Comet's 97 BRG Build

[Lokiel]

Great work, love seeing restorations and if you keep it as authentic as possible, it'll be an investment.

[green_comet]

Cheers for the kind words guys.

Great work, love seeing restorations and if you keep it as authentic as possible, it'll be an investment.

That's the plan, I will be doing light mods to it but nothing silly that'll take away value. Any mods will be very clean and focused around making it look a little nicer, make it more liveable and better to drive. It's a 180,000km car so it's never going to be a concourse showpiece, I plan on keeping this for a long time, so I'm trying to do everything once and do it right.

[greenMachine]

Great work, impressive results! The BRG/tan is a special combo as far as I am concerned, and you are doing it proud. I look forward to seeing future updates.

[StillIC]

From someone (me) whose own MX5 is a street dríven track car, fairly heavily modified, and who doesn't care about originality, I think you've done a bloody excellent restoration. The effort you have gone to is immense. I understand the time involved just in sourcing all the parts, much less removal, cleaning/repair and replacement. I wish I had your determination and eye for excellence.

[93_Clubman]

Great job Ryan!

[luzinit]

Great thread and restoration. Thank you for sharing. Have a BRG myself and this is definitely inspiring. I wish my seats were in that great condition!!

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[green_comet]

Small update, after 3 years of searching I finally got my hands on a clean set of V-Special tan door trims with the sexy stainless speaker covers, I almost gave up on ever finding a set that weren't destroyed . I also had an Amayama order turn up a few weeks ago, new headlight trims, new rubber seals for the doors, windshield, hardtop, etc, and the big box at the back is a new rear belt line moulding. Nearly time for paint.

[madkeen]

Impressive beyond words! Congrats! I drive a nice '96 BRG but it suddenly feels a bit trashy compared to what you you're doing. Brilliant

[green_comet]

Well it's been more than 12 months since my last post, thought I'd update.

I've been pretty busy with work and renovating the house, me and the misses planned a wedding, got married and have been travelling, so haven't had a huge amount to time to dedicate. The car's still sitting in my garage and I'm still collecting parts.

Seriously though, I've stripped off the front and rear bumpers along with all the glass, door handles, window motors and other bits and pieces. It'll be going in for paint in the coming weeks, so I'm pretty excited for that.

I'm still slowly sourcing parts, picked up a new front bumper, Fujitsubo Super EX headers, original Mazda boot lip spoiler, front & rear Whiteline sways with adjustable end links, sway bar reinforcement blocks, I.L Motorsport complete bushing set, Mazda competition engine mounts, front & rear lower lip spoilers and a bunch of other little bits and pieces.

That's about it for now, I'm currently organising paint which I'm very much hoping will happen in the next month or two. So here's hoping my next update is everything getting a fresh coat of paint and the car is starting to go back together.

[luzinit]

Exciting dude, where are you taking it to get painted? Will you be going single stage like original or clear on top?

Asking as I'm looking for someone to repaint my hardtop, rear bar and number plate garnish as well for my brg.

Keen to know how you go with the bushings as well.



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[Jeo]

after 3 years of searching I finally got my hands on a clean set of V-Special tan door trims with the sexy stainless speaker covers, I almost gave up on ever finding a set that weren't destroyed .

Somewhat depressing in hindsight but a little over 10 years ago I threw pretty much an entire tan interior in the dumpster at my apartment complex, including said speaker trims in admittedly not great condition. Someone had given it to me after stripping it out of a track car. I only wanted a couple of pieces but they wanted it gone so I took the whole thing. I cannibalised a couple of pieces that were in better condition than either my AUDM LE or JDM V Special II, tried to give away anything else, couldn't, so in the bin it went.

Car looks real tidy though. Well done!

[bruce]

Panel shops stopped using single stage paint decades ago. I don't think anyone sells it anymore.

[green_comet]

Panel shops stopped using single stage paint decades ago. I don't think anyone sells it anymore.

Single stage enamel is something that went away ages ago, but 2k single stage (direct gloss) is still very much used.

Exciting dude, where are you taking it to get painted? Will you be going single stage like original or clear on top?

I'm getting the car painted at the panel shop my cousin works for, it's a huge new place with all the latest gear and a few ovens.

I had their head painter come out and look at the car, he highly recommended using a single stage 2k paint. Said it'll look wrong going two stage and that the single stage paint will look more like the factory paint. It's what he recommends to people with older restorations in order to match the look of old single stage solid colour enamel paints.



I follow a painting guy on YouTube that painted a BRG a while back, he used single stage 2k on the car and it came out great.

Somewhat depressing in hindsight but a little over 10 years ago I threw pretty much an entire tan interior in the dumpster at my apartment complex, including said speaker trims in admittedly not great condition. Someone had given it to me after stripping it out of a track car. I only wanted a couple of pieces but they wanted it gone so I took the whole thing. I cannibalised a couple of pieces that were in better condition than either my AUDM LE or JDM V Special II, tried to give away anything else, couldn't, so in the bin it went.

Yeah it's crazy looking back at how many bits I've thrown out over the years that are hard to find now.

[bruce]

Good to learn that single stage paint still exists.
That panel shop is huge.

[RS2000]

You can still buy auto solid colours in enamel & 1K acrylic, as well as 2K acrylic, if you so desire. They don't have to be clear coated, but it does add extra protection.