Elephant's Car Thread - 2013 Mazda 3 Skyactiv

[Ze Elephant]

I've been meaning to put this up for quite some time now, and now is the time I've determined to post it.

Last July or August, I got my first car. It's a 2001 Dodge Stratus in "95 year old beige." I prefer the Dodge name, Champagne Pearl, but the paint on it is awful, so I digress.

This is how he looked when I first got him for the sum of $600. I change tires and do oil changes at my uncle's service station, and while waxing short buses there (we maintain the local special ed buses), this car got towed in after being ditched. The lady who ditched it paid her tow bill with the car's title, and my parents decided to purchase this (side note: technically, it's my parents car because the title is in their name and they paid for it. However, this is my parents' way of giving us our first car. The first is a freebie, and no matter how long it lasts, we cover all vehicles on our own afterwards).

As you can see, the beige truly makes it look like an old person's car. Thus, I christened him Reginald, because Reginald is a very beige name.

Some maintenance was immediately required, though. We got a like-new set of used tires for $200 (I love $50 a piece Falkens!), a set of new spark plugs (it's nice having a gap that's not twice the manufacturer's requirements), and a passenger's rear door from a Sebring, since the old one was plagued with classic Mopar rust (let's all agree to just ignore how much different Chrysler beige is from Dodge beige). Next, we repaired the trunk floor, since it was horribly mangled. We cut come pieces of 2x4 and a couple other 2x2 or 1x2 pieces and screwed these into the particle board from the floor. The taillights were replaced with ones that didn't retain water, and after that I decided to pretty him all up with a good wash and wax, a solid headlight buff, and a $25 set of plastic wheel covers.

This didn't fix the dents, other forms of rust (driver's rocker panel and both rear quarters), or the scratches that make it look like it was washed with an SOS pad, but it helped a lot to get this all done (cameo with my brother's truck in the background. Bought by my dad new in 1994, and now has ~240k miles. It's tired, but it's still running.)

Now, I was pretty happy with how everything was at this point. However, as time went on, I got a little tired of exactly how much of the driver's side rocker panel no longer existed (check it out in the first picture). So, my dad and I decided to rectify this issue. So in the summer of 2016, we ordered a $40 driver's side rocker from ebay. It showed up, and it appears the seller threw in the passenger's side rocker for free. Aren't we lucky...

Now the new rocker was interesting. These Chrysler cloud cars (Stratus, Cirrus, and Breeze for the first generation; only the Stratus lived beyond 2000) had terrible issues with water getting inside the rocker panels. This sounds okay-ish, except somebody decided to fill the rockers with foam (crash protection? sound deadening?) that retained water. Add in Michigan winters and you magically no longer have rocker panels.

Anyways, we are expert body workers (as evidenced by the "removal" of the large dent in the passenger's rear quarter), so we went straight to work with the saws-all.

In short, rust-be-gone! You can also see some of the foam we removed from inside, as well. After this, it was time to test fit and install our new rocker panel. Now, how do you install a new body panel? Weld it in? Epoxy glue? Dental floss and bubble gum? Oh no no no, not at all.

Sheet metal screws and pop rivets are the ideal fasteners for body work! We got this on, and then sealed the edges with silicone and primed the whole thing.

I was pretty excited now. All we had to do was put the paint and clear coat on and it was a job well done!

Or so I thought...


We sprayed on some paint and let it dry overnight. The next morning I looked at it and thought it was sorta funky. It looked all crackly, but I chose to do the proper thing and ignore it for a while. We weren't able to do some proper work on it for another week or so, but after that time we painted a light coat on the whole thing, and...

It all turned out crackly.

A few minutes of learning from the internet told me we didn't do our research. Turn out lacquer paint doesn't really liked being sprayed onto enamel primer, and the paint didn't really appreciate the silicone, either. So, it was time to clean it up. We broke out the mineral spirits, sandpaper, and razor blades and got to work.

After many hours of cleaning, it was all cleaned up and ready for some new lacquer primer to go on.

And after this was all primed, we painted it all up with our paint and clear-coated it. After this was dried, we re-did out silicone work to make sure the least amount of moisture possible could make its way in.

This condensed two months of weekend work into a few pictures, and apparently I wasn't excited enough after all of this time to take a picture of the completed rocker. That, or I lost the photo when switching phones... Either way, you can sorta see the new rocker in this picture I took a while later.

