My GT..With Many Pics! Old Timer Checking In.

[slownrusty]

Been working on the GT and catching up on some needed maintenance.

I thought changing the original 28 year engine mounts (three in total) would have been easy...nope...the front two (2) bolts that hold the crossmember in place in the rad support snapped (the most sinking feeling ever!) and required some delicate drilling and tapping...that ordeal took 12ish hours. Surprisingly the 28 year old mounts were not as bad as I thought they would have been, pleasantly surprised, but certainly evidence of rubber cracking and the onset of delamination from the metal on the old mounts themselves.

At the same time I noticed the rear rubber bushings that insulate the crossmember to the unibody had completely deteriorated so I machined up some new ones out of some polyurethane stock I had laying around, came out well, but took 3 hours.

[FE3-323]

how did you turn the poly??

[Cloud_Strife]

+1

Also, mounts are a bi*** no matter what chassis it is. There is always one that is hard to get to, and thus nobody replaces it, and thus it's always a candidate for problems, and thus nobody ever unbolts parts and thus they seize up and have a higher chance of breaking.

[slownrusty]

how did you turn the poly??

I had some left over bushings from my GTX suspension build that I cut down using a 4" wheel on grinder and holding it in place on a vice and then rigged up a frame where I ran a bolt through the center hole of the bushing to limit travel to the grinder wheel and just take a consistent amount of poly material by constantly turning it as the grinder wheel turned, sounds primitive and hoaky and I should have taken pictures but worked like a charm and cut down the bushing perfectly and consistently. My home made lathe!

+1

Also, mounts are a bi*** no matter what chassis it is. There is always one that is hard to get to, and thus nobody replaces it, and thus it's always a candidate for problems, and thus nobody ever unbolts parts and thus they seize up and have a higher chance of breaking.

Ain't that the truth bro!

[slownrusty]

My GT now has 248,255 miles - October 11th 2016

October has been Mazda month at the Slow N Rusty garage.

On my GT the following were done:
1) Install brand new rear left and right hubs (fortunately still available from Mazda).
2) Install new Timken inner and outer bearings front and rear (left and right). The fronts had never been replaced and so 28 years old!
3) Install new front and rear brake rotors and pads, I didn't really need to, but as I had to separate them from the hubs I went ahead and did it.
4) Install new front strut tops (left and right).
5) Install new lower lip below the GTAe front bumper
6) Oil change
7) Replace the rear blown Tokico struts with new KYBs for the coilovers

A few token pics.







Happy motoring friends and be safe.

[FE3-323]

oi! you need some takeup springs on those coilovers, too much drop & that spring will go places you don't want it too

[slownrusty]

Thanks FE3-323! Agreed.

Well finally after 13 years (!!) I finally received a rear Euro / Japanese bumper for my GT. I bought it from Piotr and it was a bit rough including the brackets but all salvageable and happy to make it work. I sand blasted the rear brackets, painted them and installed new stainless fasteners. Then I took the bumper to a good friend who owns a body shop and he and his guys worked their magic from plastic welding, fill, sand, more fill, more sand and then making it perfect again.

Some of the benefits of the Euro / Japanese bumper?
1) It is 15 lbs lighter than the US diving board bumper
2) It is lower profile and only sticks out about 3" past the body versus 5" for the US spec bumper, plus it is 1" deeper (more aggressive).

Onto the pictures:

The bumper as it arrived from Europe:












Factory US (diving board bumper) - 30 lbs on the bathroom scale:






Euro / Japanese brackets after extensive sandblasting, painting, refinished the rear bumper and painted - $15 lbs!











I had to rework my exhaust tips as the dual tips I used with the US spec bumper was rubbing on the Euro / Japanese bumper, so went with a single 3.5" stainless tip.

Enjoy!
Yasin

[Wildfire0310]

Overall love the new JDM bumper. My only feedback and I bet your already thinking it. The new bumper doesn't carry the black "belt" modeling thought out =/

[FE3-323]

putting some of the expanding foam fill in the euro bumpers makes a huge improvement & i highly recommend it.

[slownrusty]

Overall love the new JDM bumper. My only feedback and I bet your already thinking it. The new bumper doesn't carry the black "belt" modeling thought out =/

Yup agreed..not sure what I'm going to do just yet...mulling it around

putting some of the expanding foam fill in the euro bumpers makes a huge improvement & i highly recommend it.

Good idea, thanks!

[Damkid]

Wow I really like that rear bumper!! But agree that it could use the black moulding to complete the look

[azgtx]

Easier to get rid of the moulding and really clean it up.

[BFMRGTX]

The molding is there, just not painted. Same with my bumper, I had it painted but I don't know what type of paint was used.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[slownrusty]

Clay I believe the door molding is held in with clips and the double sided tape, if I remove the molding and said clips I unfortunately end up with small holes in the doors?

[therieldeal]

On the BG escorts the door molding is just taped on, no holes, i peeled mine off years ago: