Hey bro why its your steering wheel in Yellow? XD a protection? XD

nice Rims ;D

CSR

Yes, it's a steering lock. It covers the whole wheel and stops anyone steering the car.




I don't use it any more, as I have a nice steering wheel cover: it makes the wheel bigger, so the lock doesn't fit any more.



Thanks! I was lucky to find them, I think they suit the car well

S

I finally found a working post-Ford aerial!



It looks nothing like the unit in Hughie’s “boot trim removal guide” (http://www.club323f.com/forum/viewtopic ... 19&t=57689), which I assume must be a pre-Ford?

This was the first time I’d ever taken my boot apart, so here’s a step-by step of how it went, and the hazards I encountered, for anyone else who hasn’t done it before either (although there are several good guides knocking around).

Sequence: First I removed this from around the boot catch. It just pops out.



Then I removed the rear boot plastic – 2 of these. Stick a penkife blade under the centre circle, it will pop out and loosen the rest. Just pull them out (they break easily, but you can get replacements on eBay).



Then grab hold of the bottom edge of the plastic panel and pull the whole thing straight upwards. It took me a while to figure this out, and a lot of pulling, as the clips hadn’t been off for 18 years... these are 4 metal clips in the top which make one hell of a noise when they pop out. Fortunately my elderly neighbour is deaf.



Rather than risk smashing my knuckles or arms on any sharp bits in the bottom of the boot when I yanked out the rear panel, (I was expecting some kickback) I took out the scissor jack nearby and wrapped a towel around the metal strip in the boot floor that it fits onto ... it was too near my bare flesh for my liking

Then I pulled back part of the rubber boot seal, as it was going to get in the way of removing the offside panel:



Next, take out that panel. Actually I just loosened it and pulled it out of the way, as to remove it entirely I’d have had to take out the seat bolster. There are four more of those plastic clips. No. 4 was difficult to get to, so I dropped the back seat and reached around from there:



Then I pulled the plastic away to get access to the aerial (there’s one more metal clip there, so again you have to pull hard if the panel hasn’t been off before):

the bottom edge of the panel gets caught on the lid of the rear washer bottle underneath, you might have to lift the plastic a fraction to move it outwards.

I discovered this: a really sharp edge casually lurking behind the offside panel:



As that was where I was going to be working, I covered the entire edge with silver gaffa tape to avoid a bloodbath (and in case I have to break into that side of the boot again in a hurry and forget it’s there)



And yes I did deal with that surface rust

Evicted a dead resident from behind the plastics – I left his web there for posterity



Here’s the old aerial in situ behind the plastic panel, foam & factory tape still intact!



In hindsight I’d have put a towel or something over the washer bottle recess below, to stop any bits falling down beside or underneath it – because then I’d have to take the bottle out as well, to retrieve them (guess who didn’t do this the first time and had to fish around under it.... )

Outside of the car, the top of the aerial is held in by this, so take this off first. It just sits on top of the hole in the bodywork, and screws onto the top of the aerial.



Stick some needlenose pliers in the two holes, and twist to loosen (careful not to scratch the silver part or the surrounding paintwork, as the pliers can easily slip out). Then you can unscrew it off the top of the aerial by hand.



The black part is plastic with a rubber washer, don’t lose this!



Then to the inside of the car. The aerial unit is held in by a bracket attached to the car, which I think (according to the forum guides) “earths” it (1 nut to undo, 10mm); the aerial connector; the power plug; and a drain hose underneath. This was the same order in which I took them off. After the bracket is loose, you can drop the entire unit down inside the car so the aerial mast clears the holes in the wing, and bring the whole thing out towards you, which makes it easier to get the other connectors off.

Removing the aerial connector – it just pulls straight out:



I had to use pliers to squeeze the plastic power connector to pull it out:



The drain hose took a lot of effort to pull off, although the car end was loose anyway, so I was able to remove the entire aerial and deal with the drain hose once it was outside of the car.

All of that took me 2-3 hours, as I spent a lot of time figuring out what the heck I was doing.

Then the most important part of the entire process



Then I did some transplant surgery on the aerials. The mast sheath on the old unit (the bit with the aerial lead) was better than the replacement, so I loosened one of the retaining screws (see red arrow) and swapped them over (photo is after I'd taken the entire half-cover off, you don't have to do all that to swap the sheath over, just loosen the screw).





