1988 GTX Restoration - Going To Be Fun!

[slownrusty]

^^^ Haha...cracking me up buddy.

[FE3-323]

cleaning the carpet & floor pan underneath is always an overwhelming task. good to see fresher carpet in there!

[slownrusty]

So a few weeks ago I was heading to work and the shifter cable pulled out of the peg on the transmission due to a very worn rubber bushing. It rendered the car useless.

After calling my good friend who works for Mazda, he confirmed that these cables are NLA and when they were available they were in the $200 range.

So after pondering some options to fix it, I wandered into my local O'Reileys parts store and came up with a solution, it literally takes an hour of your time and $5.

I bought these generic rubber bushings for a wiper motor that have the exact outer diameter and also inner diameter for the metal guide sleeve.

I pressed out the old sleeve from worn Mazda bushing and inserted into the new rubber piece I bought from O'Reileys. I also epoxied it all in place to make sure it would not separate over time and then found a stainless washer of the appropriate diameter and drilled out the center to fit the peg on the transmission. All this work was done with the cable in the car, no need to remove anything.

And voila! Back to running again

Worn OE Mazda bushing on left below:


Right arrow show the new retainer stainless washer to keep everything together and the left arrow shows the new rubber bushing in place.


Hope this helps you guys!

Yasin

[FE3-323]

nice find!! and can't beat the price

[farcryNZ]

Hey that's great work, good stuff


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[slownrusty]

Thanks guys!

[slownrusty]

Front lip installed and the GT in the background.

[Pashka0788]

Your doing an outstanding job!

[Wildfire0310]

I am so jealous. I'd kill to have a GTAE bumper and here you are rocking two :D.

Cars are looking nice, keep up the outstanding job :D

[slownrusty]

Your doing an outstanding job!

Thank-you!

I am so jealous. I'd kill to have a GTAE bumper and here you are rocking two :D.

Cars are looking nice, keep up the outstanding job :D

I appreciate it. Contact Piotr he'll take care of you, I believe he has a really nice one (or two) left. They are available the caveat being the cost to buy, the cost to ship (from Europe) and the cost to make them look good including any bracketry work (as most of the brackets are rusty) based on age, climate they have been exposed to and poor Japanese metal quality in the '80s.

[slownrusty]

Pretty good Sunday afternoon, I installed a new MoMo steering wheel and nice to get rid of the old crumbly and cracked stock steering wheel, and started making a new gauge mount out of aluminum to be installed in the center console (boost and AFR).

[FE3-323]

how much visibility will you have there?

[slownrusty]

Good point (as you do!)

I am going to angle the gauges "upwards" towards the driver, to reduce the distraction and focus time as per the cardboard template I made in the picture above.

The positioning will be similar to the Mk1 VW Golf GTI and Mercedes Benz 190E 2.3-16 if you remember those....here are the pictures:

[FE3-323]

that'll be cool! subbin'

[azgtx]

I keep thinkin about a pod that sits on the dash pad in front of the clock port angled to the driver. That would also have the wiring access available as well as a mounting point without butchering a good dash pad. It could also house the clock as well.