I started to cut up the parts car on the weekend. It's been either very hot (over 40 deg Celsius) or pouring with rain (which is rare as we are in a drought)

Used this:


On this:


Ended up with this:


and




Beware 9inch grinders:


My friend recommended just having the body taken away but I didnt want scrape marks on the concrete and I could just see the scrap metal guy either knocking the driveway gates over or some disaster so I got a smaller grinder and did this:


Salvaged these:


and the door trims:


and found a colony of ants living in the drivers footwell:


I also started trialing some of the interior panels and test fitting carpet etc




I had a solar light in the back of the wagon... yep gets pretty hot in the back of the wagon.



Most of the blister packs of interior plugs got used fitting the better tailgate panel



Why cut up the wagon? It had a great interior, manual, working engine, rustproofed underbody...

All under here was completely rusted away. Around the windscreen was completely shot too.

I also lost one little screw that holds the B pillar trim in place.


I've also lost the bolts that hold the battery tray in place.

AND I used Wattyl's three part spraying process - Galvit, Primer and Topcoat sealer to fix the surface rust in the engine bay and found out that the two greens don't match.


A good friend of mine took away the doors, bonnet, rear tailgate and the engine bay metal - 119 kilos worth in his Datsun 1500 ute. Now I've just got to get rid of the roof, strip off the bumper bar (a rusted on bolt has to be ground out) and the two bar and the rest of the body can go to the scrappers as well.

I got to give it to you, not many people would bring back to life a 70's 929 wagon. Next time I go home to Sydney I've got to find a photo of myself and sibblings taken in the very early 70's sitting in the back of my parents 929 green wagon with the tailgate open. For all I know it may be the very same car your building... who knows, it was taken over 30 years ago !

My parents loved that car aside from the fact that mum used to complain that it was about as fast as a tractor It was replaced in the late 70's for a VB Commodore which they regretted, more power but that was about it !

Hi Gypsy

well the wagon was free - I would never have bought it as I personally don't like cars with more than two doors!

My parents had a XD Falcon wagon... that thing was probably like the VB - a big tank!

Got rid of this last night:



I also tried fitting up the flat front bonnet and grille. Unfortunately the fibreglass chin spoiler was made for series II pointy noise indicators. I made the hole a bit bigger but then I found that the spoiler was distorting the guards and interfering with the fit of the bumper, so I just took it off.



More test fitting:



The flat front bumper has had a few slight hits so it isn't square, but I got it bolted in place and squared it up as best I could with the guards. Then I gave it a quick polish to remove the rust stains:



I'm not totally happy with how the bumper ends go around the guards but I really either need to have the little car parking dents in the bumper fixed or adjust how the guards are fitted. As you can see, the lower front of the guard arch has been cut away, so I'm replacing the ones on the car with ones I took off the yellow car.

I've got the grille ready to bolt back in and the screws that hold it painted and ready to go, in the new year I'll get the replacement guards, bonnet and front chin apron painted and fitted.

One quick thing that I did was unblock all of the drain plugs in every door, then I re-lined the holes in the door with fresh plastic:





At this stage I just wanted to see how I'd go with the plastic and fitting the interior from the yellow car, in the new year I'll probably gut the doors again and fix some slight rust bubbles that are breaking out.

In the last photo you can also see a nasty bit of rust that has broken out in the sill of the passenger door frame. I have run out of time this year, but next year I'll grind that out and repair it as well.

Just got back from India, so apart from some photos I can show of car and strange stuff, not much progress



Chain driven FWD Ute Tri wheeler thing!

It´s a german Tempo produced under license by Tata.

Hey there ... just wondering where did you buy your extrctor from ?
I've got the same engine in my NZ new 121 and thinking about overhauling it like yours .. so you kinda like my role model at the mo since I am new to this old school thing and all

Hi mate

I got them from a performance shop here in Melbourne. They're something branded like Lukey or whatever (they're cheapies).

Any decent exhaust shop should be able to get a set made or ordered in for you.


I haven't done much since I've been home. A friend of mine got some powdercoating done for me:



I've also bought this:



Mostly I wanted to attack the rust in the bottom of the doors where the door skin folds over the frame and inside the door where the skin meets the frame, as in all old cars, rust gathers here because the drain holes are badly designed.

The other area I wanted to focus on was the rust under the clutch master cylinder where fluid has taken off the paint and let the firewall oxidize. While I was poking around in the engine bay I also noticed that under the chassis rails and a few other nooks and crannies need some sort of protecting as well.

The first step was removing the clutch master, then giving a rough sand around the mounting point and where rust had formed underneath it.
I used the sandpaper that came with the POR15 kit, basically just taking off any bubbled paint or surface rust.

I then coated the area with the Metal Ready Solution and let it dry.



The whitish coating is the solution doing its work and forming a barrier.

I did the same on the drivers door bottom and inside.





The hardest part was probably getting rid of 30+ years of dirt and gunk inside the door, even after draining it, cleaning with hot soapy water, vacuuming etc.

