I have never seen or heard of that one. And i would have literally driven down every street in the district in the last 5 years. What part of Albert st? near what intersection...i'll be glad to go check.

More infamous is the blue RX2 sedan on Plenty Rd, just south of Murray Rd. Been sitting there since at least the year 2000. The old lady curses like a sailor and will threaten to call the police if you dare so much as knock on her door to ask about it. There is a Hyundai excel with NSW plates parked in front of it nowdays.

Hoges

It was either murray road or wood street, where Kathleen street crosses over.

Yeah i know the RX2 you were talking about, used to see it every morning on the way too tafe. Is it ACTUALLY and RX2 or just a Capella? Never got a close look.

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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

RX-4 coupe I've never seen, but the Capella that aaron mentioned is definately an RX-2.

There was a RX-4/929 coupe on my walk to school that never moved for over a decade. The house it was parked at sold recently and the car was finally gone from the carport. I've been wondering what happened to it as the people that lived there were never home when I knocked on the door.

As an aside... I'm formerly of Northcote and I used to work near Mill Park (Epping). Small world eh?

Could be the same one i was thinking of? Dont know, memories abit fuzzy as i was fairly young at the time.

Yeah it is a small world - seeing as this site is mainly american based its abit freaky having 3 of the mazda members so nearbye lol

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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

the green 929/RX-4 clone was in Keilor if that helps..

I think it had gold Simmons wheels.

Anyhoo, dash is back until until this Friday when I am taking it out again to check a few things (wiring) and then its going back in permanently.

aaron has picked up another lot of bits for powedercoating, I've got to paint the bottom of the doors still (time and the weather have stuffed up my plans, considering I prepped them months ago now)

I have a few pictures of my progress so far but photobucket is down at the moment so I'll post later on this week.

Big things on the list are cadmium plating the tie rods, painting the engine bay and door bottoms in POR15, getting the dash in, wiring up the rear speakers that I have bought, fitting the door trims, organising the headliner to be replaced.... it just goes on and on!

right, where to begin?

Firewall was lined with sticky backed bitumen. I didn't use Dynamat or "bread" as I just wanted something to stop the firewall from possibly vibrating. I may need to insulate it further down the track. We'll see.

I had the dash out of the yellow car so it was time for the remains to be cut up and junked so that I could get my car port space back!



I cut the roof off so that when I sell the wagon, I can give the buyer the roof panel so that they can repair the hole in the roof where the roof vent is. The roof panel is actually sitting on the remains of the car in the picture above

Unfortunately, even though I was wearing these



When I cut the ID tags and number off the body shell, I went to pull away the steel pieces and my fingertip literally exploded in blood. The yellow car has definitely been fighting its death at every step.

Few of these and I was back in action


Made some notes on the roof about clips and glass

Dashboard finally got put back in, then out again, then back in, so my brother and I could figure out the wiring. Turns out one wire that I couldn't figure out what was for is probably for the glovebox light, which Australian cars didn't have, but American ones did, which would explain why the wiring is on the wrong side of the firewall (ie the steering side on Aus. cars).



Gauge clusters swapped, tacho now in. Result.



I've just got to finish plugging all of the leads on the different harnesses.

Because I kept the front end out of the yellow parts car, I started stripping it apart to get things sandblasted and powedercoated without having to take apart the green car.



I think the yellow car had its original tie rod ends and suspension bushes. Why?



See the yellow paint on the tie rod end? That's a Mazda factory line marking. Original yes, dirty, worn out, greasy, full of dirt and topped off with broken and torn rubber boots? Yes. The ball joints and tie rods are getting replaced.

Pressing out the tie rods



Corrosion ahoy!



Fit for the bin. The yellow car would have been a wandering old goat when rolling down the road judging by the front end rubbers.

We got massive amounts of rain here in Melbourne a few weekends ago, so I did some cleaning.

Forget Amour All, this stuff is great.



Some ear wax removers got right into the hard to get spots. A few more coats and these dash vents will look like new. Then I'll do the whole dashboard.



I also painted the rocker cover of the engine.



While I was at it, I thought I'd share this with you. Mazda plug leads. Who buys Mazda plug leads!? They must have cost a fortune or else they are the original factory ones - they have the wrong Mazda logo on them though to be 1974 spec.



Finished rocker cover. Not the finish I was expecting, I wanted something more like the finish on 426 Hemi rocker covers. Oh well.



Peek a boo!



More coming when I get home from racing this weekend at Phillip Island.

you need to use heavier/slower coats over the rocker cover using the wrinkle finish paint.

its hard at first to know how much is too much, but a heavier coat will give a more pronounced wrinkle effect.

First test i did came out almost flat like the one you pictured. Second time around i slathered it on and it came out perfect.

(Ford 351 Cobra Jet rocker covers)

I was tempted to give it another coat but it has come out with a gloss like finish rather than matt black. I was thinking of giving it another coat, then spraying the whole thing with matt black.

