Phoebegoesvroom's 2003 P5 "Scruffers"

[phoebegoesvroom]

Hey all,

I've been lurking on the forum for about a month now I think, and I figure it's about time I posted up something. In June I bought my P5 to replace my worn out 2000 Ford Focus ZX3. I named her Scruffers because the outside is...well...scruffy, but solid. It has a lot of scratches, dings, stone chips, etc. and some very minor rust, but is otherwise in very good condition and mechanically pretty sound as well. It runs and drives almost like a new car. It came with a set of winter tires on corroding Mille Miglia wheels mounted on the car and no set of summer tires, so I had to buy a set of rims and tires. The fenders were already rolled, and I could have gotten 17" rims, but I ended up buying these Sport Editions in 16x7 instead and a set of high performance all seasons since we get rain pretty frequently here:

And here's how she looks:

I've been doing little things here and there on the car as needed, and I'll post up details about what I've been doing. Right now I'm really focused on the minor rust fixes and rust prevention. I can't do any major stuff on the car right now because I'm not allowed to really work on the car outside where I live, and this is taking up all the space in my garage:

The Shelby is going to be on its way out though, hopefully sooner rather than later since I really need to be able to use my garage.

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

One of the first things I did to the car was to try to install an AuxMod board into the stock stereo. Unfortunately, I killed the stereo trying to do that. According to the AuxMod guys, the board should still be fine, so I'll probably end up selling it on here since I replaced the stock stereo and speakers with aftermarket units:

I also put Eastwood's thermo-acoustic barrier inside the doors. It's not the greatest sound system in the world, but I'm satisfied with it and it was inexpensive. While the stock radio was out I fixed a problem with the fresh/recirculate button sticking and the fan AC flickering problem.

The rear wiper motor was disconnected when I bought the car. After testing it off the car, I found that the motor was frozen. Rather than buying a new wiper motor, I figured it couldn't hurt to open it up and try to fix it. Here's what I found:

What happened was the copper that the carbon brushes sit against became corroded (probably from disuse) and froze, burning the carbon from one of the brushes onto the copper and pitting the brush, essentially seizing the copper and carbon brushes together. I figured it was worth a shot to try to clean up the carbon and the brushes and see if that fixed it. The rear wiper now works just as it is supposed to. Hopefully this won't happen again, since I like to use the rear wiper a lot, so it probably won't get much of a chance to corrode and sieze. Here's the "after" photos:

I also made my own cargo cover, since Scruffers was missing hers when I bought her. This cover cost me about $7 to make, a far cry from how much a replacement cargo cover costs:

I think that's about it for now. I'll probably post up some rust repair photos as I get to it.

 

[Wildcat1]

How did you make the cargo cover?

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

How did you make the cargo cover?

I'll do a little write-up of what I did. It's not hard.

 

[zoom zoom sp20]

Welcome to mazdas247

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

Ok, so here's what you'll need to make your own cargo cover:

Sturdy board material of some sort. I used Gator foam board because it was free to me from work, reasonably sturdy and light. You can use particleboard, thin plywood, etc if you want instead.
Gorilla Glue
Spray Adhesive (I use 3M Super 77)
Duct tape or preferably Gorilla Tape
One 3/8" diameter wooden dowel
One thin black shoelace or black cord
Felt to cover the boards. If you're only covering the top surface, you can get away with one yard from a 60" bolt (this cost me $5). If you want to cover both sides, about a yard and a half will do it. I covered both sides.
Two to four bare steel shelving U-brackets for underside bracing. This will help keep the panels from bowing.

1. You'll need to cut out your boards like so:

The blue line on the large panel shows the actual shape of the stock cargo cover. I just made mine all straight lines and it works fine. If you want your cargo cover to follow the stock lines, either trace a stock cargo cover, or use paper or cardboard to make a template and transfer the shape to your boards.

2. After you've cut out your boards, trim the dowel so it's 38.75" long. Glue the dowel to the top edge of the large panel (see photo below) with Gorilla Glue and hold it in place with your duct tape or Gorilla Tape. The tape is going to be a permanent part of the cover, so use good quality tape. At the same time, you can glue your U-channels to the board so that the flat part of the channel is against the board, the open part facing the outside (see photo below). I used just one channel per panel, but you can beef it up with two channels if you want. Once the glue is all dry, test fit these bare panels in the car and make sure they fit properly and that the hatch doesn't push against them when closed. There should be a small gap between the rearmost panel and the hatch.

