The truck still looks great sir, and I'm in my early 30's and already find myself leaning towards practicality over pure style points.
No shame. Do what allows YOU to enjoy the thing, after all what else do we do this for?
The truck still looks great sir, and I'm in my early 30's and already find myself leaning towards practicality over pure style points.
No shame. Do what allows YOU to enjoy the thing, after all what else do we do this for?
Swapping the wheels and adjusting the suspension for the sake of practicality makes TOTAL sense to me. The loss of the decals was a bit sad. Does anyone make reproductions?
Several folks have mentioned replacing the body decals. And, I'm not in disagreement. But, they were only used on 1986 trucks with the SE5 package. That's not a big number. I've never found any channel for getting replacements.
Just know that in person, the original decals had faded from black to white in some areas. And one side was way worse than the other. They really looked shabby. The truck may look more generic now, but it's more tidy looking, albeit, lower on the cool scale.
But man, does it do little truck stuff well.
There are a few folks here who could recreate those for you
For the first time under my ownership, the pickup demanded some unscheduled repair.
Just read through this whole thread over the past couple days. Now I really want a mini truck! As others have said, your attention to detail is INCREDIBLE! Love the old wheels, but even now with the truck raised up and on "stock" wheels it looks great. Having something that looks plain-jane and only you know all the hard work that has gone into it is super cool, and it's just hard to beat practicality. Time to start looking for an old hardbody... 
Thank you Sethmeister. I still love the little truck dearly.
Funny how my emotions work. If you noticed throughout the early part of this build there was a white Toyota Tacoma in the background of a few pictures. I bought it brand new. TRD Off Road. Small lift. TRD Pro grille. What a nice truck. Freaking nice truck. But I was indifferent to it after the new wore off. I just didn't care for the thing so I sold it after a year and 14k miles. Yet, here I am proclaiming my love for a shabby little Mazda pickup. Ironically I have the same thing going with my other vehicle. I've got a pretty damn slick 80 series Land Cruiser. I'm totally meh about it. It just doesn't blow my skirt up. I'm sure it will go down the road to its next home soon enough. Not my little Mazda though.
I still surf the web several times per day looking for the right set of wheels for this truck. I'll find some eventually. Something narrower than the wheels I had on it but not as stock as these 14s are.
First post here, I've been reading the forums here for a while now and somehow never ventured into this thread. Started into it this morning at the end to see if I was interested in the whole read. Page 15 I see mention of Fort Worth.. cool, maybe I'll see something I recognize since I'm from that area myself. Hey, neat, I know that Ace hardware - used to frequent it myself when I lived in that great city.. hey he's a fire fighter there too, wonder if he knows.. no, couldn't be the same.. off to the begining. Holy Cow.
Cousin_Eddie you were the first person I ever met from an online forum close to 20 years ago when you came to my house one Saturday morning after a shift and gave me some tips and information about swapping my 1967 Suburban from I6/manual to V8/automatic. I thoroughly enjoyed watching your work then and still do today, Chevy trucks, Dodge trucks, motorcycles, and now import options too.
CJeter said:First post here, I've been reading the forums here for a while now and somehow never ventured into this thread. Started into it this morning at the end to see if I was interested in the whole read. Page 15 I see mention of Fort Worth.. cool, maybe I'll see something I recognize since I'm from that area myself. Hey, neat, I know that Ace hardware - used to frequent it myself when I lived in that great city.. hey he's a fire fighter there too, wonder if he knows.. no, couldn't be the same.. off to the begining. Holy Cow.
Cousin_Eddie you were the first person I ever met from an online forum close to 20 years ago when you came to my house one Saturday morning after a shift and gave me some tips and information about swapping my 1967 Suburban from I6/manual to V8/automatic. I thoroughly enjoyed watching your work then and still do today, Chevy trucks, Dodge trucks, motorcycles, and now import options too.