So following the rocker panel incident, I decided to leave Reginald alone until August, when I sanded and repainted the steelies. This helped them to look better from the rust splotches all over them, but I still wished I had a set of actual alloy wheels.

Well, October came around, and my priest's car, which happened to be a 2001 Dodge Stratus, was towed in to the service station where I work (my uncles do free maintenance for local clergy). Apparently, his car sometimes refused to start up. One of my uncles priced out what he thought it would be to solve the issue, and determined that it wasn't worth putting the money into the car (it didn't help that this car had the 2.7 V6 that's notorious for sludge buildup). Come to find out, Father Steve also thought the car had transmission issues. So, Father had to find another car since it would cost at least 2-3 grand in maintenance to get it all right. Not worth it on a $1200 car.

November rolls around, and the car is still sitting there at the station. One of my uncles told me he offered to sell the whole car for $300 to a kid who wanted the front bumper off of it. Well, the kid never showed up, so I talked to my parents about it, went to the bank, and paid $300 for the car. When going out on a wrecker call, my uncle dropped the car off in our front yard, and it was time to get to work.

I don't know if you are like me or not, but one of the things I noticed right away was Father's old car had alloys. Conveniently, he got a set of new Coopers put on the car a month or two before it broke. Happy times for me!

I was so excited to have alloys that I wanted to change the wheels over right away. Well, as it turns out, this wasn't as simple as I would have wanted to believe...

You see, the day the parts car was dropped off was conveniently my girlfriend's sister's birthday. My girlfriend invited me over to her house that night, and she told me "I don't think my parents would appreciate waiting for you" after I told her I was going to swap the wheels over. At this point, it was about 3:20. She doesn't get out of work until 4:00, and it takes her fifteen minutes to get home. I budgeted 40 minutes to swap wheels, knowing it takes 10-20 minutes at work with air tools and hoists.

So I pulled the two jacks out of the garage and my dad's four-way get to work. I broke all of the lug nuts loose on the cars (fun fact, the lug nuts on Reginald always sucked, and the other guys at work torque lug nuts on way to tightly, so that made it fun), and then I tried to jack the parts car up, and the jack refused to go high enough, so I dug around the garage where spare wood was supposed to be before finally asking my mom where I could find a 2x4 to stick on the jack. I was directed to our small shed. I found a 2x4, stuck it on the jack, and...

It still didn't go up.

I was rather flustered and talked to my mom about it, at which point I was reminded that my dad owns jack stands. By this time, it was about 3:40, and I was done with patience. I put Reginald on the stands and jacked up the other car, swapped the wheels and lug nuts, and put it all back together. I moved on to the driver's side of Reginald, and jacked him up. Well, I intended to only jack the front end up, but the front and back came up. I put the stand under both ends and let the jack down, only to find out that the rear end didn't come down on the jack stand back there, and the side of the car was held up with only the front jack stand. We all know how we get when it's 3:56 and you're rushed to make it in time, so I said screw it and left it how it was.

I walked over to the parts car and started breaking lug nuts loose on the driver's side. As mentioned earlier, they were tightened terribly hard at the shop, and, while standing on my dad's four-way to break the lugs loose, I got a little too much angle and broke the 19mm end. It's 3:58, and I'm in a pickle.

I ran up to the garage and scavenged around for something, anything to keep moving. And then I saw it, like a godsend: a spare tire tool my dad pulled from an Intrepid parts car seven or eight years prior. I grabbed it and broke all of the lug nuts loose, swapped wheels over, and got everything tightened up and good.

A quick look at my watch told me it was about 4:10 when I was all finished cleaning up and everything. My girlfriend already had left her work, so I washed my hands, talked to my mom for a minute, and drove over to my girlfriend's house to avoid making her parents wait very long for birthday celebrations. I showed up at her house, and she tells me "Oh hey, my mom's leaving at about 5:15 to pick her up from dance practice."



Anyways, I snapped a picture of Reginald with his new shoes at her house, so something good came out of it.

As it stands, this is about how Reginald looks right now, and I'm going to try to make 2017 a good year for him, with more part swapping from the parts car, and maybe some attempts to get some better mileage from him.

