Hi guys,
I'm new here and this is my first posting -- glad to find a place where I can share knowledge and experiences with other owners.
My "Mazda" background: I owned a 1988 323 SE up until 2003. I put about 60k miles on it before it gave up the ghost at about 186k miles (ECU died and it had a lot of other mechanical problems.) I bought a VW Jetta TDI (turbo diesel) after that, brand new. ?
? Drove it for the past 6 years. Then I decided/realized that I missed the old hatchback format and was really bored with the Jetta. It was just too nice of a car and I preferred to cash out some of the equity and move back downmarket.
So what did I do? I sold the Jetta. And I bought not one but TWO 323s.
One is a 1988 Mazda 323 GTX. The other is a 90 Mazda 323.
This worklog will summarize my experiences with the 1990 SE.
The story of the 1990 SE begins with my discovery of a craigslist posting about the 323 about 6 weeks ago. A guy in Richmond, CA (just outside of Berkely, which is just across the bay from SF here in Northern California) posts that he is selling TWO 1990 323s for $1200 OBO. I went and looked at them and was initially considering buying both. But the one had been involved in an accident and that to me was trouble that I wasn't interested in taking on.
So the one I bought had 117k miles on it.
5 speed. It looked like a tiger had been let loose inside of there and annihilated the front seats. I keep laughing to myself every time I think of the image of a tiger in the little car.
The clutch was in about the same condition as the seats, totally gone. Body is straight, engine sounded good and most other things appeared in-tact. Save there was this really nasty goopy stuff on the dashboard that I still haven't been able to identify, but have since cleaned off. The engine bay was also in gorgeous shape as illustrated here...
More interior pics...
So during the first weekend I went to find replacement seats. I found a guy parting out a MX-3 and got those seats for $125. Kinda more than I'd wished to have paid, but c'est la vie.
When I got the seats home I realized that they were dirtier than I thought. So what did I do? I did what any sane minded person would do: I removed the upholstery a panel at a time and put it through my washing machine -- no joke.
This turned out to be a 2 day task... getting the seats cleaned up. I then put the upholstery back on. When I did I used cable ties in place of the bull-rings that they otherwise use to hold the metal rods together. This method worked exceptionally well and if you have to do any work on your seats it is the method I would strongly suggest for buttoning them back up. (This explanation may not make complete sense but if you've looked at the upholstery up close I am sure you know what I mean.
Okay so, that's the thing I did in the first weekend. I think I'll use a second post to talk about the mechanical stuff I did on this guy just this past wekend, it is a far more interesting story...
I'm new here and this is my first posting -- glad to find a place where I can share knowledge and experiences with other owners.
My "Mazda" background: I owned a 1988 323 SE up until 2003. I put about 60k miles on it before it gave up the ghost at about 186k miles (ECU died and it had a lot of other mechanical problems.) I bought a VW Jetta TDI (turbo diesel) after that, brand new. ?
? Drove it for the past 6 years. Then I decided/realized that I missed the old hatchback format and was really bored with the Jetta. It was just too nice of a car and I preferred to cash out some of the equity and move back downmarket.So what did I do? I sold the Jetta. And I bought not one but TWO 323s.
One is a 1988 Mazda 323 GTX. The other is a 90 Mazda 323.
This worklog will summarize my experiences with the 1990 SE.
The story of the 1990 SE begins with my discovery of a craigslist posting about the 323 about 6 weeks ago. A guy in Richmond, CA (just outside of Berkely, which is just across the bay from SF here in Northern California) posts that he is selling TWO 1990 323s for $1200 OBO. I went and looked at them and was initially considering buying both. But the one had been involved in an accident and that to me was trouble that I wasn't interested in taking on.
So the one I bought had 117k miles on it.
5 speed. It looked like a tiger had been let loose inside of there and annihilated the front seats. I keep laughing to myself every time I think of the image of a tiger in the little car.
The clutch was in about the same condition as the seats, totally gone. Body is straight, engine sounded good and most other things appeared in-tact. Save there was this really nasty goopy stuff on the dashboard that I still haven't been able to identify, but have since cleaned off. The engine bay was also in gorgeous shape as illustrated here...More interior pics...
So during the first weekend I went to find replacement seats. I found a guy parting out a MX-3 and got those seats for $125. Kinda more than I'd wished to have paid, but c'est la vie.
When I got the seats home I realized that they were dirtier than I thought. So what did I do? I did what any sane minded person would do: I removed the upholstery a panel at a time and put it through my washing machine -- no joke.
This turned out to be a 2 day task... getting the seats cleaned up. I then put the upholstery back on. When I did I used cable ties in place of the bull-rings that they otherwise use to hold the metal rods together. This method worked exceptionally well and if you have to do any work on your seats it is the method I would strongly suggest for buttoning them back up. (This explanation may not make complete sense but if you've looked at the upholstery up close I am sure you know what I mean.
Okay so, that's the thing I did in the first weekend. I think I'll use a second post to talk about the mechanical stuff I did on this guy just this past wekend, it is a far more interesting story...
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