More again:







Engine and gearbox went in without too many hassles, extractors are on, radiator is in, wiring and bits and pieces are hooked up, I just need to fill the box with oil, fit the gearshift leaver and get a new gearshift boot made up as the factory cloth one has perished while sitting in the garage.

I would have liked to have painted the engine and the radiator fan etc, but then where do you stop? I am building this car as a driver, the rest of the car is not perfect (though I would love to restore an American Muscle car or my 1300 to showroom condition) and fingers crossed - I'll be doing some track days or going to the beach etc rather than entering shows to win trophies. Plus with the piston engine, I'm sure that if I sell it, someone will rip out the piston engine and fit a rotary (if I had a bit of spare change I would too since it already has all of the RX-4 badges and lights!)

Things to do this week:
- wiring
- paint and fit tailshaft
- sort out engine bay bits and peices
- install steering column and drivers seat

and then I have to move house!

You make that list sound harder than it is.
- plug in voltage regulator (30 seconds). Snip bodgey headlight relay (fix another day)
- just fit the damn tailshaft don't even bother with paint (15 mins). Came up clean enough once you hit it with prepsol. If it irks you later you can paint it another day.
- fit the radiator hoses and tighten down the radiator (15 mins)
- install column (10 mins) and drivers seat (5 mins).

I would add
- remove stray bolt that careless helper dropped into gearbox selector like a day 1 apprentice (will bring magnet into work tomorrow) then install shifter.
- air cleaner, throttle cable
- re-connect brakes and bleed them
- coolant, gearbox oil, motor oil, brake fluid, battery.
- locate correct bonnet hinges. remove "race-spec" bonnet pins.

Considering how much work we got done in about 3 hours I dare say not much more will be required to finish it. Moving house may have been the motivation you needed.

Friday might be a good day to aim to fire it up. I want to hear it with no mufflers straight off the headers! As long as you can drive it onto the trailer I'll be happy.

/hoges

I painted the tailshaft last night, got the bolt out on Sunday with those red handled pliers.

I can just see the roller shutters going down on the house next door when the engine fires up with just the headers on...

Don't forget to bring your brake/clutch spanner thingy.

Collected spanner off Aaron yesterday at work (or the day before, I forget)

Clutch line is connected, just need fluid.

Tailshaft is in

Dashboard is nearly completely wired up, I am just wrestling with the last of the slide lines/levers for the Heater and Cooling ducts under the dash

Picked up balljoints (cheap rubbish, I could only get "roadsafe" unfortunately, I should have bought the silverline ones that were cheap on ebay, I would have saved a packed). On the plus side I also got Superpro front bushes so I can finish off the rear end.

Tomorrow I'll be bolting in the steering column, fixing a few things with the drivers seat, tidying up some odds and ends, adding fluid to everything and maybe sorting out some brake hoses.

ok, I'm not tired now so I will re-write what I wrote above!

balljoints I have along with all of the bushes for the front end, I'll get the control arm bushes and balljoints pressed in at work next week.

I found one of the heater/cooler cable lines and hooked that up to the heater matrix, the rest are lost somewhere inside the dash. I also spent about an hour bolting up the steering column, the column plastic surrounds, dusted the dashboard etc etc, then went to put the bolt in through the rubber donut that sits between the steering box and steering shaft and realised that I'd put it all together wrong.

Much throwing of tools and swearing ensued.

2 hours later I had it all back together perfectly, most of the wiring bar a few things that have got me stumped is plugged back together, Aaron came around and we tackled a few other things like connecting up brake lines, attaching the front grille, bolting on the correct bonnet hinges etc.

We're pretty close to turning the key but it is Easter Friday here today so I couldn't find anywhere that was open to buy some gearbox oil!

I've also had to pack up two sheds and the carport as I'm moving house so all of this has been done in a bit of a rush, which is never a good thing. The list is basically down to this:

- fill everything with fluids
- tighten nuts & bolts
- wiring under the dash (still!)
- brakes
- new strut inserts
- figure out how to screw in one bolt on the drivers seat
- get the headlining guy out and get the headliner done while I install a small stereo setup
- figure out how to put the back seat together
- carpet up front
- fix chrome trim bits I've bought for the B pillars
- paint and fit bodypanels off the yellow spare car

I think that is it.

