Project Correct-a-Car pt. 4: Aesthetics & Procrastination Galore!

Onwards with progress... although I will admit not as much as I'd like.  The last few weekends have been full of everything but working on the car - birthday parties, bucks nights, gardening and helping people move amongst other things.  A fair bit of time has also been spent on acquiring parts as well... an expensive but necessary endeavor that has made motivation dry up a tad - having nothing shiny and new to play with really does put a bit of a dampener on things!!

Anyways, as I said before, onwards.  You might remember in the last post I bought a bunch of genuine Nissan bits and pieces.  This meant I was able finally get around to updating the dreary rocker cover in the form of a new coat of paint.  I had an anodized coat on Edna's which I was quite fond of, so I decided to do the same thing again only in a different colour.

An anodized paint (at least out of a rattle can) contains what appears to be a really fine glitter to give you a faux-chrome finish.  For the effect to be as effective as possible, you apply a base coat followed by a top coat - both of which are full of sparkles and glitter and ponies and lollipops. The base coat provides a nice and shiny foundation, so by the time you put on the nice and shiny top coat, the 2 paints work together to give you a finish you don't get out of a standard enamel paint.  Watching this stuff go on whilst the sun hits it is quite mesmerising I must say!

Here you have the end result, complete with the obligatory sanding of the letters to give you some great contrast.  I'm sure that you'd agree that it immediately makes the engine look 100% better.  Before I put the rocker cover back on though, I took the time to inspect the spark plugs, cams, timing chain etc. which were all in good nick, although I found out the engine had rocker-arm stoppers installed - a fact the previous owner forgot to tell me about. Not that I'm complaining mind you, they help extend the engines life, especially when it's regularly getting up to the red-line.  Winner winner, chicken dinner :)

I also decided to give the strut brace a bit of a freshen up while I was at it.  The original finish was cracking and showing signs of surface rust, so the same paint was used for the sake of consistency.  I also painted the centre section black as opposed to tarnished metal.  Can't wait to see it all back together!

From here I moved onto the turbo to try and find the source of the oil leak that has been plaguing this car ever since she came into my possession.  The diagnosis was pretty simple - smoke comes out of the back of the turbo as well as the exhaust when the engine is up to temperature... but to throw a spanner in the works you can turn the engine off and back on and the smoke disappears... try diagnosing that.

Anyhow I got into pulling the turbo off the engine (first time doing that as well), and upon inspecting the back of the turbo I couldn't find any traces of oil.  The surface above looks quite shiny, but running my finger along it showed no oily residue... it needs to be noted though that the turbo can exceed 1025'C in temperature so any oil could have simply burned off.  I decided to go deeper...

...and I'm glad that I did.  Once I separated the back of the turbo housing from the turbo itself, I found quite a lot of oil around the outlet turbine.  Further inspection shows that one of the seals is either loose or has dirt in there which is preventing it from sealing properly.  Now that I know where I stand, I'll look into repairing it first to see if I've fixed the problem, and replace it further down the track if necessary.  I'd simply like to avoid spending more money than I have to, which any decent person would certainly agree with.

I still can't figure out what to do with this damn sunroof!!!  I tried looking into body soldering, and had very limited success with this i.e. not enough that I want to keep going with it... back to the drawing board once again (sigh).

Thankfully I was able to source another stud for the coilover to replace the incredibly stripped one I pulled out.  Not easy to track down I must say, but thanks to the boys at Nizzpro for sourcing a stud out of a wrecked pair of coilovers.  At least I can drive with a bit more peace of mind now :)

The engine bay was the next thing on my list... the sooner I get it sorted, the sooner the engine can go back in and the sooner I can re-claim some room in the garage to get ready for painting.  I started off with the wires for the pop-up headlights... while they're a popular modification to drastically change the look of the car, they do require re-wiring the entire headlight loom to suit the new setup, as well as adding controls/power for the motors so you can raise/lower them.

While the existing configuration wasn't terrible, I did want to re-route the wires and also add some plugs so I could disconnect / reconnect them at will. Trimming, soldering, terminating, insulating and cabletie-ing... all in a days work!

Working on an engine bay is so much easier when there's not an engine in there!!!  I know I'm pointing out the obvious here, but I haven't really had the luxury of doing this before, so it was a very pleasant surprise being able to do what I wanted to without having to jam my hand down the smallest hole possible to reach a bolt that I can only turn 1/4 turn at a time.  Not only that, the radiator support provided a pretty effective seat, and the K-frame a good foot rest... Awwwwwww yeah!!!

While I've still got a few more things I want to pull out, it's certainly a great start, and gives you a very good idea of what I have to work with / improve.  I've removed all of the factory identification plates, disconnected all wires where possible, marked the holes I want to keep (the others are being welded) and tried to give me as much room as possible to start cleaning her guts.