3. Lay your felt down on the floor and put your panels on it. Be sure to leave a 2" gap between the large panel and the small panel. With a magic marker, trace around the edges of the panels onto the felt. This is so you can position the panels on the felt easily once you spray them with your spray adhesive. Also measure out on the felt 2" around the outside of all the panels, except for the back edge that sits up against the hatch. We're going to leave a little curtain of about 6" to hang down and close up the gap between the hatch and the cargo cover. Cut out your felt according to the lines you just drew. You should have one large piece of felt; don't cut it into two pieces! There will be a bridge of 2" of felt where we left the gap between the large and small panels. This is to cover the space where our dowel hinge is.

4. Now you're ready to glue your felt on. Spray one side of both panels with your spray adhesive and let it get tacky. Then, carefully apply it face down onto your felt on the floor. Once the felt is stuck on pretty well, flip it over and smooth out the felt, making sure it's adhered properly. Flip it back over to your bare side again. Spray along the edges of the bare side with your spray adhesive and fold over the felt along the edges so it wraps around. You can stop here, or you can do as I did and cover the underside as well:

To do this, measure out one piece of felt about 2" smaller than the outside dimensions of the panels together. Glue it on as you did the top surface.

5. Once your adhesive is dry, install your new cargo cover in your car. There's one last thing to do: add the tethers to the cover so that it opens up when you open the hatch. Measure about 1" in from each rear corner of the large panel and make a hole large enough to pass your shoelace or cord through. Tie a knot on the underside to keep the cord in place, make the cord as long as you want, and tie loops on the ends and hook them onto the buttons on the hatch. Make sure that the cargo cover isn't being pulled on too much when the hatch is open or else it could get damaged. That's it, you're done!

 

[CR3 Motorsports]

Looking good!

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

Thanks!

Oh yeah I forgot one other minor thing I did on the car. The "lights on" beep wasn't working and the dome light was sporadic. I traced it to a faulty door switch in the driver's door. I just opened it up, cleaned out the corrosion with a scotch brite pad and gave it a touch of vaseline. Good as new.

 

[RicoP5]

subd looks good

 

[hat1018]

Welcome to the forum! Always good to see another P5 owner/lover. Why are you getting rid of the Shelby?

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

Welcome to the forum! Always good to see another P5 owner/lover. Why are you getting rid of the Shelby?

Thanks! Here's the story with the GLHS...When I was in college, I had a 1985 Omni GLH (NA). I loved that car so much and I always regretted selling it. My Focus was getting tired and I was on the lookout for another car. I saved up some money and was looking for a GLH, GLH Turbo or GLHS (Omni or Charger). I always loved the style of the Charger-based GLHS and I found this one, #151, for sale in NY. I asked the seller a lot of questions about it and decided to pull the trigger and get it. I didn't get to see the car in person before I bought it, and that is a mistake I will never make again. The GLHS is in pretty good shape overall, but mechanically it was not as good as the seller claimed. Basically, it needs a new motor (or the block rebuilt and a new head) along with some other things to get it on the road. I didn't buy it with the intention of it being a project car. I bought it because it was supposed to need only some minor work (turbo rebuild and some other things) and I could get it on the road quickly to replace my Focus. It will cost me too much money and take up more time than I'm willing to give. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a two car garage, or if I didn't have yet another project car that's waiting for me to finish its restoration (that's a 1973 MGB-GT, my very first car that I've had since age 17). So, sadly, the GLHS has to go. It will be a great project car for someone who is familiar with them, and I don't doubt someone will be able to get it on the road a lot quicker than I could.

Unfortunately, I really needed to replace my Focus, so I ended up buying the P5. No regrets about that. I really like this car a lot. I'd like it a lot more if it had the hp of the GLHS, but I digress... (silly)

 

[hat1018]

That is a shame the Shelby was a bust for you. Look on the bright side you bought a slow car that will always be slow but a blast to drive.

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

That is a shame the Shelby was a bust for you. Look on the bright side you bought a slow car that will always be slow but a blast to drive.

I know. I keep reminding myself that I wouldn't have bought it if I had seen it in person first. Oh well. I just wish I didn't have to sell it at a loss, because there's no way it will sell for what I paid for it.

