Piece of @^$&(*@#@(


I never thought it would happen, but today it did.
This woman in a huge truck in front of me slows down to make a right turn into this school, but she decides to go right when this kid on a bike is halfway through the intersection.
So she slams on her brakes, and there just wasn't enough time to react.

Speed was only about 5-9mph, but the only part of this seemingly F850 (huge) truck I hit was the trailer hitch.
All of that force put into one little place, and my front bumper is just ruined. Headlights wont come up, and I cannot lift the hood. I have some pictures, but I need to get them developed. Taking it to the shop to get an estimate, but then again, I have no job.

This reallly sucks.
My '84 was in IMMACULATE condition as well. . .
Now it's in crappy condition.

 

That SUCKS dude, I'm really sorry.....

 

Thats one of my bigest fears. Really sorry it happened to you!! good luck on getting it fixed.

 

word of advice to anyone who wants a new car....

if you want to get a new car on insurance, make sure you don't rear-end anyone... they automatically put all blame on you, for following to closely to allow time to react... meaning you get dick **** for insurance coverage...

Jeff

 

Sorry to heqar about that man. Ever since I got my 83 GSL on the road with all its new found power, Ive been extra carfull, and since its been raining more and the roads are slick, Ive been extra, extra carefull. I dont wanna hurt my baby. But there are those times you just cant help it . Sorry man, I hope you can get her fixed up as good (if not better) as new .

~T.J.

 

You'll want to be sure the rad mount didn't move, and that the forward frame rails didn't pucker in closer together in front.

 

Almost did that the other day, too bad man. Hope you can get it fixed soon

 

I feel your pain, i spun out in the rain about a month ago. Bent up the front end pretty bad, pushed the radiator into the fan and destroyed it. (Brand new 3 row core too). Im still working on it to get it back on the road. but on the up side with the hood, fenders, headerpanel, and radiator removed, its alot easier to get to some of the other things ive been meaning to do. Good luck!

 

damn maguire, where did you do that at? almost spun my fc a couple weekends ago in the rain. getting onto bardstown.

sorry to hear. goodluck putting it back to form.

 

Getting on the watterson go into town off dixie highway. It was that weekend that it rained for about 4 or five days. i was with my girlfriend and we were coming back from one of her friends halloween party. I was getting on the ramp, and the back end just started to slide, at first i thought. "its okay it does that all the time" But then it didnt stop and before i knew it i was completly sideways going 45mph, and then i was backwards going 45mph. Well you get the idea, it did that 3 times before i hit the outside guardrail. Had i not of been so tired i might of been able to recover. But its okay, i got some parts fairly cheap and it about half way back on the road.

 

That happened to me last week. Lady in a jeep was pulling out then decided not to. Stupid people. Guess it was my fault for following too close. Oh well, another project for this winter i suppose.

 

i did it friday that weekend. following james and his "turbo can" through the intersection and bam, opposite lock. these tires are **** on this car though. heat cycled too much. i'm definitely not following anything closely now though. thats 2.

 

No joke, im buying new wheels and tires before i put my car back on the road. (k1's and 205 S03's) When i bought my car it came with General Tires, i just never had the money to replaced them, until now. Too late i guess. What cost more than anything though is the $500 checkup my girlfriend got at the hospital for a brused colar. Health insurace wouldnt cover it because it happened in my car. But i didnt want to report it to my Auto insurance, because it woud raise my rate, and it wasnt going to cost alot to fix. Car insurace is such a scam.

 

update for me...

you know that section of metal on the nose of the 1st gen that has the "Mazda" emblem on it? well.. that is twisted and pushed in such a way that the headlights don't come up, and the hood cannot be raised.

After the incident, I flipped the headlight switch to see if they would come up, they didn't, but the motor still wanted to push the headlights up. I couldn't access the motor to disconnect it, so it ran for a whole day. Now the battery is dead. That car is staying put until I can take the hood off, but the hood won't even rise 1cm.

This blows.


Does anyone have a front bumper that they would like to sell to me? That needs to be replaced. The auto dept at my school is rated #1 in the state, top 10 in the country, and they do collision repair for free, if you have the parts.
It's an '84 GS model.. color does not matter. I'll need the bumper, and that panel of metal that has the "Mazda" emblem on the right, by the headlights.

I may need more; brackets and jazz, but I'll find out that stuff later.

 

THAT BITES!
Four years ago the front of my silver bullet got annihilated by an old F150 at only around 15-20 MPH in traffic on Sorrento Valley Blvd. It tweaked the frame rails bad. I took it to a shop and had it somewhat straightened out and made it look presentable enough that it somehow STILL took 1st at SevenStock 3.
The car had too much metal fatigue so I decided to transfer the engine and all the goodies out that I could into another SE and was able to sell the body.

Lucky you Adam, I live in San Diego and I have a spare front bumper, primered and ready to go; as well as other spares. PM me.

