Mazda 121 SunTop - UK

[SunTop]

Hi All

I bought this car as a little run around because my car had been stolen. But it turned out to be so much fun to drive I decided to keep it.

The first thing I did was replace the leaking water pump. Since then it has had a new replacement radiator and a stainless exhaust system from the down pipe back. Also threw on some period japanese wheels I had in the garage and new tyres all round.



Also fitted a sporty "Mountney" steering wheel.



I have the dash unit from a Kia Pride to fit as they have speedo and tachometer.
This car was not sold as the Ford Festiva in the UK, there were a few Mazda 121s, but much more Kia Pride units were sold.

I am pleasantly surprised that this little car is so popular stateside, I supposed they must have sold quite a few.

Looking forward to reading up on what members are doing to keep their cars on the road.

Cheers
James

[blake4591]

That car looks very nice, what year is it?

Is that a 110 mph speedo with no tach? I didn't know such a thing existed. If you're going to get rid of it I'd be interested in it.

[fastivaca]

Love it.... welcome to the forum James! Where in London are you? I have a cousin and her family that live just on the northern edge of Richmond Park.

[Advancedynamix]

Welcome to the community! That's a really Sharp 121. I like the wheels!

[sc72]

What a great looking car, congrats and welcome to the site.

[David88]

So nice and quite rare. Thank you for sharing.

[SunTop]

This is a 1988 car.

I do not have power steering so the smaller wheel and decent tyres can be a work out at slow speed.
I am going to install a FB RX7 wheel instead, and swap the Mountney steering wheel into my '87 323 Estate - photo attached

[SunTop]

So I picked up a Kia Pride speedo/tach unit to swap in my 121 - the main reason being that I wanted a tachometer but wanted to retain a clean factory look.



I was hoping that this would be a simple "plug and play" affair, with them being fairly similar cars. So I compared the back of the circuit boards and discovered this was not going to be the case.

MAZDA


KIA


So after inspection I noticed that all the same features were there but just in different places, so with a bit of rewiring they should all hook up and function.
With a bit of patience and time I wrote down all the pin location and there corresponding functions, and then where to swap them.



I then went to the car with my lists and linked up my "spaghetti junction".



The only link i had not been able to work out was the tachometer, but when I finished I had one spare wire and one spare space. Boom - it only worked!



So overall I am very happy with the outcome. Not as easy as I thought, but happy it all turned out right after a bit of effort.

[jawja jim]

That original speedo with 110 mph might be of some value if you list it for sale here. Not for me, as 85 covers my needs, but there are members who aren't/don't drive like old codgers...just a thought.

[SunTop]

So I found a one sheet brochure of the model I have - so I thought I would share.

[bravekozak]

Suntop, that's dangerous. If you had a terminal removal tool, you could have easily avoided all of that spaghetti. Actually, my favourite tool is the green Hero terminal extractor. I bought it from easternbeaver.com
The terminals just click back into the correct connector slots. No chance of having a short.

[bhazard]

Can you show us how that sliding rear seat works? I've always been curious.

[SunTop]

I had noticed some rust coming through on both front shock absorber strut tubes which meant replacement unit needed to be sourced. So i decided to replace front and rear, and while i was there i decided to replace the springs hopefully with some drop in height.

Good old ebay europe found me some shock absorbers for all four corners and I also got some off the shelf springs from a company called DIRENZA giving me a 30mm drop.

The ride handling has improved vastly over that 30 year old equipment. I do have some rubbing when taking bumps at speed, but some gentle massage to fold back the arch lip should help that.

[reddragon]

Can you show us how that sliding rear seat works? I've always been curious.

Here's the mounts





Front of seat is hinged to mount. Rear of mount clips onto a bracket which is bolted to floor.
Pull the grey handles at rear of mount to release from bracket. Pull black lever to slide seat forward, then fold seat forward.