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"Amy" - 93 Protege DX

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    "Amy" - 93 Protege DX

    Decided to get a car as opposed to my 15 passenger gas hog, and what I took home was Amy. (That's the prefix on the license plate) I'd never driven a manual transmission before, nor did I have anyone to show me, so it was an extremely bumpy start, and scary long ride home seeing how Amy I picked up from ~50 miles away.
    Unfortunately I don't have any pics of picking her up in Mar 2012, but a week later I'm driving down the interstate and hear a LOUD KNOCK from the rear; I make it to my destination, and you can see how much tire was remaining.... so, new tires..
    amy is a 93 protege dx, damaged in the front, bent hood, no grill, and lots of seemingly ghetto rigged stuff, but mechanically sound w/ good mpg
    *Clicking on images will open the full image*



    That's right, random pieces of metal drilled to the headlights, to somewhat hold them in front of the bent radiator core support. The brackets were shattered and were a mix of plastic, duct tape, and card board used to shim them forward.

    You can see the headliner, or lack there of... only problem is the genius that had the car previously sprayed blue spray paint on the material that was constantly flaking off, so I had paint falling off too.... and the paint penetrated the foam down to the cardboard...
    Awful.

    Belts, leaking valve cover; new ngk spark plugs got rid of the misfiring/extremely rough idle from the bosch plugs. The belt on here bypasses the unnecessary (IMO) AC, the one thing I agree with the previous owner on.

    Head off, replacing valve cover gasket; had one of the 10mm head bolts snap in half in the head, but got it with an easy out.

    Checking those drums for odd sounds.... note to self, an impact screwdriver is about the only thing to take those screws out if the hammer method fails.





    This cat did not want to let go, even after I started driving.

    Trying to bend the headlight brackets into a somewhat straight shape; found unbroken headlights/brackets at the salvage yard, and jerry rigged them more cleanly onto the quite bent core support.... hours of alignment frustrations...
    With a new $1 black rattle-canned grill from the salvage yard, and some polished headlights, nothing *looks* seriously bent from the outside, except for the hood


    A year later

    #2

    Took a hard right turn, parked, went to drive the car later and heard teh LOUD RAWRRRING of a wheel bearing. The axle nut on this side is LOOSE!
    It took me a breaker bar, a pipe extension, and feet toward the tires as as I layed on the ground, pulling down on the bar; jumping up and down with my weight did absolutely nothing but bend the breaker bar.

    *sigh* Missing trim piece

    Parts in the mail

    The shed where it all happens

    Grabbed a shop press form Harbor Freight to attempt the wheel bearing replacemnt



    I don't have concrete/etc for jacking up the car, but after digging in the dirt, sliding brick tile/stones, more digging, jacking part of the car, then sliding the jackstand there, then jacking another part, and moving the tile, and more digging, and repeating, i'm able to get it up on jackstands, on a semi firm material, in the dirt. (safely?)





    Trying to get off the Knuckle...

    Success, this is the proven method..


    Strut time... have some KYB's for the rear; probably should have put them in the front, but couldn't resist Gabriel struts for $3.29 apiece on rockauto clearance..... even though they arrived with a yellow recall tag attached...







    Wheel bearing replacement; brake calipers are a must. I went ahead and replaced the hub... press the bearing in, then flip it upside down, and press the knuckle/bearing into the hub resting on the brake caliper.

    Harbor freight strut compressor... cheap, yet effective... it actually feels safe

    Comment


      #3

      Good Snap ring pliers are a NECESSITY for removing the retaining ring on the hub bearing... think I got these from home depot... HF ones will just bend and/or break, but at least they gave me a refund... same with the auto parts stores

      A hub with the Inner race of the bearing... usually when you press out a bearing, it breaks apart/ the inner race/hub come out together, and the rest of the bearing separate, if you want to reuse the hub, just use a cut off wheel to remove the race... or buy a new hub

      A 94 protege at the yard... too bad there's front end damage.... in fact it looks just like mine on the rad core support

      A good donor car...

      Now that I look back on it, I should have grabbed that driver's seat belt as mine is beginning to fray.... that and it's not adjustable....

