on the entire car. Mazda designers clearly had no idea about how to drain away water etc back then. I'm not a genius by any measure, but even I can see that if you're going to have a curved point sloping down in the windscreen corner, make sure that the water can drain away and not sit there! Why they put drain holes where they are useless is beyond me...

jdmrx2 · **Posted:** Fri Sep 30, 2011 5:56 am

How good are the Cteks!!!

Don't you just love Mazda rust!! Great to see the wags is coming along. Good work

ewokracing · **Posted:** Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:00 pm

^ agree! plus at that price, I'm kicking myself that I didn't get one earlier.
I read up on them on performanceforums.com, now I want to rig up a solar power system on my shed roof so that I can run the ctek all the time, but not off the house mains. It will be a project for the new year I think. (but my shed and house both face North which is perfect for a solar system).

I haven't done any more painting and I'm off again on another holiday this Sat, so I'm going to take some days off when I get back and crack on with this as I really want it up and running this summer.

(plus I need it as my daily driver!)

ewokracing · **Posted:** Tue Nov 22, 2011 10:47 pm

Haven't posted anything for a while as I have been busy with non car stuff (booo hiss!) but I did manage to get the wagon outdoors last week after a bit of a garage tidy up.
I have filled all of the holes up in the windscreen frame and will be sanding them back soon after I did some test fitting of the stainless windscreen frame trim pieces.

Currently tossing up between sanding back and prepping some other areas that need a touch up or doing that after the car is up and running and registered. Still undecided.

aaron hogan is off on a road trip picking up yet another RX-4, once he gets back we'll get stuck into doing some little jobs like fitting the back seat and checking out the valve tolerances.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:37 pm

new plastic RX-7 trim clips

in place ready for the rust hole to be fixed

Mascot looking bored

timmy201 · **Posted:** Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:02 am

What was done to the leaves to stiffen up the back? Does it have extra springs or harder shocks?

Mine rolls around like a boat and doesn't like mid corner bumps...

ewokracing · **Posted:** Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:35 pm

poly bushes, king springs and koni shocks.

I gave all of that back to aaron to go into his coupe, now it just has poly bushes and standard springs. I've got an idea about shocks and stiffening up the rear end, but I want to see how it goes offroad first.

1974 RX-4/929 wagon. Upgrades Round 1

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