All very achievable!

I wouldn't fuss too much about the headlining. Gonna have to remove that roof vent and weld in a patch panel first. Then tap a few small dents down. Do the headliner AFTER. It won't take much work to prepare the front panels for paint at the same time as the roof.

I forgot to look at the suspension after unloading the car. Did it settle to a normal height? Not that it matters since you are doing new strut inserts it all has to come out again anyway.

All that is stopping this car from running is:
Water outlet on water pump corroded and needs to be replaced
Heater hoses not fitted
Battery and battery terminals
Minor wiring job
Exhaust system

I have every confidence that it will start first attempt.

Ahead of driving it I think a thorough tinkering session with a torque wrench and paint pen is in order.

The headlining will get done because welding in a panel for the roof will cost more than I will recoup if I sell the car, so the roof vent stays.

I'm thinking about painting everything bar the bonnet and guards myself too.

The ride height hasn't changed yet, it is still sky high. Bit strange.

I went to Repco, Bursons, Reece, Mazda and a few other places on Saturday and today and no one has that water pump fitting so I'm getting a fitter an turner here at work to fix the corroded one. The same guy is going to press in my ball joints and bushes too.

We're currently trying to find a big enough press to press in the balljoints

- balljoints were pressed into the control arms last week
- suspension bushes have been greased and fitted
- the wagon has moved to its new temporary home









Around 14 months after it got pushed into the car port, the wagon made its way out again for a trip to its new home.


B pillar trims that I bought:



The interior slowly coming together:

Front control arms:



Unfortunately, road safe ball joints were pretty much the only ones I could find, they're about the same as Silverline ones (Repco's brand). I'd prefer TRW or 555 ones but I couldn't find some at a reasonable price.



To fit the control arm to crossmember bush you have to bash out the factory metal sleeve



Balljoints pressed in, along with the sleeve that we turned up at work to press them into the control arm



Superpro bushes



All fitted up and ready to go.

More to come as soon as I figure out how the swaybar fits into the control arm bushes!

(I also have more wiring to sort out under the dash grrrrr it's like a saga that never ends!).

Interior has come up a treat!! Glad to hear that he roof vent is staying put!
I like it!!
This is going to be a seriously cool wagon

_________________
Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Hi Benn!

yeah, Ian put the roof vent in for planned dirt events which he never got around too. I was thinking of putting in a 70's style pop up sunroof BUT my reasoning is that if I start sinking too much money into this car, I'll never get a reasonable return come time to sell it (which I am going to do and I realise that it is rare to make money on cars, but I would like to at least be smart in spending).

I have a few other ideas, style wise, hopefully I can start in that direction within a month or so.

fingers crossed I may even get the wagon to the ausrotary melbourne 'hoedown' in June.

Looks good mate, great thread.

I've just installed new ball joints and tie rods in my 808. Those metal sleeves are a prick to get out of the control arms.

_________________
'73 Mazda 808 Sedan - Unrestored
'74 Mazda RX3 Sedan - Undergoing restoration

years ago, I took my 1300 to a "reputable" rotary specialist here in Melbourne for a brake upgrade and some rebuilt suspension bits.

Long story short, I got ripped blind. I wrote the experience off to youthful ignorance.
A few years later I notice that the control arm bushes that pivot on the crossmember where completely worn out and were split and crumbling. This was on a car that had only covered maybe 2,000 km since the workshop had put in new bushes.

Upon removing the control arms imagine my horror to see that the guy at the workshop had used a hacksaw to cut out the metal sleeve inside the control arm, and had left a nice big deep cut in my control arm where he had cut through the sleeve and kept cutting.

I ended up buying another front end from another bloke and rebuilt the whole front end myself. Anyway, long story short, I found that if you slowly cut the sleeve at four points (ie compass points), then use a vice or a press, the sleeves literally pop out. A bit of Penetrene helps.

I'm also curious as to why all of the aftermarket bush manufacturers don't mention that you need to remove the sleeve or don't mention it on the instructions.

I'm a bit late with this update.

1st. Front suspension bushes.
Aaron graciously gave me a set of barely used swaybar bushes (where the swaybar bolts to the front of the car via two U shaped shackle brackets). So all I needed were the control arm bushes fitted. I'd already found earlier that the idler arm bushes had already been replaced with Nolathane (or Pedders) ones by Ian, the former owner.

