Here's a Mazda 323, the 1985-89 FWD generation. It's the 1.3 OHC 8-Valve and being the early type it's carried over from the previous generation (though with some tweaks). The main difference is that it's chain-driven instead of belt like the later ones, but it also has an incredibly weird high-pitched "woooh" engine note the later car doesn't. I'll do a video at some point.
Anyway, a lovely car, just needed some minor bits of paint. After some initial difficulties in getting the paint match due to being fussy, the fuel cap was taken to the paint supplier who got it perfect! Excellent, I'll just do that next time. The paint and lacquer was applied by somebody much more competent with a paint gun than me, but helpfully the buffer had broken so a few hours of hand-polishing was required, which was ANNOYING but it looks smart now so whatever I guess. To celebrate, I parked it on some muddy ground and took a photo.
Oh yeah, the steels got done as well. Smart eh? Took a while to get the right paint on there amazingly - I know from experience that most paint stands within the area only bother stocking the "alloy" wheel paint which is annoying because it is far too shiny and a weird slightly blue hue. Luckily I found probably the one paint stand in Kirklees which bothered to sell the rare "steel" type and got them all prepped up, popped the centre caps off, masked them all, etc. Masking wheels with tyres on them is the most annoying masking of all, still they're done now.
To break up this post, here's a tasteful "stick every single available accessory on" shot from the original Mazda catalogue. But I'm not planning on any mods (though I would like the extra spotlamp grille if it turned up cheap maybe), just continuing to drive around for a bit enjoying the weird engine note and removing the pull-out cassette deck Macgruber-style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivDkluAdvts
Also ordered a new relay to replace one which was a bit intermittent, which Mazda still kindly stocked, though I had to order it from a very polite but strangely disorganised dealer who does mail order to prevent me having to go to the local one and run the gauntlet of salesmen in George at Asda suits to get to the parts desk. And replaced the battery which had been ill for some time, always painful to see one finally go (when you know it's a funny size and you can't just pull one off another car). Anyway, it'll probably continue to see occasional use through the winter.
So what else?
Well, people who have seen my Facebook and not closed the window and gone "ugh" might have seen this little number.
The fabled Escort 1.3 Popular Plus with super-smooth refined Kent-HCS OHV. This has been stopped and started for quite some time now, to the point where I don't even remember when it turned up. It's pretty damn clean and solid which is a plus on these, low mileage too (something like 54K, only two long-term owners prior). However the previous lady owner managed to knacker the engine up somehow via what can only be guessed as a combination of short trips, the carb set way too lean, probably not checking the water level (it had a pinhole leak in the expansion tank). What initially looked like "it's a bit slow, probably just needs a good service" turned into ""a few valves, plus a piston". Well done!
A replacement engine was initially considered, but they all look liked oily old heaps on pallets whereas this one was quiet as a mouse (in the context of it being a Kent). Even with a relatively cheap mechanic and rock-bottom Ford parts prices, it was a daft decision to rebuild it really, but then with other replacements on the market being old, oily and near-definitely clattery as hell - why not eh? However, on listening to it crack up after the rebuild I knew I'd made the right decision. Yeah, money's just for spending.
If I was a more clever man it would have probably gone in for an MOT at that point, but for some reason it didn't (I think I was spending close to £300/month on petrol at the time to work in the middle of nowhere so probably that). It was only really when I was showing scat-botherer Reallyloud around a few of the motors that I thought "oh yeah, probably should book an MOT on that". So more-or-less next week I went and got a non-dead flat post battery and booked it in for a test, where it failed but only really on a few fairly obvious items - missing headlight glass, dried-up wipers, a few bulbs, a little patch on the underside of a sill. Several days later it had the golden ticket (or rather the stupid plain white ones they do now). Smashing!
A bit of localised cosmetic attention to the "Radiant Red" was required, some replacement pinstriping (first attempt now removed as I'd done it a bit wobbly, but I think I've got the technique down now), and mostly just some general polishing due to being stored around for a while. Pleasingly even at its worst it didn't go very pink though, just a slightly less vibrant red. Also you'd think I wouldn't have to do any awkward steel wheel painting due to the full-face trims and you'd be right - due to a previous owner inexplicably trying to repaint the trims and making an enormous cock-up of it, they were repainted properly which took more man hours than I'd like to admit. Never again, then again it saved me £15 to buy some more I guess.
Beautiful. No fancy alloy wheels, thanks. Next up is getting the radio serial code for the cassette-less Ford "Sound 2001" of misery which sadly was not written down anywhere. Luckily the technology exists nowadays to decode such sophisticated units without main dealer intervention. With all the servicing being done I've been taking it out on gradually longer trips, as with these cars which have gone out of circulation a bit, it seems to drive better each time. It could probably do with a new thermostat and there's a mild blow coming from the back box which doesn't worry me as a brand-new replacement costs £19 (!). Maddening, they might as well not bother.
Finally, this has got a test coming shortly so we'll see if any Christmas miracles are due with regards to that. Fingers crossed.
