Heres the thread on my waffle restoration. These aren't waffles but its the same
process mostly.

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-specific-1979-1985-18/sa-waffle-wheel-refurb-771611/

 

Nice write up Tim. I'm not being quite as compulsive as you with your waffles - I'm not doing the back sides for example - but from what I've seen so far they are going to be fantastic.

Even better than the waffles, IMHO, but that's just because of the superiority of the classic X wheel design. The aluminum polishes up like silver.

I started out, with the help of Cathy, the artist in the family, hand painting the gun metal gray part. Lot's of work. After one wheel we changed strategies and went with masking.

Here's a wheel after stripping with some generic paint stripper from home depot



And here's one taped out. I used masking for the surrounds and clear packing tape for the X parts so that I could easily see where to cut with the exacto knife to cut out the black parts.



This evening I'm going to spray paint the X parts with some gray primer. Then the hard part, finding some spray enamel that's a reasonable facsimile of the original Mazda wheel color. Autozone doesn't have it. Home depot doesn't have it. Our local hardware store doesn't either.

 

Heres a pick of my waffles after 3+ years of hard use to inspire you Ray. I think your
plus wheels are going to look real nice when your done, well as nice as plus wheels
can anyway

 

Tim, they are called "X" wheels, not "plus" wheels. "X" as in "EXCELLENT" and "EXCEPTIONAL", the much improved wheel that followed and replaced the "WAFFLE" or "W" wheel.

So OK, those do look good for Waffles. I'm inspired.

Here's the progress, the X wheels are now ready to go back on the car.

Black paint applied:





After a bit of touch up and cleaning





There's a short delay right now while I paint the rest of the car but I should have some whole car photos ready to go by early next week.

 

Looking good Ray. Lets just call them wheels for now

So when do you think the silver one will come online as a DD for you?

 

u did a great job on those wheels ray.

 

Thanks Michael and Tim, I'm having a good time fixing the Old Girl up and trying hard to do a good job without being a perfectionist about it.

Except the X wheels. Those are perfect.

As far as DD goes, I must confess that I haven't been hurrying to get her back into service for the 110 mile jaunt into Atlanta each day with the temps hovering in the mid 90's for the last few weeks and the next few weeks predicted to be the same.

I've always said that AC is for sissy's and Real Men keep a Mazda Protege5 backup for the hot days, so I'll probably keep driving the nice cool MP5 for the next few weeks while I diddle with the Silver One.

One my list are:

1) Paint all those black trim piece around the windshield back to black, you know the ones that routinely start turning chrome after a few months.

2) Give the front and rear bumper trim strips a fresh coat of black Rustoleum spray.

3) Finish rattle can painting the hood with Rustoleum Silver Metallic, which I started last spring.

4) Paint a few balding spots on the roof with the silver metallic.

5) Clear coat all the rattle can areas with some professional clear coat I bought on ebay yesterday using my new spray gun, also bought on ebay.

From 10 feet she ought to look pretty darn good.

 

Oh, great... now I gotta clean and paint my wheel wells...

 

My thoughts exactly plus I need to paint my window trim and then refurb my wipers.

Ray your killin' us!

 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I'm painting the wiper arms and door mirrors too.

 

Nail update:

Here's what needed to be fixed









Some masking action

 

What we got









Hoping the clear coat will arrive tomorrow.

 

Im so jelous of your patience every time i read one of your threads. I wish i had the same drive as you when fixing up my 7.. Once i start DDing my motorcycle i might.

 

Ray, whats the process you follow for doing the window trim? I may do this in the
next few weeks I think.

 

the trim looks good

 

First I wet sanded them really well with 600 grit emory paper to either remove the black paint or at least feather it out so that the finish will be smooth.

Then I give everything a good hot detergent wash followed by lots of fresh water rinse.

Then I mask every thing with 2" masking tape, pressing in the paint edge to get a really good line and leaving the other edge free, so that I can go back and tuck in a piece of newspaper to cover everything up and avoid over spray.

The I wipe everything down two or three times with a clean cotton rag soaked with isopropanol and let it dry five or ten minutes.

Then I give all the fresh metal a light "tacking" coat of the Rustoleum Satin black enamel (#7777 Black), followed by two or three more heavy coats with a few minutes in between each to allow the paint to set up and not cause runs.

Then let it set up over night, remove the masking and there you go, Bob's your uncle.

Sounds like a lot of work but it really isn't, even the masking goes pretty quickly.

 

looking good ray. for a good paint line, have u seen that frog tape advertised that doesn't allow paint to bleed under it? i can't understand how they came up with the name.

 

That's how it's done, all right.

Only real difference from my process is that I use an etching primer on the bare steel, and wet-sand it. And I'm a fan of the Duplicolor trim paint, but the Rustoleum looks to turn out excellent, too.

 

I used the Duplicolor trim paint on my front bumper earlier this summer, I was very happy with the look.

 

"etching primer"

I'll remember that when the silver spots start coming back, probably in about a year, in my experience. Thanks DD.

Duplicolor should be fine, I especially like their clear coat spray. I used the rustoleum satin black because I had a can left over from painting some other stuff.

On the frog tape, I'd have to check out how much more it costs than good old conventional masking tape. Somebody has to pay for all those TV commercials, rather it not be me if I can help it.

 

I think they call it "frog" mainly because it's green.

 

Nice write up ray, I did the same with the same paint a lil over a year ago. Spent hours in wet sanding, cleaning, etc and I dunno if it was because I didn't do the etching primer step or the hot Texas sun but it didnt last long. The sun faded the satin to a chalky black and it has started flaking off all over. I'd say it was about 6 months before I really started to see a decline in he finish.

Heres a link to the folder with the 100+ pics I took og the process.
http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w...20and%20After/

I'll take some pics of how it is now when I get home tonight.