PollyMobiles Rebuild

[Micra Paul]

May I suggest reading Martin Lewis MSE tips on reducing car insurance costs.

An few hours research & putting older family member on as named occasional drivers each year saved me a small fortune over many years.

Compare Car Insurance - Find Cheap Quotes - MoneySavingExpert

Good luck

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-16 Inside a Fuel Tank

Curious to look inside the old tank since I'll be binning it, took awhile to cut through cos it's made with at least 5-7mm thick plastic

here you can see the bottom portion of the tank has the smallest area/volume and the mid-section sweeps over the exhaust pipe.

the top portion is taken up space by all these indents, access port, fill pipe breather.

actually the fill pipe breather is the same level as the lower breather,
meaning if the 1-way check-valve / evap system / carbon canister on top of the fuel tank was clogged at all
(ie parked on incline, carbon canister hose blanked off, dirty check-valve)
then the tank will never be brimmed to 42L even with the fill pipe full cos there's a trapped air pocket near the upper breather port.

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-17 Window Glass Clips

Recently noticed one of the window clips had come off

Ever since I replaced the electric window motor last yr, I thought the mechanism seemed to struggle with too much binding, which probably caused it to come apart here.

Later on I soon discovered the mechanism wasn't aligned with the glass and made it jam. a slight tweak of the scissor arms fixed it

The plastic clip was only glued from 1-side. the other side of the clip barely had any sealant applied, and it's more like bathroom sealant instead of strong tigerseal

scraped the old sealant off the glass

The old clip was 35mm long & 3.6mm thick.
I designed a new clip that's 50mm long & 5mm thick to improve strength & surface area to bond

Printed

1 corner needed a slight trim

Tigersealed it into the glass, such a messy task

Once cured overnight, upon installing the glass I forgot about this slim gap it had to get through lol
It was a tight fit with the thicker clip, I had to grind the thread slightly shorter

It fits and bolted up

The drivers window now slides smoothly with less friction and as a bonus, that annoying hidden rattle near the drivers door / A-pillar has gone away

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-19 Machine New Cover Plate for Gripper LSD

The Gripper LSD had a broken cover plate 5yrs ago
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/post-778518

But since Gripper no longer cover my diff under any warranty and quoted me over £270 to replace a simple cracked cover 2yrs ago
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/post-800218

I decided to machine a new cover from scratch on my mini-lathe

Removed the old bearing to measure & model up the old plate

The old plate had these two holes which had no purpose and was the source of the fractures, which I won't include in the new part

Modelled a new cover plate to be machined on the lathe

Verified the new plate geometry will work with the LSD layout

Since this large part will be close to the lathes limit, I modelled the machine in detail to simulate & plan each cutting process

After planning, the 1st step is to cut this huge 110 x 80mm billet down to size.
It wasn't long enough to safely clamp on the bandsaw

So I welded it onto a large pipe enough for the vice to clamp onto

Jeez, it took upto 2 whole long days & 2 cutting blades for the poor struggling bandsaw to chop through 110mm of steel

Took another day to very slowly neaten up this rough billet.
Machine can only make 0.05mm cuts at a time or else it simply chatter badly, seize up or wear the tip quickly

Got the overall dimension down from 110 to 104.95mm

Ooh it fits like a glove

That's the 1st hurdle.
The rest of the machining will be a very long process

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-22 Insurance Drama part 2

Last week I spoke to AXA who said they would close the case, clear it off the database and send me a confirmation letter as evidence when getting new quotes.

I didn't receive any letter/email from AXA yet and as further stress, a recent letter from broker Adrian Flux after my policy has now expired also stated by current NCB going from 16yrs previously down to just 3yrs! with me still at fault and claim costing £3.5k
WTF!? Surely it must be outa date?

So I immediately called Adrian Flux to check what's happened.
Thankfully the incident case has now been closed & cleared off the insurance records and my NCB has been restored from 3yr to 14yrs (I've lost 2yrs ncb in this mess but meh it's better than having none)

Asked Adrian for a new quote and finally got insured at a more acceptable £413 TPFT with breakdown cover. I could've rang other places for potentially cheaper rates but my anxiety of making any more phone calls has had enough

That's a relief and can now continue car work and get ready for the upcoming Japfest silverstone show

 

[Dotmars]

2024-03-22 Insurance Drama part 2

Last week I spoke to AXA who said they would close the case, clear it off the database and send me a confirmation letter as evidence when getting new quotes.