So that's the work that's been done in the last 2.5 weeks... Have a list of what's currently in the works :)

• Over-fenders currently on their way from Japan
• All new air vents and surrounds ordered for the dash, as the existing ones are cracked and broken beyond belief
• Preparing to grind back the rear fenders to sort out the abomination of body work there
• Fix turbo and put it back together (inc. to engine)
• Start prepping engine bay for painting
• Paint said engine bay

Still a lot of work ahead of me, as this is only a list of the short term goals I want to accomplish in the next month or so... but with each week I get closer to getting to where I want to be.

Onwards :)

Project Correct-a-Car pt. 3: Ride Height & Coronary Removals

I had full intentions of throwing up something at the end of the long weekend - as is always the case though life got in the way.  While I was able to get some stuff done Sunday, Monday was full of editing photos and doing work around the house, joy of joys!  What I did manage to get done on Stacey I decided wasn't enough to warrant a whole new post, so let me start this off with what I accomplished with the remainder of the Easter weekend.

Super Cheap Auto had a massive 20% off store-wide, so I went and raided their stock for a bunch of things I knew I needed, others I wanted, and other general supplies as well.

One thing that I've seen done is to swap out the boring interior light for something a little bit more modern... and a hell of a lot more brighter.  The kits are fantastic as they only cost about $20, and come with every single fitting you could possibly need to interface it to the system your car uses.  I'll be sure to throw up a picture of how it looks when the interior gets put back together!

An oil change was also on the cards - she's never been done in the 15 months I've owned her. While this is sacrilege to even myself, there were 2 main reasons for this...  1) The oil was fresh when I got her, and 2) I would've been lucky to do 1,000 kms in her since I've owned her thanks to the various problems she's had combined with how conspicuous she is on the road. Excuses aside, I decided to bite the bullet and just do it - regardless of how little the car has been driven, the oil itself only has a limited life span, one that I'm sure expired a while ago. 

Draining the oil verified this - while it could've been worse it could've also been a lot better. Mind you, I did drain it all with an engine cleaner in it, so this could also be the gunk that's built up over the years.  All I know is that I'm glad she's got some fresh fluid in her.

I moved on to address the sunroof (my sincere apologies for the blurry photo).  The condition of the paint suggested the rust had come back in force, so I decided to strip it back (again) to see if I could maybe hinder its progress a lot more better I did last time.

Using only a flapper disc, I found that it wasn't all that bad - it was more the paint itself that was in terrible condition.  Regardless, I threw on some rust converter and came up with a plan of attack to sort it out while it dried.  More on this later.

As I mentioned early on in this project, I've had issues with fuel leaking from the filler cap. After a bit of poking around I found that the filler throat (if it has an official name I don't know it) was completely loose.  While there was evidence that it was secure once upon a time, it seems that that time ended a long time ago.  Time!

I got recommended this stuff - basically its sole purpose is to repair surfaces that come into regular contact with fuel.  Can't remember the name of it for the life of me but the idea is very simple...  You cut off however much you need, knead it until it all becomes the one colour, then mould it to whatever you need.  I ran 2 strips, one on the inside of the throat and another around the outside just for some extra seal-age.

I decided (thanks to some pretty persuasive convincing by Casey) to make the move to over fenders vs. my existing bolt-on flares.  The advantages were many...

1. Don't have to repair existing damage
2. Don't have to fill in any holes
3. Fixes issues with the state of the rear fenders
4. Raising the ride height would make the car look ridiculous if left as is, no thanks to how high the previous owner had cut the cards, and there's nothing I can do to the existing fender to fix that

This really does prove my point... I physically cannot make that look decent once I've raised the ride height.  With over fenders, I at least have the luxury of hiding all of that, and it gives me a wheel arch (at least on the exterior) that will allow me to run a higher ride-height without looking like a complete spaz.  Unfortunately these panels do cost money, and there's not a lot I can do with the paint until I get them, so I decided to fill in some time by raising the ride height anyway.

Thanks to some decent adjustable coilovers, the ride height is easily adjusted without affecting the performance of the suspension itself.  With some cheaper products or conventional suspension setups, the load on the spring changes with the ride height, which then drastically changes the performance of the coilover.  It lamans terms you end up with a spring that is way too powerful/weak compared to the damper - your bump (spring compression) and rebound (gas strut returning to original length) end up different to each other.  Far from ideal.

^^ Ideal.  Yay!!  With these (and most other) decent coilovers, the idea is simple.  Loosen the locking collar (bottom green ring) from where the strut attaches to the hub (black bracket), undo the lower mount from the hub, and wind the lower mount down the threaded core to achieve the ride height I'm chasing.  You can see how much I was after here - raising the ride height by approximately 10mm would hopefully get my chassis rails to 100mm, the lowest legal ride height I'm allowed to run.

