This is just a thread that I wanted to start to keep track of the restoration process on my Pacific Avatar. That's right, an actual PA. And with only 17,XXX original miles. This car is in pretty decent shape considering it spent the last decade sitting in a field.



And to all the guys from NorCal 7's. Sorry that it took me so long to get these pictures up, but I didn't have internet at home until today.



And the plans for this car are as follows. I'm going to restore it to how it would've looked from the factory. I'm not going to try and make it any faster than it was in stock trim. I am going to change the color scheme on the car, as well as the seat material. But that's it. These cars are incredibly rare and I just don't see the point in modifying it.



Well, here are a few pictures from the first couple of days after delivery. Let me know what you guys think.



Zach



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Wow, and only 17,xxx thats nice. Definatly needs a good bath. Hurry up and clean it

More pics



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i likey! i think you should just restore it to "stock"

Nice find!



https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/bigok.gif

I am restoring it back to stock. But I just can't keep that same color. I think it will look good arctic silver with a black top. And the only mods I'm going to do are:

aluminum radiator

ditch the bee hive for a good oil cooler (just for reliability's sake)

a new exhaust (not bigger, but new)

Cool, I like the wheels a lot

I LIKE THE WHEELS A LOT??? COME ON MAN!!!! I just creamed in my pants! Any idea how rare those are??? Nice find! and how much can I buy it for??? Seriously. I call first dibs on anything you take off that car. Which I'm assuming will be only the things you mentioned...



Those things used to be able to outrun Porsche 911s... I have an old article on them somewhere on my computer...



I hope for your sake that motor is still good... should be after only 17xxx Miles.



WHat I don't get is how can sombody beat the **** out of a car that badly in only 17xxx miles??? they should be shot....

https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...DIR#>/eek2.gif https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...DIR#>/eek2.gif https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...DIR#>/eek2.gif https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub..._DIR#>/wtf.gif ????i dont think theres enough smiley faces in the world right now to express my disbelief. . . . i mean, wtf is that?! ive never even heard of let alone seen something like that?? some kind of convertible turbo first gen? i searched and cant even find anything on one of those, can someone fill me in on what ive been missing here? btw, that looks pretty damn kickass and i think your pretty damn lucky, how much did u pay for that?

Quoted from www.stevemullin.com



"The Topless California



From 1979 to 1985, an obvious question was answered by Al Dooley when, as Pacific Avatar, he converted the first generation of RX-7 into convertibles. He had been working as a sales manager at a Mazda dealership, and one look at the new RX-7 in 1978 told him that a convertible would be a natural for the RX-7's clean shape and simple lines. Alter jigging and strengthening the body with framing under the floor pan, inside, and in the windshield posts, custom convertible tops were installed, Interestingly, the trunk lid of the 626 was found to be an almost ideal fit and had to be modified only slightly to be used on the conversions. Although a few convertibles were sold with standard mechanical equipment, most also had turbocharged engines, modified suspensions and brakes, and custom wheels and wider tires.



A series of wide-body convertibles, with front fenders and rear quarter panels flared, were constructed following the appearance of a special for a magazine, including one Twin Turbocharged RX-7 that was reportedly, and undoubtedly, a Porsche Carrera eater. The conversion also got extra publicity when one appeared in the low budget film, "Smokey Bites the Dust."



Several prototype convertibles on the 2nd generation RX-7 were built, though the project terminated when Dooley learned of Mazda's plan to produce a convertible of its own. First-generation cars were converted as late as 1988 with the last going to a doctor in Baltimore, Maryland. Although many were sold in California, Florida was the biggest market for Pacific Avatar's convertible RX-7s. In all, Dooley reports that 126 conversions were performed. The cars were numbered sequentially with a data plate installed under the hood."

That's the only info I've been able to find on the net for this car so far. The previous owner is supposed to be sending up the original sales brochure along with several pics of the car when it was new along with the title. So we'll see how that goes.



As for what I payed for it, well that's a whole different story... The car cost me $450. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif And that was what it cost to ship it up here from Arizona. The last owner is a friend of the family and he just wanted the car gone. So he gave it to me. I really can't complain.



I'm planning on making some really good progress on the interior this weekend so hopefully I'll have more pictures on Monday of what I got accomplished.



Zach

i'm diggin the custom carpets, and door panels and stuff, what color was that car when it left PA? was it that red? or is there white underneath?



looks like the car left mazda black...



a true restoration would be stock to when i left PA, but silver would look great too

The car was white when it left Mazda. PA painted the engine bay black and the car red. So I'm going to black out the engine bay like they did, but switch the color from red to silver. The paint won't be getting done until August so I have plenty of time to think about everything.