Only LATER I realised that the mast sheath orientation is important, or this part which clips onto the top of the aerial (below) won’t line up with the angle of the hole in the car body!



So make a note of which way it faces, if you ever swap over the mast sheath like I did.

I discovered something really interesting when I looked at the old unit: the sticker on the cover says “96 11 002189”:



As Sundance was registered in UK in early March 1997, I assume “96 11” must be Nov ’96. That puts the car’s build at Hofu Japan at roughly Christmas 1996; then by March it had been sailed to UK and then went on the road almost immediately – so it hadn’t been hanging around in stock for any length of time. So this sticker is an important indicator of the car’s history. With this in mind I swapped that half of the cover onto the replacement unit. As I’m also somewhere on the OCD scale, I also saved the factory tape and transferred that as well (sadly I had to cut the tape to get the cover off, but no choice unfortunately!)

Replacing the unit was obviously the reverse of above, but was far more fiddly as this is where I discovered the issue with the mast sheath alignment. I ran through most of the expletives I could think of while I tried to line everything up and complete the job before it rained, without scratching the paintwork or damaging the mast tip (again, thank god my neighbour is deaf). In the end I slightly loosened the mast sheath retaining screw on the aerial unit so I could adjust it in situ. The other annoyance was the rubber washer around the plastic support, which kept slipping off (thanks, Mazda).

But eventually ... working aerial!!



Next week: I dismantle a small aircraft carrier in order to retro-fit an immobiliser.

Great work Serena

Good work! my car is post ford but had a cheapo aftermarket aerial shoved in it when I got it

Good call on taping up the edges too, they're SHARP!

Nice little guide and progress there Serena! Great work!

niceee!! I probably will have to change mine too cus in the only accident that i have, a bike guy (cyclist) He bumped up against my rear wheel an crushed my aerial and even beat with the head in my spoiler... =X

You have no fear of dismounted your 323F! XD good work really, and its a nice guide by the way ;D

CSR

Well done, Serena!

That's basically exactly the process I went through to try and fix my aerial. I was going to do the write up, but the end result hasn't been entirely successful. As you say, about 2-3 hrs to figure it out,- but it's approx 5-10 mins thereafter- I've been in and out approx 3 or 4 times!

Didn't notice the sharp edge myself. But have had exactly the same problem with the ball washer refusing to refit.

I' have the older 'pre-Ford' aerial. My plastic cord has broken, there are no aerials or replacement masts available anymore (well, I found one at a Ford dealer as the part matches a Ford pat no, forgotten which model, for I think $130). Or there appears to be a similar one from an aftermarket place (correct shaft diameter, shim, etc). Maybe a trip to the wreckers for me, although I have one last idea... I did have it working for a while, though!

Haven't figured out how to get off the metal part that matches the external ball though- does it just twist and clip off- you mention a screw?

One thing is "pre-Ford" maybe taken with a grain of salt... I think there are some parts on mine that seem to match the 'post-Ford' descriptions- for example, the integrated roof-edge-mount LED brake light+ washer, or were there two versions? Ours always had them (i.e. 1994-on) as 'high-mount' rear stop lamps were mandated from about 1989/1990 in Oz.

Well done again,

Pitrack_1

Cheers, guys - as I say, it's the first time I've dismantled everything, so I'm pretty chuffed that I didn't break or lose anything in the process, and that the aerial actually works afterwards! I guess it all builds confidence to work on the more serious things.



You mean this bit, with the aerial connector attached (I call it a mast sheath, no sure what the proper name is)?



Just loosen the screw indicated and it will pull straight off over the mast, leaving the mast still attached to the unit. I didn't detach the mast itself, as I didn't need to. Remember this is a post-Ford aerial, though (I've no idea if there's a difference from the pre-Ford, as I haven't seen one)





Yes, '96 model year cars (in UK, anyway) tended to have a mixture of pre-Ford and post-Ford features, as Ford were facelifting the F. The '96/'97 UK registration letter was P, I've heard someone joke that "P" stands for "parts bin special" as Mazda seem to have used whatever was left on the rack

Sundance was built end of '96, and as far as I've discovered it's fully post-Ford, with a high-level light at the top of the tailgate, and with the old spoiler light recess blanked off. I've no idea when UK mandated them. On the other hand, CSR's car doesn't have a high-level light at all, on the tailgate or the spoiler! Maybe there are different laws about high-level lights in Portugal.

