MX-3 finally getting some attention

[Lesley]

My car's been up on jackstands for the last three years, after getting a KLZE swap. It's about as rust-free as a 25 year old car could possibly be, thankfully.
Finally started giving it some love over the last couple of months.
Wheels, brakes, suspension parts are all off. What can't be replaced is being bead-blasted (satisfying, but gets laborious after a while) and painted with POR-15.

Took a lot of the hardware, brackets and clamps out of the engine bay, bead-blasted them, and am sending them off for plating.

And - found a leather interior last week on Kijiji, in great shape.



front seat by Leadfoot Lesley, on Flickr

rear seat by Leadfoot Lesley, on Flickr

[mitmaks]

Thats interesting leather interior, different than SE came with.

[Lesley]

Yeah, I know.
At first I suspected they were a swap, but I found a couple of similar front seats in European MX-3s.
And when I google the part number on the seat bottom, MX-3 pages come up. Frame rails are a perfect fit.
If anyone else has any info, I'd be happy to hear it.

[Savin]

Someone probably had them reupholstered with leather. Its not unheard of.

[Lesley]

Nope. it's European. A lot of them come without the integrated head rests over there.

More progress on the MX-3, posted on Grassroots Motorsports, where I spend a lot of time:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum ... 094/page1/

[Savin]

'94-'96 had that style seat in your picture even in North America. They're probably just simply recovered in leather as I stated before. The leather looks too loose compared to any leather that has been fitted factory to any mx-3 seat that I've seen. That includes overseas variants as well. Your backseat almost looks ruched. That's not something Mazda would do on a non-luxury model.

Oh, the rims in your grassroots thread are '94-96 GS rims, not SE rims.

[Lesley]

Thanks!

[lewismak]

Looks good. May I know the cost of the leather interior? I found a set though not sure if they are worth getting.

[mitmaks]

Nice to see someone taking pride in their mx-3 and getting it restored right.

[Lesley]

Thanks guys.
I found the interior on Kijiji, and scooped it right up since it was only $350.
Had to bead blast and paint the rails, but the leather is in good shape other than some expected wear and a small tear.