Well I traded in my RX8 a few months ago on a 15' CX-5. Since then I have also been building a 91' Galant VR-4 that I bought from a friend. It was a rolling chassis essentially. Well as things would have it, I was having a conversation with a coworker about one of his other vehicles when another mentioned that I would be interested in getting his truck from him. :scratch: At first I was hesitant as I already have a truck and wasn't looking for another project. Well once he mentioned what said truck was I was hooked. He had a 74' REPU that has been sitting in his yard for years with a busted ignition switch. He's getting close to retirement age and doesn't have the time nor care to put any more effort into getting it together. So with the comment of come and get it or it's going to the crushers; I arranged a time to come and pick it up. So now we can start the fun with pictures. He sent me these prior to me picking up the truck.





As you can see the truck was in a mess of weeds and stuff that had been piled around the truck over time. Saturday arrived and with some help from Easy_E1, we begun digging the truck out and prepping it for moving it to his shop where it will remain till we get it back together.









It took us about 2-3 hours to get it dug out and moved clear of the house. The passenger side wheels were locked up from sitting. They broke loose slightly once the tow truck pick it up. As you can see it was a mess, but from what we've seen so far it doesn't look too horrible. Me being from NC, this truck looks leaps over what I would have found back home.










Once we get things cleaned up a bit more and get the wheels moving freely. We are going to move it deeper into the shop where we will start the process of restoring the truck back to a running driving condition. So far the engine appears to be in an ok condition. The carb and alternator are frozen and will need to be replaced. The oil and coolant looked healthy enough, but we are going to take no chances and just tear the engine down and rebuild it. Supposedly it has a Atkins rebuild in it though I'm weary as I can find any signs that would suggest it was.

So for now the goal is to rebuild the engine with a street port. 200hpish till the turbo bug bites me and we'll go from there. My biggest thing to do besides the engine details is to replace the deteriorated interior bits and search for anymore rust. As of right now the bottom of the bed, two spots on the cab corners, and one spot in the engine bay will need to be addressed.

This will be a slow but steady rebuild as I have a lot going on. The girlfriend is super excited about this truck (yes I'm serious) and is already storming up ideas of things we should do with the truck. She thinks I should install a wood bed since the bottom needs to be replaced.

Either way enjoy the thread and I'm glad to be back.

 

Awesome find. Congratulations. lol..and a period correct roll-bar too.

 

Good luck

 

Hey. I've seen that truck before. lol
This is going to be a fun project that's for sure.

 

boostdtalon, great find! Good luck with your rebuild.

Hope this turns into a project thread

 

Oh it will be a project thread. A bit slow, but I'm sure with Erick's help. Well make some great progress.

 

Got to work on the truck a bit today. Scrubbed the body down and cleaned some of the trash out of the cab. Needed some gloves so I stopped. Gonna do some more work tomorrow.

 

Holy hell call me uber jealous!!!

Cant wait to see the finished product!

 

Looks like some shiny paint under that grime.

 

Yeah that paint is in a somewhat decent condition for what it is.

 

Haven't had much going on as of late. Today things finally started to take shape.





Picked this up today. Now that it appears I will staying NA, I will start gathering what I need to do fuel injected throttle bodies. I've been looking at the efi hardware kits. I already have a RB header on the truck. The shop that has been helping me has a Haltech Platinum 1000 unit that will handle tuning. We're also going to look and see if we can fit a RX8 transmission in the truck without much of a fuss.

I will also add that I played around with rubbing and polishing compound. Seems i might be able to clean up the truck a little bit.


More to follow now that things are finally taking place.

 

This is awesome! I wondered why Mazda even did a truck with a rotary, but I realize that they were exclusively rotary for a long time. They even made an 2 rotor RV for a while.

Very nice!

 

Yep rotary everything!

 

Remember these when they were new. By far the better looking truck compared to the others in the day. Fender bulges, squared-off look and wide stance. Faster too.

 

Picked this up this weekend. Guess things are going to change a bit now.

 

Awesome. REW should wake things up. Going single I presume. Did you get the transmission too? Thoughts on an LSD?

 

Yes it will be a single turbo setup, I may use the 3082R i have left over from my old project. I'm actually looking for a 35R possibly. I will be on the lookout for a T2 trans more than likely. Well the only hope for a LSD is to swap the rear out. I will be looking into doing Ford 8.8 swap from an Explorer or a Ranger.

I dropped the REW and 4 port 13b off with my builder. He was in need of an 4 port for another customer with a REPU. I should get it back in 4-6 weeks. I have much to do and now that the engine is being built. It's time to step things up a bit.

 

I have decided to keep the roll bar and will have it powdercoated black.

 

Was able to sell my 3082R and picked this up from Goodbox Motorsports. GT4094R.

 

Is that for the REPU??

 

Yes it is.

 

Nice For some reason I was thinking you are going to restore it and not doing anything extreme.

 

Well I thought about that, but when a few deals came about that I just couldn't pass up. I had to take them. The first plan was to do a stock 13b with newer fuel injection and than progress the build from that. Now I'm gonna aim for about 400-450hp.