Duffman's 79 Spark Yellow Restoration Project

[Duffman692002]

Originally Posted by djmtsu

Sweet, wheres my sunroof

You'll have a PM in an hour or so.

Originally Posted by EJayCe996

Since you're my best friend and all, I've taken it upon myself to search high and low for 79 specific parts for your car to help you out and this is what I've found.

For a split second i thought you were genuinely trying to help. S'ok though, I've got plenty of ideas on how to improve you FC and I cannot wait to try a few of them.

Originally Posted by diabolical1

on a serious note, i'd love to have a '79 someday. all i can say it you have your work cut out for you, but in the end, i'm sure it will all be worth it.

Took me years to find a good candidate and thus far I've enjoyed every minuet of it. Indeed, it will be worth it in the end.

Originally Posted by TitaniumTT

EasternBeaver I believe is the name of the company.... but why not rock the hell outta some Detusch connectors?

Nice... nice indeed... I see you followed a wise man in his route of color choices

My only question is.... when is sparky making her way to CT for TTT? That being of course The Treffeisenizing Treatment

Cause I want originality, the Detusch Connectors are cool and all but I want it all to look stock.

Well, it was either that or bright ass red.

As soon as she's road worthy actually, I'll talk to you more in detail about it at DGRR.Don't expect it any time soon though, in all actuality it's prolly gonna be next year before you see her.

[TitaniumTT]

Titanium Silver is a much better choice

In that case, you might be driving her to Cali

[speedjunkie]

Originally Posted by TitaniumTT

Nice... nice indeed... I see you followed a wise man in his route of color choices

Brian, since I have those exact same colors I'm assuming you're referring to me. But I don't even know him so he couldn't have copied me. LOL

I love this restoration. I also love the pic of your dog, classic.

I'd love to have a 79 as well. Almost had one for $150 a couple years ago, but it wasn't Spark Yellow and they never got back to me. Dammit.

[TXRota]

Nice

[GySgtFrank]

We haven't heard anything on this for while. Wondering how you're coming with it, hope you didn't give up. I do have some engine/bay parts and some dash electronics left over from when I swapped to a 13B. Mine's a 12/78 build so they should work if you need'em.

[RETed]

Talk about coincidence...

I was perusing through eBay and came across a bunch of yellow SA22 stuff.
I thought it was aftermarket painted.
Boy, was I surprised yellow was a stock color!

These guys are not cheap, but when do you ever get to see items like this for sale?
They are located in Japan, but the prices are shipping *included*.
If you're serious, I'd confirm if this still works for your neck of the woods...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAZDA-RX-7-M...item3372d6bccb

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAZDA-RX-7-M...item3373180079

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAZDA-RX-7-M...item4cff4eb357

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAZDA-RX-7-M...item4ab5183fc5


-Ted

[Duffman692002]

Havent given up though progress has been slow to non existent. I have been collecting parts and have the car stripped down to the keg. Ive got all the hard lines, connectors, clamps, and what not ready to be re-zinced. All but the dash has been taken out and ready to go to the upholsters to be refinished. Still a few things left in the egine bay that have to come out for paint. The A pillar plastics are sun faded almost beyond repair but I'm gonna attemp to have some paint made up to match and spray em unless some good plastics come up for sale.

What parts have you got GySgtFrank? I need a complete emissions harness, a complete radio harness, and could use a complete engine bay harness but I'll end up rebuilding mine. It's all there, just crispy and fragile.

Ted, I've seen those and though about it but they wouldn't be correct for my car. The fender mirrors would be nice to have though. Those have been up for months, I check eBay and craigslist regularly for parts. There was a guy in Aus that had some nice NOS stuff but it was expensive. Appreciate ya posting the links though.

[GySgtFrank]

I've got some of the harnesses left. I had to cut a lot of it up to mate my 79 parts to the 87 harness. I kept only a few of the 87 electronics (fuse box, ECU, CPU, necessary switches/relays, gauge cluster, idiot lights, glove box light, and cruise switch) everything else I kept from the 79. Most of the stuff from the engine harness is still there, but I had to swipe some wires from it to match up with my patches and extensions. The 12A is complete except for one rotor housing which I donated to someone in need. The Nikki and rats nest parts all look good. You're welcome to any of it if you need it. I reused my radio harness and heater harness, sorry.

P.S. I also have the fuel tank and pump (I can't vouch for internal condition but the outside looks good). Had to swap it for the EFI pump and sump.

[Duffman692002]

Mind sending me a pic of the emissions stuff, is that one of the harneses you cut up?

[GySgtFrank]

Sorry for the delay, didn't have the thread set to notify me of new posts. I'll dig up a camera and lay out what I have tomorrow. Unfortunately I didn't think anyone was going to need the harness so I wasn't too careful about keeping it intact.

[GySgtFrank]

This is what I have left of the harness.

[GySgtFrank]

This is what I have. Had to cut it off as it was rusted on tight. There's about 2 foot of pipe left after the reactor flange.

[rotarynerdette]

AJ you are slacking!

[GySgtFrank]

:toetap: .....and 9 months later? STILL no work done. Slacking is putting it mildly.

[Duffman692002]

Duffman uses resurrection! It's SUPER EFFECTIVE!

So 3 jobs later and I finally make enough to spend some time, and money, on the ol' girl.

Today I worked on getting the dash and HVAC out of the car. The dash will probably be going to California to be stripped and recovered, I'm waiting on quote from Just Dashes. If anyone has used them post up your experience.

The dash:
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They say they can redo armrest too so I'm sending them pictures of them as well:


I got the blower motor out, all the HVAC ducting out, and was working on getting the heater core out when I found out a bunch of red wasp had taken up residence in two places on the hood and another inside of the bumper. After a short war, two nest were down, 4 wasp dead, but the one in the bumper remains. I'll deal with that next week.

Cleaned up all the ducting and literally poured sand out of the elbows, I'm sure the blower motor and heater core are probably full of it too. The mounting tabs were brittle and broke off all of the dash vents and the defrost vents as soon at the screw turned, maybe I can glue them back together.
[IMG][/IMG]

Not much progress I know but it feels good to be working on her again. I'm gonna try to post an update every Saturday