All in the name of safety (or lack there-of)

So the last couple of days have seen some great progress in terms of moving forward!  Been trying to keep my ear to the ground for a new front cut, and after some talking to some people and some ringing around and some posting, found out I can also use an S14 front end, as structurally they're very similar, which opened up a fair few doors.  Saturday morning saw me pick this up...

S14a Front Cut... admittedly would've liked the towers as well, supposedly missed them by only a day... but cannot complain at all for only $150.  Includes Reo (which I needed), front loom (current plugs got smashed/damaged in the accident, so I needed them too) and chassis rails (which I DEFINITELY need).  Also got the opportunity to introduce my girlfriend properly into the world of buying car parts... get used to it Babe :) haha...

Also picked this up... 2nd hand Cooling Pro radiator... 42mm, $180... Ideally I wanted to wait til the front end was sorted before I started buying parts, but a decent radiator this cheap?  Simply couldn't pass that up!!


Anyways obtaining the front end actually gave me some motivation to get my ass into gear in regards to making some progress.  The biggest priority at the moment is to get the engine/gearbox out ready for the smash repairers, but to do that I need an engine crane, so while I sort that out I decided to get some other things done...  First thing was to get rid of the windscreen... Lucky for me, my neighbour does it for a living, so $30 later saw the removal of one windscreen that was touched inappropriately by an airbag.  The good news was the frame wasn't buggered in the accident, so that helps.  Also set about finally removing the airbag.  Result?

This.  Picture more or less says it all :)

Not sure how I'm going to fill the hole though... the panel that the airbag popped out of left a bit to be desired...

Sitting in a car upside down is totally the new black... 

Rear seat removed as well to get rid of the airbag module, you can see it sitting there ready to be evicted from my car.  Eventually I'll be taking the seats out permanently when I start getting her ready for the track, but to be perfectly honest I definitely have bigger fish to fry at the moment...

This is said airbag module.  Things that make you go Boom!!!  Crazy how light this thing is... But from what I can work out, this houses the electronics that sense if theres an accident and deploy airbags accordingly.  Given that I now have 0 airbags left, I think it's safe to say that its time in my car is limited.

And finally a video of the car starting and idling properly.  Please ignore the lumbering fool trying to navigate the cabin.  Props to Tobias (me neighbour) who helped my plug a few things to see if we could get the engine running properly, just as verification that all that actually works.

From here, next step is to get the engine and gearbox out, as well as a few more things inside as well to get her ready for the smash repairers.  Stay tuned, updates should be coming thick and fast from now :)