Kiwi K11s. Car number five. SCUTTLE SHAKE !

[yoeddynz]

Hi all,

We've been looking for a Nissan k11 Micra (march) for a while, mainly to have as a daily for when my Hillman Imp eventually goes under the knife to get its new flat six heart, but also just because both Hannah and I fancy k11s. There's a bit of history with them for us both and this connection along with just the cute unpretentious little car looks has us hooked. Not to mention that overseas there are some wickedly cool uprated versions doing the rounds. Quite a following for these cars in many countries except weirdly in NZ.

When I was living in the UK I'd spot these everywhere. Very popular little cars, but ones that I looked past. That is until Hannah's younger sister needed to buy her first car. I helped them look for one and a Micra K10 came up for sale locally. We knew little about them except that Hannah and her two other sisters both learned to drive in K10s. Simple,easy cars to operate (685kg light too!!) So we Leila bought the little K10 and loved her first car, which became known as the Badger mobile - due to the trips Leila would take in it to Badgermans beach down in Cornwall...







Sadly, because mother nature can throw out some right horrid things at us, Leila became ill with a rare disease called Crest syndrome, a type of auto immune thing. It started with her hands and she was unable to operate some items, including the windows. The little K10 became a bit run down and the road salt had done its job. Combined with the trickyness of using cars controls Leila decided to seek out a more suitable car.

This is where the little K11 came to reside with Hannahs family. Hannah helped her look for a suitable car and then her brother found one. A four door 1000 facelift in dark blue. It had electric windows and central locking- two small things that made life for Leila show much easier...



That little K11 did many missions about the place and the family became quite fond of it. Its also what made me start spotting K11s and becoming a fan.

In a horrible turn of events Leilas life was cut short. The condition had continued to worsen to the point where it was effecting her heart. She died from a heart attack in 2017 at only 26. A huge loss to the world.

Her little Micra was then taken on by Hannahs brother and he now continues to take it on adventures and the other siblings borrow it. I used last year for the 2019 Retro rides gathering - this being the first time I had ever driven a Micra any real distance and I really enjoyed it.





While at the gathering I also spotted and fell in love with this little hillclimb beasty...





I was amazed at how peppy it was for a 1000cc car. Its handling was 'floaty' but fun. I could instantly see how they would make a sweet little pocket rocket for twisty roads- in very much the same way as the Imp is. Hannah was also smitten and of course there is the family connection to add. So we would own a K11 one day- that was that!

Fast forward to last month. I old my Viva wagon during lockdown and had some cash. I know that the Imp is to come off the road for the transplant. Lets start looking for a K11.

There were requirements to be met though. It has to be a manual, two door, pre-facelift (PFL) and ideally would have the CG13 engine- not the smaller 1.0. But we soon found that these combined features are a very rare thing indeed in NZ. Kiwis never got Micras here new. They are all imports from Japan. Most are auto with the 1.0 and most are 4 doors.

We found a very tidy 2 door manual face lift locally- but it stunk of ciggy smoke, was a 1.0 and a couple of other alarm bells rang about the owners and their honesty. They were also asking moon beams for it and wouldn't accept my lower offer. Plus- it was a not so pretty facelift version...

Then this 4 door PFL turned up locally, going cheap. After a quick look up on carjam we found out that it was a 1.3! Also spotted in the photos were a rev counter. That rev counter dash is certainly a rare thing here- quite a bonus. With some more research Hannah deduced that it might be a March S. These have a few extras like the rev counter and a split rear seat. I messaged the seller and he confirmed it had the split rear seat. Oooooh we thought!

Now a March S is not the same as a Micra Super S- as sold in the UK and Oz. I believe that the Super S has a few other blingy things like rear disc brakes, sportier seats, quicker steering rack and a deep front spoiler with added fog lights.

^Dreams.

We went for a look. First thing I checked was the engine number- just making sure it was indeed a 1.3 with all those extra 20 ponies. Took it for a hoon (wow- the 1.3 is way faster ! ) checked some things and made a cheeky low offer. 2 days later there was a counter offer and we bagged it for a nice cheap enough price of $825

Picked it up yesterday afternoon. Bought some engine flush, oil, filter and new plugs. Will giive it a bit of Tlc. Its a bit dented and rough but will still clean up ok.

Plans :

1 - look for a tidy 2 door PFL car to swap all the good bits into. Probably will be an auto 1.0. Wont be a quick job this so it can wait till later in summer because there are way more urgent jobs about the place. Plus this car is meant to be a runner to use while the Imp is off the road- not another project..... but hey. How can we not have a play!

2 - Lower it. Most likely using some garden variety 'Makita modified' springs... Apparently one can remove 2 coils and they will remain safely contained. We shall see.

3 - Find some nice alloy wheels. 13" x 6 would be nice. The pcd is 100mm so not too odd.

4 - Hannah wants a yellow Micra. So eventually it will be re-painted the official Nissan custard yellow..

5 - add a turbo. Maybe. Could be fun. That's a way off in jobs to do here though!

So here are some pics I took...

The seller had the most amazing jumper on! I'd have been stoked if that came with the car...



Before handing over the monies I thought it best to quickly check that the spark plugs were not seized in the head. Not coomon but worth checking to save a lot of aggro...



All good! So we paid the man and hooned off into the sunset- me in the Imp and Hannah getting used to 'her' new toy Filled the tank..



Played cat and mouse over our hill to home...



I took some quick pics in the evening light...





JDM factory crystal for added healing power and bling. Some Marches came with these factory fitted...



One key element to a good Micra...



Another great thing to have when you're ragging all those little ponies to the point of exhaustion...

\

Some service items...



More to come soon. Lets see how much money we find under the seats etc

alex

 

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Given the ingenuity and standard of work you've done on your imp I'm really interested to see what you do with this.
Cg13de are still relatively common in Australia add they were the only engine available, sadly the k11s are becoming fewer though. If you need some parts I might be able to help.