As is always the case, nuts holding your suspension together are generally done up as tight as possible for obvious reasons.  Breaking them typically involves a tonne of Inox and quite a large breaker bar.  Thankfully I had both :)

You can see how much I've wound the lower mount down.  From here it was just a case of winding down and tightening the locking collar, and re-assembling the suspension components to each other.  Rinse and Repeat x 4 and voila!  You have a car that is now sitting at 100mm :)

I showed you a picture 2 posts ago about how one of the nuts from the front-left coilover was completely stripped.  Thankfully I was able to extract it, so this little bad boy can be replaced... peace of mind is so underrated.

Running out of time for the day meant time for another small job to be knocked off.  Pink brake calipers -> black brake calipers saw the end of my work on Stacey for the long weekend.

This weekend started off innocently enough.  I had originally planned to take it easy - after last weekend I wanted to have at least some time to myself where I didn't do anything... Yeah fat chance of that!  My original plan was to borrow an engine crane and extract the engine on Sunday - Casey, who I was borrowing said engine crane off of was bored and had nothing to do today, so what the hell, might as well get it done.

It all starts off with stripping the engine of anything that connects it to the chassis.  Cabling for the coilpacks, fuel lines, intercooler piping, radiator hoses, alternator wires, you get the idea.

Here's the engine bay stripped (for the most part) of everything connected to the engine.  So much more room!!

I then proceeded to disconnect the tail shaft and the exhaust so the engine was free of anything that would've stopped it from coming out.  The other goal here was to disconnect anything that's free to fall out or down once we start pulling the engine/gearbox out.  For those that don't know, it is a hell of a lot easier to pull the engine and gearbox out as a single unit.

Casey's car was also enjoying testing the limits of our driveway...

While I was under the car removing bits and pieces, Kim and Casey set about removing the gear stick.  They found that the rubber boot that protects dirt from entering through the top of the gearbox was completely shagged, but the biggest fight here was the circlip that holds the gear stick in... Got to love a lack of proper tools (admittedly, one of the few instances where we don't have the right tool on hand).

The exhaust ended up coming completely out just so it wasn't crushed when we dropped the car onto all 4 wheels so we could give ourselves enough room to pull the engine out.  First time ever removing a complete exhaust I might add!  The tail shaft stayed in though, as it's design prevented it from moving into a position that would cause it to get damaged.

Even with the ride height being raised, the car was too low to fit the engine crane under.  We ended up having to throw the jack under her once again just to get enough clearance, and thanks to where the legs for the engine crane go, the jack ended up in a very tight spot indeed!

And so began the task of pulling her heart out...

The first job was to see if Casey's imrovised knot would hold... which it thankfully did :)

We got it to a point where it wouldn't come out any more.  We originally thought that it was the gearbox catching on something as it was coming out, so we got Kim to push down on the gearbox while we tried to lift it... No success.

It turned out that I'd forgotten to disconnect almost everything from the gearbox... when I say everything I mean the clutch slave cylinder and the speedo sensor.  I had to facepalm myself given that they were the exact same things I forgot to disconnect when we pulled the engine out of Edna...  Whoops!  It looked like I might have damaged the hose that ran to the slave cylinder, but closer inspection revealed that I had dodged a pretty big bullet here. Always good to have more hands than are needed so we could remove the victims on the fly :)

And there we have the engine out!

On a side note, I must say it is quite an impressive collection of panels and parts that's growing out the side of the house...

I also picked up some new parts... in particular, some Nismo engine and gearbox mounts, as well as some new gaskets for the engine.  Because I want to paint the top of the engine as part of this whole 'freshen up', I need to pull the rocker cover off, and consequently the rocker cover gasket.  It's always good practice to replace any gaskets once they are removed, and there's nothing better than genuine Nissan parts.

The mounts are a bit different story as you can see... The previous owner had installed solid mounts (the orange suckers) - great for drifting, but useless on the street.  With solid mounts, you don't get any flex from the engine/drive train which translates to more accurate throttle response.  The unfortunate bi-product is that every vibration from the engine transmits through to the entire car, making for a very loud and uncomfortable ride.  The Nismo mounts (black suckers) are certainly stiffer than the factory items which helps with throttle response, but still provide some much-needed flex.

I'm going to finish this long post with a picture of what's left of the engine bay... My next goal is to tidy that up as much as I possibly can.  A clean will be a great start, but I also want to give it a fresh coat of paint because that paint is stained beyond belief - no amount of cleaning will give me a uniform white, or even an off-white.  I'm also planning to remove a bunch of stuff that I don't need, and re-route a bunch of stuff that I do.  Stay tuned :)