So this is where I left off:

balljoints in, pivot bushes in, ready to bolt up and ready for the sway bar end bushes.



I laid everything out, ready to swap out the old bits and swap in the new bits.



Previously I had seen that the swaybar end bushes, which sit in the control arm where the swaybar bolts through it, had been replaced. What I didn't expect was for them to still be in good condition.



They actually also seem like a better shape than the Superpro ones as they are less "blocky" or "square" in their design. The big round back is also shaped to fit the big washers that are slightly concaved to fit snug up to the bush.

Snug:



Ever so slightly not so snug:



Stuff like this I find interesting (yes I am a bit dull), but also infuriating. Do I keep the old red bushes or do I use the new Superpro ones?

You can also see that there is a tiny gap around the back inner hole as the bush is square, whereas the washer is curved. (I tried a few times to get a good picture of this)



In the end I decided that the new Superpro bush will probably take "shape" after it has been fitted and placed under the stress of being a part of the suspension.

I'm interested in what other people think. If I was building a perfect, limitless budget, I'd probably get new rubber bushes made or I'd do a bit of testing over a period of months between the red bush and the blue Superpro bush.

I cleaned up the best washers that I had (one still had a dab of yellow inspection paint on it so I kept it on)



If I wasn't a little bit pressed for time I'd get them Cad plated.

Best washers - what do you mean? Well...

When I was going through some parts Aaron had given me, plus parts off the green wagon, plus parts off my old yellow parts wagon, I found a few of the washers were bent straight or distorted like this:



Or:



Bit worrying...

Next step. I greased up the bushes for the pivot part of the control arm after Aaron pressed in the crush tubes.



In they went

We then loosely bolted up the swaybar, slid it through the bushes on the control arm and noticed something was a bit amiss;





The swaybar bushes didn't want to sit evenly. Much jacking the car up, down, sideways, looking with hands on hips, etc etc.

By this stage, it'd been a whole day and it was nearly dark so we left it as is and called it a day.

That night I had an idea.

What if the swaybar was upside down....?

Got home from work, took everything out, turned the swaybar around and bingo. Slid home perfectly, everything bolted up nicely. Whoops!



This is just before I tightened up the nuts that go on the end of the swaybar. Notice how the swaybar drops down to meet the control arm? We had had it backwards... Right Aaron?


So after that, bushes were in, I've just got to get the tie rod ends ready to go, I'll be rebuilding another pair of struts to replace those ones you can see in the photos above and some other bits and peices need doing and hopefully I can get other people in to do things like the exhaust and headlining.

ps. I am a bit further ahead but I have to get pictures etc organised. Basically it is like this. Car has electrics and everything nearly works apart from headlights (easy to fix, loom has been messed around with) and the starter motor seems to have packed it in.

I also had to stuff around for a few days getting some water fittings fixed for the water pump and inlet manifold and I've noticed that they are leaking.

umm, you forgot to say IT STARTS!

and as far as that goes for the sway bar being upside down yeah umm well ...hey look over there!

/runs and hides

Well it did. Then it didn't because my electricity was hiding somewhere in the wiring looms. Then my electricity came back, but was lazy and wouldn't crank the starter. Then I had a bit of a head scratch. My brother had a bit of a head scratch too. Then we went away for a bit, I rung him today and we both did a bit of head scratching on the phone, then I came home and connected the two wires I accidentally forgot to reconnect, it started first go.

Went outside to have a look at something and it looks like all of the coolant has leaked out of a join between the heater hose and one of the heater core pipes. <sigh>

In other news, I have ordered lots of parts from the US of A, hopefully when they arrive I can get it out and driving.

1. Engine running.









Engine starts first crank, temp gauge isn't working but I'd hazard a guess and say that since I have fixed the coolant leaks everything is ok. It's even got clean oil (after seeing the dirty oil in the head when I was painting the rocker cover, I changed the oil straight away and the filter expecting it to turn black shortly but is still nice and clean).

With only the headers on, at idle with choke she sounds like a WWI fighter plane ready for take off.

One major problem, the white paint on the extractors has peeled off. Even though I followed the instructions, I think the paint couldn't stick to the finish (plating maybe?) that the headers had when delivered.