 

[yoeddynz]

If you need some parts I might be able to help.

Hey thanks very much. Yeah I may well ask for assistance in finding some bits. One tiny thing we will be after would be a micra badge or two. I'd rather see the car badged as such instead of being a March.

Another item I'd love would be the little boot spoiler and a disc brake rear end. However- both would probably cost a fair bit in freight. I'll look into those bits later on.

I am quite excited about the future prospect of playing with the engine- most likely stand alone ecu like a speeduino or MS and throw a turbo on there. But sorting the handling out is more important (after locating a 2 door shell that is....)

Cheers
alex

 

[fuzzy-hair-man]

One tiny thing we will be after would be a micra badge or two. I'd rather see the car badged as such instead of being a March.

They're stickers on the 2 door lx I have here, there's a couple of people on the Australian micra Facebook doing replica stickers etc from memory.

Another item I'd love would be the little boot spoiler and a disc brake rear end. However- both would probably cost a fair bit in freight. I'll look into those bits later on.

Disk brake rear ends were only on the Super S here so are pretty sought after, there's a few people who seem to part a car 6 months after buying it so spoilers and disk brake rear ends do pop up but usually they want some for them.

But sorting the handling out is more important (after locating a 2 door shell that is....)

Checkout Paul's (pollyp) epic build thread, he's done a pair of ball joint spacers to correct front roll centre that might be of interest, I don't reckon a watt's linkage or roll centre adjustment with the panhard rod would be too hard either. Lots of other stuff in there too.

 

[yoeddynz]

Cool- all good info ! Cheers.

We have just found another car quite local to us that we might pop over to see. I'm not sure what exact level model it is but it appears to be the same as a super S? It has a rev counter, super S seats, front and rear spoiler. I have also asked about it on the facebook group along with a photo of the cars id plate. Its worth checking out for $700 (350 squid)

 

[yoeddynz]

Well then- Micras seem to be breeding around here. There's now two in the yard.

Just after purchasing the silver/green car (which Hannah has named Millie) Sanfiddy on oldschool.co.nz (where I mainly hang about...) messaged me with a link to another 4 door manual for sale in Blenheim. I initially almost didn't even look at the advert because we had a car already and we don't need another 4 door. However something caught my eye in the photo. Is that a front spoiler I see? Hang on a minute. I looked at the other pics and it had a rear spoiler. Hmmmm. Then I spotted the sporty seats. Wow- could this be a Super S ?

I asked the seller if it was still for sale. Yes it was. Sweet! Could he send me a pic of the car id tag with the model details. He replied with this photo...



I looked up the numbers in the workshop manual and it was certainly different to Millie. I asked on a Facebook micra group and someone pointed out that it had the code for an LSD ! (the RS5F31V)

"Religious bovine non-gender specific batperson!" I shouted out. "Jump into the bat automobile and we shall race over to blenheim at a pace that does not exceed the legal speed limits and view this mighty thing"

Today was a good day for bargains. We drove over this morning, picking up a new air filter on for Millie on the way. The fella selling the potential Super S was a top dude- friendly as. It was his daughters car and she had lost her license. So the car is no good sitting there not being used - money in pocket = better.

I climbed under the back and checked out the rear axle. It has disc brakes! Yuss!!! Then the interior- wow - it has a full black dash! I didn't even know this was a thing on these cars. The interior is tidy as, has a factory leather rimmed steering wheel and gearknob and comes with a good stereo. We had to jump start it as its been sat a while. Took it for a spin - no dramas except not heating up very quick. Hmmmm. I'll watch that. Gave the man his $700 - I'd bargained a deal to take it away with no wof. Its only just ran out but saved him bother and us money. All happy.

We filled both cars up to the brim at the nearest petrol station...



Then drove to Renwick for some of the 'world famous in Renwick' pies that I love so much (I used to get these when doing my apprenticeship at Cuddons engineering a few many moons ago)..



Visited my parents for lunch (pies of course). They approved of the old cars in a sort of 'here we go again' way.

I pulled out my 'about to buy a car that might have issues' emergency kit from Millie's boot...



Started looking over what we had just bought. That big fat lip...



Those sporty(er) seats... ( they are definitely more hugging)



That black dash which I really do like! Just seems soooo much more racy?..



ABS is here...



Factory mats (well.. on the drivers side at least)



The extra 300cc that we've come to enjoy...



Factory rust? The other one has a repair in the same spot. It not bad so I'll sort it out properly before wof time...



I tried jacking the car up to check the diff but did not trust the factory scissor jack to take all the weight. So I had a look and it certainly does have the larger gearbox that houses the lsd. So I think its a thing. Cool!

Standard box on milly...



Wider diff area on new car (yet to be named btw...)



The reason why the temp doesn't sit midway and drops low on downhills is because I suspect it either has the wrong thermostat or no thermostat. I'll check it out soon. Going from my experience with the Mazda V6 in the Viva the Tridon aftermarket brand thermstats never worked well and my V6 always ran cold/fluctuated. When I replaced it with a genuine Mazda item it ran hotter and stable. Tempted to get a decent Nissan one for this car too. Certainly something has been played with there- can you spot the signs?...



So after throwing in roughly a half litre of oil (I hope that's not a thing... but the oil does look old so I suspect its not been looked at in a while) we took off back home. Me in the new Micra (Molly?) and Hannah following in Milly. The idea was to just cruise home with the flow of the traffic (roughly 90-100kph) and see who could get to our local dinosaur juice station using the least amount of dinos.

The new car (Mandy?) certainly seemed tighter and a bit less floaty. It does have 175/60s compared to Millie's 155/70s so that will help. Also- the gearing is exactly the same in 5th- so maybe its only the race spec cars that have the C/R box? Not complaining because we want the to run cheap!

Took some pics on the way in the evening sun...



Hannah likes it that Millie has a genuine Nissan healing Crystal...



Cute bums. (that little rear spoiler- so neat! )...