Time's against me as I have to be out by the 10th of April so I'll be bolting things together and painting things very quickly!

Like Aaron said, you need to put it on thick. I find the best way to do it is to spray one coat horizontal, one coat diagonal, and then the third coat diagonal in the opp direction - all while its still wet [can be tricky to avoid runs].

Also helps if theres heat involved. Leave the rocker cover in the sun before painting so it heats up, then leave it to dry in direct sunlight. Works best for me.

Ps dont even bother trying to paint over it. Wrinkle paint wont work properly over old wrinkle paint, and last time i tried reg paint over the top of it it fried and reacted.

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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

ah ha. I may leave well enough alone then. It looks ok.

More:

out of step slightly, I did this a while ago but I thought it was useful.

The green car had its original Mazda keys, but the switchgear was broken for the indicators, so I swapped over the switchgear off steering column from the yellow car




Plus the yellow car had wiring disappearing off the ignition switch for something which annoyed me and looked unsightly.


As a nice bonus, the little spring and rod on the switchgear was also there, it was broken on the green car.


Were on special, perfect size for the holes in the back of the load space (even though someone has done a bit of butchering with the tin snips at some stage )

Next!

Doors. I have been waiting for this day for months.

A while ago I used Metal Ready to basically prep the door bottoms and insides to paint with POR15. Because of rain, busy weekends, family etc, I haven't got around to it until two weekends ago (I was away track marshalling last weekend so I've been a bit slow to post).

Aim was to get the door bottoms sealed with POR15 and the insides of the doors to stop them rusting any further and to stop rust breaking through the door skins.





Rough? Kinda. Honestly, who pops off door trims to look inside a car? Who sticks their head down under a door to look at where the door trim meets the door frame? Will it help the doors from rusting further? Hopefully.

Plus this beauty flew over my house and I got a bit of a photo of it:



It's a DC-3 that does dinner flights over melb.

It was a good day. I finally got something ticked off on my do to list that had been bugging me for ages.

Engine.

Very very very dirty and greasy.



30+ years of grime on the gearbox before cleaning





After cleaning



From not using coolant.



Found some factory stampings on the gearbox.



The wiring to the reverse switch was dirty and the factory tape was peeling off so I tidied it up. I can't believe how shiny the gearbox looks after I degreased it and gave it a blast with the Karcher!



I have a small mountain of spares for this motor, so I flung the old fanbelt into the bin, bathed the whole motor in prepsol and degreaser and started taking a few photo notes of what hoses and clamps need replacing. All of the water hoses around the block and head are full of rust scale and are split.


It was a hot day so I had a few beers with the dog and gave myself a pat on the back

Next up, rear shock absorbers

aaron hogan kindly gave me a rear set of shock mounts, the ones that bolt to the diff and then locate the bottom of the shock absorber. I've already got a painted set in the car, but we had the spare set powder coated. I was running out of time so I didn't fit them, but I did fit the shock absorbers that he also gave me. I've got some other bits for the rear end that have been powder coated so I'll fit them soon.

Plus...

better picture of the DC-3. The noise this thing makes is awesome.




Poor photo (sorry I was rushing as the sun was going down) but I metal readied the shock washers


Then hit them up with some POR15



and finally...



Ta da!

So good I think we need to see that again



Note the staggered shocks too? Just like Boss 302 Mustangs. As much as I dislike wagons, this would make for a good drag racer!



A very rough idea of the final ride height. Once it is on the road proper with some wheels and decent tyres and my plan for the rear load area (think picnic and electric fridge) it should lower a bit. Plus there is no spare tyre in the carrier at the moment which will also add a bit of weight to the rear.

I forgot to put the pictures of the interior up. Oops!





I'm very happy with the dark green paint/black interior combination.

Great stuff Geoff

Not long before hitting the road now

I hope you're right Rich!

You should put a build up for your 1000/1300, surely it must be one of the nicest and in depth builds for that body style anywhere.

More from the weekend:

painting the engine bay:









I was telling Aaron_h when he was over, there was no rust behing the steering box (yay!) but when I scraped the grime away from the side of the chassis rail after taking off the crossmember, there was no factory paint on the chassis rail on the passenger side at all, if there hadn't been a coating of grease and grime, the passenger side chassis rail would have rusted into nothing years ago.

I used a three step process, basically sanding back the surface rust and daggy old paint, cold galvit, then etch primer, then top coat with 3 light sprays of Mazda EX Neptune Green.
I also used POR15 under the chassis rail, hopefully this will stop some of the rust that had broken out around the swaybar bushes where they butt up against the chassis rails.







I also bought some idler arm bushes off Aaron but found out that the previous owner had already fitted new ones (Aaron I have to give these back to you)



Looking at the photos, even I think "that looks pretty average" but the way the paint dried and I was zonked from running around all day on Saturday, the paint blended really well and I didn't get overspray everywhere either, which I'm pretty happy about.