 

i got the front bumper too but i am too far away probally. Wish i could help.

jr

 

If you can rip the bumper cover off, and get to the bumper mount screws, you can get to the bolts for the hood, and take it off backwards. (what i had to do). Is the bumper its self bent, or is just the plastic cover torn up? I found parts at www.rx7heaven.com for cheap. Talk to chris and he might cut you a deal. but it took about 5 days to get the stuff in the mail. but i think it only cost me $100 for the headerpanel and the cover.

That would be pretty cool if they would repair it for free if you find the parts. I hope everything works out for you.

 

you can take the entire bumper off without opening the bonnet ... just 4 bolts hold it onto the frame .. remove those and the lights from the bumper and pull it off.

Remove the bolts holding the nose panel to the frame and remove the two bolts holding the panel to the front wings, you should then be able to bend the nose panel down and out the way of the bonnet and head lights it should be easy from then on

 

That header panel is a PITA. It looks like it's just an almost flat piece of metal, but it icebergs on you and some of the bolts are down in inaccessible places

 

its not too bad once the bumper is off

there are -

1 on each wing

2 either side into the chassis

4 under the bonnet in front of the rad

It took me 1/2 an hour to carefully remove both the bumper and the header panel ... only 12 or so bolts to undo ... the hardest bit was removing the self tappers that hold the radiator grille in !

 

I'm sorry to hear about your mishap. I'm glad you didn't get hurt.

Now for some Monday morning quarterbacking. Like I always say, drive your car as if you were an Aztec sacrifice strapped to the front bumper. Save the fast driving for the Autocross course.

My 17 years of riding motorcycles on the street has convinced me of the necessity of this. On a motorcycle, you have absolutely no protection, so your best protection is to avoid the accident altogether. This is done as such: the first thing is SPA. Scan, Predict, Act. Always be alert and scan the road ahead, behind, everywhere. Its far too easy to zone out behind the wheel and become distracted. Its a little less easy on a motorcyle as you must always maintain your balance, but still....Predict the actions of the other drivers. See that guy up ahead who looks like he's going to pull out in front of you as if he doesnt' even see you....assume that he will and prepare for it. Adjust your lane position so that he sees you easier, switch lanes, whatever, This is the Act part. Be proactive. Your action, reacting to the situation, could include using your horn, doing a fast lane change, slamming on the brakes, or nothing more than anticipating, whatever.

It is a very good idea to practice this on a regular basis. Find a very large parking lot somewhere and practice slow and high speed swerving and braking. Maybe use some cones. Believe me, I do this every single year in the spring when I pull my motorcyle out. I also attend the Motorcycle Rider Safety Foundation's Experienced Rider Course regularly.

So how does this apply to us in our little rexs? Just that, they are little cars that offer very little in the way of protection. But, believe it or not we have an advantage in that our cars are more maneuverable. We must train ourselves to be able to take advantage of that fact by practicing. Drill on combining braking and swerving. Apply brakes hard, let up, swerve to the right or left far enough to avoid collision, then brake hard again. Maybe I'm getting old, since I take safety a lot more seriously than I used to and I'm cautious, but then I have been riding for 17 years and have never been in an accident on my bike (had a couple of near misses though). I've been in two car accidents, and in both cases my actions have litterally saved my life (as well as passenger's and the other driver's lives)and prevented the accident from being surely fatal to just a wreck.

 

I like to keep myself "in tune" with my car and be able to avoid stuff like that wheneer possible. But I got screwd last night. I was coming home fro picking up two girls at my old HS (yeah yeah, 3 people in a two seater), anyway, they both managed to put the seatbelt on (haha), and we took off. I was cruising down the road and I got distracted by them for a few seconds, and then, when I looked up, there was a car turning right, directly into my front right fender (I swear no one sees white cars, didnt have this problem with he silver one). I litterly had to floor it in thrird, swerve around this car, but not so much as to hit the oncoming car. Technically, I should have been watching the road and would have been able to brake and avoid swerving all together. Anyway, I got screwed cause there was a cop a little ways down the road and he clocked me at 51 in a 35 cause I had to accelerate DOWN HILL to avoid this damn car. Anyway, the cop couldnt see why I was going fast due to the curvature of the road. All he saw was me doing 51 for a few seconds while I was slowing down . Im mad about that one...Oh well.

~T.J.

EDIT: On an good note, he didnt ask for proof of insurance, and didnt even say anything about the two gilrs sitting on eachothers lap. Haha, maybe it was cause they were kissing, lol. Boy was that night interesting...

 

well... after about 2 hours with a sledgehammer and a ratchet, I was able to remove the f*ed up bumper and get the hood to raise. Jumped the battery, and drove it around for about 2 hours without the front bumper, and the turn signals duct-taped to the fenders.
Got a lot of strange looks. For reasons unknown, the car seemed to accelerate a lot faster without the bumper on it.
Anyone know why?

 

probably because it weighs about a tonne ! when I undid the 4 bolts (thought there were a few more than that) it fell off and nearly hit me on the head ! that would've hurt !

 

the old teck for bumpers includes heavy hydraulics that hang the bumpers off the front & rear of the car, designed to allow the solid bumpers to push in slightly in a low speed impact without bending metal.

Nowadays they use plastic and foam under a neoprene cover, as they started to do in the FB but on ours they kept the hydraulics.