Operation Happy Bacon pt 1

Well it seems that the electrical issues have paid their dues and are finally on their way :)  Rego is due, and I hit a bit of a fork regarding what to do with her, and where I want to take her in the future.  I toyed with the idea of taking her off the road and setting her up as a track car, but a) I would need to buy towball/trailer, and I have nowhere to store the trailer, and b) I would still like a streeter I can go for a cruise in from time to time.

I decided to go with keeping her registered, giving me a car that I could go for a cruise in, and still be able to drive to the track to have fun with.  It wouldn't be the quickest or most competitive car, but to me thats not the point.  It's about having fun doing what I love, and past experience has shown me that thats definitely possible :)

Pursueing this path, I decided that it would be prudent to try and legalise her as much as possible - hence Operation Happy Bacon!  We all know how many defect squads are getting around these days, and given the unnecessary attention we already get thanks to the stereotype portrayed by the media, it's only a matter of time before a piggy tries to give me a second a-hole.

If I wanted to sit down and list everything that I could possibly be picked up on, I'd run out of fingers and toes.  That said, the amount of rape-age also depends on the mood that the cop is in, so the priority is the obvious ones - the ones that could get me pulled over in the first place, and the ones that people are most commonly defected for.  The list I have so far:

• Enclose pod filter (now has to be enclosed in QLD, not just secured)
• Plumb back catch can (is currently venting to atmo)
• Remove window tinting (yes officer, I know 5% is illegal)
• Relocate battery/tidy up hole cut for intercooler piping
• Tuck exhaust, and possibly raise ride height
• Replace wheels to something that still looks good and doesn't require spacers
• Remove drift button on handbrake
• Replace steering wheel with something padded (apparently you need padding on the middle of your steering wheel)

On top of this, the list of other things I want to sort out:

• Replace/upgrade brakes
• Air diversion plate
• Respray car
• Resolve rust in the roof
• Get a proper alignment

I've obviously got my work cut out for me, but everyone has to start somewhere...  In this case, I'm starting with a box.  But not just any old box...

The idea here is that I wanted to construct a box that would both enclose my pod filter, keep the catch can atmo (wanted to keep the turbo/intercooler free from excess oil) and also tidy up the engine bay a little.

The first thing that needs to be done is relocate the power steering reservoir, as it would foul on the enclosure.  The only thing I had to keep in mind was that the reservoir has to be higher than the pump itself.  Simple enough, just some custom brackets so I could mount it elsewhere, and then an extension of the hoses.



Here's the top section of the perspex that I rough-cut to size.  The idea here is that I wanted to enclose the whole section from the rad support to the strut tower, so it looked both tidy and would also give me room to work with. 

As I mentioned before, I wanted to keep the catch can (the black box on the left) venting to atmosphere, so that the turbo and intercooler didn't gobble up the excess oil.  The previous configuration had the oil dripping onto the exhaust manifold, which would just burn off without leaving oil everywhere.  All I did was add some piping and a filter, with enough length to allow me to add it to the enclosure, and out of prying eyes.

I also got a new intake pipe fabricated up.  Unfortunately the factory one didn't put the air filter in a workable position.  The pipe itself is a bit of a hack job (had to bung a hole, and there's a random flange coming off) but can't complain, it was free!

The intake installed, with the filter for the catch can.  You can see on the right a screw hole where the power steering reservoir was sitting, this is why it had to be moved.  Cutting this perspex to size was a hell of a lot more tedious - it's hard to mark sizes and locations that you can't directly measure.

The two pieces of perspex cut, drilled and cleaned up.

I wanted to use some cable sheathing to edge the perspex.  It's a lot quicker and easier than sitting there sanding and buffing each edge, and also provides protection from anything that could start rubbing against the perspex.

Thanks to Tobs (once again) for the sheets of stickers used to finish off the perspex :)  Quite happy with how they've come up, and you can see the idea behind the sheath as well.  We ran out of stickers in the end, and quite a few were transparent, so I just painted the back of the perspex black to compensate.

