After removing the tranny, I decided that I definitely need to take care of all the surface rust in the engine bay, first things first, take off all the body work. I thought it would take me an hour for the head lights, fenders and bumper, funny how it managed to extend itself into a 2 day fiasco.

First of all, what the hell is this:
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2 of these bolted in the bumper into the bumper support, I have no idea how Mazda expects me to get this out, or what kind of tool is required for it. The first one came out after 15 minutes of banging on the edge with a flathead screw driver, the 2nd one took much longer. Eventually PB Blaster + vice grip worked their magic after a few hours. I was actually thinking about cutting away the bumper tab where it connects. Seriously, worst engineered car ever. Even the forum community I turned to didn’t know what screws I was talking about, I suspect all the cars are now on their 3rd, 4th, 5th+ owner; once the bumper is removed and these screws come out, there’s no way anybody is putting them back in, so not too many people have to deal with it.

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This is how the car sits now, after another stripped screw and breaking some tabs on the headlight cover, I finally got all that crap off. Next step is to completely strip the engine bay, I really hope I can put everything back together.

On another note, I was very impressed with the roller, before this, the fenders have never been removed from the car, paint is all original, and I suspect the bumper and headlights have never been removed either. Clean is an understatement!

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