I ran out of time over the long long weekend, but I'm hoping to Metal Ready the three other doors this week and hit them all with POR15 this weekend or one evening.

Dont take this the wrong way but after using POR15 and the Australian equivalent by KBS coatings I see these particular products as a lot of overpriced expensive hype ! Its amazing what marketing does.

A good blast using garnet and a modern quality epoxy primer will give a superior result. Yes some people swear black and blue that POR15 is great stuff and in my opinion is OK, it does the job but is way overpriced.

Epoxy primer by any of the reputable brands Sikkens, Lesonal, HOK, PPG, Dulux etc is the way to go if you dont want to use etch and a 2K HiFill primer. The Epoxy primer will give a similar finish, adhesion is great, being epoxy based will also keep the moisture out. It sprays great giving a great base/finish for your 2K primer which sits directly under your paint. It also costs alot less. I think I paid a round $100 for 4litres and 1Litre of hardener. Thats 5 litres of product. POR15 bubbles as the solvents evaporate if you brush it on to thick. If you want to prime over it you really need to spray it. I'll be removing the stuff from my rear windscreen channel and spraying Epoxy based primer over a red oxide etch.

Like it or not thats my opinion , like I said I think it works great but there are better suited products out there for alot less.

Hey gypsy

yeah, it's a rort, but the POR box was *ahem* cheap and it came with some other bits and peices that I can use, plus I only need a little bit at the moment and the paint place I went to only sold big containers of primers and paints.

I've had a good result doing some brackets and the like with a brush, I don't have the facilities or equipment to spray unfortunately - the wagon is a bit of a test bed as well, the next car will definately get expoxy primered rather than just attacking random bits and areas.

If I was restoring a muscle car or something with a frame, I'd definately spray it! (Having seen some people using a brush!).

I think the other big big big thing is actually getting rid of all of the gunk and slime that gets trapped around these Japanese car bodyshells and panels. It would seem that they really didn't give much thought to water drainage or collection areas for leaves etc. There was about 250 grams of dirt and gumnuts sitting inside the drivers door - little wonder that Mazdas always seem to rust out about 3 inches above the bottom of the door. I've enlargened the factory drain holes and drilled a few others, hopefully this helps later on.

not many guys keep the pistons engines do they?

a first i thought it said "gods carriage" and i didn't like the sound of that

Well the mazda piston engines don't have an aftermarket support base apart from a few twin carb manifolds and for the money you could spend in modifying one, you could slot in a 12A or 13B and make more power.

I've done the rotary conversion thing before and this time I'm sticking with the piston motor.


I'm sure God has a better ride than a beat up Tata trike ute!

I cannot figure out a way of removing these plastic knobs from the heater controls on the dash. In the Mazda workshop manuals it says that they pull off. I've given them a soaking in Penetrene to no avail and it feels like they are about to break if I pull any harder, so I'm going to have to work around them while I swap out the gauge cluster that has a clock and swap in the cluster that has a tacho.


Red arrows point to the plastic knobs I'm talking about.


Old Dashboard in the green wagon. It is brown and has a MPH/km/hr speedo which is a bit hard to read for the km/hr markings.


New/better/more awesomers Dashboard in the chopped up parts car. It's black, it has a factory radio, the factory wiring is complete and it has a km/hr speedo (which I may swap across if I can with minimal fuss).


Dash out. I also used the vent control and ducting on the LHS from the donor car - on the green car the vent controls didn't work.


30+ years of grot hiding behind the kick panels. I swapped these over as well for the better ones from the parts car.


My brother and the car's mascot giving the donor car a quick look over


Much swearing, sweating in the summer sun and bellowing about Japanese cars built for small asian hands and not big boofy Aussie meat claws. I actually tipped the half cut on its roof at one stage to get to a few tiny nuts and washers.


Ta da!

I am also going through the heater matrix and fan box and giving them a clean out - leaves, dead bugs, insulation foam - it has all fallen into both of them. The heater matrix core looks in good condition so I have cleaned all of the leavers and cranks on the box and I'll bolt it back in. I tested it for leaks and after flushing out some brown gunk, it was fine.
The fan cleaned up nicely too.


I also gave these a rinse out as they were blocked with cobwebs and dust, they're the pipes from the heater box to the vents at the base of the Dashboard where it meets the windscreen.


My brother pulled this out, it looks like a parcel tray that was tucked under the dash behind the fuse box (which is under the glovebox on the passenger side - kinda weird place since it is in full view but anyway).
It looks like something clips in down in the bottom right, a torch or flare maybe? I know R100's come with a plug in light that works off your cigarette lighter and I think 1300s came with a flare or torch but I cannot find a reference to anything in the manuals I have. Anyone got an idea?

Now I've just got to swap the gauge clusters over after checking the tacho equipped one and the dash can go back together.

Gauges.

I thought that I would be able to pull out the clock and swap in the Tacho, as I have done something similar in a 1300 dash cluster where I swapped around fuel/amp/water temp gauges for a tacho.