My girlfriend helping out with the sticker-bombing... First time either of us have done it, it's not overly hard but its not exactly easy either!

I went with some right-angle to join the two sheets of perspex together.  Combined with some pop-rivets, I think it was quite a sturdy solution, and has definitely ensured that it won't be coming apart anytime soon.

The finished result!! It's secured by pop-rivets into the chassis, and is designed so that I can still remove the fender if need be.  All in all I'm very happy with the final result :)

A different angle... you can see how it lines up quite well with everything else in there to give a more flush result.

The sheathing doing its job...  You can also see the pop rivets down the spine of it.

It took about a week for me to finish it, but that's because I had other commitments that were a tad more important than finishing this.  Had I have sat down in one go, I could've easily knocked it off in a day, but as we all know, life tends to get in the way.  That said, for the total cost of $0, I'm incredibly chuffed with the result!!!  Plus it's 2 things off of my to-do list :)

Stay tooned - got another trackday coming up at the end of July, so hopefully you'll see more updates as I get ready for that. 

Until next time!!

On the mend

After finally replacing all the wiring and getting her back to a point where she was ready to put back together, I decided to put her back together... but, first things first - had to take her for a drive.  Albeit, around the block, but that's not the point!! 

As far as the interior went, it was nowhere near driveable.  The dash was just sitting on top of the steering column, there were loose components and screws all over the shop, and the fuse box hadn't been secured, so it was basically sitting on top of the accelerator pedal.  Fun times trying to drive, while listening to everything roll around, trying to stop the dash from flying at me, and keeping my foot between the fuse box and the pedal.  But... totally worth it :)

I'll save you the details - long story short, I put her back together.

Finally got the chance to give her a clean too.  After a full day at the track, and then 3 months sitting still, she was pretty damn filthy.  Mind you, not that it made that much of a difference, that paint needs a lot of work =P  Touched up the bonnet though, because when I painted it previously the polish stripped a fair bit of paint off.

However while I was at it, replaced all the sikoflex that was previously plugging the antenna hole with a rubber grommet I found in the boot - much cleaner!!

 

Also got some black pop rivets to fill the holes that existed from when the bolt-on fenders were on.  Amazing how much of a difference the little things make!

Took her for a drive on Wednesday... soooooooooo good to be behind that wheel again!!

Stay tuned for Operation Happy Bacon :)

Well that thar be yar problem!!!

This weekend saw me finally continuing on with these bloody shenanigans that seem to be the bane of my existance... Last weekend, I was driving from Melbourne to the Gold Coast, helping my beautiful girlfriend move.  The weekend before was down in Melbourne for a going away party and social visits... While I would've loved to have just relaxed this weekend, Stacey wasn't going to fix herself.  Alas, onwards!!!

If you remember from my last post, I'd spent a lot of time separating and identifying all the different wires.  And so began the repairs...

To say it was an absolute nightmare is an understatement.  Tracing each one, looking for damaged areas, cutting and stripping both the original and the new cables, soldering them in, taping them up... rinse and repeat many many many times!!!  I only had the one colour cable to replace the damaged sections with too, so to make sure I didn't get them mixed up, I methodically but tediously went one at a time.

You can see just how much was damaged... but at the same time, it wasn't really enough to justify re-looming the whole car, especially given that I still didn't know what caused it.

As I was checking each cable, I came to a section that kind of kept going (again)...

... and went through the firewall to the front end of the car.  DOES THIS DAMAGE KNOW NO END???

A quick inspection showed that it had indeed gone that far, once again melting through the insulation.  I had to wonder if this is what caused the damage initially, perhaps some rubbing through had shorted something out.

