What’d ya do with your X120 today?

Had to temporarily banish my beloved RX-7 to a car cover outside.

Really nice RX-7! It's tough to find good first-gen cars without sunroofs, most hardtops have been made into Spec 7 cars by now. One of these days I'll find the one I'm looking for...
 
Thanks! I put a lot of time into that car. I bought it from the original owner (an 80-year-old woman from Santa Cruz) bone stock and in really good nick. Only it had over 300K on the clock and everything under the body needed replacing. I take it every year to Sevenstock and it's made several demo runs on the track with the Mazda factory 4-rotor cars.

tJ
Really nice RX-7! It's tough to find good first-gen cars without sunroofs, most hardtops have been made into Spec 7 cars by now. One of these days I'll find the one I'm looking for...
 
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Repairs to my quarter light window trim have been successful. Using a technique I borrowed from Mototrooper, I used painter's tape to make a dam across the void where the chunk of missing plastic is. Then filled the voids with JB Weld from behind. There were 2 spots I had to repair.


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I let it set up for about a couple of hours and then pulled the blue tape off. The repairs looked promising but still needed work. The JB Weld was still a little soft and thin, so I put the blue tape back on and used a broken hack saw blade as a support and clamped it down to the repair with the biggest void. I let that sit overnight.

trimrepair2.jpg


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The next day, I removed the clamps and blue tape and sanded the JB Weld. Then I filled the small voids and cracks with spot/glazing putty and sanded.

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Once I was satisfied with the repair, I shot it with some trim paint.

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tJ
 
So having taken the seats out 2 years ago, I'm surprised that I never noticed that the seat back shells on the seats were different colors. I noticed this after I pulled the cushions and saw that the base of one seat was a dark grey while the seat back was black-ish. It was hard to tell because it was so marked up and dirty. Also, I noted that not one of the 4 screws that held the seat shell onto the seat frame matched. They weren't even close. Whoever had this car before me was the king of half-assing things.

I cleaned the back of the driver's seat and confirmed that the shell had been painted. Looking at the passenger seat, it appears to have been left alone. But now I had non-matching seat shells. So I re-sprayed the driver's seat shell with the SEM trim paint. It turned out really well. I'll do the other seat shortly. I went to the hardware store and got screws that are going to match. I'll paint those as well (hopefully I won't have to remove the shells and they'll stay black). The good thing is that the back of the shells aren't really visible once installed in the car.

The seats will be going in after the carpets get put back in. Which won't happen until the glass gets put back in tomorrow.

tJ

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Good progress there. Seeing your RX-7 makes me wonder if graphics will be a part of the Scorpion's white paint? It's kinda begging for a Martini livery, but also stands on its own merit in solid white.
 
Good progress there. Seeing your RX-7 makes me wonder if graphics will be a part of the Scorpion's white paint? It's kinda begging for a Martini livery, but also stands on its own merit in solid white.

Very perceptive Chad. That was exactly what I had in mind... a Martini livery. I'm not sure at this point if I'm going to do it though. When I saw how good it looked in solid white, I started having second thoughts. I especially like not having the charcoal colored nose shorten the look of the car. The car is lower than stock as well, which really makes it look exotic.

tJ
 
It's such a cool look on these cars. I'm sure you've seen Gabriel Valentin's, which is awesome. After seeing his, I'm seriously tempted to go for it. I'm close to done with bodywork, and I'll start paint prep soon. Though a Martini livery is almost redundant on any Lancia, the argument is pictured here.
Lanica Martini.jpg
 
Yes, I have seen the video featured on Petrolicious a little while back. Such a great looking car, even ragged out and dirty from playing.

tJ
 
Today, the glass guys came over and put my rear quarter light windows and the rear window back in. They also fixed a small rock chip in the windshield. This is going to be difficult, but I have to leave the car alone a couple of days while the urethane cures completely. Then I'll have to trim away the excess urethane off the windows.