I didn't receive any letter/email from AXA yet and as further stress, a recent letter from broker Adrian Flux after my policy has now expired also stated by current NCB going from 16yrs previously down to just 3yrs! with me still at fault and claim costing £3.5k
WTF!? Surely it must be outa date?

So I immediately called Adrian Flux to check what's happened.
Thankfully the incident case has now been closed & cleared off the insurance records and my NCB has been restored from 3yr to 14yrs (I've lost 2yrs ncb in this mess but meh it's better than having none)

Asked Adrian for a new quote and finally got insured at a more acceptable £413 TPFT with breakdown cover. I could've rang other places for potentially cheaper rates but my anxiety of making any more phone calls has had enough

That's a relief and can now continue car work and get ready for the upcoming Japfest silverstone show

Hiya Paul,

Cannot wait to see the machine at Japfest; are you on a Clubstand? If I see yourself, am I alright to say hello?

 

[pollyp]

Hiya Paul,

Cannot wait to see the machine at Japfest; are you on a Clubstand? If I see yourself, am I alright to say hello?

Hi Scott

Aye I'll be on the MicraMafia stand feel free to wave hello if u see me there with sunglasses

You on a stand too or visiting?

 

[Dotmars]

Hi Scott

Aye I'll be on the MicraMafia stand feel free to wave hello if u see me there with sunglasses

You on a stand too or visiting?

On a stand, with a few mates.

Gonna be some good fun. Hope to see ya there.

 

[pollyp]

On a stand, with a few mates.

Gonna be some good fun. Hope to see ya there.

neat I'll see ya there

I heard from my neighbour that all the public & car stand tickets are sold out so it's gonna be a packed show

 

[pollyp]

today went for a brief cars & coffee meet up with some m8s

back at home I cleaned up the white oxide off the dizzy cap, hopefully improve spark & AFR

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-23 Flat Bottom Drill Bit

The next tool to make in prep for machining the LSD cover plate is a 6mm - 12mm flat bottom drill bit for making the 17 screw holes.

It needs to feature a 6mm pilot hole to help keep it concentric, so I decided to modify an old step-drill bit on the lathe with the dremel, grinding away the 8mm & 10mm

Finish off on the bench grinder by adding some +ve cutting rake angle behind the cutting lip allowing the tool to bite into the steel.

Testing it on some aluminium piece, it gives the result I'm after & hopefully tough enough to drill through the mild steel of the cover plate

 

[Micra Paul]

today went for a brief cars & coffee meet up with some m8s

View attachment 87973

View attachment 87974

back at home I cleaned up the white oxide off the dizzy cap, hopefully improve spark & AFR

View attachment 87975

Coincidently I recently cleaned up my K11 distributer segments oxide after eight years & another 30K miles.

The spark jumps the same inline 10mm plus gap live running with same colour/intensity & no misfires as before thus no measurable / discernible difference?

Spark Gap Ignition Tester | Pedparts UK

Happy days!

 

[pollyp]

Coincidently I recently cleaned up my K11 distributer segments oxide after eight years & another 30K miles.

The spark jumps the same inline 10mm plus gap live running with same colour/intensity & no misfires as before thus no measurable / discernible difference?

Spark Gap Ignition Tester | Pedparts UK

Happy days!

I imagine the white oxide would increase the overall resistance of the HT circuit by a small amount.
at low rpm / load it probably won't be noticeable, it'll still spark ok for combustion
but near peak torque / high rpm it might affect the AFR / timing by a tiny amount.

 

[pollyp]

today only had enough juice to polish the exhaust tip

and begin removing stickers off the boot for a cleaner look

 

[Micra Paul]

I imagine the white oxide would increase the overall resistance of the HT circuit by a small amount.
at low rpm / load it probably won't be noticeable, it'll still spark ok for combustion
but near peak torque / high rpm it might affect the AFR / timing by a tiny amount.

