Automotive Maintenance

Ain’t nothing worse than driving around with a mismatched interior. Well, to me anyway.

Couple of years back I chanced upon some tidy interior trim and seats out of a BFMR Familia which some guy had decided to convert into a rally car some time ago, and said interior was subsequently stored away for safekeeping/reinstalling one day. As it so happened, the rally car was written off and the trim sat in his garage for a few more years until one day he decided to move house and found it all under a sheet while getting ready to shift things. It also turned out to be the ultra-rare “wind-up window door card” version, so I pretty much bought it all on the spot.

there was one slight problem though: no front seats. “Not a problem,” I thought to myself, “I’ll soon be able to find a decent pair on Trademe…”

That was four years ago, and I’ve been looking for those elusive front seats ever since… until this week, when I finally tracked down a pair via the AMAZD club. Cheers Dee (and Ross)

as a stop-gap solution I’d purchased a pair of BFMP Familia bucket seats, which are identical in design save for the trim pattern and the way they mount to the rails (they’re for a FWD chassis, and mine is 4WD). The big drawback of the latter is that the driver’s seat ends up on a massive lean, and no amount of spacing will actually balance it out completely.

this is actually my 2nd pair – the first pair were even shabbier.

TX3 seat swap (by decypher the code)

BFMP seats

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110-Project, Rear-Panel.

February 11, 2010

I went and visited my panel beater chap today.  I had left my spare rear panel there and decided to go pick it up and have a yarn.  Thankfully he still had it sitting aside, despite one of his workers trying to throw it out at one point.  So after a bit of a natter about the state of the 110 and other vehicles I grabbed the panel and made haste, allowing him to return to work as well.  A quick stop over at E Hayes & Sons to buy some screws to fit the Japanese domestic lamps to it and I made my way home and dug the lamps out of storage, made use of my new screws and played a game of comparison.

Nissan (above) - Datsun (below)

The Datsun one is obviously not entirely stock having had the badge recess filled and then the whole panel re-painted.  However, that’s not important, what is important is that the spare panel needed some tidying up, so before I shot off to work I started on that…

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This weekend saw more work on the 110, (oddly enough, it’s my obsession at the moment and I think it has to be exactly that in order for it to get a wriggle on).  First up, after taking the advice from Craig (Vegie) in his comments and using Turpentine to remove the sound deadening residue and thus completing the passenger side, it was onto the driver’s side.  Which was completed in two simple steps.

Before

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C110 Floor & H230 Lamps

January 28, 2010

Got a little more done today, quite happy with how easy this stuff is to chip off.  I assume there’s a solvent that can be used for tidying up the residual crap?  If anyone has an idea, let me know.  Keen to get the solid floor sparkling.

Forwards

Backwards

I love that the previous owner left the floor alone, it’s so satisfying knocking out 1.5kg and finding clean floor underneath.

Also, since I’ve had the 260C it’s had cartaracts.  A foggy LHS high-beam lamp, initially it still worked despite this but I noticed a few days ago that it stopped working so I dug into my spares and got that sorted too seeing as the weather was so good.

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CHARGIN’ MAH LASER

January 27, 2010

A couple of weeks back I got cajoled into entering my 4WD TX3 as part of the AMAZD (non-rotary Mazda) club stand at the Auckland 4 & Rotary Nationals which takes place at the end of this month. I was a bit reluctant at first but then decided “ah what the hell, it’ll provide the extra little burst of motivation I’ve been sorely needing to get a few things out of the way.”

and hey, I’ll freely admit that since my little roadtrip to Wellington in December things have stagnated a bit, viz. Real Life ™ and other crap getting in the way. so after an interesting couple of days away racing around Taupo in the other TX3, I got back to Auckland and immediately got stuck into things:

first, a quick trip to a signwriter recommended by my friend JP to affix the Original Equipment decals (replicas, but commissioned by a friend in Australia and 99.9% accurate) – thanks Michael @ Icon Signs for the quick and easy installation of said items:

TX3 - 4wdfulltime decal affixed (by decypher the code)

just so no one confuses it for one of them front-tug models.

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