Hey a good find man, cant wait for updates. Keep the pics comin

WOW. $450??? I'll give you $1500. lol On second thought I'll take out a loan... what do you want for it??? jk. but here's a link to a zip file of a magazine article on old RX7's. They have the the pacific avitar and a California Custom Coach Targa top (MY FAVORITE. MINE WILL BE A TARGA SOMEDAY)

Interesting read...

http://intertron.com/ron/images/rra1.zip

Thank you for that zip file!!!! That was great! I'm trying to gather up all of the info I can about this car. As I'm sure you know it's hard to find anything at all. What I'd really like to find out is if Al Dooley is still alive or not. I'd like to contact him and the address and phone number in one of those pictures is a great start for me! And they also mentioned the exact model of Mercedes that my top is based off of. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif Thank you again for sharing that file bro!



I'll have some updated pics that have the interior removal in them on Monday.



Zach

It's a buety Rex, or will be:) Good luck on her, and please keep the pictures coming.

no problem. But you def need to keep us updated. You are now an official folk hero as far as this site is concerned! Sure its not for sale?? at ANY price? lol. I'll quit buggin you now.

Nah, it's not for sale. But I'm sure that I could get quite a price for it. It's more of a love for me though. This car is the Holy Grail of rotaries to me and I hope to pass it down to my kid if I ever have one. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif



Thanks for the compliments guys and I will update this thread with info and pictures as often as possible.



Zach

put a RX2 Rear Clip on it!



BTW: Nice Find

that car is awesome!! What i do not get is the fact that i have been told time and time again that i should NOT turbo a united states 12a. Something about it blowing up really easy.... But that has a arkay on it so i am not sure what to think anymore...

Very, very nice.It's wonderful to see something that rare fall into good hands & will begin a new life with someone who cares about it. Enjoy...

You can turbo any motor. It's all in the quality of parts used and most importantly it's IN THE TUNING!!!! Plus, you have to be realistic about your goals. I wouldn't expect a US spec 12A to be able to hold 15 pounds of boost on pump gas or anything. But you can surely turbo a 12A and have it be reliable.







Thanks for the compliments Ernie. I did more work on the car today and will be doing more tomorrow as well. I'll update this thread again soon with more info and pictures.



Zach

Ok, I only had a couple of hours to work on the PA this morning but here's what I got done. I pulled the Weds off so I can get the rotted tires removed. Then they are going to get taken apart so I can get the dishes re-polished and get the center section re-powder coated. I'm also going to see if I can find a shop that can re-work the center caps. They are starting to show their age.



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Front wheel well:

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Rear wheel well:

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Dirty wheels off the car:

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One clean wheel after simply rinsing it off for a couple of minutes:

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Check out the added bracing they bolted onto the bottom of the car:

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Then I went ahead and pulled the driver's door panel off and took it apart. This way I can get the original cardboard panel replaced with new cardboard. I'm also going to get the carpet and grey vinyl replaced with new material. Everything else should be perfect again once I get a chance to clean it really well.



Driver's door panel installed:

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Driver's door without the panel. I guess this makes it official that the car was white when it left Mazda:

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Door panel in one piece:

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Door panel in two pieces:

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Door panel in three pieces:

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And door panel fully torn down:

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Here's the Alpine speaker pod that was on the door. It holds an electrostatic tweeter as well as a soft dome. Seems to be some really nice gear, especially when you consider how old it is:

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This is the only work I got accomplished today. I'm sure that I'll have more progress to speak of after tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do but other than take off the passenger door panel and remove the speaker pods from where the storage bins would've been in a normal FB. I might remove the speaker pods on the front kick panels too. I'm going to talk to Elemental Designs about new speakers that will fit behind the original Alpine grills.



Zach

wow. some quick work! nice! But, just a point of interest for me... could you snap pistures of ALL the reinforcements they made??? When I've got money and time to blow on my car sometime in teh future, I love the look of the targa roof... and really wanted to know what these guys did to strengthen the frame enough to make it a convertible so I'll know when the time comes. If not, no biggy but thanks! The pics are awesome so far, and I'm sure you'll never regret taking this many of a buildup!

Next time I have the car up on jack stands or on a lift I'll get underneath it and take pictures of the bracing. It will probably be easiest when I pull the motor and tranny though. I was actually planning on posting up pictures of the bracing so people could see just how much work went into making this car back when it was new.



Yeah, I have only posted about 20% of the pictures I've taken so far. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif I typically take 40+ pics everytime I do anything to the car. I want to make sure that every detail is documented for two reasons. 1. So I have a good record of what I did. 2. So if I ever need to remake anything I know exactly what it is supposed to look like and where it goes. It pays to be **** retentive sometimes. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif



Zach

UPDATE TIME!! https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif



I started off by removing the passenger door panel just like I did the driver's door panel yesterday. Nothing new to speak of there. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif I did notice that I counted wrong the first time I did a count on the Alpine audio system. It's a 10 speaker system instead of 8 like I originally thought. This car was WAY ahead of it's time! Here's a pic of the passenger door just for posterities sake though.



https://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i...ek%201/231.jpg



Then I started work on removing the speaker pods where the stock storage bins would normally be. And did I ever find one hell of a surprise once I got that stuff out!! Here are the pods before I got them out.



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After I got them out. Here's the passenger's side pod.