 

[Ze Elephant]

So a couple of things over the past few days. First, I did a radio swap between the parts car and my car. I've been a little excited to do this, since the parts car has a cassette AND a CD player. Real fancy stuff here.

Fortunately, this was just about the easiest thing I've done. I went to the parts car and pulled the fascia off of the center of the dash, disconnected the climate control plugs, unscrewed four screws, and then was able to pull the radio out and unplug four more connectors. Easy as pie.

I then went to my car and attempted the same thing. Unfortunately, this broke the center dash fascia. Lucky for me, the two cars have identical interior colors, so I just swapped the fascia over, too. I did the same process, buttoned everything up, and now I have a working CD player in Reginald!

Also on my list of priorities was changing the driver's door panel. The one from Reginald was pretty tattered, and my dad and I "fixed" it over the summer, but it still didn't look nice.
"Fixed" door panel (it's 34 degrees outside, so shorts and a short sleeve shirt are good):

New door panel:

Changing door panels isn't too difficult, or at least anymore. Five screws and some pulling and the whole thing is off. Unplug two connections and you're golden. I've taken this door panel on and off at least five times since getting the car, so it's really not that bad to change. This fixed the poor appearance of the panel, but the driver's side power door lock still doesn't work. I guess that's a wiring gremlin that I really don't want to chase down. Oh well, the car's not that wide. I've been reaching across to lock it for a year and a half, so I can live with it.

Following these two successes, I decided to try my hand at getting the key fob from the parts car to work with mine, since Reginald never came with a fob. Originally I had no luck, but then I found a guide on a Stratus forum that said there was a way to program a whole new one in without taking it to a dealer. It said:

1) Key in the ignition in the off position (doors closed)
2) Connect pins 1 and 4 in the OBD-II port with a paper clip, wire, etc.
3) Within ten seconds of connecting the pins, hit the hazard light button six times
4) Doors will lock, then unlock, indicating the car has entered a programming mode
5) Hit lock on the new fob three times
6) Doors will lock, then unlock, indicating a new fob has been programmed

Seems easy enough, right? Well, the OBD-II is next to the center console under the dash, and I found the easiest way to do this procedure was to lean my seat all the way back, sit in it backwards, put my feet in the back seat, and then get my upper body into the driver's footwell. Then you can get a flashlight on the floor and go about your business.

So I attempted this many, many times. And, long story short, it worked zero times. I called it quits, and went to lock the doors again, and... the passenger side door lock doesn't work. Bonus: the radio doesn't work, either. I checked the fuse box, and sure enough, the power mirrors fuse blew (for some reason one of the first electrical diagnoses on Stratuses (Strati?) and Sebrings is to check the power mirrors fuse, even on manual mirror cars). I must have shorted something out when trying OBD-II pins, so I replaced that fuse and called it a day.

In other news, I'm looking into buying one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/01-06-Chrys...ash=item33be2ed3cb:g:z3cAAOSwMgdXxQH9&vxp=mtr .
It goes in a little center cubby in the dash (you can see it between the vents in the top photo of this post) and will readout average mpg, instant mpg, and have a compass direction displayed. I noticed a wire that was doubled over and taped together when I replaced the radio, and some research said it was for this. Install also seems relatively simple: http://www.tom-viki.com/howto/jr_cmtc.html . If I buy one from Dodge, it's $160, so I think this $30 used one is worthwhile.

Anyways, that's all for now, so here, have a picture of Reginald and the parts car.

 

[Ze Elephant]

Well, not much has been going on, but I snapped a picture yesterday because why not?

Awful phone camera for the win!

 

[ImmalovemaGTR]

To be honest, I am not too much of a fan of big sedans, but I do like Dodge and the Viper-ish front of your car.

But I love your documentation, so I am keen on seeing updates

 

[JER_CREST]

I drive the big brother of that car the 1994 Chrysler LHS.

 

[Obelisk]

It takes a lot of effort to keep something like Reginald going, especially since it seems like the poor thing was neglected by the last owner. Keep it up! 👍

 

[Ze Elephant]

To be honest, I am not too much of a fan of big sedans, but I do like Dodge and the Viper-ish front of your car.

But I love your documentation, so I am keen on seeing updates

Thank you for your kind words. I'm actually surprised at how much smaller the car is than it looks. Surprisingly, it's only a midsize sedan, compared to the full size that my girlfriend's Impala is.