S

cracking guide Serena, i will be using this myself when i finally get around to sorting out mine, would be a good one to transfer to the guides section and keeping.

Cheers Paul - hope it helps! ;D

S

Highly frustrating afternoon

Spitting rain all day, so couldn't get the bumper finished. Forecast to rain all this week as well, so I'm starting to despair at finishing before the show, as I only have 3 full days left available to work on the car ... assuming those days aren't a washout as well (I have nowhere to work under cover).

Got some top coats on the spoiler instead (as I could work on the patio and dash back inside with the spoiler when the rain got heavy), though I'm not entirely happy with the finish. The spraying is OK, it's the shape of the sanded spoiler underneath (have you detected my pre-show fatigue, yet? )

I did manage to clean the leather interior, and start sorting out the one small area of wear on the driver's seat.

Still to do: final top coat on offside bumper; clear coat on both sides of the bumper; finish prepping the rear wheel-arches & respray them; ditto, bottom of offside rear door (rust sorted ages ago, I just hadn't made it pretty again); re-fit spoiler (though that's a quick job I can do at the show on Thursday). Clean the entire exterior of the car!

I know, I know, the car doesn't have to be perfect, but JAE is the first show I've been to and I don't want Sundance looking like a shed ...

... or like a modern art installation (I didn't have any newspaper to mask with when I was spraying the bumper!)



S

Good effort!!

Hmmm, that image is almost like a pop-art version of a Christo'ed 323F!

Otherwise it could be considered that you're giving Sundance a 'touch-up', so the red tongue hanging out is a nice touch!

As a sugeestion, do you ahve those pop-up sun canopy or gazebo ype things- or market stall tent- we even have some in Oz designed for cars (longer!). Some are waterproof, but you could throw a tarp over a sunshade-only one in any case.

Keep up the good work!

Pitrack

Unfortunately I have nowhere to put up a gazebo or any sort of car cover: the only place I have to work on the car is in the parking space in front of the garage (and that's on a slope), or in the street in front of the house

The garage is in a block of lockups built in the '60s/'70s, when cars were half the size they are now. I'd have trouble getting the Mazda in, and if I managed to do it without scraping off the paint down each side, I then wouldn't have room to open the door, to get out!

S

Woke up to sunshine!!!

So today I spent 9 hours working on the car. Specifically, sorting out the bodywork.

Helpfully, my next batch of paint from Autopaint St Helens arrived just as I started work (delivered within 24hrs, as I only ordered it at 9:30 yesterday - highly impressed)

The agenda at 9:30am: lacquer nearside front bumper; final top-coat and lacquer offside front bumper; clean up, de-rust, protect and paint both rear arches (all surface stuff, both are still solid); touch up two or three other problems.

So, grabbed a space in front of the house, masked up the car, got the offside rear wheel off. All this for a wheel arch, but part of the repair was in the door-shut, so I had to keep the door open ... which meant completely masking off the door frame. Silver paint on black leather interior ... no that didn't happen, and I don't even want to think about it!!



Got as far as the lacquer on the rear offside at 2pm, realised I wasn't going to have time to finish that arch, put the wheel back, then move on to the next one, so I just masked off the wheel on the other side and got on with it at the same time. Then got on with the front bumper and ran around the car spraying bits of it in turn. At one point I had all four corners on the go!

6pm:



6:40 pm ... I was just starting to clear up when a cloudburst stopped play (and ruined all the masking up I'd left on for Friday *sigh*). Look at it bouncing off the roof



Still, beading nicely:



Pretty happy with the job, really.



No photos of the front, thanks to Mr Rain ... still, by the time I went inside both rear arches were painted, one with several coats of lacquer (a bit worried about that, I've put on several coats and it's still not shiny). Nearside still needs a final top coat and then lacquer.

Front end: nearside lacquering started, waiting for it to start looking shiny (is this where I find out I've done something stupid?! ) Offside top-coated but not lacquered. Other small bits: sanded them down, not painted yet.

