MX-3.com

Car was washed and waxed today (pix coming tomorrow or this weekend), plated, and insured. Ready to go - that is after the list of items above are taken care of....

Good lookin Se. Mine is the same color but a previous owner wasn't a fan and covered her silver.

Today's pix!!

Wow that is a nice SE, I wish mine was so clean.

Looks great! How long did you scrub those wheels ? They are so shiny

Haven't even started cleaning the wheels yet aside from a regular hand wash. 77,750 miles only. Contributes to minimal wear and tear on the wheels. Doesn't help the rust in the fenders due to 20 years of damp dirt stuck in the bottom of them, but that is not a concern at the moment.

Repeating next steps:

1) 4 wheel alignment needed - DONE 6/8/2013
2) Gotta fix the steering - hits the turn signals when one turns the steering wheel. - DONE 6/8/2013
3) Put a few hundred miles on it - if flawless - release to daughter - else - fix more crap.

A few new pictures after the alignment was completed (and the blinker issue is now gone too - pulled the wheel stiffly rearward in car).


Had to take this one:








And not to be shy about the rust in the fender....

This is such a nice car... Sigh as mine sits high in the air with a atx fluid leak an small oil leak and needing new back breaks...

I wish I had this thing...

*sigh*

Solution:

1) Manual trans swap
2) Rear brake swap to disc
3) Fix the oil leak
4) Drive

ganue wrote:Solution:

1) Manual trans swap
2) Rear brake swap to disc
3) Fix the oil leak
4) Drive

+1

OK - pulled codes tonight - 15 and 17 - left bank O2 sensor. Bought a new one - should be here tomorrow (6/15/2013) afternoon. That should take care of the check engine light.

Last is the seat belt light. Not too concerned but want to get it right.

OK - so drove 35 miles on the new O2 sensor and no check engine light and no codes. I think that is resolved. DONE 6/15/2013

The passive seat belt issue was difficult to find but easy to fix.

Short Story:

The driver's side forward limit switch connection under the dash was disconnected inadvertently when the alarm was removed. A simple reconnection of the intermediate connector that connects from the switch harness on the A pillar to the controller harness fixed the issue. The belt works fine now. With the switch not being connected, the module did not know when to stop powering the drive motor so the module seemed to sort of go into a default mode where it would power the motor for a certain amount of time then give up - about 3 seconds of the motor driving against the stop - not good.

The drive motor seemed to be completely disabled until battery 12V was removed an reapplied. Then it would get stuck again. I figured it out by manually turning the motor so it would come off the rear stop. This way I knew the motor would work so it was just about finding the missing connection to the limit switch.

Gotta have a wiring diagram folks!!! Note - the service manual is useless for diagnosing belt issues. When in doubt, get the Canadian trim and fixed belt!!

If anyone needs to diagnose issues with their belt system let me know now before I forget everything I learned today!!

So - all that remains that we know of is to bolt down the spare tire. I think we can handle that.

Kegan - come out and drive the car!!!! As long as I can drive that red one you are getting your hands on soon...!!!

I love Craigslist. And I love the fact that people have stored R-12 refrigerant for almost 20 years. Got a fresh can of it put into the weakened but not empty MX-3. Works a lot better. Definitely not 100% but quite acceptable. Put a little more in than required but I am sure I have air in the system that causes it to be less efficient than it could be.

Anyway, since it is impossible to get R-12 work done now, this will be as good as it gets for a long time.

In this case the can was only $20 so I could not justify a complete overhaul of the A/C system to convert to R134a. Yet.

Anyone else have any R-12 pointers outside of converting to R134a?

You found a can on craigslist? I gotta try that... I don't want to pay for the conversion yet and my A/C sucks.

Not sure where you are in Oregon, but peek at this for example:

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/pts/3893338674.html