Yes I agree as well as suspect that the increase in circuit resistance due to oxide is marginal wrt our old hat HT leads internal RF suppression resistance?

KSG, @ 32 plus years is looking good & a credit to your improvise, adapt & overcome very good efforts.

 

[pollyp]

Yes I agree as well as suspect that the increase in circuit resistance due to oxide is marginal wrt our old hat HT leads internal RF suppression resistance?

KSG, @ 32 plus years is looking good & a credit to your improvise, adapt & overcome very good efforts.

thx m8

 

[pollyp]

printed this simple bracket for mounting the wideband gauge under the dash neater rather than screwed to the bottom corner

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-26 Lathe Ball-Turning Jig

I wanted to fit a 2nd bonnet gas-strut but thought I didn't have any spare ball-joints, so decided to design a lathe jig for making spheres, using some spare round billet steel in the garage

machined this left over billet down to 13mm thick

drilled the screw holes

bolted the quick-tool changer on top, ready for machining ball-joints, round gear knobs, etc

but then I realised in my spare parts bin, I already had some gas struts with spare ball-joints on them lol

 

[pollyp]

Removed the old single gas-strut

The old ball-joint sat too low at 15mm, making the strut rub against the chassis top.
It needed lifting to 20mm high. the spare factory ball-joints sits too low so I grinded those off

welded them to a new bracket 20mm high

Riveting the new brackets on

Both new gas struts fitted & secure

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-27 Replace Rear Speakers

For the past few months the rear right exposed speaker must have got some debris stuck inside the coil because it distorts above a certain volume whereas the other 3 speakers are fine.



Ordered a new pair of rear speakers arrived today

Gonna use the included protective mesh grill this time

Now it looks much neater with the grill and now produces clear loud sounds without that annoying buzz

 

[pollyp]

Gave Jack a lift down to Whitby today where he's buying another Micra
Kassandra drives alot smoother now without the old annoying hidden buzzes & rattles

 

[pollyp]

Ordered a pair of NTN 4T-30208 bearings for the LSD diff and a SKF 6305/C3 to fix the rattling old input shaft bearing

Visited Jack nearby to help diagnose & mend his facelift K11 idle/timing issue

& in return he supplied me with some free spare bits I needed like:
*door mirrors (my was shacking badly),
*door rubber seals (mine was damaged),
*missing heatshield (to stop exhaust cooking my gearstick roller bearing),
*thick square pipe for making a hydraulic press to install new bearings onto LSD diff.

thx Jack

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-30 Rebuild & Replace Door Mirrors

For the past few yrs my passenger mirror was always too shakey to view, and now I have enough collection of mirrors to help fix it

The passenger mirror uses an earlier 'sliding latch' attachment

to detach, you first push from the inner-side to slide the glass outwards & unlatch the clip

and then flip the outer-side of glass off the casing

Whereas the drivers side (which I did replace few yrs ago with a later version) uses a round adapter plate inbetween the mechanism & glass

This cheap repo 1999 mirror I brought on ebay has a totally different mechanism & construction, which I won't be using

So here's an evolution of the door mirror mechanisms ranging from early 1993 to the later facelift mirrors

pic1: The 1993 mirror attaches with a sliding latch and uses different screws.
pic2: Next version simplified to using the same short screws.
pic3: & then the control knob used less plastic.
pic4: Finally the 1999 repo used a different inverted mechanism where the spring tensioner (keeping the cable tight) was moved from the swivelling plate to the control knob & the swivel plate is held more secure with separate X/Y axis to reduce shaking

So here's the two different mounting methods of mirrors. I'd like to make them both the same mounts for convenience

some slight features need trimming

I carefully dremelled the square 'slide-latch' tabs off and cut some locating slots around the rim

both mechanisms now the same

reattaching the tensioned cables was such a fiddly PITA

both mirrors reinstalled, more secure and now I can actually see behind me clearly

 

[pollyp]

Reinstalled the heatshield under the gear stick to stop the exhaust from cooking my gear selector bearings

 

[pollyp]

