Resurrecting a 144k FD by Fd3BOOST | mazda | rx-7-2 | builds

Home
Mazda
RX-7 - FD
Builds
Resurrecting a 144k FD by Fd3BOOST

By diyauto

( 4 )

6 minute(s) of a 196 minute read

4-16-2014

This past weekend I wrapped up the black painting of the cabin and dynamat. So I put the carpet back in. Then I took the dash apart to clean & painting the rebar and wipe down/ blow off the dust from the harness. I also washed out the plastic vents to hose out the dust from 1993. I also went ahead and pre-wired for the dual gauge cluster in the dash speaker location. I wired up two signal wires and a daisy chained lead and ground wire to each side.

Pics..

An interesting footnote that was not documented with photos.

I had a broken vent on the pass side of the dash. One of the fins was broken. I did have one left over 94 dash vent pass side from my border stash. I went to install and found out that the 93 vent is a different size and shape of the 94+ vent. So I was forced to disassemble the two and steal a good fin piece off the 94 vent to use on the 93 vent housing.

I had a few beers that day and didn't pay attention to snapping photos. Would have been a good post...

Beyond the issue with the mismatched vents. The dash bolted back in fine and is off my list. I did go ahead and pre-wire for two gauges to get mounted on the dash. One will be water temp, the second most likely will be wide band.

A pic or two...

A look back at a few photos of the dash parts under the knife.

Pulled the dash skin off. Lot's of rust for a car that is mostly aluminum.

Cleaned this joker up and put it back together.

So the next awesome foot note. I was able to score some 94 plastics from Rich, Goodfella for a good deal. This was after the little debacle I had with the guy parting out the 20k car in the classified.
Parts all look better than Rich lead on too. He made it sound as though these parts were "acceptable" Meanwhile not one is scratched. Thanks dude!
Pics..

Rich seems to have a heavy unseen hand in this build so far. I also bought this 30th Anniversary gauge cluster from him as well. Here is the pic that Rich posted in the for sale ad. It's obviously green so I had to modify the A/C panel to light up green as well.

So I found a dude selling a JDM A/C panel in the classifieds. I was mislead into believing I was getting a JDM panel, instead I just got two indicator lights and the three *****. The problem is that the fan speed indicator lights

As you can see the 99 Spec JDM Fan speed **** indicators are not in the same layout. The plastic bezel is too large for the '93-'98 panel and had to be cut to fit. The black illuminated face has to be cut and fit to the correct spot on a 93 panel as well. Tedious but simple work.