Ten Things You Learn From Buying A 80's Convertible

"theandysho - drives a SHO" (theandysho) 08/19/2014 at 00:31 • Filed to: Top Ten Things

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Full transparency; this was my experience from owning a $2,750 1988 Mazda RX-7 Convertible that was faded blue with a faded blue interior. Your experience may vary. But if your budget is about what I had to spend, it probably won't.

Also note this presumes the car you buy runs well and is not some rusty deathtrap. My advice can't help you if you bought a car that doesn't run and looks like it was a stand in for the Explorer in Jurassic Park .

1. Always carry a simple Craftsman toolbox in the trunk with basic tools you think you'll need. This includes screwdrivers, wrenches, and other hand tools. Also carry tools you don't think you'll need. You will need every one you have .

2. If there are any tools that come with the car, leave them in the car. The hubcap wrench, the manual top winder, and anything else that is in the car – is there for a reason. That random bent 10mm wrench you find laying in the bottom of the trunk under the motors for the convertible top? Why are you considering taking that out, to save weight? Knock it off. Now put it back until you need it so it'll be where it's supposed to go – doesn't matter what it's for, just leave it there. Also, shut up.

3. Get a cardboard box - empty beer cases work great - put it in the trunk, and get some spare fluids like engine oil, ATF and or gear oil, coolant, power steering fluid, and brake fluid, as these are the essentials of a running vehicle. The box will act as a divider to keep the bottles from sliding around and keep things tidy if one of them leaks (or if you forget to put the cap back on). Ideally, carry a full fill of each fluid your car takes. You can skip the washer fluid.

4. It's also a good idea to stash some other stuff in your fluids box that can patch / slap together other parts of the car that might "go bad for like no reason". Hopefully, you'll never need them, but if you do, you'll be ready. Items I would put in the box include RTV silicone, various types of tape (gaffers, duct, double-sided, plumbers, and scotch for impromptu birthday presents), WD-40, some para-cord or nylon rope, bungee cords, ratcheting tie downs, zip ties, and super glue. Also, a bath towel or two that you can use to sop up water, oil, or spilled energy drinks / beers, a cheap rug to lay on the ground with, and a basic electrical repair kit that includes spare lengths of wire, light bulbs, fuses, connectors, a few toggle switches, and a pair of Klein pliers, which are the best electrical hand tool ever developed.

5. Speaking of Klein pliers, learn how to: Read electrical diagrams, understand electrical terminology and system function, reassemble electrical components, solder / splice / rewire parts of these systems, and use some @#$% Klein pliers. At the worst time, something (or many things) electrical on the car my die randomly (or all at once). It will then be up to your unlucky, but hopefully well-prepared ass to get a wiring diagram from the internet, pull out your handy tool kit, and spend your lunch break at work in the parking lot, trying to sort out the cause of your car suddenly being illegal to drive in any weather other than the 72 and Sunny that was forecast by Uncle Kracker for that day. Like mechanical reliability, electrical reliability varies greatly from car to car, but if anything goes bad it's much easier and cheaper to be able to fix electrical issues, or in the case of a $400 headlight switch, wire in a simple toggle switch to bypass some broken solder joints - than replacing entire components. And it's actually quite rewarding when you can fix things like this.

6. Always carry jump cables. You'd be surprised how many people don't. If you're running low on space, you can usually wind them around the spare tire. If you're smart, you'll replace the battery when you buy the car. In some cases you don't have to. In some cases you will suddenly accept the fact the car has no more starts left in it, leaving you standing by the door on your lunch break asking people for a jump.

7. Let's be honest. The parking brake probably doesn't work. You can fix it, which may be really easy or nearly impossible, depending on the car. If trending toward the latter half of that sentence, using a couple standard red bricks to chock the tires will usually do the job on light inclines or other uneven surfaces, like parking lots and your driveway, and will usually fit under the driver's seat. That said, do not trust a couple bricks to keep your car from rolling down any hill of sharper incline than a sledding hill intended for six year olds. Don't be an idiot.

8. If the spare tire is usable, carry a can of fix a flat, hand air pump, jack, jackstands, and some wood blocks. If the spare tire is not usable, try and find a cheap replacement. If that isn't an option, or if the spare is just gone entirely, save yourself a ton of trouble and heartache and get AAA. I was lucky to find a RX-7 with the factory spare that was still in good shape. But I made sure it was ready to use. And I still had AAA. And I never took the car long distances with a specific arrival time in mind.

9. If there is storage space still available in the trunk, use it for whatever you would actually like to carry, like golf clubs, groceries, stuff for work, beer, and so on. You bought this car to enjoy having a cheap convertible, after all. Take yourself, your dog, one (or more depending on available seats) of your random buddies for a drive. Also remember that with a little ingenuity, you can probably fit a couple of chairs and a cooler in there somewhere and go to a car show. Or you can whisk away your significant other to picnic if you're feeling romantic (you sly dog). In particular, random shaped objects like folding camp chairs and similar items fit well behind the seats in most two-door convertibles, leaving the trunk space for whatever else. Bonus points if there's a luggage rack on the trunk, because luggage racks double your usable space and they get the ladies flustered in all the right places.