Got to our local and re-fuelled...



I used 12.7 litres. Hannah used 10.7! What !!!!!? HTF did she do that? I blame my wider tyres, engine running cold so ecu thinks its cold and adds more fuel. I did 'play' a little bit more on some hilly bits but only barely. I want a re-match when the thermostat is replaced. Also- we can swap and she can use the new car (Melanie?)

Anyway. WOW at that economy! 56mpg (or 5L/100km in new money). Even allowing for the fact that both cars speedos read an optimistic 5% fast its still bloody good.

Really enjoying driving them too. Actually quite nice to sit on 100 at only 3000rpm and still have a conversation. I must add some sound deadening and carpet to my Imp because it'll cut so much noise.

So now we need to spend a while getting to know them both. See what issues the new micra (Maureen?) might have and then sort those out. New oil, plugs, filter. Wof.

One thing is for sure- I'm going to take on Hannah in another economy run battle and win this time!

Then just use them and form a plan along the way. Meanwhile - little Impy is not that IMPressed with the new IMPosters taking over his favourite parking spot...

 

[.Maarten]

Nice one! Looking quite clean and that diff is really rare. Atleast it is here in Europe.

 

[yoeddynz]

Cheers Maarten. We are very happy shoppers. I'll have to see how we get on with the diff because for us its not the thing that will make our ideal k11 perfect. But it does have a nicer gear change and luckily the ratios seem fine (I would not want something that runs close to 4000rpm at 100kph! - as I initially feared after reading an old tech wiki thing about these boxes)

I did that thing this morning- the thing where you go out and look at your new car purchase and then check the dipstick with that slight fear of the unknown- will it be down- is the new car a little burner. Luckily the answer was good. Level is bang on. Sweet. Will buy new oil and filter today.

Battery on Millie drains over night- I suspect its the stereo. Definitely lights a bulb between a removed terminal and batt. For now we can remove the terminal at night.

New car (Melissa?) also might have a drain. Or a ****e battery. Will check also. Any ideas on other places to look that might be a common electrical drain.

Also- the ventilation fan in Millie doesn't work. We used to own a '96 Nissan Sentra and its fan only worked on 2 speeds. It turned out to be the resistor pack that screws into the fan ducting (to keep cool) . An easy swap with a new one. However- there are no speeds working on Millie. Could be a fuse. I need to find a pic of the fuse panel lid from an english car because on these jdm imports everything is written in Japanese.

 

[.Maarten]

The interior fan uses a resistorcard that goes out quite a lot. But most of the time it will still work on the highest setting then (4)

A battery drain could be a aftermarket alarm. A badly wired stereo. Or the light in the boot. To name a few options.

 

[yoeddynz]

Ok sweet. I'll have a look
At the resistor card. And check the fuses too

 

[yoeddynz]

Me- "oh hey Hannah- we have to go to town right? "

H - "yeah we need to do a shop"

Me - "cool....... well while we are there why not let me take you somewhere special and show you a good time?"

H -"oooh neato. Ok ! Much excite!!! What could it possibly be?".....

One hour later....

.

.

.

.

.



Yuss!!!! Ka-ching! Score....

A friend who manages the local wreckers let us raid the one and only little k11 there. (apparently it was driven in without a single fault. Ran perfectly. But rego had been let lapse. The farkers! Its a manual 2 door!!! who does such crimes to let regos lapse)

anyway- we got all these bits that we needed to either fill in the blank spaces on the new car (Meredith?) or complete Millie so we can sell her on. Ok - I know.. I should not really anthropomorphise cars but I cant resist... they are just so cute.



So yeah- a good haul. Bits included : a thermostat! Hopefully good- looks better than a Tridon branded one.

An air box and filter - this car we robbed is a face lift and they changed the airbox with a better sealing arrangement.

A cold air feed. Its longer and feeds from behind the light. Millie doesn't have this feature but the new one (Margaret?) does. They obviously thought it was such a neat idea that even the poverty spec 1.0 facelifts ended up with it too.

A horn - because the twin horns on Millie don't work properly so lets go back to standard.

A radiator overflow bottle- missing on Millie.

Complete strut assemblies - because why not. They were sitting on the drivers seat and needed a home. The cv boots are good so they can replace the torn ones on Millie.

A windscreen washer cap- MOM (that's missing on Millie...)

Rear parcel shelf - MOM

A clutch cable - Millie's is pretty yuck. Could just do with a lube. But now we have a spare.

A ciggy lighter - for Impy!

A load of fuses and a few bulbs- because I'm a magpie for them at wreckers. I've never had to buy fuses yet.

However- I am saving the best bits for last. While I was tinkering away in the engine bay Hannah was scrummaging about in the car (no mean feat because it was a prick to get into- OSH would have a field day! ) and she found these...



Genuine Nissan March items complete with the little bubble car logo that they used for the marketing and subsequent merchandise. Soooo cool (for nerdy k11 foamers like us) and Hannah was well chuffed with her score! They'll need a proper good clean but should come up ok.





I told her she'd have a good time and I didn't lie

 

[yoeddynz]

Hahaha- snap! Some fellas on oldschool have found that and posted it up too! My reply to them was this -

"yeah I found that popped up last night- I messaged her about a half hour after she'd listed it. I have expressed interest and would like to go view it. But I need to find out more about the potential differences under the skin between facelift and pre-facelift ie are all the sus points the same and the heater pipe locations? We want to swap the entire black pre- facelift dash we have over (would look so lush in a yellow shell) "

Thanks very muchly for the link though mr @75swb

Yesterday and today we did a few more tinkering jobs on both Millie and the new one (Myrtel?). We had taken the Imp over to Kaiteriteri so we could do a trail run in the park there. The Imp was booked in for a wof later on in the afternoon and the run distance was further than we expected. So we decided to run to home, shower up and then drive the new car (Marjorie?) back to kaiteri, pick up the Imp and drive in convoy into town. Got to show off the Micra to our wof man (the Imp passed with flying colours btw...) and warm up the oil properly so once home it would drain out sweet.