The old GREY generic bench grinding wheels was struggling with sharpening my HSS cutting tools, turns out I'm suppose to use White Alu Oxide wheels for HSS so I brought one off ebay

They grind through HSS a little quicker

Spent the weekend organising & counting the mess of Micra bits I've gathered

& paints

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-01 New Bench Grinder

I didn't like how the new grinding wheels were loose on the old grinder shaft (cos the old shaft was wobbly from poor Q/C & I had to machine it smaller)

so I brought another cheap £25 grinder from local screwfix

new one aint' 100% perfect but does highlight how noisy & worn the bearings on the old machine is

comparing the wheel specs & fasteners, they all have a 12.80mm bore

the old spindles are a loose 11.50mm but was machined straight.
the new machine have 12.70mm spindles for a snug fit but the right-hand spindle was factory machined wrong with a 0.15mm off-center wobble (probably the same issue as my old machine)

even with the slight wobble, I managed to straighten/balance them up with a diamond tip dresser and all working lovely now

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-01 Test LED Underglow Battery Life

During the upcoming long car shows like Japfest Silverstone I didn't wanna rely on draining the main battery after leaving the lights & stereo on all day, potentially ending up with a dead battery when coming home or shortening it's lifespan.

Instead I'll simply swap over to a spare sacrificial battery during the show.

But curious if it'll work, I charged up an old spare battery I had in the workshop, swapped from the main battery to this spare battery, left the lights on for hours while monitoring the voltages

After 8hrs testing, it'll definately work in keeping the lights on throughout the car show.
Graph estimates it'll take approx 24hr to drain it down by 1v

Assuming it'll drain down at a linear rate and these LED only light up above 10v, it'll prob run for 2 days and in theory 2wks to fully drain all 12v

 

[pollyp]

pulling the old sticker off the boot lock bung damaged the paint, so I masked it off

primered

and painted it. was the wrong paint can colour but a minor thing

wirebrushed & painted the rusty front panel to be a little bit nicer

this old drivers door seal was previously glued on and was damaged during the last respray

so grabbed a spare door seal from Jack

here's where it was glued and torn off

this front section was also folded wrong

abit of moss but was easy to wipe off

door seal now in good state

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-02 Print Bucket Dirt Guard

Was browsing through halfords and was curious about having a grit guard in my rinsing bucket to keep debris away from the mitten but no way I'm gonna pay £15-20 for this plastic and figured I can just print one

Designed a simple mesh to fit my bucket precisely, had to split into 3 parts due to small printer size.
I did design a complicated conical hexigonal mesh but was far too long to compute & print.

printed all 3 sections overnight

glued together

fits snug in the bucket

worked nicely allowing me to aggitate the filthy mitten above the clear water while the heavy dirt falls below

car all cleaned for the show this weekend

 

[pollyp]

washed & polished the wheels

painted the letters and swapped the tyres around diagonally

checking the brakes

brakes hardly worn at all but the rear pads are now bedding with more contact area giving the handbrake a much stronger feel now

respraying the calipers

 

[pollyp]

cleaned & painted the discs

she's looking all good & ready for Japfest Silverstone

 

[pollyp]

with gale force winds forcasted at the show, I wanted to add a tether strap to stop the bonnet from flipping over the windscreen, even with my dual gas-struts

so while looking in garage for a strap & attachments to secure it onto the bonnet latch, I remember I had this 300kg digital hanging scale and had a brilliant, functional & amusing idea of using this to attach the bonnet

it both secures the bonnet safely & gives you a realtime reading of how hard the wind & gas struts are trying to yank this bonnet sail haha

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-07 Japfest Silverstone

left the house at 3am

stopped at the Watford services for a loo break

after a long queue I arrived at the MicraMafia stand

it was a huge turnout.
even though it was very windy throughout the show the rain thankfully stayed away

there was even more micra stands scattered around the show

including this odd K11 March Box

for ppl displaying their cars on stands, we're given these nice Meguiars cleaning kit merchandise at the show

I left early at 3pm cos mentally I wasn't ok, was bored, was tired and didn't fancy more queuing to leave

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-12 Clutch Pedal Roller Bearing