      Meh, don't really want a rusted motor mount....


      The Mighty seat belt method of holding up the engine to grab the motor mounts



      My brake hoses look pretty terrible....

      New discovery: leaky wheel cylinder on the right rear.... springs not even attached.... it has pressure but it's not doing anything. But here's the kicker, I go to bleed the left rear and there is NO pressure.
      I find out after some hunting that the proporting valve is giving 100% pressure to the leaky wheel cylinder... and NO pressure to the left rear, thus I've had NO rear brakes since I got the car. The proportion valve part from mazda is pretty expensive... ~$130 or something for something 2 inches by 2 inches?
      I always knew they were bad, but dam.... that's why they started smoking in the mountains.
      Note to self... make sure brakes are working before driving in mountains...



      Time to clean up/ fill in the motor mounts.


      Some good stuff from energy suspension

      Cats can actually be useful, yielding $1 plastic boxes and absorbent material to finish parts in.

      Note: the one with the long bracket is for the transmission, I bought it new, bought the expensive Beck & Arnley, and it DID NOT fit.... no idea why... but the vertical portion is too long. Curse you rockauto, that's why I got the most expensive one... the 2nd problem I've had with them but meh



      More wheel cylinder pics, hopefully you can see where the springs go.


      On the other side it's dry b/c there's NO brake pressure getting there... who knows if it'd leak or not but it's getting replaced.

      Comment


        #4

        Continued pics of the dry wheel cylinder


        My somewhat rusty transmission mount... the one that *fits* the car unlike the one I was sent.

        These bolts are a PITA on the torque/rear motor mount. You really need 2 jacks to get it in a position in which you can get the bolts out.


        Great $150 tool from sears... the only way I could get the locknut off the rear struts. Strangely I had no problem with the front struts and hand tools, however.

        Snow! ... Around here this barely happens once every 7 years.






        Side shot in the snow


        Heck yeah, I've been waiting for one of these for 2 years..... ON THE SAME DAY AS...

        Amy gets her face rearranged trying to avoid a dickhead in an SUV

        This old guy has a MINT red 1st gen Protege DX

        Rad support bend more... ****** hours spent jerry rigging headlights gone, time to get things right.

        It doesn't really look too bad... basically headlights/flimsy ****/already bent radiator core support

        New Hood, only has a small ding in it, otherwise perfect.

        Bolts/screws that hold the stuff together.


        Out with the old...


        Busted hood latch..

        Comment


          #5
          lots of work in this thread!
          glad to see you saved this from the scrapyard!!!
          ---Has ClubProtege helped you in someway? show your support by Contributing--- Click Here---

          1992- project FE3..... 313 WHP @ 9.3psi




          I pet my dash when I get into the car..."good car"
          he actually has a mazda tree, parts grow on it

          Comment


            #6

            Having a belt that bypassed the AC compressor and went straight to the power steering saved me 2-3 mpg, I took the compressor off and chucked it a long time ago... time to get rid of more dead weight.

            lol, this one wasn't even connected...

            You can see that bent POS radiator core support, dam if it doesn't have alot of spot wields in it. Unfortunately, when I was taking off the lower crossmember.... this time one of the bolts snapped... basically impossible to get out/rusted.


            The little protege horn

            The hood release cable.... which I broke disconnecting it from the hood latch... another part to get from Mazda....

            Time for a new radiator...

            And the fan shroud... it was held together with duct tape before, but now it's time for a replacement... the original fan is staying though.

            Lots of open space....

            Those spot wields are pretty annoying, but no match for a christmas tree/ step drill bit, or spot wield bit, and a cut off wheel.... and a bulldozer..

            The old radiator core support... I tried to get multiple angles to see where all the spot wields are...







            Yeah, this is the huge stuck crossmember bolt, and yes I've drilled THROUGH it, and it's stuck..., oh well, old part.

            New radiator support, a friend MIG wielded it in & I got to use a wielder for the first time :D

            Shiny new radiator....

            Needs a coating to prevent rust though...



            Comment


              #7

              One thing I learned.... power steering fluid is FLAMABLE... clean up before using a wielder or torch. The big blue wire is a 0 guage knukoncepts wire, it's the ground wire so it's the most important..... and saturated power steering fluid...