Then I think about the P5 and how it's a lot more practical, handles and stops better, gets much better gas mileage, doesn't shake rattle and roll like the GLHS does and I feel a lot better about the situation.

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

My stubby antenna arrived today and I wasted no time putting it on:

I don't listen to the radio anyway, so I could care less what the reception is like. This antenna is 3" long and made of flexible rubber. I like it because it looks like it could have been a stock part, and it was cheap.

After that I did more rust repair on the door seams. Everyone really ought to check their door seams; mine are all rusty to some degree. What I've been doing is scraping off all the seam sealer with a flathead screwdriver, cleaning it up, then applying Eastwood's Rust Converter. Once the rust converter is cured, I apply Eastwood's Heavy Duty Anti-rust paint. This is great on my car, since the anti-rust paint is black and isn't really noticeable once applied. I've also been doing the same thing inside the doors along the seams. Here's some typical door seam rust on my car, but with the rust converter applied and the rust partially converted:

You can see it's starting to turn black already. It will turn fully black and rock hard when it's done curing. I've used a lot of rust converters in my time, and this is the only one I've found so far that actually works. Anyway, here's the worst door rust, on the passenger side front door bottom (inside):

It's not quite as bad as it looks. It's still solid and not perforated and it's not visible from the outside of the car. This door had a lot of grimy debris inside at the bottom, so I cleaned that out today. It should be ready to start the rust treatment tomorrow if the weather holds.

Finally, I treated the inside of the rocker panels with Eastwood's Internal Frame Coating. It's designed to penetrate rust, stop it from spreading (or forming if there's no rust) and form a protective barrier. It's hard to see, but there's a little surface rust inside the passenger side rocker panel. The driver's side one is clean:

And this is what it looks like with the coating:

I recommend this stuff if you want to hang onto your car. It's inexpensive and very easy to apply. One can was enough to generously spray the inside of both rocker panels. All you have to do is pry up the sill covers and tape over the holes. Then you insert the tube, spray the coating, replace the tape and move on to the next hole. It literally takes a few minutes to do.

If you decide to do it, be sure to put some cardboard or drop cloths under the rocker panels so that you don't get any drips on your driveway or garage floor. I'm planning on buying at least one more can so I can do the main frame rails and any other cavity that I think could use it. My goal is to have this car fully ready for a New England winter before the summer is over.

Oh and in case you were wondering, I'm not affiliated with Eastwood in any way whatsoever. I'm just a fan of their products!

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

I popped in a MPV wiper stalk last night:

I got it cheaply from Ebay and it's in perfect condition. Definitely worth doing.

I didn't do this yesterday, but I forgot to post these up. My P5 has rust around the windshield on the A-pillars. It doesn't seem to be really bad (at least on the outside), but I wanted to stop it in its tracks until I can get the windshield off for a proper repair. Here's how it looked after I stripped it:

And with the temporary repair (Eastwood's rust converter and rust encapsulator):

That's the passenger side, which was worse. I still have to do the driver's side. Luckily the windshield doesn't leak and doesn't show any signs of previous leakage, so hopefully it won't be too bad under the windshield. We'll see.

 

[hat1018]

I too have the wiper stalk mod. I absolutly love it compared to the stock unit. 2 thumbs way up.

 

[DarkAngel]

^^^^^^ On my to do list as well.

Oh and welcome to the forums.

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

Thanks. I did the same thing on my Focus shortly after I found out there was a variable intermittent stalk for it. Why Ford and Mazda didn't do this in the first place is beyond me. (Yes, cost cutting, I know...)

 

[phoebegoesvroom]

I've been continuing with my rust repair on the car. It's been difficult lately though because the weather hasn't been cooperative, and unlike most the country, it's actually been raining very frequently here. I should be done with the passenger-side doors within the next few days so I can finally put the door panels back on. That will be nice. Since the rust is worse on the passenger side, I'll be spraying Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator over the rust converter, then paint that.

Also, I'm pretty sure I have a front wheel bearing that's on its way out, and I'm suspecting at least one bad motor mount as well. I'm going to try to get the car to the shop near me next week to get those fixed, since I'm going to be driving to NJ in a couple of weeks. The last thing I need is to have the car break down because I didn't get something fixed. Normally this is something I'd do myself, but with the Shelby still in the garage, I can't

 

[OGLaughtzalotzz]

looking great so far. the wiper stalk mod seems to be a fan favorite around here lately. i'll have to try and find an MPV locally to get it.