Time to replace the temporary solid bushing (made from some alloy tube, which is kinda sticky now) with the same roller bearings as my gear selector bushes

This hole was too large for the m12 bolt, so I drilled it out to 24mm and welded these m12 washers in

Chopped the smaller old bushing tube off the pedal

Machined a new tube for the 21mm bearings

Welded the new bearing onto the pedal

Assembled

Pedal now feels soo much smoother now without any binding against the heavy clutch

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-12 Repair Stainless Powerflow Silencer

The old 2.25" stainless Powerflow silencer had this bad rust patch (which I ruined in 2011 cos I welded some steel rulers over a big hole, thinking it might've been stainess but turned out to be plated steel and simply rusted)

I did debate about sourcing a new stainless silencer for few hundred ££ but I figured since this one still works fine overall, I'll just patch it instead

Cut & bent a new sheet of stainless to fit

& welded in place

Now I can reattach the mounts & pipes onto it next

 

[pollyp]

2024-04-17 Rattling Clutch

The old Helix clutch & this new Blueprint clutch have always had this annoying, loud loose rattle whenever idling in neutral & warmed up.

I removed the gearbox to check if it's caused by the clutch disc or the input shaft bearing

Drain plug has minimal debris which is good

The input shaft has no lateral or axial play at all, spins smoothly with no gritty noise and doesn't whine when driving, which suggests the input shaft bearing is fine so I won't open it.

Removing the clutch

Flywheel & pressure plate surfaces has the usual minor grooves

Both sides of the Blueprint clutch discs are now bedded in with full contact

Comparing my old & new clutch.

The old Helix disc uses a single-stage torsion damper
(splined center piece joins the outer friction plate through a single set of 6 heavy torsion springs)
The spline slots abit too loose onto the input shaft (which might've caused it to rattle),

Whereas the Blueprint disc for a Primera 2L diesel uses a 2-stage torsion damper
(splined center goes through a weak inner spring and then the heavier outer springs before reaching the outer friction plate).
The spline fits much tighter on the input shaft but has a lot of play on the torsion damper itself.

A closer look at the 2-sets of torsion springs on the Blueprint clutch.

That's where I noticed the splined spindle in the middle is very loose within it's casing, I can wiggle it around by 0.5mm and the inner spring is soo light I can rotate the spindle upto 5-10deg by hand (this may make it clunk when goin on/off throttle, feeling like a worn engine mount or gearbox backlash).
This amount of movement might be causing the irregular rattling

Helix disc in comparison has a solid splined center piece so it doesn't rattle around

Opening the Helix organic clutch for a closer look inside

Here's the solid internal splined center piece which sits the 6 torsion springs

On one side is a beville compression ring to keep the splined piece secure & prevent rattling

The other side has a stack of preloading washers

So I think this Blueprint clutch disc is either missing this beville preloading spring (to help stop the spindle rattling freely)
or it's damaged inside.

In an attempt to reduce tighten the spindle without cutting it open, I tried to pinch the outer casing tighter to the middle spindle with a punch/chisel

& added some thicker grease on the input shaft to reduce some play on the spline

Reinstalled the box

Filled with fresh oil

& ready to test

When the engine & gearbox is cold/thick, the clutch is all quiet but after afew mins of driving/warming up, the rattle is still there but less often.

The rattle depends on where it sits on the flywheel/PP and may seem random.
If i release the clutch in neutral too fast, biting the clutch disc too suddenly, it rattles.
If i release the clutch slowly in neutral, allowing the disc/flywheel/input shaft to line up, it doesn't rattle most of the time.

Maybe next time I'll cut open this clutch, eliminate the weak inner torsion-damper, weld the spline spindle directly to the torsion-plate making it a single-stage damper like on Helix, weld the rivets back together.

 

[pollyp]

Recently the ebay cordless impact wrench was cutting power randomly so lets look inside

It seems the vibration had simply broken a dry solder.
Easy enough to reattach it

The scuttle panel & wiper motor was showing signs of rust so I removed the panel to check

Cleaned up a spare motor in the garage

 

[pollyp]

tigersealed the rust spots for now, will need repairing someday

fitted the clean wiper motor

a bit cleaner