After stripping off all the insulation however, I couldn't find anything to support that theory.  Luckily, the damage in this section was limited to the troubled wire, it claimed no collateral damage.  What makes it even more amazing is that given how many circuits it claimed inside the car, I'm amazed that it didn't affect any of these wires - we're now talking engine control territory, and had that been affected, I could've been in a world of hurt (well, a lot more than I'm already in =P)

After some rooting around in the front end of the car and not finding anything, I went back to looking around in the footwell as I kind of skipped this section while checking the front end.

Not a comfortable working position... at least I had the seats out so I could stretch out to some extent, but I was still sticking my head in a very cramped space, fighting a fuse box, junction box, air con vents, pedals, relays and a tonne of wiring for room to work.  By this stage lighting was very poor, and had a fluorescent light and not a lot else to help me out.  Needed a flash to take this photo - without the flash you can't see anything, and my experiences were very similar without that light!!

After some tracing, I found that the problem child wiring (i.e. the parkers circuit) wound up in this loom... could not for the life of me figure out what the purpose of this plug was!  Factory-looking wires, in line fuse holders, but hacked to all hell at the other end where someone had spliced it into the factory wiring...

Just for something different, pulled off some more panelling...

... and found out that it had aftermarket central locking still installed, although it wasn't plugged in.  This confirmed that the plug was related to an aftermarket immobiliser/central locking system, as it tapped into the ignition barrel.  For the sake of redundancy? DELETED!!

So I got the wiring to a point where I thought it was ready to test.  I'd traced wiring over the whole car, checking every piece I could find and replacing the damaged sections, including any other wires it damaged on the way.  I'd verified that the front and rear parker circuits worked (i.e. after re-wiring those circuits) so I began the task of plugging things back in and connecting enough so that I could turn the car on.

As I was plugging the dash in, I found this random wire connected to the main plug.  It was spliced into the same parker circuit thats been problematic over the whole car.  After some investigation, I found out that all imported Silvia's have this wiring added for compliance reasons.  The idea is that it then connects to a dimmer switch so you've got control over the brightness of your dash lights.  Fair enough... except for one thing:

This is the other end.  I'm not kidding, this is how I found it.  No insulation, no electrical tape, no solder, it's just been twisted together to complete the circuit, and there was no dimmer switch to be found.  This wasn't connected to anything - it was just floating around in the dash, so it's my guess that this is what's been the cause of the issue, and could very well explain why the fault has been intermittent. 

Time to test it all then hey?  Plugged in the battery, turned the key, and...

Voila!!!  The promising thing was that the fuel gauge returned to a level that it was a bit more realistic (instead of waaaaaaay past full), and the clock was showing the time too - albeit, the wrong time, but who cares =P

Visual check of all the lights to make sure they were all happy!!  I then left the car running for 20 odd minutes to make sure that nothing was heating up, which it didn't.


Decided to make the most of the daylight while I still had it, and began with taping up small sections of wiring, doing enough to be able to get the car back on all four wheels, and also started tidying up the interior ready for the panels to go back on.

Here's my beautiful girlfriend getting her hands dirty giving me a helping hand :)

-------------------------

After 3 months, it seems she's finally on the mend... a lot of panels out, a hell of a lot of tracing/troubleshooting, a massive amount of cursing and swearing and my fair share of headaches, but she's finally on the mend.  The good news is that the fuel gauge, the clock and the radio all work again.  I've only had to rewire the whole car to get to that point, but the positive thing to take away from this is I now know what she's like at her guts, and I have a really good idea of how the wiring sits - I can be reassured that I shouldn't need to check this stuff again.

From here, it's still going to be a fair bit of effort getting her all back together again... Hopefully I have more luck than all the king's horses and men with humpty dumpty ;)  That said, there's a lot of wires and looms that have to be taped back together, a lot of brackets that need to be re-fitted, and I have a million screws that need homes - I can honestly say I don't remember all of their respective locations, and I'll probably end up with a few left over, but that always happens.  Hopefully I can find enough to make the interior at least stay together =P

The only thing I'm still not sure of is the exact cause of the issue.  While chances are better than good that it was that random wiring coming out of the dash, I can't say 100% for sure that it was the problem.  With the amount of damage to the wiring, I don't know if there was any rubbing thats attributed to the issue, or if there were wires that were crushed somewhere.  Fingers crossed though, that I never see this issue again, and that I'll be able to drive her again soon :)

Suicidal Tendencies - Not just a band name...

