When is enough enough?

So most of you know my truck. I bought it in the summer of 2006. This was my first vehicle. I worked on it for a while and had bought it planning to only repair the rust and drive it. I ended up finding out the piston rings were shot. After tonnes of hours invested in it replacing almost every part imaginable I am now sitting somewhere in and around $8,000 into a truck worth close to 2 on the market. Every time I put money into this truck I am sure it will be the last expense. Well now after a full engine rebuild and countless other parts I finally brought it to the shop for Cert.

Today I went to the shop and paid a $1500 bill for all new brakes and several other suspension parts. Which is what brings me up to the $8,000 mark. Now whatever, I have been trapped with this truck for a long time and had to do it. But that is all fine, my problem is for one, it failed the e test and for two the mechanic will not pass it until I repair some of the rust!

So now I have my $8,000 truck back at my house of where it will sit once again. I now need to repair the rust in the floor and wheel wells. I was planning on doing this but not until I was getting it painted. (It is not a big deal to me and has very minor rust on the floor maybe a hole the size of a dime if that)

I now sit here with very little money to keep my car on the road and not enough money to get my truck on the road.

I am stuck. I have such a large investment in this truck and am scarred to put anymore money in it. This truck is not worth it and never was but I can't sell it the way it is now or I'd get way less then half my money back. I got screwed over in every way with this truck and have pretty much put every spare dime I had into it over the last year and a half.

So what do I do? I want to finish it but realistically is it worth it for me? I can't afford to do any work on it now, I will do all the rust work myself but I am stuck with this E test BS....

Any words of wisdom you guys got?

Zac

ive never heard of something not passing because of rust i mean i thought in canada and up north rust came standard on a vehicle lol. how in the hell do 75 chevy trucks and vw bugs pass if you cant have rust. dude i feel ya. i did the same thing with my crx that i had. replaced every part imaginable on it and it just came to the point that i couldnt get it to go in to reverse one day after i had replaced the tranny and only had about 2 months on the new tranny that i sold it for half what i had in it and bought my truck and i couldnt be happier with it gone. yes i had alot of memories with the car but is just had to go. talked to the guy taht bought it the other day and he hasnt had a lick of trouble out of it and has had it for over 6 months now. goodluck with it man




-justin

u can have rust, not rust holes in the floor or rockers the bed floor, basicly any structer of the truck

zac u pumped lot of money into it already, why stop now, the worse it might need is a cat, no biggie, play with the fuel mixture and timming, make sure all the sensors work, i see it being another 800$ MAX to have it going

and just make a patch on the floor pan and what ever else needs fixing, fiberglass it even as long as its covered then your fine

i say take your time now, its winter and get the badboy on the road, if you stop now then it was a total waste of time but if u finish it it'll be worth 2000$ to the world but u know in your mind that it'll be worth more to u and it'll last longer

yes technically according to mike just cover it with some fiberglass to get it to pass and then go back and do it right later. i mean i dont see what fiberglass would hurt for long term honestly. and he is right a bad cat will kill you on emissions. try leaning it out a little bit and bump the timing up a little bit. maybe you can get it burned up a little better to get it to pass. you can always change it afterwords.



-justin

Damn that sucks man. There would be half as many vehicles on the road here in NY if they didnt pass cars and trucks with rust holes in the floorboards.

I would say fix it and sell it then buy a good sound mazda. but you have 8000 into it!? damn. Mine cost 1600 when I got it. Checked everything head to toe. Nothing leakes no rust and The engine is strong. It comes with time and patience. Waiting for the right opportunity and taking it. You will learn. I have about a grand to 1500 into it. Thats with the weber and pacesetter. Got the back bagged and draggin azz everywhere.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I bought the truck and according to my visual which I checked everything it all looked good but the only thing was it was smoking a little on start up. The people told me they put a chemical in to stop it from smoking and it made i5t smoke or something dumb like that. Back then I didn't know about the piston ring problem with these mazdas. So essentially I got screwed and like I said every bit of money I put into it for the most part I was expecting to be the last that I did put into it but eventually I got so far in I just had to keep shoveling money into it.

I am going to switch some things on the truck like headers are coming off, there is a cat on it but I'll swap in another that might be better. My truck on the higher RPM tests had the first one HCppm at 243/102 meaning it failed by more then double. My CO% was 6.28/0.56 (Holy ****) The other tests done at curb idle were 205/200 and 1.10/1.00 Meaning my curb idle wasn't bad and should be fixed with the new cat its the other stuff I'm worried about.

I am optimistic I will get it done and I am going to be doing the rust completely and also properly because I don't want to have to do it again later. So I will be posting the work I do on the rust. As for certification it needs a license plate light and just the rust. So its not overly bad but I was hoping to spend less then $1000 this time to have it on the road and now I spent $1500 and it still ain't done.

The weather has been horrible lately so I haven't had a chance to sneak it home from the shop.

I'll keep you guys posted and I will definitely try the things u mentioned about the emissions.

My truck seems to be idling a bit high would that possible emss around with emissions?

Thanks,
Zac

Zac, I know how you feel.

I've gone through 2 Mazdas in 2 years, pumped about $1,000 into one before discovering it was burning antifreeze and, now, after putting about $400 into my second truck, it won't pass safety because of excessive rust in the floor and rocker panels.

This second truck was going to be my son's winter truck but that won't fly.

I've just sent him an email asking him what he wants to do next but I won't lewt him spend any extra $$ on this truck as he needs to save for university and his aeronautical engineering degree.

Anyhow, these 2 trucks have taught my son and I a lot of things mechanically. This panned out recently when my son slid into a curb with my '90 Honda Civic wagon and Canuck Tire insisted they needed to replace ALL the front suspension when I knew it was just a tierod.

As for your truck, if it is your only means of transportation then I suggest you do the minimum and get it back on the road. At least that way you can sell it if you still want/need to. That's my 2 cents.

Regap your plugs to .035.Set time up to 4%before TDC.Take your air filter element outor run a Kand N (I will send u 1 for the shipping),and get the truck hot as Hell before the test.U might squeak thru.gOOD LUCK.bj

Thanks for all your suggestions guys, I'll try to do as many as I can. Right now I currently have my truck up on stands and the interior torn out. I am in the process of patching the floors and wheel wells.

Zac