Hannah had Kevin helping her with Millie...



I was tucked out of the hot sun and worked on the new one (Marilyn?) Terribly backlit photo alert...



Drained and replaced the oil. It was pretty filthy but nothing horrid with no signs of sludge. While I was under the car (on axle stands because hoist is still blocked by timer piles) I had a look about. I was really happy to see how super tidy it was under there. No dents, no rust, underseal very neat, exhaust looked factory fresh. Nice to see its not been off road or rallied. Engine bay is pretty tidy too...



I fitted new spark plugs too- the old ones were pretty worn.






I kept joking with Hannah that the old oil, plugs and the fact it was running cold = my extra 2 litres of petrol used..

So yeah- that thermostat eh?... well it wasn't there. I suspected as much. Luckily we had found a thermostat on Fridays romantic trip to the wreckers. I made a gasket to suit - because while normally it would be sealed in with rtv I didn't want to seal it in with goo just in case it turns out I needed to remove it again, like perhaps the head gasket is iffy etc etc.

We tested the thermostat before fitting anyway and it opened on time and the full amount. Fitted it, refilled the system with nice new 33% coolant mix and I took it for a hoon. The temp sat right in the middle as I headed up the 300m climb on our side of our local hillclimb/racetrack. Drove it hardish until I caught someone. Then laughed at the comical power button that it turning the air con on and then turning it off for extra boost
Temp stayed put as I followed a line of cars stuck behind a Kenworth logging truck down the other side. Sweet. That's better! However I best test it again so I turned back at the bottom and headed up the hill, second gear ALL the way (because for fast progress up our hill with only a 1300cc, trying to use 3rd just pops it out of its 'happy' zone)
What a great little engine these are! Really quite smooth.

Another neat thing I liked was the LSD. I've not driven a fwd equipped as such and It was most noticeable out of the tighter corners, especially if a bit lumpy. It just gripped and pulled out really clean. No noticable torque steer but then again its only 75 little ponies...

I do wonder if viscous lsds heat up and start to lose some grip on the discs so allowing a bit more slip- but really propbably not an issue on a road car getting trashed now and again ? More of an issue on trackdays etc?

Got home, let it sit idling. No dramas.

Hannah also cleaned those nifty March logo'd mats she had found. They came up sweet and look neat installed.





I gave the car a quick vacuum and found $1.50 under the seat so now the car had only cost us $698.50. I also found some sort of interesting plant material. It looks like some sort of Tomato. I might have to light it with a match and see what the smoke is like to confirm my thoughts?..



Hannah tidied out the boot area and she found this. Looks like the new car (Martina?) has been to a ski field at some point...

 

[yoeddynz]

Oh dear. We sort of have three Marches now. Picking this one up at the end of the month...







So happy. Its like a dream. A yellow 2 door. Its low mileage and very tidy. 1.0 with a rubberband auto. Gonna have some fun later in summer swapping all the bits mechanical across, inc the pre-facelift wings, lights, grill and spoilers. Make our ultimate looking Micra.

The lady we are buying it from is super happy we are basically k11 foamers/nerds and that its going to a good home.

I like these little March sill guards. Also noted that it has the original March mat set with the bubble car logo, still in good nick.



Not sure on the name yet - but currently they are referred to as Millie, Molly and Mandy.

Some might say we have a problem but its all smiles here

* I've just noticed how terribly both cars are parked.. Micra drivers be all like "and I'll just put it here and that will be that".. and get away with it because their car so tiny.

 

[yoeddynz]

Update from our spies out in the field...

Our 3rd micra, spotted in a mt cook campground, on its way back from its last holiday with its current owner, an Argentinian girl who calls it her little canary...

 

[richardwbb]

Sweet! It won't be hard for you to put a Ga16DE in to it and Sr20, if you know how to shorten axles properly that is some quite advanced work but 143hp. Front brakes can be transfered too with both

 

[yoeddynz]

I could certainly do such work but I have a little Imp that requires more of my time- hence the Micra purchase which was just meant to be a car to have while the imp is off the road....

....but you folk all know how things go in micra land and soon one starts fettling away, never happy with it being stock.

Down the line we might add a small turbo but I really like lightweight engines for great handling on twisty roads and I think the GA and SR engines are quite heavy compared to the little cg.

 

[richardwbb]

Then you should have a look at Ithisham's topic https://www.micra.org.uk/threads/the-£80-micra.68694/ and be aware of other ways, a Ga16DE can have a turbo too and might be easier if you can get some exotic stock parts. Sr20's should be put in any car is what Sr20 fans say. I happen to have put in a Ga16DE and yes it is a tiny bit nose heavy but after 15k miles I don't notice that any longer with stock suspension. But that are the viable options. I do have some mates in my country giving up on Sr20 turbo k11's and I am sure you won't. I guestimate a Ga16DE is like 50 - 75 lbs heavier but that is a ballpark figure. If you know by experience that is low for 1.3 > 1.6 please let me know.

 

[yoeddynz]

Cheers Richard. For now we will just hoon the 1.3 until I have finished my Imp 911 project

So we now have 3 micra children....



It was a lovely sunny day to make a trip to the big smoke that is Nelson city. We took the Imp, partly because the Argentinian girl selling this latest march acquisition wanted to see the it but mainly because I knew it would look cool convoying home together, yellow and blue- like a swedish flag.

or like the jersey I wore to one of the oldschool nats- see if you can spot the blue...



Had lunch and arranged to go pick up the latest march (yet to be named by us but was called Tweety by its owner). A bit of chat, handed over a wad of cash and took a photo...



I got first drive heading home. Wow at all of the LOLs piloting a 1.0litre Micra with an auto box. Actually really neat about town- would be perfect for a city. But point it at a hill or into a good headwind and it has to put some real effort in. Not where near as peppy as a 1.3 manual but still neat enough. The car has a full set of lowering springs, I reckon maybe 30mm drop. They seem ok but it has not got the anti sway bars like our other two have and the subsequent rolling around corners is quite noticeable.