Spoiler: waiting final top coat, then lacquer. I can do that pretty quickly on the back patio, as I don't need perfect weather or hours of masking up, so I'm leaving that until last.

If Friday is sunny, then I've a good chance of licking this in time for JAE. If it ****s down again, I'm in serious doo-da. Still, at least all four corners of the car are silver again now, not covered in brown rust paint or dirty scratches caused by anonymous hit-and-run culprits ... !

I still have the sills to do, but that's for another occasion...

I must have spoken to everyone in my road today: all the neighbours who passed or parked up nearby stopped to have a chat, even the ones I'd never spoken to before. I guess I've been out in the street for so many days now, wandering around with spray cans, that they can't stay behind the twitching curtains any longer Most of them were amazed that someone might even attempt to DIY respray their car ... I also seem to have started a trend in guilty car washing and hoovering as well

S

It is a very satisfying job. I have repaired paintwork on many cars including my BA when I bashed the front bumper against my own dry stone wall x2! Recently I have been working on one of my sons cars, a bright metalic blue Audi. I find that after the lacquer has dried attack it with fine, fine, fine wet and dry 800? then cutting paste. Be careful that lacquer is very dry however.

A wonderful effort, Serena. I hope the weather holds off and it all comes together for you, you deserve it!

In the meantime, I see what oyu mean about the lock-ups, I'm sure I can see Arfur peering 'round the corner muttering to Terry, "'ere, look at that luvvley motor..."

Meweting all those neighbours will hopefully be a help to you. As well as getting to know people, maybe someone will have a bit of advice, or a tool, or something to assist sometime. And they may just keep an eye on your car for you!

Pitrack

Thanks for that, I ran to the motor factor before closing time & grabbed a tube of rubbing compound! Fingers crossed, that will do the trick.



Thank you kindly! Yes, neighbours all aware of the car now, they know whose it is. So hopefully they'd raise the alarm if they saw anyone else tinkering with it. Hopefully ...

S

outstanding effort Serena, looks like you have got the hang of it well and truly, something i desperately need to do but i dont have the time to for JAE.
Looking forward to seeing your finished result

Thanks Paul, but watch me mess up the clear coat!

Friday update.

Well, it didn't rain. I spent an absolutely terrifying day outside with the car masked up, so overcast at times that it was near twilight, watching towering black clouds go sailing by on either side, but by some miracle none of them managed to drop more than a half-dozen drops on my part of South Oxon.

Top coats now on all areas except a couple of spots on the sills where I'd treated tiny paint bubbles with rust paint; and a nasty gouge on one door, not sure I'll get that taken out in time (and I've just about run out of paint again). Also I'm not happy with the offside bumper, but again I'm not sure I have enough paint to sand it down and correct.

I didn't get any clear-coating done, partly because of time, partly because I don't want to do it until I've managed to get the one clear-coated wheel arch shiny, and I'm sure that I've done it right. No point messing up the entire car. So I might turn up to JAE with an only partly-shiny car

But it looks a darn sight better than it did! Dull paintwork will be far less obvious than patches of brown rust paint

Second wheel arch. I had to partly rub down & do again after this photo taken, but it looks OK I think.



I finally got rid of most of the damage done by the hit-and-run. Not perfect as there was an awkward dent just above the edge to fill, but again it looks better than it was.



Still some sanding, blending, cleaning up to do here. I didn't move the masking out far enough, so if the rubbing compound doesn't soften the edges of this patch, I might have to do this again. This was the one piece of damage on the car caused by me, when I scraped a trailer when turning. The wing will have to come off at some point, to get the slight indent out. Also I think there's paint damage in the crack that might rust, so I'll have to prioritise that one.



Late in the afternoon the (exasperated?!) gods of car refurb sent me a messenger: a bloke I'd never seen before wandered past the end of the road, saw me with the cans etc. and said hello. Then he came over, said he painted cars for a living, and proceeded to give me a 10 minute lesson on masking and car respray!!

I was doing lots of thing wrong, obviously, but his lecture was definitely tutoring and not criticising. Then he wandered off again, I didn't even get his name ...