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And the rear shot

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Here's the carpet that covered the whole area. And the second picture is the metal frame work that was under the carpet.

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To be continued in my next post.

Here's what was hiding behind those rear speaker pods. This really blew me away. I bet this was one of the best audio systems in any car in 1983!! 3 amps and a pre-amp to split the signal up. PA really went all out with this system. I think I am actually going to email Alpine and show them what I have here. Then ask them if I could send them all of the speakers and amps and have them refurb the amps and replace all the drivers with new ones.



The amplifier setup:

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And the top of the amps and pre-amp:

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Here's the 6.5" subwoofer that was in the rear pod:

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And the 4" full range that was in the same pod:

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And here's the pod once I got it apart:

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The trunk is next!!

Here's the trunk:



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Without the carpet or insulation mat installed:

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And now for yet another part that really impressed me. When I went to remove the carpet from the sides of the trunk I found that they made custom panels for most of it. In total there are 7 carpeted panels that make up the side and rear walls of the trunk. PA had incredible attention to detail!!

Here's the empty trunk now that all of the carpeting has been removed:

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And finally my spare tire. The tread pattern on this tire looks odd. Like it isn't the original tire.

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I made some pretty decent progress today. I still only had about 4 hours to work on the car though. But it should go back together as quick as it came apart. I have a seperate labeled zip lock bag for the hardware from each seperate area that I work on. This will really be helpful when it comes time to re-assemble the car! Thanks for reading through my most recent batch of updates. I'll be working 12 hour shifts and I'll be training still all this week so I won't be working on the car until next weekend. But if you have any questions ask them and I'll answer as best I can.



Zach

I would contact Alpine, they may be interested in resurrecting the old skool units for publicity purposes.

John,



I was thinking the same thing actually. I'm really not an Alpine fan, but this gear is way too cool to just trash. Plus, for 1983 it looks like it was pretty advanced. They still use those style of connectors on their nicer stuff today!



Zach

absolutely mint!!! I can't thank you enough for the pics and updates. I hope you can get that stuff redone cuz wow. did you ever try the radio before you pulled everything apart>???

No, I haven't put a battery in the car since it got up here. I just started stripping it down. The faster I get it stripped, the faster I can start putting it back together. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif



Zach

very impressive! and i, too, thank you for keeping such great photographic documentation of your work. you're a very lucky guy for getting this car, but it looks like you're choosing the right path, which is restoring this jewel back to it's original lustre. thank you so much. it does my heart good to see that this car will live again.

And I want to go ahead and thank Robert from Rotary Shack. He will be rebuilding the carb and more than likely the turbo out of this car as well. I know that he is one of the best carb builders for rotaries in the U.S. and I can't see sending the parts from this car anywhere other than to his shop.



I'll be working on the car again this weekend. If all goes well then I'll have the rest of the interior removed by the end of the weekend with plenty of pictures for everyone to see. Thanks for checking in on my project.



Zach

that thing is crazy! very rare haha

Well, yesterday was a wash thanks to finishing up my X-mas shopping. And today wasn't that eventful. But I did get a few things done. And I apologize in advance, but my camera's batteries died 5 pics into the day so I don't have any pictures after the amp rack removal.



First up I got back and finished removing the audio system. The amp board had about 14 screws holding it to the car. I guess they didn't want it to move. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.gif Other than finding a few screws that were hiding underneath the amps the removal was easy as can be. Here's a pic of the amp rack once it's out and you can see the faces of the amps and X-over.



https://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i...eek%202/12.jpg



Here's the "sub" amp face on.



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Here are the two amps that powered the rest of the setup. They are the same model number in case anyone was wondering.



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And here's the empty spot that used to have the amp board sitting there.



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After that I went ahead and removed the center console. I found an old Cali vehicle registration belonging to Gloria Hays in the center console. So I know the car lived in Cali for a few years at least. That all came out easily of course. Then I pulled the shifter surround, radio surround and the lower center portion of the dash. The radio surround is actually in very good shape. The lower center portion of the dash broke as I was removing it though. :( But hopefully I can find one at a good price. I'm going to need that as well as a perfect condition black dash. So the parts list is starting there. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR



I found a company to do the veneer work for a good price. The work I have seen from them so far has been really nice. And if they do that good of a job on my car then I'll gladly spread their shop's name everywhere.



Sadly, this is all I was able to get accomplished this weekend. Hopefully next weekend the weather will be more agreeable and I won't have so many things on my plate that take time away from my new baby. Thanks for checking in on my thread and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.



Zach

WOW Zach thats better than my vert project.....WAY better!

You have a great piece of RX-7 history. Congratulations.



There are 7 zip files on my site. Change the number in the url to 1-7 to download the others. These articles are from Rotary Rocket. This was the magazine of the RX-7 Club of America. I think you'll be most interested in this one.



http://intertron.com/ron/images/rra5.zip





Ron Slabach

Naples, FL



2) 74 RX-4

76 Cosmo (RX-5)

84 GSLSE

http://intertron.com/ron/