10. If your convertible top has a tendency to leak, or takes a long time to put up, here's an awesome trick. Fold up a 10x8 foot section of heavy duty plastic sheeting from Home Depot and get six decent size magnets, like from old speakers. Use the magnets to stick the sheeting to the inside of the trunk lid. This keeps it out of your way. Instant downpour? You can get the plastic out, unfolded, over the passenger cabin, and held onto the car with the magnets in under a minute. You won't be able to drive, but the interior won't get soaked. When it's done raining, pull it off, shake the tarp out, pack it, and be on your way. This trick works with or without the top up, and is the next best thing to having a parking garage with a roof, or spending hundreds of dollars replacing old and really rare weather-stripping. You may will get stuck with your top down at work as the farm-eating, semi-truck-full-of-gasoline-bomb-dropping, Cary Elwes-career-murdering, seriously-all-powerful-lightning-storm-from-the-last-few-minutes-of- Twister­ comes rolling through some idle Tuesday. You'll realize your freshly-fixed convertible top is both:

Too slow to put up, which is a reasonable possibility if your boot cover is on and the top has multiple stages to close it.

It's like dumping six buckets of water directly in my car every second, the top won't keep all that out even if I get it up in time.

But then you'll be prepared. The storm will blow over, leaving a beautiful drive home from the office for your 4 th of July vacation, with a dry interior and all the electrics still working. And then it will all have been worth it.

theandysho : My name actually is Andy, by the way - I am your typical dorky late-twenty-something, and I travel the United States for work during the week. On the weekends I mess around with cars, videogames, and a dozen other hobbies I try to find time for. Though I didn't write for Oppositelock much in the past, I rent tons of cars for my work and decided I could start reviewing those as something fun to do while stuck in airports for layovers... you know, besides drinking whatever awful excuses breweries in Texas are trying to pass off as craft beer.

Tohru > theandysho - drives a SHO 08/18/2014 at 23:49

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A lot of this was my policy with the 'Scort. By the time I sold it, the everyday carry in the trunk included:

- 2 gallons of water
- 1 gallon 50/50 coolant
- 1 small bottle brake fluid
- 1 can PB Blaster penetrating oil
- 1 jug windshield washer fluid
- 2 quarts oil
- tow strap
- chrome 4-way tire iron
- two factory jacks
- two factory spares
- used serpentine belt
- previous set of spark plug wires
- spare coil pack
- spare alternator
- spare dash cluster
- two sets of jumper cables
- gloves
- old dirty blanket
- fully-loaded toolbox

In winter, in addition to all this it got:

- 2/10/100 amp battery charger
- 60' of extension cord

Zibodiz > Tohru 08/19/2014 at 00:14

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spare dash cluster

There's gotta be a good story behind that one.

rb1971 ARGQF+CayenneTurbo+E9+328GTS+R90S > theandysho - drives a SHO 08/19/2014 at 00:22

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Fun fact: the top in my 1990 RX7 convertible leaked from new. Not a lot, but a fairly steady one drop/60 seconds. Right at the intersection of the A-piller and the top - also known as right on the driver's leg where it might look like you needed some Depends.

Still a great car.

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > theandysho - drives a SHO 08/19/2014 at 00:25

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You're making me get all misty-eyed about my old RX-7 convertible... I'm seriously thinking about selling the Fiat to get one.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > theandysho - drives a SHO 08/19/2014 at 06:45

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Perfect article :) I'm planning the first long road trip for the Jag XJ40 in September, and a lot of this will go into the travel toolkit for that.

The plan is to take it from Cowden in the south-east of England, to Bath in the west-country, then down to Portsmouth for a ferry to France, then from Le Havre to a tiny little village in the Loire valley where we've got a little barn conversion holiday home, then back to Calais, channel tunnel to Dover and then back to my GFs in Hailsham :) a distance of 841 miles

tc_corty > Tohru 08/19/2014 at 09:08

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That is prepared, and makes me a little worried owning a smaller ford...

Tohru > Zibodiz 08/19/2014 at 09:35

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A state highway I had to take to get to work was so rough the mounts for the speedo head broke off and caused the speedo to quit working. I had kept the cluster from my parts car, so I put its speedo head in my cluster. Then I got a salvage speedo head to refill the parts cluster, and stuck it in the trunk.

Tohru > tc_corty 08/19/2014 at 09:38

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The benefit to this preparedness is that I was able to replace a bad timing belt tensioner in a parking lot on New Year's Eve and avoided being stranded 35 miles from home... and replace a malfunctioning alternator at night in a parking lot to avoid being stranded 25 miles from home.

theandysho - drives a SHO > rb1971 ARGQF+CayenneTurbo+E9+328GTS+R90S 08/19/2014 at 10:22

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Mazda incorporated little catch pans into the top seals right where you're talking about, and they had zero effect on actually keeping water off the driver or the floorboards. The seals along the back of the targa top worked great in the center, but toward the windows (and in my case right at where my left shoulder would be) there might as well have been a faucet instead.

rb1971 ARGQF+CayenneTurbo+E9+328GTS+R90S > theandysho - drives a SHO 08/19/2014 at 10:25

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I know it's weird. Those little catchments would actually fill first before the water dripped. I never had any problem with the rear seals (or really any other seals on that car), but that one spot could never get adjusted or siliconed to be quite right.

By the way, I had a funny thing on mine that I might as well share. When it was parked outside in freezing weather (very rarely on my car) it had a serious and dangerous hesitation problem. Turned out that water got into part of the fuel delivery system in the factory - not into the fuel itself but the mechanical pumps, which caused them to fail when it froze. Took two years to figure that out, since I didn't live somewhere generally cold. I can't imagine yours both had that problem initially and it hasn't been fixed, but if you see those systems I'd check the fuel delivery.

theandysho - drives a SHO > rb1971 ARGQF+CayenneTurbo+E9+328GTS+R90S 08/19/2014 at 10:50

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I wound up selling it last summer to a older fella, who was 25 when they first came out and couldn't afford one back in '88. He'd been looking for a restored car, but wound up picking up mine as a resto project for himself. I never had issues with hesitation or the ECU issue that was common with the older FC's. Like I said, it ran and drove great. Everything else on it had the temper of a five year old in a toy store.