              Did I meantion this wire harness caught fire... with the car OFF. I wondered why the fan wasn't coming on... I cut the car off and all of a sudden it started sparking w/ power steering fluid and flaming/ wire melting.
              The reason this happened is the fact that I didn't completely TIE DOWN THE WIRE HARNESS when moving the car a mile to the wielder... and back again.... the belt rubbed through the wire a bit, then a couple of strands crossed, HEAT + PS = toasted wires to toss

              New white trim piece.... rattlecanned black...

              Trim Pieces...


              Wires melted together.....


              That's the belt...

              My ground wire (washers are in between to give it space& keep it squashed to the chassis)

              Going through some paper towels, trying to degrease the hood a bit.

              The wires on the wire harness...


              Opening it up a bit...

              Yeah, that's a problem.... & wires fused together





              New donor relays with rubber boots that haven't been cut

              Another cat performing an inspection.

              Yay, wires....


              The harness wires, and their respective sizes.... the one from the yard has more wires for some reason.....

              Another long night...

              Comment


                #8
                the new core support work looks good! job well done man
                ---Has ClubProtege helped you in someway? show your support by Contributing--- Click Here---

                1992- project FE3..... 313 WHP @ 9.3psi




                I pet my dash when I get into the car..."good car"
                he actually has a mazda tree, parts grow on it

                Comment


                  #9

                  How to get more air? Add a window

                  That's right, a $5 window screen from wally world to protect the new radiator & catch bugs in the absence of the condenser.

                  Hood release cable

                  The grommet the hood release cable goes through.

                  Yea, Screen is zip tied in, New wire harness restored to factor w/ soldering, heat shrink, electrical tape, flex tubing, and more electrical tape.
                  The fan, however, still did not work....
                  I replaced the thermostat, disty o ring(which seemed perfectly fine...), and kept troubleshooting, I even tested the thermoswitch with a jumper and verified that it worked.
                  HOWEVER, upon grabbing the thermoswitch again, I found it to be loose, and VOILA the wire was broken in the plastic tubing where you couldn't see it causing the fan not to come on/get a reading. But moving the wire just a bit to test it was enough for it to briefly make contact and test positive... knew I hadn't done anything wrong...

                  Progress

                  Holy Sh!t, for the first time Amy LINES UP

                  The donor left front fender had a huge dent in it, I hammered it out 90%, and figured since I didn't have OEM lights for the 94, I'd just go with the angel eyes, since you have to bend the fender and this one is already bent.


                  The only oem 94 headlight from the yard...



                  The ebay angel eyes

                  18 hours of aligning later.....

                  Angel Eye halo rings

                  Low Beams

                  High Beams

                  Brembo Blanks... and Hawk HPS Pads.... wait... they don't seem to fit the DX.... apparently they are meant for the bigger LX Calipers

                  Stainless steel braided brake hoses

                  The safe method...

                  Comparing a normal pad to the larger hawk hps pads

                  An Escort with SO FEW MILES in the yard?

                  Dome light snatched

                  Edit: that's just another ford zx2 not the sr

                  Ahh, a ford ZX2 S/R in the yard.... tempting....
                  Last edited by 1LordAnubis; 02-27-2015, 10:01 AM.

                  Comment


                    #10

                    ZX2 s/r seats... I'd have grabbed them if someone hadn't stated that they are uncomfortable... My stock seats are comfortable, just worn..

                    Replacing this brake pad that got devoured going down the mountains b/c of no rear brakes & boiling

                    New Stainless Steel braided clutch hose. And that motor mount that still hasn't been replaced... not that it really *needs* to be, but I really like the feel of the filled in motor mounts, really helps in 1st-2nd gear.... though I can't see through the rear view mirror due to vibrations unless I put it in neutral. Also, the material on one or two of the mounts degraded.... I could have cleaned it better, but on those two I was gunho and only let them sit a couple of days.
                    I'd say to let them sit a month, then they are rock solid.

                    Opps, I tried to use a torque wrench on a caliper banjo bolt.... not successful, luckily you can use the stronger stock ones.