LH speaker doesnt work and the original tape deck fitted is ****e.

Mustn't grumble. This car just looks so neat and I love the colour.

Took some snaps on way home...





Fuel time. Will be interesting to see if this little 1.0 uses less fuel because small engine or actually uses more because small engine working hard- especially when attached to a slush box. Oh - which I think is actually a normal 3 stage auto? I have only ever driven one cvt before - in a newer Tiida and it was distinctive in the way it worked. But the box in this little car (Mandy?) shifts up in stages, with a pronounced jolt, just like any other auto. I presumed that all K11 autos were CVT but maybe not?





Hannah's smile (at the style/size/colour/correct amount of doors but not at the performance...)...



Note how much lower it sits.

We got home with Imp leading over the hill because I wanted to hoon it in the imp and this micra wont allow such fun. Took more pics. I'd have lined up the 2nd micra (megan?) but its battery was completely flat having sat unused for 2 weeks now. Whoops.



So we pushed it into the shed and took these..





Found these in the new micras glove box (Mary?), all in Japanese but interesting and neat to have nonetheless...



Hmmmmm. So three K11s in a row. We will just use Milly and the new one (Meredith?) for general trips out and about until after xmas since they are both road legal and then look to doing the big swap of parts. Will attempt to just do most in one hit and just enjoy a week of micra lego.

I wonder when the 4th one will pop up?......

 

[yoeddynz]

So a quick update.

Moved some cars about the yard a few days ago so I could get @Tumeke Triumph wagon onto our hoist. It was quite fun lining up the little cars and snapping some pics..







Still not sure which of the 1.3 engines we'll keep as yet to do compression tests. Once we know we can then work out the order of parts swapping.

But more importantly - we have pretty much decided on the names..

Milly is the light blue one- the first. Seems to have the peppiest of the 1.3 , most likely due to having been trashed the most by various previous owners inc one who used it for food deliveries.

Molly is the 2nd one- the dark green one with the full fat list of options. I think her heart is a little bit of an oil burner and this is still a common excuse I'll stick to when arguing my case in the economy run we did. Plus her tyres are wider and were flat..

The new one, the darling of the bunch in striking yellow has been named Minky. She is such a clean wee car, low mileage and gives her best when trashed- which is all you can do when faced with our local hill because that little 1.0 with slushbox combination requires it.

So other than driving them we have not yet done any work or swaps. It will wait until after xmas time probably because we are behind on paid work etc.

But still buying bits- stuff that we don't need but couldn't resist. I bought this from Ebay...



I love car brochures and this one has not disappointed..



Must get some driving gloves for our sports march we are building...



I think that Molly is a G# going by the spec sheets etc....



But possibly a mixture of G# and Autostrada. Looks like the Autostrada but they dont list them with the LSD or rear discs that Molly has.



Certainly has the Autostrada seats though...



I'll be looking to change my wardrobe attire to more in order fit in with the upper society levels of Micra ownership...



Millies magic crystal that Hannah loves so much is an optional extra...



And with such fantastic things like that crystal and all the other great features that a Nissan K11 micra/march offers its no wonder that passengers are obviously bloody thrilled to take a seat in one!...



So back to our collection Big storm rolled through yesterday morning. Very heavy period of rain. Discovered today that both Milly and molly have got leaks into the passenger side floor. FFS- I thought we'd avoid all this sort of **** with the British cars but alas no. It appears that the Japanese can make cars just as leaky as the poms. I have looked into it and apparently there's a seal for the air intake under the scuttle panel that can shrink/perish. Not been an issue for us until this huge deluge. So ow Molly and Milly have their passenger carpets lifted up on blocks of wood and I'll have to pull Mollies carpet out I think- such is the Japanese efficiency of its carpets at sucking up water.

Meanwhile Minky sat there, dry as a bone- pulling cheeky little facelifted smirks at the other two. Another tick for her while the others are in the dog box.

Drove Molly inside this even so I can pull the seats out. Noticed a puddle of coolant on the workshop floor. Jacked her up and looked around to discover a weeping water pump - dripping from its drain hole...



Grrrrrrr !!!! Oh Molly. Here's another nail for your coffin.





A distant snigger was heard emanating from Minkys direction.

 

[richardwbb]

Just a waterpump, got mine for 23 coins Nice to read your topic advances. I just cleared out my cheap cv-joint replacement and my oversteer left and understeer right after a proper alignment by replacing the other (probably original) cv joint for the same 18 coin. I compared both and size is good but there where the cv joint connects with wheel bearing there was a conical difference. Do you know it can that much of a difference?

 

[yoeddynz]

Cheers- I'm glad you're enjoying the read.
yep luckily we have spare low mileage water pump attached to the 1.0 engine that will get pulled out to swap either of the 1.3 engines in.

Of your CV joint- I am unaware of differences- but only because I am yet to properly check out and learn about the micra items. This really is the first time we have played around with front wheel drive cars. So lots of new little things to learn about. Its going to be fun swapping all the bits because we'll really get to know our cars!

 

[richardwbb]

Yes it will be fun! I just asked since I read your lmp topic. I work daily with well educated car mechanics at a dealership but they answer you should use original parts and I get their message, they actually have no experience and also don't try to answer me on stuff they wouldn't know. I reasoned you must have had your non fittings I will send you a picture later when I got around since I also take some time to do some proper posting on sr20 forum, dutch nx forum and this micra and dutch micra forum. i'm saddend that most people use fb for mostly halve reads and halve answers

 

[yoeddynz]

Yes- I still prefer a good forum for finding the proper answers to problems one might come to. A good forum thread on technical issues can be a great read and doesn't usually go off tangent as easily as a facebook post.