CJ ! Fantastic to hear from you. Every time I drive by the school I look south at your old house there on the corner and wonder what became of you. Last time i saw you I had done some powdercoating on guitar parts for you. You were living out 199, in deep Parker County. Man I hope all is well with you. It's so good to hear from you.
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
Yes sir, all is well. Hope it is for you too. I'm on the other side of the metroplex now in Richardson and still selling Dodge parts. I say a little prayer every time I pass a wreck with firetrucks and ambulances out - for you specifically, and for those having to be out dealing with it, that you all are safe. I'm headed to look up your other builds here, there is something almost therapeutic seeing and reading your posts and your attention to detail.
CJeter said:In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
Yes sir, all is well. Hope it is for you too. I'm on the other side of the metroplex now in Richardson and still selling Dodge parts. I say a little prayer every time I pass a wreck with firetrucks and ambulances out - for you specifically, and for those having to be out dealing with it, that you all are safe. I'm headed to look up your other builds here, there is something almost therapeutic seeing and reading your posts and your attention to detail.
I'm trying to think about my builds on here. I did a 1974 C10. That one wasn't really too interesting looking back. Normal C10 stuff. I did a little 500 dollar 2000 Honda Civic. That's probably my favorite build. No new ground covered but I enjoyed it immensely. And I did my Miata. I'm not real sure how to search them out for you. They're here somewhere though.
Still enjoying my Mazda ownership. This is a good truck ! Mazda used to call their cars GLC (great little car). This should be the Mazda GLT (great little truck).
I developed an oil leak which took some effort to figure out. The driver side of the engine was getting an oily film. I finally figured out it was leaking out of the distributor cap. The oil seal on the distributor shaft had failed. Not the o-ring on the body, but the internal seal. That was a tough one to find. I finally found a dude on eBay who had some random obsolete Mazda NOS parts and the seal was one of them.
Once I got it, a quick disassembly of the distributor was all it took to swap the seal and get the oil leak handled.
Later this week when I'm at work I'll do an engine bay detail to get it back to where it should be. I don't like dirty engines.
I also stumbled across something I had been looking for for a long time. I found a set of stock chrome Mazda wheels. Young dude had them on Facebook for 300 bucks. I offered 200 and he took it. It is surprisingly hard to find stuff for this truck, particularly something like these wheels.
Parked in front of my other current project truck.
I am currently shopping for a new head unit for the stereo in the truck. I'm using a cool vintage one but I'm ready to compromise to modernity to get my blue tooths. Covid and chip shortages or whatever is making buying a radio tough though.
I hear that. The chip shortage has made stereo buying quite the chore. I'm in desperate need of tunes for my truck, but no one has what I want in stock. It's frustrating.
I love them both. Did you do a thread on the GMT400 truck?
But yeah...80s trucks for the win!
JeremyJ said:I hear that. The chip shortage has made stereo buying quite the chore. I'm in desperate need of tunes for my truck, but no one has what I want in stock. It's frustrating.
All I want are bluetooth and the ability to run Spotify and four pre-amp outputs. But the pickings are sure slim. I'm afraid this whole situation is going to be the demise of a lot of places. Crutchfield can't keep the wheels turning when they don't have anything to sell. It seems only a matter of time.
ClemSparks said:I love them both. Did you do a thread on the GMT400 truck?
But yeah...80s trucks for the win!
No build thread on the GMT400. It's a 94 model that I paid a little bit too much for. But an older lady owned it and had bought it brand new at the local Chevy dealer. It's never been painted (though it needs it) so it's an honest truck with nothing ugly lurking anywhere. Texas, so no rust, just a sun baked. When I got it I did a full suspension rebuild and lowering. New brakes and tires and all the underneath stuff.
Then I converted it to 88-89 front grille and light setup using a bunch of NOS GM parts. That took a while to accumulate everything (and pay for it).
Right now I'm doing up the drivetrain for it.