                    Oops again, test drive FAIL before really checking the fitment

                    Just a little rub on the tire and this happens... (Note it was a test drive on the interstate.. handbraking home was entertaining)


                    All fixed now, not a problem since w/ the zip ties

                    Amy now


                    New miata lightweight alloy rims.... for whenever these 80,000 mile michelins wear down...

                    The interior; I've got a raspberry pi computer setup as a dashcam right now, though you could use it for running tunerstudio; comes on with the car.


                    Another View, Strut tower bar...

                    The little 2" crankcase ventilation hose the dealer wants to charge $16 for.... $ .25 /foot at lowes hardware for some basic tubing you can shape with a lighter
                    The red wire running alongside the 'big 3' 0 gauge wire is for the power inverter on the passenger side, bolted cleanly to outside of the ECU panel
                    Notice that it has an inline fuse... well, the power inverter shorted out last year, and tripped the 40A fuse... the thing shouldn't even be able to pull that much power, it's a 400w inverter, and it did it with the button OFF, internally shorting
                    If that fuse hadn't been there, there would have been some kind of fire or something going on
                    Luckily, I had 8 days of warranty left and cobra sent me a new one...

                    Drum Brakes, broken in, wire wheel'd the rust off to bare metal and painted to keep that dam rust off.

                    Rear strut tower bar, these Jenson speakers were with the car when I got it, same with the random wires hanging, but idc
                    I did replace the front speakers with polk audio, sony headunit, and the wiring harness was CUT off... so it took some testing but it's loud enough to go deaf so I can't see upgrading the sound system unless I want to park the car somewhere and provide a concert to an audience.

                    The silver sticker, thank you FE3-323. Also, the rear jensons had mismatched speaker covers, so I got a yard of speaker fabric from the store for like $2

                    Thought about adapting a mx-6 center console, don't know if I will though... it's kinda too big, the mx-3 would be better but who knows.

                    Tried some aluminum window cranks.... neat concept, but it should stay in the concept phase. Less leverage making it harder to crank, plus
                    the number of threads is wrong, so I just hammered the softer aluminum adapter onto the crank knob to 'make' it fit... which it did... with some hammering and glue. On one side...
                    After heating and cooling, expanding and contracting, it would come off, on one side, the other was remarkably one piece.
                    Aftermarket window cranks are flimsy plastic, the ONLY option to use is the original/OEM window crank.
                    So, $20 apiece at mazda, or grab em from the local yard if you see em for next to nothing
                    And yes, a polk audio speaker is shoved behind that speaker cover.

                    Another view... the interior was redone to black and looks way better... black plastic trim, replaced headliner, black sunvisors.

                    Decided to try out the autocross since it was only 5 mi away...

                    Didn't do bad... it was more of a comparison before doing any... 'speed' mods. I still have multiple brake mods to do, but I think I had the best brakes out there....
                    The stainless steel hoses make a HUGE difference
                    The braking is literally 4X better than when I originally got the car.... though it only had 2 brakes then...

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by FE3-323 View Post
                      the new core support work looks good! job well done man
                      Thanks; it seems to line up perfectly, and one thing is for sure it's ON THERE.... in fact, it's never coming off again. It was a PITA to get tiny spot wields out to replace it, so I can't even imagine trying to get this wielded one off.
                      It's permanent.

                      One thing I learned though, it's a good idea to take out your crossmember bolts, perhaps every 2 years? (under alot of stress & can rust) Put antisieze/whatever on them, get a rethreader and make those threads like new!
                      Replace the bolts if necessary, but be careful... once it's stuck.... it's stuck...

                      Comment


                        #12
                        So, Condensed version:
                        Originally...