Anyway, just getting the cluster out of the good dashboard proved that this was going to be a headache. I laid out the two clusters side by side:



Tacho dash on the left, clock dash on the right. God knows why manufacturers used to put clocks smack bang in the gauge cluster? It stopped people being late from massive coke and key parties back in the 70's? Mazda Engineers seem to have been doing massive amounts of something back then.

The printed circuit boards on the back are very different. Some wires are the same colours while others are slightly different. Even the printed paths are different. Luckily I've got two electrical engineers in the family so hopefully I can get the wiring sorted, put the dashboard back together and get it in the wagon by late next week (fingers crossed)

I also got a damaged track fixed the other night, you can see where it was damaged and for some reason someone had soldiered some points closed.





The orange wire is where it is fixed.

I'm never sure whether to consider that i did you a favour or incurred upon you a curse by gifting this car to you!



The salvage of one caused the death of another. Good riddance to the ford. It was for the greater good and was responsible for being a "time thief" absorbing many a weekend that should have been spent on my RX4. Notice that since the ford was retired much progress has been made on the coupe.



....brake conversion/struts/adjustable camber tops all went in.
I still think its worthwhile taking one of the castor blocks and having a few sets copy cat CNC'd. I'm not aware of anywhere that sells them and i'm certain there is potential demand out there. With the castor blocks installed the steering geometry looks alot better than a standard set up. At this stage i'm only guessing but i'm sure it will provide more road feel than ANY early mazda i've driven.

There is the added bonus that the blocks retain the engine crossmember rather than the D-bush brackets and now the torsion bar can be removed without the engine threatening to fall on the garage floor. - not a problem for the piston powered cars but a PITA for rotary owners doing front end work.

Its relieving for me yet frustrating on your behalf now to realise that with 205/50/15 tires and castor blocks on my car there is no risk of tires scrubbing on the guards. Initially we had no idea on clearance becasue neither your car or mine had an engine in the bay to sit the car level. Especially since the former owner of the wagon saw fit to ruin the guards by clearancing them so roughly with aviation shears - unnecessarily. If they clear with 15" rims they would have cleared with the 13" rims that were on it. If i can salvage the leading lower edges of some otherwise FUBAR guards then its worth practicing to weld in the lower edges as repair sections.

Maybe i'm getting ahead of you Geoff but you need to consider what to do about sound deadening. When removing the dash and heater assembly its common to find that the OEM fibrous sound deadening (which is covered in a bitumen sheet) has become so brittle that it won't hold shape and just cracks into pieces. I was thinking of using a dynamat type product but these dont come cheap. Would there be any value in using a thin cardboard template glued one side and tacked to a foam/fibre sheet?

Does anyone have a good alternative/product recommendation for a sound deadening replacement?

PaintMobile Preston sell adhesive tar sheets which is similar to what Mazda used. I have no idea what they cost, wouldnt think it would be too expensive.

Ah hah, again my ignorance of my local traders range comes to the fore. Preston paint mobile is what like a 2 minute drive from my place? I'll head there and check it out (but i've not ever seen it there! - probably distracted by other shiny things).

The only concern i have with bitumen based products is if used on the floor of a rotary powered car there may arise an issue dealing with the extremes of heat produced by the exhaust. Fumes may result?

Maybe using the adhesive backed bitumen/foil products on the firewall would be ok but then use a thick fibre underlay beneath the carpets.

Anyway Geoff can experiment as his car will be running before mine anyway.

Insulating the firewall is probably next weekends project.
This weeks mini project was getting the dashboard fitted back together with the gauges - which is done and getting a new speaker for the dashboard.
With a new speaker in the dash, I can have the original radio hooked up - which still works and listen to AM, though I have a bit of an idea for a later audio setup which will be modern, but not intrusive and should involve no cutting of the interior.

I bought these speakers


The main reason for getting these was that they are flush mounting. This means that the speaker goes right were the original one did and the tweeter isn't hitting the metal grille of the dashboard. Perfect.





It literally slid straight into place, I spun the nuts on and then did a bit of sleuthing to see how to wire it up.

End result:



The only thing I really want to do is get the metal part of the dashboard resprayed and get the vinyl crash pad repaired, but time and money are in short supply so this will have to suffice. I gave the metal part of the dashboard a quick rub down with some cutting solution and a polish and it removed a lot of the surface rust. It is quite obvious that the yellow parts car came from a bayside suburb.

I'm going to try and get the dashboard in one night this week and work out the loom and heater matrix ducting.

Nice thread

Sounds like all you guys are from the preston/northcote area [im up abit further north, Mill park].

Any of you remember/ever see the dark blue RX4/929 coupe that lived in someones front yard for about 10yrs? Had grass upto the doorhandles, lower half of the car was all rusted away etc. Was just off Albert st from memory.

Wonder if its still there...

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[F3ARED] 76 Isuzu Gemini Coupe - forged G180z, EFI, 525hp Turbo, 6years and still building...

Daily 78 Isuzu Gemini Sedan, stock G161z, Rodeo EFI, 500hp roller, 157rwkw. Fun