I drive the big brother of that car the 1994 Chrysler LHS.

I want your engine and I want it now. I've liked the idea of a 3.5 swap when Reginald's gutless 2.4 goes, but it's probably not worth the effort to try to put the longitudinal FWD engine in when transverse is the name of the game for the Stratus.

It takes a lot of effort to keep something like Reginald going, especially since it seems like the poor thing was neglected by the last owner. Keep it up! 👍

I've lucked out with him, surprisingly. The previous owner didn't do much good, as evidenced by ditching him at least once and not keeping up on keeping the paint clean. However, the car only had 130,000 miles on it when we got it, and apart from replacing the battery twice (first one was a dud) and having a spark plug decide to become two pieces instead of one, maintenance has been good. I do oil changes every four thousand, and keep up on maintaining what is left good, still.



As far as an update, right now I'm waiting for above freezing weather to attempt to swap the key fob modules between the two cars, and that is going to involve a lot of interior removing. We'll see how that goes when we get to it.

 

[Aerocoupe]

I want your engine and I want it now. I've liked the idea of a 3.5 swap when Reginald's gutless 2.4 goes, but it's probably not worth the effort to try to put the longitudinal FWD engine in when transverse is the name of the game for the Stratus.

The 2.4L is the 4-cylinder, yes? If so, you'll probably want to keep it in there. For one, Chrysler V6s from that era were notorious for sludging their oil. Second, if you do somehow get it in there, maintenance will be a pain as there will be little to no room to work. I know from personal experience with my Buick, and having a big, 90 degree V6 shoehorned into a spot meant for smaller four pots makes even simple stuff like oil changes more of a chore than they need to be.

 

[Ze Elephant]

The 2.4L is the 4-cylinder, yes? If so, you'll probably want to keep it in there. For one, Chrysler V6s from that era were notorious for sludging their oil. Second, if you do somehow get it in there, maintenance will be a pain as there will be little to no room to work. I know from personal experience with my Buick, and having a big, 90 degree V6 shoehorned into a spot meant for smaller four pots makes even simple stuff like oil changes more of a chore than they need to be.

Yep, 2.4L is the 4 cylinder. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I mostly joke about six cylinder swaps. From what I've seen, the only V6 that had sludge issues was the 2.7L DOHC. The 3.2 and 3.5 SOHC sixes are great engines, at least in experience. My sister had one in her Intrepid, and even though the previous owner beat the living tar out of it, she still got it up around 280k before the car's time had come. Funnily enough, it was an F-150 that did it in, not the engine. My dad drove the T-boned car a few miles to the scrapyard, and even then it didn't want to quit. Anyways, I fantasize about six cylinder swaps, rust repair, and other things, but I know deep down that 2001 Stratuses are not cars worth sticking money into.

I feel you on the GM V-6's. That white Impala can be a pain sometimes. The 3800 is decent for oil changes, but checking the power steering is a chore, and forget filling it. I can only imagine how much worse it is on a smaller car like yours.

 

[Obelisk]

If I may add, my sister got a 2004 Sebring with the 3.7. My parents despised that engine to no end.

 

[Aerocoupe]

I feel you on the GM V-6's. That white Impala can be a pain sometimes. The 3800 is decent for oil changes, but checking the power steering is a chore, and forget filling it. I can only imagine how much worse it is on a smaller car like yours.

Yeah, the worst part is that the oil filter is wedged between the engine and the firewall, so either a skinny arm or a long extension will do. Although, once you've done it a couple times and know what to do it isn't too bad, but boy is that first time a doozy. I also hope you never get stuck with doing a timing chain on that Impala, because there's probably a good nanometer between the cover and the side of the engine bay.

 

[Ze Elephant]

Ah, yes, fun quirks of any car. Oil changes are a breeze, but you need to pull the driver's front tire and front of the inner wheel well off to access the battery. A total pain, really, but you can't have everything.

Anyways, I decided to take a picture on the drive home from work today. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of it, even if it's just with a cell phone camera.

 

[Ze Elephant]

Alright, another sorta "update." I have a new front passenger wheel hub assembly, and that will be going in hopefully Friday. I can't wait to get rid of the bad bearing noise.