 

[richardwbb]

Yes- I still prefer a good forum for finding the proper answers to problems one might come to. A good forum thread on technical issues can be a great read and doesn't usually go off tangent as easily as a facebook post.

Go off tangent , never heard that before, I've put it in my puddin head

 

[yoeddynz]

Well then. Its about time for an update on K11dom.

Leaks. Farking leaks...



Nup - not them. The more annoying ones that happen in a car that shouldn't leak because its not British. The ones that you cant locate the source easily. You think its fine, you've fixed the obvious hole or sealed up a gap and all is good. Then a week later you notice that the car has that stale wet whiff. Bug-ger. Back to square one.

Well Milly and Molly already had this annoying little habit from the beginning and Minky remained bone dry. So we presumed it would be the standard k11 scuttle leak we had read about in a few threads on this forum.

So Milly and Molly leaked. Minky watched from the sideline all smug face and happy because she was the planned keeper. But she too wanted some leaky fun and started to go whiffy in the passenger footwell.

FFS ! So after a few rounds of pulling the mats out on a sunny day, undoing some trims and lifting the carpets to dry out, propped up with wooden blocks, letting it dry out and thinking 'well that's nice now, dry and whiffy gone, maybe it was just our wet shoes or a door not shut properly' and then only to have it come back after another decent bout of rain, we couldn't put up with it any more.

So this happened...







Hannah stripped both scuttle panel covers from Milly and Minky. Its actually a really quick job. As a few of you will already know, its one of those 'bloody wish I had done that ages ago' jobs. Sure enough they both had the failed clip seal that eventually craps out on all K11s...



Just for those on here that might not know about this problem... (I'm sure most of you do though) This little green clip sits right below the windscreen. Its a nothing more than a lower location guide for windscreen fitment. Its pushed into the panel and seals with a shaped rubber washer of about 1mm thick behind it. The rubber breaks down and falls apart. Now for some reason the person in charge of designing this aspect of the K11 decided take make sure that the hole the clip fits in is sited right above the ventilation intake...



So the water runs right off the bottom of the screen, through the perished seal and down through the vent, through the fan and out the bottom onto the floor. In this pic you can see a drip of water making its break for freedom off the fan motor base below the plug. This will explain why Millys fan had stopped working...



So we removed, cleaned and with some decent adhesive sealer sealed both the green clip and the one to the right of it. The second clip doesn't hover above the intake but its better to not have water festering about the clip holes anyway.



We did seal Mollys clip later on, if only to stop fish from breeding in her footwells as she sat out the back of the shed (the area we now refer to as 'the place where cars go to die' )

Luckily none of the cars had any rust around the clip holes. Its a common rot point for UK cars due to the salted road spray running off the windscreen and doing its marvellous thing in good fashion. Not really a problem in NZ as we dont use salt on our roads. In fact Minky has not got a single hint of actual rust anywhere luckily.

So all sealy fresh and now dry as a bone Hannah happily reinstalled the dried out interior bits and we revelled in such lovely clean, whiffyless and dry interiors.

Until it rained again.

Fcuk.

The floor behind Minkys passenger seat was sodden. Like properly wet right through the carpet, underlay and up the tunnel edge. I couldn't understand how it could get so wet? I presumed we must have left the passenger door cracked open and with the last torrential rain event (we've had enough of them already- it feels like the tropics here, only with frost) there must have been a leak straight from the top edge of the door onto the carpet.

So out with the blocks of wood again. This time I had to remove the underlay stuff and wring it out. Most of it disappeared into the bin actually.. Anyway..same story. Dried it all out. Thought that was that and lessoned learned to check the doors.

Then Milly started to smell bad. Really minging. WTF!!! The back window started to go misty but the carpets were dry as. A few days later I popped open the boot and found a towel hidden in the spare wheel well that we had used to wrap up the noisy wheel nut wrench/jack handle. It was sodden and smelled like a dead ferret. So that got binned. Righto - here we go again! Some how the hatch was leaking. First port of call was obviously this forum. It could be the hatch seal. Or the seals between the rear light pods and the body.

But ours were fine. We tested them. We had great fun taking turns to sit inside the boot and watch for leaks as the other ran a hose around the hatch. Nothing obvious. There was a light gap at the top corner where the seal didn't quite press against the hatch but that wasn't the cause. We added some foam just in case.

Kept looking. Nothing. So we left it, annoyed and feeling a bit defeated. 'Maybe it was the hatch not being closed properly" I muttered with a tiny grasp of distant hope. "bloody Japanese cars. They shouldn't do this. Might as well be British. Even my Imp stays drier" I muttered even louder.

Roll on another week or so. Fairly dry weather keeps our spirits sailing high. Cars are dry. Things are looking up. Then more rain.

And more smell.

I could have lit a match.

This time it was Minky. She had 'that whiff' again. It smelled around the rear seat area. We lifted out the seat base and sure enough underneath it really hooned. "****- there MUST be a dead rat under here" I proclaimed with a hint of almost excitement at the thought of not finding a dead rat but finding the cause. I could hug the dead rat I was so happy. But upon lifting the seat out we found no dead rat but instead a damp seat base.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FCUK!!!" was apparently heard as far away as the Isle of Man. The seat base was wet but the top was not. Right. This means war!

"Get that hose!" I shouted as I scurried my way into the 'boot of certain death smell but no dead rat' and watched for tell tale leaks..

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing......hang on! There was a tiny trail of water running down the seal. It had to be crossing over somehow. We opened the hatch and followed the water beads. They tracked down the seal around to the bottom corner and disappeared. We popped the seal off and found a little hole between two panels...





An intentional hole by the looks of it but in a silly place. Water tracked through the hole and down the inside of the panel. Its been doing this a while. Note the water track lines...



The same sh1te design feature was found on Milly too and she even has the same little rusty water stains.