Time for an update on all things wiring in the context of Stacey.  Here's where I thought things were at when I last looked at her...

"Hopefully I can cut out the wires, tape up anything exposed, and just the indicator stalk to control the parkers (provided there's no serious damage to that circuit as well).  If that doesn't work, hopefully I can make it burn again so I can at least have a better idea as to what the next step is.  But thats for another day."

Seems that 'other day' came today, where I figured I better make some more progress.

Given how frustrating it was to figure out what was going on last time, I got around to downloading the Factory Service Manual for the car, printed off what I wanted and bound them (thanks Siemens for your office supplies =D). Very very useful, provides me me with what wires go where, into what plug with what pin number, and what colour said wires are!

This is what I kicked the day off with... it really is a depressing sight :(  Alas, I started off by sorting out the wheat from the chaff, one wrecked wire at a time, tracing it back until I knew it could be deleted or replaced, separating it from any wires that it had melted to along the way, and taping up any collateral damage that I found.  This was going swimmingly, until I got onto the 3rd wire...  Where I traced it, kept tracing it, continued tracing it... until it disappeared.

Never mind, found it!!  Running down the side of the car under the carpet... GRRRR!!!! Made even better by the fact that I could straight away see the melting... So, out comes yet more of the interior...

Can't say I don't have room to work at least!!  Trying to still see the positives I guess.

You can see the true damage to this loom if you look hard enough... there's a group of a good 9 wires that are well and truly fused together =\ and the best bit is that throughout the length of the loom, it changes which wires are fused together.  The really weird thing though, is that the wiring runs down the side of the car to the ass end, and sorts out all your lights, antenna, speakers, fuel pump etc, but the melting stops a good meter from any of that.  WTF?!?!?!?!??!?!!

And so began the sorting of the loom... wire by wire, tracing every single one, separating where necessary, and noting where they went and what they supplied... Keeping track of everything I found for future reference, and to help decide if it would be worth rewiring, or just buying a whole new loom.

My work space for all these shenanigans, with the growing collection of parts that I'm continually pulling out... I'm really not looking forward to putting them all back in hey!  So many screws, and I have no idea where they all are... oops!

Kitten guts thought that the 20 year old seat looked comfortable though :)

So what did I accomplish at the end of all this?

Where I decided to call it today after another 5 hours... tedious, painstaking, frustrating and just downright depressing...

The mud map I've been building, keeping track of what I've figured out, what I can get rid of, what I need to keep/re-wire, and everything in between.

What cancer I've cut out so far... the ruined wires, and alllllll the insulation/tape I've stripped so far... 

Where does it leave me?

Given I've properly stripped everything out, and have seen the ruined wires in their entirety, I'm going to try rewiring the loom first... I can save quite a few wires, so I don't think it's going to be worth replacing the whole loom just yet. I would more or less need to replace a dozen wires, and the ones that aren't too bad can be taped up.  I've also been able to omit quite a few wires that no longer do anything, and thats helped the situation.

The goal is that I'll rewire these lengths, try and see if I can get things working, and if not, I'm hoping that I'll be able to pinpoint the issue given that everything is now exposed.  If that doesn't work, replacing the loom will be the next step.  The frustrating thing is though, I still have absolutely no idea whats caused this.  There is nothing thats standing out that would indicate a problem, just a looooooooot of burnt, mangled wires.  For all I know, replacing the loom may not fix anything.  The bright side is I can safely say I know why the fuel gauge buggered up!  The fuel sender wire was caught up in the middle of all the melting, and it normally reads ohm-age, not a 12V source =\

Suicidal car is suicidal.