Also new things to note:
1) The exhaust appears to be sagging near the rear axle, so that will need to be investigated.
2) There is also an exhaust leak somewhere. It's been around for a couple of months, and hopefully we can scavenge what we need from the parts car.

Otherwise, all is good.

 

[Obelisk]

Does the Stratus share any common parts with the Sebring?

 

[Ze Elephant]

Does the Stratus share any common parts with the Sebring?

Yeah, the Stratus and Sebring sedans are badge-engineered brothers. Slightly different bumpers and trim and that's just about it.

 

[Obelisk]

Yeah, the Stratus and Sebring sedans are badge-engineered brothers. Slightly different bumpers and trim and that's just about it.

My parents have a junker Sebring we're trying to get rid of. Problem is, we're in MA. It's a convertible with a 3.7 V6.
Edit: If it's possible, would you want it? I think the exhaust assembly is good.

 

[Ze Elephant]

My parents have a junker Sebring we're trying to get rid of. Problem is, we're in MA. It's a convertible with a 3.7 V6.
Edit: If it's possible, would you want it? I think the exhaust assembly is good.

The offer means a lot, but I'm hoping the exhaust off of the blue Stratus parts car I have will be okay. My only issue will be if it's the exhaust manifold, then I'd be out either way, since both of the mentioned cars are six cylinders.

 

[Obelisk]

The offer means a lot, but I'm hoping the exhaust off of the blue Stratus parts car I have will be okay. My only issue will be if it's the exhaust manifold, then I'd be out either way, since both of the mentioned cars are six cylinders.

Okay. I mean, the Sebrig is useless anyways. The front right panels are screwed up and it's just falling apart. Internals ars sound though.

 

[eiriksmil]

Sounds to me like a road trip and a 3.7 swap is the only way to go.. He's almost throwing it after you..

 

[Ze Elephant]

Sounds to me like a road trip and a 3.7 swap is the only way to go.. He's almost throwing it after you..

Oh, if only... I'd love the power and added gas mileage, but unfortunately the DOHC V6s aren't known for reliability. Plus, and this is a minor detail, it'd be nearly a thousand mile trip there, and then the same back again. I wish money was not an issue...

In other news, I've lessened the intensity of the exhaust leak. What ended up happening was the exhaust hangar in the middle of the car decided to no longer be attached.

This put the stress of the weight of the exhaust system from the header all the way back to the muffler on the flex coupling just behind where the exhaust and header bolt together. Over time, this wore the flex coupling down, and opened a bigger and bigger hole in the system. If I let this go longer, it would undoubtedly have fallen off at some point.

My solution?

I do believe it is quite a fine piece of engineering, if I do say so myself.

I grabbed four hose clamps, put two on the rubber hangar, and then strung the other two together to make one very big hose clamp, then looped it around the exhaust and tightened it all up. I figure it should work pretty well until I can see if the parts car has the hangar I need.

Happily, this all works rather well, and the leak is down to DEFCON 4 levels of severity.

 

[Ze Elephant]

Well crap, I forgot to make a wheel bearing post.

Surprisingly, the overall process only took about two hours, and that's including needing to run back into town to pick up an E14 inverse torx socket to get the bolts on the back side of the bearing. Nothing was stupid crazy stuck in place, and the old bearing definitely failed the noise test when we got it off. So, we got it all back together, torqued in and... the grinding sound is just as loud as it was before we replaced the bearing...

Heck.

 

[Obelisk]

Well crap, I forgot to make a wheel bearing post.

Surprisingly, the overall process only took about two hours, and that's including needing to run back into town to pick up an E14 inverse torx socket to get the bolts on the back side of the bearing. Nothing was stupid crazy stuck in place, and the old bearing definitely failed the noise test when we got it off. So, we got it all back together, torqued in and... the grinding sound is just as loud as it was before we replaced the bearing...

Heck.

Still got that Sebring over here.

 

[Aerocoupe]

Did you make sure to grease it properly?

 

[Northstar]

I inherited my mom's 2001 2.7 Stratus as my first car some time back. It's a shame she didn't take care of it as it was in pretty good shape except for the engine (She didn't get the oil changed nearly as much as she should have) as it really wasn't bad to drive (royal pain to work on though). I had to scrap it a couple years ago with only 110,000 on the odometer, the thing sounded like it was going to blow at any second.