From that hole it runs down the panel onto the boot floor and along a pressed channel that leads to under the seat (a perfect design..) Once the cavity under the seat is full it runs off forwards and cascades off the edge down beneath the carpet behind the passenger seat. It almost seemed unlikely when you glanced at the pathway, like as if a Nissan engineer had been reading a book full of Escher drawings while on the toilet and decided he'd design in a backwards waterfall into the K11 for sh1ts and giggles.

The tosser.

So I had to design in my own anti waterfall features. My first line of defence was to block the hole. I used some self adhesive alloy tape...



I then cut a hole in the seal so the water that was tracking down the seal would fall through the hole and out on the outside of the hatch opening..



My last line of defence, just in case the other points fail, was to drill a hole in the channel on each side, paint it, and build a wall with epoxy putty so any really determined water has no choice but to drain out...



Take that water - I am the master of dry!!!

So far its worked. We have had some huge rain events since and both Milly and Minky are dry and no horrid smells. Molly is still out the back, probably full of fish :-(

I shall sell my design fixes to Nissan.

If they actually care...

Hopefully this secondary leak defeat will be useful information for other owners on here

 

[yoeddynz]

Other things that have happened here in our little micra climate recently..

Hannah pinched the comfy sporty seats from Molly the G#/autostrada and bolted them into Minky...





She found a few treats under the seats and carpet..



with all the seats out of both cars there had to be a rail swaps take place. In fact it was a bit more involved than that. Because the sporty seats were in a 4 door they didn't have the neat auto tilting function set in that the 2 door model seats have. So we took all the mechanisms apart and swapped bit around...





The sporty seats then bolted into Minky...



Then Molly was put up on the hoist and Hannah started removing her engine. We have no proof that Mollys engine is worse than Millys engine other than the feeling that Millys is possibly a bit peppier. Also when we looked inside the cam covers on both engines Millys is really clean and looks like its had more frequent oil changes whereas Mollys has a build up of older burnt looking deposits. Mollys engine still seems to pull hard and goes well, revving freely. But we went with what looks clean and feels right.


Hannah then took her time and carefully took apart the front end and removed the engine and box complete with some help from me. It took longer than it probably should have but its sort of a new layout for both of us along with a fair few bolts being a bit stuck in place/awkward to get to. We rested the engine/box onto the large roll around steel bench and with the last engine mounts free lifted the car up on the hoist. Seemed the easiest way.



Discovered a bit of rust on Mollys front cross member and also one of the guard bottoms...



Hannah removed the guards, Autrostrada/G# spoiler, grill to suit and stashed them upstairs above the bedroom. They will, along with the bonnet and rear spoiler, be painted up later and we'll do the pre facelift swap on Minky.

After the engine was out we pushed Molly out the back and rolled Milly in place and up on the hoist. This time things were much quicker. Hannah was now becoming well familiar with the layout and best order in which to disassemble things. Cool weather meant the hoists oil was thick and it seemed to take ages for the lightweight little car to drop each time she needed it to so planning this order of disassembly helped. All the bolts on Milly seemed a bit less corroded as well.

One of the first things removed from Milly was her crystal. Hannah has had her eyes on that for ages. Millys magic crystal is going to be handed over to Minky. It mounts on a separate factory fitted bracket along with a little bit of extra loom that plugs in series between the lights and the loom. All very neatly done. The bulb inside is blown and its a funny little screw in jobbie we will need to source from somewhere.









Millys engine came out fine- nothing different really except Milly doesn't have ABS so there's a bit more room about that side above the engine to get hands in.



A mighty fine 1.3 big block...



Hannah swapped the non LSD gearbox onto Millys engine...



Actually having fun, becoming the valleys K11 expert..



There's a very visible difference to the diff casings on the LSD box- loads of extra ribs cast in to keep things stiff. The yucky corrosion look on the case is just aluminium oxide flashing from Molly having sat out the back of the shed over wet ground (where cars go to die...)



The LSD driveshafts (top) are quite a bit different too...



Mollys engine with Millys gearbox were then plonked into Milly. We lubed her clutch cable while it was easy too and that made a big difference to the clutch feel. She started up with her new heart straight away and sounded fine. Took her for a test drive- all good. She's now been put back into regular service and will remain that way while Molly continues to get stripped of her interior dash and wiring loom.

Later on Minky, who is now out of warrant, will come in for a transplant. There's a few question marks over how easy some of the wiring and certain components will swap across between a 1.3 PFL and a 1.0 FL. Both have mechanical speedos which is handy. Both have ABS and although they have slightly different pumps the wires are all the same - but in a different order in some places on the plugs.

The dizzys are different - Minky has a later apparently improved dizzy. So that will remain and be swapped into the 1.3. The bulkhead area has the same pressings so but for popping a hole in place for the clutch cable I think the manual swap should be ok. We are fully prepared to have to swap out the entire front loom if need be but hopefully wont need to.

There's also the disc brake rear end to swap across - having a look at it while Molly was on the hoist it all looks fine but will need a good wire brush and paint in order to be shiny enough to deserve being placed into Minkys immaculate underside.

Lots to do but no urgent rush- just another fun project (that was never meant to be a project.......)

 

[TORK10]

Other things that have happened here in our little micra climate recently..

Hannah pinched the comfy sporty seats from Molly the G#/autostrada and bolted them into Minky...





She found a few treats under the seats and carpet..



with all the seats out of both cars there had to be a rail swaps take place. In fact it was a bit more involved than that. Because the sporty seats were in a 4 door they didn't have the neat auto tilting function set in that the 2 door model seats have. So we took all the mechanisms apart and swapped bit around...





The sporty seats then bolted into Minky...



Then Molly was put up on the hoist and Hannah started removing her engine. We have no proof that Mollys engine is worse than Millys engine other than the feeling that Millys is possibly a bit peppier. Also when we looked inside the cam covers on both engines Millys is really clean and looks like its had more frequent oil changes whereas Mollys has a build up of older burnt looking deposits. Mollys engine still seems to pull hard and goes well, revving freely. But we went with what looks clean and feels right.