Prepping one of the rear quarter lights:

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And then installing it:

quarter2.jpg


Prepping the rear window:

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And a couple of guys suffocating in the fishbowl installing the rear window:

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Rear window installed:

rearwindow2.jpg


Fixing the rock chip on windshield:

windshield.jpg


The rock chip repair was fascinating. They drilled into the glass where the chip was, then set up this contraption to allow liquid resin to be poured into the crack/hole. Then they hook that thing up to an air compressor/vacuum pump. They suck out all the air and the turn on pressure in order to get the resin to flow into every crevice of the crack.

tJ
 

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Did more removal of the front end bits today. The nose band, grill, lower headlight facia, the headlight surrounds and the bumper shocks. Finally got to set my Montecarlo nose band in place. Quad headlights from an e30 BMW will happen at some point, but it's all about the bodywork & paint for now.

Did a bit more sanding on the frunk, closing in on it now. I've come to acknowledge that I'd have more car funds if I quit my ridiculous cigar habit. I can't bitch that I can't afford parts while I'm lighting up my second big-ass cigar of the day... Thanks in advance for the support, I'll need it!
 
Chad,

Keep up the good work! I’m glad to see you back at it. Your drive and determination are really starting to pay dividends.
 
Thanks Dean. I can't say that I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm no pro with body & paint. I had too much lightweight filler on the hood, as well as too much primer. That's meant gummed up sand paper, and slow progress. Had to blow out my paper with compressed air many times after just a few passes over the hood with the block.

I persevered today & got things flatted out. I decided to dig deeper into some previously existing filler on the hood, and the dent wasn't bad but the metal around it had rusted to the point of pitting the metal just a little bit. Glad I found that, it's fixed now. Should've taken pics...

In other news, I now have a set of 037 Rally tail/brake lights. That sounds a lot cooler than saying that I now own a set of Fiat 850 a Sedan tail lights, but they're one & the same. Fifty bucks from eBay of Israel. I've also sourced what seems to be a match to the grill design used by the 037 Works rally cars. I'll have to be creative to get the width I need, but I think I can do it. Hell, that's my mission statement for this whole build: "I think I can do it". So far I'm right : )
 
Chad, nice work! I HATE sanding with a passion. I'm glad I left that to the paint guys. I know I could have save some $$ but it's so messy and my wife hates it when I get sawdust, fiberglass dust, any kind of dust all over the garage as our washer and dryer are in there. I love the tail lights...didn't realize the Fiat 850 sedan had those. About 3 months after I acquired Sofia, I went about sourcing parts, and one of the parts I got was a really nice rear tail lamp grill. There were a few grills cracked, but I fixed them and they look pretty good. Not perfect, but you really don' notice them as the the rest of the grill looks so good. My old one has chunks missing out of it, but I'm considering repairing it and fitting those tail lamps into it. That way I can switch between the two (assuming I can make the electrics plug-n-play).

I took a couple of days off while the urethane cured on the windows. Then went to work trimming the excess away from the outer glass. What a PITA that was. Once I got the excess taken away, I was able to refit the newly-refreshed and repaired rear quarter window trim pieces. I tried using silicone sealant I had in the cabinet, but that didn't go well, so I cleaned the piece up. Then I remembered I had a roll of butyl tape that a friend of mine gave me to refit my windows but never used. That stuff worked perfectly and it was easy peasy. Just unroll it, pinch off a length of it, and place it in the back of the trim piece. It pressed on perfectly and stayed put.

rearquarter1.jpg


Then I replaced the seals on the outer door trim with some new rubber seals from TMH. It took me a few minutes to figure out how that stuff worked, but it turns out the that original carrier slides out of the ends of the chrome trim. The fuzzy strip is a thin strip that slides into the carrier. The new stuff from TMH is different...it includes the fuzzy strip, but also the outer rubber that covers up the carrier completely, so it looks nice and black. Pretty cool implementation! Then I installed the door trim (also refreshed) back on the doors.

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I am going to do the rest of the body trim tomorrow, but first I had to find my baggie of mounting hardware. I found it and remembered that one of the 7mm studs broke when I removed it from the car. I will have to figure out if that is going to be usable or not. In the meantime, I'm remedying the reason it broke in the first place...removing the rust in a little container of Evapo-rust. By tomorrow, these fasteners will be rust free.

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tJ
 
It's been difficult for me the past couple of days to get quality time with Sofia. My daily FC RX-7's auto trans decided to self destruct, so I had to deal with troubleshooting and then sourcing a new-to-me tranny. But I was able to squeeze in an hour or two over the weekend and get some stuff done.