Hopefully you have better luck with yours.

 

[Ze Elephant]

Did you make sure to grease it properly?

I got it as a Moog whole hub assembly, pre-greased and everything. We made sure to grease the splines when we reassembled it, also.

EDIT (condensing posts):
Well, a double post, but Reginald has decided that engine coolant is not longer necessary to function, so he just threw it all on the ground... twice.

Looks like I'll be taking a look after work tomorrow and seeing if I can find the issue. Just hoping that it's a hose issue, I don't want this to be an expensive repair.

 

[Ze Elephant]

Well, one of the guys from work got Reginald fixed up some, and now I have a verified list of things that can be done.

1) Water pump is now replaced and working well. Also replaced was the coolant hard lines that run to the heater core. These appear to be a common issue on cloud cars, corroding and leaking coolant.

2) The driver's side wheel bearing is also bad, and I want to replace this one ASAP.

3) Also, the driver's side strut bushing is gone, and the spring is broken near the top. I never noticed this before, but I have not looked that closely, either.

With this in mind, I hope to pick up another new wheel bearing and then have a strut date with the parts car tomorrow after school.

 

[Ze Elephant]

New wheel bearing number two is on! The process took about the same amount of time as the first, which I think is pretty quickly for doing it on the floor in the garage. This time, though, I took pictures AND took the effort to post them!

New MOOG wheel hub, identical to the other new one:

Wheel and brake are off, and bolts are soaking in WD-40, ready to be removed:

The three inverse torx bolts that hold the hub on were pretty difficult to break loose, but nothing that took more than some physical effort and grunting, because grunting always gives you more power. A little bit of hammering after the bolts were off and all is good:

A short while later, the new hub was on and ready to have everything else buttoned up. Unfortunately, I got a little too excited and put the bracket that holds the caliper on before putting the brake rotor on, so I had to take a step back before I could step forward after this pic:

And here it is all finished! It's very precisely torqued to 150 ft-lbs with an old bending torque wrench, and dust is filling the air, creating the effect of a very poor quality photo:

Okay, maybe it's just that my photo is crap.

Anyways, a quick test drive reminded me that the sound of silence is truly amazing. No more terrible bearing sounds!

What I also tried to do today was remove the driver's strut from the parts car to put it on Reginald, but after fighting with a bolt for an hour and a half and breaking an electric impact drill adapter, I decided to call it quits and swap the wheel bearing and call it a night. Oh well, more things to do other times.

 

[Ze Elephant]

It's a great day today, so after washing and waxing my dad's truck on Saturday, I decided to give Reginald a nice wash, too. Didn't feel like stripping the current wax and such off to put my new sealant. Oh well, another thing on the list for spring

 

[Ze Elephant]

Well, not Reginald related, but my brother got tired of the '94 and decided to get something a little newer and with fewer miles.

So he got this, a 2014 Impala that's 20 years and 200,000 apart from the truck. It's a LTZ 2LT package car, which means it has just about every option available for an Impala. Heated steering wheel, heated and cooled seats, infotainment everything, 11-speaker Bose surround sound, etc. Both of us love the design of the new Impalas, and it's surprisingly spacious inside. My dad and I are both around 6'1" and we can comfortably sit in the back seat and even stretch out legs. Plus, at the 2015 Grand Rapids Auto Show, my brother and I discovered two adults could comfortably lay down in the trunk of the car... and have room for a third person.

It's everything my brother wanted, and he got a great deal on it, too. He also gets the best mileage of all of us, with an average of 26.6 mpg so far, and one of his favorite things was uttered by my dad after he bought it: "Hey, you can name it Baby because it's a black, four-door Impala," in reference to the TV show Supernatural. (Hint: my brother very much likes Supernatural)

 

[Ze Elephant]

Finally got around to replacing the driver's front strut on Reginald today. I'm pretty sure the strut from the parts car is a newer piece, and it has the bonus of not having a blown bushing and broken spring, so I'm pretty happy to have this done. I no longer need to worry about the excessive wear on the inside of that tire anymore

For your troubles, here's a picture of the "new" strut before I gave it a quick rinse and tossed it in:

It's mostly dirty with a little bit of rust, but I can deal with that. I'll probably replace the passenger side strut in the coming weeks, too. Pretty sure you want to replace these in pairs.