I still have Monday to do last minute bits and pieces, again depending on the weather. Mainly cleaning, and trying to bring up the new clear coat. The spoiler is also finished apart from clear coat, so I'll spray that up on Monday as well - it WILL be back on the car for JAE, and with the new high-level light installed (though not wired in yet).

S

looks amazing Serena, one thing you could try, when you mention dull areas of existing paintwork, bits you havnt resprayed, get some clay bar and give them a good going over, you would be surprised at how dirty a 'clean' car actually is, will possibly lighten the existing paintwork to match the freshly painted clean shiny paintwork......does any of that make sense?
looking forward to seeing the high level spoiler brake light too, though my old car had one, it too was blanked off and i have never seen one in the flesh so to speak.

Actually, it's the other way around: by dull paintwork, I mean the new stuff that hasn't been lacquered!

Everything looks fairly equal at the moment, but when I clean and polish the car on Monday, I'm expecting the new bits to look really out of place until they're clear-coated

I'm really looking forward to getting the new spoiler light on. I was chuffed to find a company selling them, and even more that it actually fitted (it was made specifically, but you never know with these things until you actually have them in front of you).

In fact I'm also really looking forward to getting the spoiler back on, it's been off for nearly a year, I was lugging it around with me when I had to move house, then it was in my storage unit for six months, and recently it's been propped up in the living room of my temporary accommodation

S

You can use lacquer blend to soften the edges, otherwise paint the complete panel

OK, more welcome tutorage for me! What's a lacquer blend?

(To be clear, there's no lacquer yet on that new patch in picture #3, just top coat)

S

So ... last week a random passing bloke gave me a lesson in spray painting.

Just now, the valeter from the local Vauxhall garage around the corner stopped as he went past and offered to valet the car for me next week. So, he's going to come round next Wednesday. Seems to be genuine; I mean I have seen him out there on the forecourt.

He said he wouldn't charge me, but I'll make sure we have that conversation again before he does anything! I suspect he's probably trying to build up his own list of clients.

Can't complain! I'll keep an eye on him initially though ...

S

So finally, the spoiler is back on the car.

I'm far, far from happy with the respray, as I think I messed up the initial sanding, and I can't get the lacquer to gloss at all At some point I'm going to have to take it off and do it all again.

But hey. For now it's back on the car, and it looks far better than it did before (the paint was peeling all along the back edge, and flaking on the top, right down to the actual spoiler composite).

Official Mazda stamp on the underside of the spoiler (in case anyone needs the part details). Made in Austria, apparently!



New spoiler light finally in-situ:



I had to cut this plastic sheathing right back to where the cable comes out of the spoiler foot, or it made the cable too bulky to sit between the foot and the tailgate:



I took the interior tailgate plastics off, so I could thread the cable through into the boot (this hole is actually intended for the central spoiler securing screw, but the spoiler is held on by four other screws so I used it for the cable instead; I didn't want to drill another hole in the tailgate):



From underneath. Afterwards I wrapped the upper section of the cable with electrical tape to protect it against any sharp edges:



Old and new spoiler screws, and screw covers. These are M6/16mm pan head screws. The old ones were pretty manky so I just replaced them:



For anyone who hasn't done this, there are two screws on either side of the tailgate underside, they screw up into the spoiler feet (Note: this is a pre-Ford spoiler, the arrangement might be slightly different on the later ones - I've seen one where the screws were on the spoiler itself and came down through the tailgate holes, presumably to be secured by a bolt underneath). There's also a screw for the middle foot, but that's the one I left out, in order to thread the light cable. I treated all the screw holes against rust, and covered the new screws with WD40 before I put them in.



Then these ...



... which go here - they just fit over the top of the screw heads:



Et voila!



On a whim, with all the clear-coating done (though not really happy with it tbh) the exterior cleaning half-done and an hour left of daylight, I took the original hi-level light off, and resprayed the black part to get rid of that drip you can see by the screenwash nozzle - I've no idea what caused it, but it had been bugging me for about 10 years. I hadn't taken off that light before, so it was a bit of a twilight adventure. More on that later, I'm now going to collapse with a cuppa.

S

Are you running with both high level brake lights now? Cool if you are

you could run the spoiler one as a rear fog if you wire it in with a relay, so it can do both...

You might get a decent gloss level with a machine...might have to bring the DA to JAE

nice work Serena! looks tops!