After cleaning up the mounting hardware for the rear moldings, I went to work making a replacement mounting screw. The pics below show how I did it:

Broken screw:

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Broken screw chucked up in my vise:
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A little cutting fluid helps in drilling out the old screw:
fastener3.jpg

Ideally I'd use a drill press to do this kind of work, but my press is down, so a vise and hand drill had to suffice:
fastener4.jpg


Successful screw extraction!
fastener5.jpg


Using a larger drill bit to make a counter sink for the new screw:
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Larger size bolt (that still fits through the holes in the body) is screwed into place:
fastener8.jpg


Finished mounting hardware:
fastener9.jpg


So with that done, I mounted the driver's side and passenger side. I hate that you have to remove the relay panel to get access to the passenger side, but I survived. Once I put them on, I noticed with dismay that the door and rear moldings didn't match up. In fact, they were off by a mile. The reason was that the butyl tape I used for the rear quarter window trim was too thick, so the trim didn't lay close enough to the body. Since the rear moldings go OVER the quarter window trim, this was throwing off fitment. Irritated, I pulled everything off...the rear molding as well as the quarter window trim. I had to be super-careful getting the quarter windows off as to not break anything. I managed. I pulled the butyl tape off the quarter trim and used a tube of 3M urethane to attach the trim. I HATE urethane. It's messy as hell...gets all over everything. I had to change my gloves several times to minimize contaminating my paint job. I still made a mess that had to be cleaned up with brake cleaner and elbow grease. I wore gloves and I still had that crap all over my hands when I was done. BUT, it works. Really well. Here's the evidence:

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tJ
 

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This evening I cleaned up the overspray on the little rubber flap that is attached to the hood and hangs down over the engine. I need to rivet it back on once I pick up some rivets that are big enough. I also vacuumed out the cabin to get it ready for putting down the carpet. I noticed a few stamped openings in the floor (they look like hooks for the carpet to catch on?) I don't think it's a good idea to have holes in the floor pan, allowing water to splash up and ruin my work, so got some urethane and sealed up all of them. I also cleared out the cowl drains (one side had leaves covering the drain, but the other side was clear). I tested them out by pouring water through them. The water ended up on the floor and not the inside of the cabin.

cowldrain.jpg

tJ
 
Those ‘hooks’ are actually drains. They should be angled slightly out and downward from the floor pan (slightly) to allow water to drain under your carpet when water DOES get into the cabin.

If you are sure you will never have water in the cabin then sealing them is likely fine. Someone clogged the ones in my ‘new’ X and the floor rotted around the drain.
 
Ah, I see. I was warned by a lancisti.net member to replace the hoses in the cowel drains as they are prophylactic thin. I'll be doing that. I can pick the urethane off if they're good to keep open though. Any idea what the two holes behind the seats are? They on both sides of the car and I don't have a plug for them.

tJ
 
So the other evening I went to fit the carpets in and realized that the color is off. I had stupidly ordered "Britannia Blue" instead of the standard blue, so the color doesn't match my dash, door panels, or seats. Now I'm going to have to wait another month before I get the correct color carpet from the Monte Hospital. In the meantime, I started to refit my frunk carpet and battery box. I cleaned up the battery box as best I could. The frunk carpet is a little dirty so I'm going to pull it out and give it a good scrubbing before putting it in for good. No pics this time, but I'll post more when I put the frunk carpets back in again.

tJ
 
That had to been really disappointing, sorry to hear that. Most of my interior is the same black, with the seats giving some contrast. for $600, my very weathered interior came out pretty nice. I'm impressed that you're retaining the blue interior. Re-fitting the seatbelts is a dyslexic nightmare for me, any hints you could give after doing them would likely help me...
 
Well, the rear parcel shelf had slots cut in it, so the seat belts slid out easily. The finish rings were broken so those weren't an issue either. I plan on figuring out how to properly fit the seat belts in though...I am getting a new set and I'm planning on 3D printing some new trim rings I drew up in SolidWorks in high-impact resin on our Form Labs printer (just have to get my friend to get off his butt and print the damn things.

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I pulled off the funky, non-working lamp assembly from the rear deck lid, gave it a good cleaning, fit it with new bulbs, replaced the incorrect hardware store screws holding it on the deck with proper clear-plastic Fiat screws and reassembled and tested. Pleased with the results. It's the little things...

decklid-lamp.jpg
 
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