1972 Mazda Rx2- Moves to a new home

[Deleted]

Whilst all this was going on, I carried on looking for spares

Found this



Also found a sill ,rear bumper and a front stone tray



Had another look at the doors. All needed skins which I now had, but the frame on this one was poked



But the chassis legs,windscreen surrounds,sill still eluded me. It was hopeless. I wouldn't be finding these in useable condition in Europe unless I stumbled onto some old stock,but likelihood of that was diminishing every day. I started looking further afield.....

[Deleted]

So I carried on searching. I continued with the beadroller. Finished some more wheels



Initial results showed promise. Just needed to learn how to drive the beast







Felt it was too fast even on the slowest speed ,so rebuilt the toothed belt drive to chain with more reduction. Wobbly first attempts improved dramatically.

[Deleted]

Continue with the foot operated shrinker. Not finished yet,but it's been on the back burner for awhile



Should finish these in the next month or so.

Anyway, things changed again with me finding two cars





Decide to save up for a bit and in December I took the plunge.......

[Deleted]

Whilst saving,I played a bit more with the bead roller. Needed spacers and recessed nuts.



Promising start



Dragged this lot out again, weighed everything and worked out how big a box I would need to ship it 8500 odd miles.....
And started looking for quotes....



See? Told you they would come in useful,lol

[Deleted]

So early December I got up one morning at 230 am. Drove an hour and a half to the airport. Flew an hour over to Holland. Caught another flight from there after a bit of a delay and headed South for about 10 hours. Landed just after midnight local time... Fetched a rental car and caught a couple of hours sleep.

This was to be my faithful steed/ van for the next month....



And this was where I was based....



To be continued.......

[bstardchild]

May 19, 2015 20:18:50 GMT @johnnybravo said:

This was to be my faithful steed/ van for the next month....

Gravity defying VW - just how far south did you go..... Plates don't look right for Oz

May 19, 2015 20:18:50 GMT @johnnybravo said:

And this was where I was based....



To be continued.......

Hmm presses F5 frequently while writing an update for my own thread.....

[Deleted]

I had landed in the very hills where 114years previously, the Anglo Boer wars had raged.....

[teaboy]

I feel totally inadequate, I will probably have to kill myself after reading this.

Goodbye cruel world...

[bstardchild]

May 19, 2015 21:47:23 GMT teaboy said:

I feel totally inadequate, I will probably have to kill myself after reading this.

Goodbye cruel world...

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo - not now please - I can't bear the thought of never seeing that oil tank finished and fitted in the 911

After it's done then you can /joke

[Deleted]

Found the two cars on the Internet. Corresponded with the guy. Was downsizing and was selling his property. Had 17 of these is various stages of decay. A mini retro mazda scrapyard! We negotiated what I thought was a gentleman agreement. He was about 400 miles from where I would be staying but not a problem. He was due to go on holiday on the 19th of December. So, I booked my ticket around that,slap bang in the middle of peak season where airfares are over £1000. It had to be done.....or so I thought

Week before I was due to leave he eventually answered an email that had gone unanswered for weeks. I put it down to him being busy. Turns out he had sold the cars and was already on holiday on the proceeds. Well I'll beef hooked,and other expletives where uttered. Nice one mate,not. I had a booked mini container and nothing to go in it. Had to work fast....packed two pairs of jeans and 100 1mm slitting discs and off I went.

Managed to track down where the cars had landed up and contacted Anton. Really nice guy and only 250 miles from where I would be staying. Organised to meet up with him.....

Had a look at the cars. Yellow one poked,full of filler and sills,chassis legs etc plated over by Matey boy's South African cousin. For the uninformed,Matey boy was the guy that "repaired" my chassis legs before I bought the car, lol. Brown one wasn't marvellous but was better. Anton said we could cut it, and I could have what I needed from it.

[Deleted]

Problem with the brown one was it had sat under a eucalyptus tree for ten years sans windscreens. It was full of leaves,or rather compost. It was rotten from the inside out. Not what I had expected.South Africa doesn't salt their roads and this car had lived it's life about 700 miles from the sea. The sills were rotten as where the chassis legs. Not a good start. Took the sills anyway,as I could always use them as a template for new ones. And the corners didn't look too bad.

Went back to the farm and looked at this for a bit.



Whilst I had been away for a couple of days at Antons, Dad on the farm had made a couple of enquiries. Unbeknown to him,a guy about 2 miles away had a couple of these used for oval track racing. Went and met him and he told be about a scrapyard the other side of Newcastle that had a couple. 250 miles, Off I went for a look see. Disaster ! There had been a fire at the furniture factory next door two days prior to me getting there,that had jumped the fence. Three acres of cars had burnt. One row away from where the fire had been put out,stood the last Mazda they had....