                        Pretty ghetto rigged & I caught a bird between the headlights where the grill should have been. Honestly, instead of shifter bushings, I found a paperclip wound up in the linkage
                        There was also only 1 windshield wiper... I didn't think this was a problem till I looked for one.... and couldn't get ahold of one until a protege w/ a passenger wiper arrived in the yard a few months later.
                        I kept having power problems, the voltage would go down, but if I took off the battery cable it would run... turns out the power output would diminish over time, it would get to a point where you would have enough power to drive during the day, but at night any accessories would kill the system. I learned this driving down the interstate in the pitch dark night @ 70+ mph.... luckily there was another car around that I could follow b/c I had to cut off the headlights to keep the car running, slowing down on the interstate without lights wasn't really an option either...
                        I found the alternator belt loose... didn't know why, thought I was tightening it until i heard a knock on the interstate, another bolt I hadn't seen falling out. Apparently the pivot bolt on the bottom had been loose.... I just hadn't been to an angle where I could see it/know it existed.
                        That was back when Amy had 102,xxx miles
                        Patches...

                        I added a voltmeter, the big 3, but haven't had any electrical problems since. The POS voltmeter from ebay died, so I took it off but had a crack in my dash from where I mounted it by *drilling a hole*...bad idea
                        To cover up the crack on the dash I added a raspberry pi computer, keyboard, little ebay backup cam tv, and have it recording video.
                        The bottom left on the black bumper was always messed up too...
                        Rebirth...

                        For once the car actually isn't bent out of shape. Believe it or not the same valuecraft battery that came with the car is still in there/working though I've ran it down who knows how many times. And the balljoints on this 21 year old mazda are still good. The boots were cracked, but the balljoints were fine, so when I replaced the steering knuckle, I cut a short length of hose, and used that as a rubber boot, that w/ some high temp grease.
                        Now Amy has 140,xxx miles
                        Last edited by 1LordAnubis; 09-04-2014, 05:03 AM.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I want to swap the rear subframe from a Protege LX to get rear disc brakes, but I don't know if I'll ever see one in the salvage yard....
                          Perhaps I'm better off purchasing the Pro LX?
                          I think I'll get rid of my 2nd gen Protege and get a 1st gen...

                          I do want to swap to a BP, and turbo, etc... don't have any experience with it yet though. And it would suck if I did the swap and could never get rear disc brakes on it...
                          I'm going to wait on painting Amy till I figure this out... If I go BP-T w/ Amy, then I'll swap out these fenders (I think) and do a headlight retrofit.
                          Don't get me wrong, the angel eyes are BRIGHT, WAYYY brighter than stock. I'd rate them 9/10 close range, 9/10 medium range, 7/10 long range... vs stock 2/10 close range, 4/10 medium range, 8.5/10 long range
                          vs a retrofit, probably 10/10 close range + bonus pts + more bonus for not blinding ppl, 15/10 medium, 10/10 long range.
                          Though, the angel eyes are on a relay, i.e. you use the switch, and it triggers the relay that runs a bigger wire to the angel eye headlights. Bigger wire gauge= higher voltage = much/progressively brighter lights every increment resistance goes down/voltage up.
                          I might rather retrofit the OEM than the angel eyes... more space/better alignment/cleaner install (I think), I don't need 4 FX-R's....

                          The SOHC seems to be full of life though.. despite me running it for the first 9 months without a radiator fan; I just always kept moving

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Update: I was driving down the road and had a huge misfire. Pulled over and found spark plug 4 had came out of the engine.... too much antiseize... I dunno, its been a couple of years so guess I'll use copper plugs and check them every year.

                            I had a ticking sound prior to the spark plug coming out, got some audio of about 30 min before it came out. So basically, if you hear that sound, make sure your plugs are tight.



                            Also, I can confirm that the mirage halo headlights do crisscross ... you can tell in the fog.
                            Last edited by 1LordAnubis; 02-26-2015, 03:04 AM.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Great work and writeup! I can't believe you have BGs at your junkyards. They've been extinct here for about twelve years.
                              1990 Protege 4WD
                              GT-X BP26 swap [AT->MT]|Cup holder cut to fit|Synthetic gear oil|Synthetic brake fluid|Corksport SS brake/clutch lines|Mazdaspeed HV oil pump|GT-X front STB|Corksport type I rear STB|Matching full-size spare wheel|Homebrew Brass shifter bushing|Speed Source brass shifter cable bushings|EDM headlights/corners|FMIC|EDM cabin vents

                              1 3 5
                              ├┼┤
                              2 4 R


                              Seeking: Canadian 4WD seatbelts.

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