Losing, and more losing...

2 months of waiting... I finally had the time to look at Stacey after the issues that plagued me on the way home from QR at the track day... To jog your memory, my dash went up in a cloud of smoke... The parker circuit has been problematic, thought I'd fixed it, car never missed a beat the whole morning through some pretty hard track work, and then decided to act up again on the way home... Couldn't see/breath, and the fuse decided to hold on for dear life, and when it finally went, took the stereo, fuel gauge and clock with it.

After some cursing and swearing, I finally managed to get the fuse out... Um... yeh, that's not supposed to happen.  How on earth is a 10A fuse capable of deforming itself to this extent without popping?  Put in a fresh fuse with the hope that maybe it might have fixed the issue, or I'd have enough time to get a better idea of where things are going wrong, but to no avail.  Close examination revealed that the fuse is somehow still in tact... It was the wiring (down the page a bit) that went first.  WHAT THE HELL!!!  OK Stacey, time to get nekkie!!!

I started off by removing a couple of panels to see where I was at...  Wires bloody everywhere =S  Also took the opportunity to check out why the radio wasn't working in the hope of it helping my troubleshooting... turns out its getting switched with the accessories, but getting no power from the battery for some reason... found out its running through the factory loom too, so, pretty safe to assume I can throw it in with the same reason why everything else was broken.  Damn.

Finally managed to get my hand onto the wiring loom that ran to the parkers switch.  Initial signs are not looking good!

After pulling off some more things such as panels, plugs etc. I got a better look at the damage.  Time to remove all that tape to find out exactly what condition those wires were in...

Yehhhhhhh not good!!! All those wires are supposed to have a coloured protective shroud on them, instead they're just bare copper... all of them.  Oh, plus a mixture of cooked shroud and melted electrical tape smattered all around them :) 

Trying to get any access to any of the wires was incredibly cramped underneath the dash, so I decided it was time to get a bit more extreme...

After pulling out all of the panels...

I finally had the dash out.  First time I've ever pulled one out, not something I want to do again anytime soon!!  20 years of rust and dirt exposed to the atmosphere.... take that EPA :) 

Figured while I was at it, I'd have a look at the plastic that sat in front of the gauge cluster, see if I could clean it up a bit.  More on this later.

I continued stripping the wires, it just got worse and worse...  Seems I wasn't going extreme enough.

After some more swearing and cursing I finally managed to expose the wires running from the fuse box to the plug.  Time to start tracing those wires...

You've already seen the condition of the plug end of the loom, this is at the other end at the fuse box... Yep, melted here too.

And melted in the middle too =\ Great.  After working on this for the better part of 6 hours, I decided this was as good a place as any to call it for the day...  Time for a sitrep perhaps?

That loom is beyond knackered, there's no doubt about it.  And given the state of those wires over the course of the loom, chances are better than good that as the wires burnt, they have burnt through some other wires, and the whole lot has just shorted out.  I'm going to have to separate that whole loom to find out where that's happened, and tape up the damaged sections with the hope that it will fix the other issues.  

In terms of fixing the obvious one?  After some investigation, I found out the parker circuit runs 2 looms... one to the indicator stalk, that you use to turn your lights on, and the other to the fog light switch that turns on the parkers when the fog lights get turned on.  Weirdly enough, the loom that runs to the indicator stalk is fine =\ and given that I don't have any fog lights, I might as well omit that circuit altogether. Hopefully I can cut out the wires, tape up anything exposed, and just the indicator stalk to control the parkers (provided there's no serious damage to that circuit as well).  If that doesn't work, hopefully I can make it burn again so I can at least have a better idea as to what the next step is.  But thats for another day.

The only win I did have?  Managed to clean up the plastic in front of the gauge cluster... Its not perfect but its 100% on where it was... Look at the first picture here if you want the comparison.  Gotta have a win some times :)

Hopefully its not 2 months before I get to continue...