[Deleted]

It was now the 23rd of December, and the scrapyard was due to close for Christmas,only opening after I had left. No electricity due to the fire, no gas for the oxyacetylene as both bottles had gone up in the blaze, and the forklift damaged in the fire. It was 9 o'clock in the morning and already 35c. This car had good chassis legs. It was buried behind rows of other cars hastily bulldozed out the way so the fire engines could get in an extinguish the blaze. I didn't have the time to do a five hundred mile round trip dash to get a the gas axe and a truck to get it out of there.

It sat there staring at me. So near, yet so far. To be honest, I was so frustrated and bitterly disappointed,I felt like crying...

[georgeb]

This is a real saga and I thought I had problems getting parts!

Please keep it coming.

[bstardchild]

I do hope this story has a happy ending.....

[brandane]

This is one roller coaster ride you've been on so far

Can't believe you actually managed to track the cars/shells down after they'd been sold on. Good effort even if they weren't a great deal of use.

Gutted about the fire in the breakers yard but ooking forward to see how you dismantled the car in the end. Hacksaw, swiss army knife, tin opener.

[🇿🇼Kingludba🇬🇧]

legendary status achieved by page 2!!! keeping this on its own tab!! Which part of Gansters Paradise are you living, it looks beautiful.

[Deleted]

May 20, 2015 13:53:14 GMT 🇿🇼Kingludba🇬🇧 said:

legendary status achieved by page 2!!! keeping this on its own tab!! Which part of Gansters Paradise are you living, it looks beautiful.

Dad lives down near the Natal border,in a little town called Wakkerstroom. It's a world heritage site,big wetland where a lot of the migratory birds escape the European winter. That's were I based myself for a Month. Live in Kent in England. Was born here,but lived in Johnannesburg,SA for nearly 30 years. Left about 7 years ago following a serious case of sense of humour failure following an incident where someone was intent on relieving me of my vehicle,I wasn't having it,it got noisy and nasty with bits of lead involved.....

[brandane]

May 20, 2015 15:57:30 GMT @johnnybravo said:

May 20, 2015 13:53:14 GMT 🇿🇼Kingludba🇬🇧 said:

legendary status achieved by page 2!!! keeping this on its own tab!! Which part of Gansters Paradise are you living, it looks beautiful.

Dad lives down near the Natal border,in a little town called Wakkerstroom. It's a world heritage site,big wetland where a lot of the migratory birds escape the European winter. That's were I based myself for a Month. Live in Kent in England. Was born here,but lived in Johnannesburg,SA for nearly 30 years. Left about 7 years ago following a serious case of sense of humour failure following an incident where someone was intent on relieving me of my vehicle,I wasn't having it,it got noisy and nasty with bits of lead involved.....

Ooer that doesn't sound too good. Sorry to hear about that Glad you got away safely, when the death metal starts spraying it's not a good idea to hang around.

[Deleted]

Any way, I digress. Old Barefoot Zulu,with more holes in his smile than teeth steps up to the plate. Doesn't speak a word of English. We communicate with hand signals. He understands. Gestures for me to wait. Old boy looks like he quite possibly fought in the Anglo Boer war...trundles off to return a bit later with a page out the yellow pages and tiny ,battered toolbox. He sits himself down and rolls himself a smoke using the yellow page and,shall we say,some rather dubious tobacco. He smokes,he whistles,he crawls over,under inside the car. Smoke finished, he starts to graft. Non stop for about an hour,singing a eerie lullaby type song/ chant in Zulu. Totally oblivious to his surroundings,in a world of his own. Stops, rolls another, grafts again. Two and a half hours later,still balanced on top of the car below its in two pieces.... I am gobsmacked

No burrs, no sharp edges. Taken apart along a seam in the floor, through the tunnel ,sills and through the A pillars. All sharp edges folded over. Even more remarkable,unlike the events a century before,not a single drop of blood shed. Respect. Humbled. He then calls a couple of boys and they carry the front cut in, around,over, past obstacle after obstacle. Half a mile up to the gate where I am parked. Looks at me,looks at my trusty steed. Puts the front cut down,shrugs his shoulders and trundles off. Returns with a beat up shopping trolley. Balances chassis on top of it. Shows me on his watch half an hour and he wobbles down the road whistling merrily as he goes...

Meantime I ask one of the Mommas there where the nearest shabeen is,an illegal,but widely used drinking hole/ bottle store. Money changes hands and off she goes. Back 10 minutes later with a case of Black a Label quarts balanced on her head....He arrives back,front cut neatly in half. He had taken it down the road to where there was electrickery and cut it in half with an angle grinder.

[Deleted]

We go back inside. Sit on an old rim and drink beer. Decide it prudent to leave after one and leave the Oldboy and his helpers to the rest of the case. I say goodbye and I start the 250 mile drive back to the farm. Have to chuckle to myself on the way home thinking about how we would both explain our day. Sure he went home and entertained his Grandchildren with a Tale about this crazy Englishman who plied him with beer and paid him to cut up an old Skorro Skorro piece of scrap into small enough pieces to fit into the boot of a new car.

I would relate the story to my family about a goofed Zulu Octagenarian who showed me how to cut a car in half using only an old club hammer and a broken leaf spring.