Though I've been dragging my feet on the drivetrain swap. A couple of little details just don't sit right with me and I'm mentally grinding through my options.
Details like what?
(I love your truck builds)
SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) said:Details like what?
(I love your truck builds)
My cam. Engine management. Injectors. Tuning.
For some reason I'm high centered. I've chosen a cam that I believe in. I had the trans fully fortified and a looser converter built. I just need to decide on which injectors I'm going to run (stock 5.3 injectors are over taxed when run with much of a cam). And I need to decide if I'm going to use the GM harness and computer with my HP Tuners that I already own or just buy the Holley Terminator X system to alleviate all turning hassles. I'm no tuner and lately I haven't been too motivated to go down yet another rabbit hole in life trying to teach myself to tune. And I don't trust people to do it for me.
Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:
Though I've been dragging my feet on the drivetrain swap. A couple of little details just don't sit right with me and I'm mentally grinding through my options.
Boy, do I know that feeling!
I sure appreciate you sharing those details and I can assure you I'd follow along if you decide to chronicle your swap on that truck!
Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) said:Details like what?
(I love your truck builds)
My cam. Engine management. Injectors. Tuning.
For some reason I'm high centered. I've chosen a cam that I believe in. I had the trans fully fortified and a looser converter built. I just need to decide on which injectors I'm going to run (stock 5.3 injectors are over taxed when run with much of a cam). And I need to decide if I'm going to use the GM harness and computer with my HP Tuners that I already own or just buy the Holley Terminator X system to alleviate all turning hassles. I'm no tuner and lately I haven't been too motivated to go down yet another rabbit hole in life trying to teach myself to tune. And I don't trust people to do it for me.
Find oem ls3/7 injectors for plenty of headspace and the cheap adapters to fit your rail. I snagged low mile ones for 75 or so and think I still have them in the basement if you want them for that shipped? I upgraded when I switched to e85.
You could decap your injectors for free, and flow enough for a decent turbo. In thoery you just change the injector flow data in HPT and not have to touch the factory tune at all.
Though, if you have enough of a cam that you need a converter, there's going to be some tuning.
If you can tune a carb, you can tune EFI. You're either adding or removing spark and fuel.
If it were me, decaps and HPT. GM has a very drivable package, and that's the way I'm going to go on my '61/LQ4/4L80E/7875-turbo
Well I have been daily driving the Mazda pretty much all year so far. My Honda sits in the shop at my rent house just gathering dust. I figure I'll give the Honda to my daughter when she starts bugging me for her first car.
I've noticed lately that the Mazda is getting more comments from people. Even here in rust-free Texas these trucks are very rare.
I've been riding my bicycles about 150 miles per week lately so I built a bracket for the bed to mount my bikes to for more secure traveling. I went ahead and made it for two bikes in case I ever get a friend.
Then the other morning the truck forced me to do some work on it. The heater blower motor started only working on "HI" setting. 100 percent of the time that's a blower motor resistor. So, Rockauto and 30 dollars spent.
I know this is all boring stuff, but I figured I'd dredge this thread up any time I had to do any repair to the truck. Fortunately that's not very often. I still love this little truck but I will admit when I daily driver it for weeks at a time it does wear on me a little bit as to how crude it is. Power steering and an automatic transmission would be nice.
The auto industry is in a terrible state nowadays when they don't sell little trucks like this. If any manufacturer would sell me a small pickup for 30k or less I'd buy it. Give me a single cab and a six foot bed and I'll write the check today. I learned many years ago to never buy something that doesn't suit your needs. And high sitting, four door, miniature bed pickups do not suit my purposes. So I keep driving this thing and try not to let it annoy me, wishing it was a bit more luxurious than it is.
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
Glad to hear your Mazda is still trucking along!
Nice Rack! I love that the truck is still loved. One of these popped up for sale locally and I'm having a hard time of not thinking about bringing it home.
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