Cox was sold. After winning the auction, Cox drove over eight hours to pick up the car in southern Ohio with his then-girlfriend and his father. The SX shook severely during a test drive, but Cox shrugged it off as probably a bad tire. He noticed a little damage that had been repaired poorly with wavy metal and flat black paint in the engine bay, but otherwise, it looked fine. The seller noted that it was meant to be a father-son project car, but the kid was back in jail, so he was selling the car.
The rear-view mirror even fell off of the windshield about fifteen minutes into his drive home. Once the car was home, Cox took it to a tire shop to fix that annoying vibration. It was a severe front end collision that was never reported and repaired extremely poorly. Matthew Cox, on the other hand, stuck with it, wrenching on the car in the evenings and weekends when he was free.
He explained his rationale on his own Kinja blog on the project:. My reasoning behind this insane decision was that since I had already wasted my money on this car, then if I failed in my repairs I would have lost only the additional funds I chose to invest. It still would have ended up at the junkyard for scrap. However, if I accomplished my repairs I would have the car that I thought I was buying to begin with.
Most importantly though was the realization that no matter the outcome, I would learn something. Cox took his borked car home and got to work repairing the damage to the front suspension and radiator support.
He still lived with his parents at the time, which gave him access to more tools and expertise than he would have on his own. After all, it was his parents who got him into cars in the first place, as his father drove an NA-generation Miata, and the family car was a rather good early nineties Nissan Maxima. An extra external transmission cooler had been added in the nose of the car for no discernible reason.
The wiring work was particularly terrifying. The wires for one of the cooling fans were even plugged into each other and not into the wiring harness. From this front chunk of a car came the new, unbent frame piece they needed.
Cox and his father used the spot welds on the frame to line everything up where it needed to be. Once the new piece was cut to the right shape, Cox was heartbroken—the new piece sat a quarter-inch too high. He started to clean up the garage and walk away from his project dejected that they had missed it by just that much until the new frame rails clunked loudly into place. It fit perfectly after all!
Cox and his dad started welding on the frame immediately, just in case this miracle clunk that lined everything up correctly would be hard to replicate.
After the front of the car was back together, the engine bay was repainted in white, the janky wiring was repaired correctly and the missing pieces were reinstalled—sans that extra cooler, of course. A new factory mechanical fan and shroud from a U-Pull-It yard were installed to replace whatever it was that the previous owner was trying to do with the front. Only minor adjustments were needed at the alignment shop, which was a reassuring sign that the frame repair was done right.
Oh, and it finally got those new tires. I bet the number in existance has to be below by now. I guess that makes it the rarest sx!!?? Because i am pretty sure that the S14 in japan started life as the 94 model. They didn't get the S13 convertible only deal for the 94's A truck motor??? I think you better ease-up on the crack pipe dude. Sorry guys, I meant total S-chassis production. I got the figures from FA. Also, wouldnt the convertabile have to be stiffer than the coupe to make up for it having no roof.
0コメント