Hannah then took her time and carefully took apart the front end and removed the engine and box complete with some help from me. It took longer than it probably should have but its sort of a new layout for both of us along with a fair few bolts being a bit stuck in place/awkward to get to. We rested the engine/box onto the large roll around steel bench and with the last engine mounts free lifted the car up on the hoist. Seemed the easiest way.



Discovered a bit of rust on Mollys front cross member and also one of the guard bottoms...



Hannah removed the guards, Autrostrada/G# spoiler, grill to suit and stashed them upstairs above the bedroom. They will, along with the bonnet and rear spoiler, be painted up later and we'll do the pre facelift swap on Minky.

After the engine was out we pushed Molly out the back and rolled Milly in place and up on the hoist. This time things were much quicker. Hannah was now becoming well familiar with the layout and best order in which to disassemble things. Cool weather meant the hoists oil was thick and it seemed to take ages for the lightweight little car to drop each time she needed it to so planning this order of disassembly helped. All the bolts on Milly seemed a bit less corroded as well.

One of the first things removed from Milly was her crystal. Hannah has had her eyes on that for ages. Millys magic crystal is going to be handed over to Minky. It mounts on a separate factory fitted bracket along with a little bit of extra loom that plugs in series between the lights and the loom. All very neatly done. The bulb inside is blown and its a funny little screw in jobbie we will need to source from somewhere.









Millys engine came out fine- nothing different really except Milly doesn't have ABS so there's a bit more room about that side above the engine to get hands in.



A mighty fine 1.3 big block...



Hannah swapped the non LSD gearbox onto Millys engine...



Actually having fun, becoming the valleys K11 expert..



There's a very visible difference to the diff casings on the LSD box- loads of extra ribs cast in to keep things stiff. The yucky corrosion look on the case is just aluminium oxide flashing from Molly having sat out the back of the shed over wet ground (where cars go to die...)



The LSD driveshafts (top) are quite a bit different too...



Mollys engine with Millys gearbox were then plonked into Milly. We lubed her clutch cable while it was easy too and that made a big difference to the clutch feel. She started up with her new heart straight away and sounded fine. Took her for a test drive- all good. She's now been put back into regular service and will remain that way while Molly continues to get stripped of her interior dash and wiring loom.

Later on Minky, who is now out of warrant, will come in for a transplant. There's a few question marks over how easy some of the wiring and certain components will swap across between a 1.3 PFL and a 1.0 FL. Both have mechanical speedos which is handy. Both have ABS and although they have slightly different pumps the wires are all the same - but in a different order in some places on the plugs.

The dizzys are different - Minky has a later apparently improved dizzy. So that will remain and be swapped into the 1.3. The bulkhead area has the same pressings so but for popping a hole in place for the clutch cable I think the manual swap should be ok. We are fully prepared to have to swap out the entire front loom if need be but hopefully wont need to.

There's also the disc brake rear end to swap across - having a look at it while Molly was on the hoist it all looks fine but will need a good wire brush and paint in order to be shiny enough to deserve being placed into Minkys immaculate underside.

Lots to do but no urgent rush- just another fun project (that was never meant to be a project.......)

Don’t forget me

Great job by the way love how you both get stuck in and work together ??

 

[yoeddynz]

With a big job or of the way it's back into these little things.

Minkys time to go under the knife and have her heart ripped out. But first...

I have removed the brain box from Molly, who for those who can't remember (keep up - this is important stuff eh) is a PFL 1.3 manual.

Then I removed Minky. A facelift 1.0 auto. If the brains are the same (allowing for different fuel tables) and Mollys brain will run Minkys engine, then this could potentially save a fair bit of loom swapping.

So far so good. The plugs and pin count are the same...

I wanted to test this out before we pull Minkys heart out.

Tune in soon to see if the brain swap happens.

 

[yoeddynz]

YUSS!!!

Hooray. A 1.0 facelift runs on a pfl 1.3 ecu! Started fine and revved up fine. I won't drive it because I'm sure the fuel table is different enough that it would be out of the narrowband o2 sensors range of adjustment.

So the only other main difference between the cars now is the brake system (oh.. Ignoring the lack of clutch pedal on minky)

They both have abs and the pumps are pretty much the same. However the molly, with her flash racecar spec disc brake rear end, has a few pipework differences and a couple of what look like pressure reducing valves in line. Not sure exactly but once we have Minkys heart out I can check it out properly. I wouldnt be surprised if the master cylinder on molly is a larger bore to suit rear calipers too.

Id post up a video of minky starting on a pfl 1.3 ecu but its probably more fun for you all to watch some paint dry so I'll keep that bit of excessive excitement to myself..

 

[yoeddynz]

Minky is now under the knife. She's on the hoist and Hannah is taking her heart out. While up in the air I took the chance to snap some photos of her undercarrige. This is the first time we've actually put her on the hoist and looked underneath. WOW! She's sooo tidy and in such fantastic condition! Even the exhaust looks almost new...









Here's the lowering springs. I have no idea what make they are but they are red so they must be fast...



While Hannah was draining the autobox oil out....



I spotted a very exciting thing...



Most JDM Marches normally have a daft arrangement where the fixed part of the caliper is cast into the strut bottom which means you can't swap in bigger/better calipers and appropriately sized bigger discs.

The front brakes on this car are different to our other two cars (those two being PFL Marches) This car has front sliding calipers that mount to the struts in the usual fashion, like most cars, with two bolts. This is also the same setup that European K11 Micra have.

This is fantastic news! The one thing that lets a hard driven march down is the brakes which are a bit lacking, especially on long descents like Takaka 'race' hill. I cooked the brakes on both our pfls down there. But with the Euro spec front brakes we can swap in the larger discs and calipers from a Sentra/Primera/'insert some common as muck nissan here'

So yeah- happy about that !

 

[yoeddynz]

Well that was a bit more involved than I expected. But it was also as much fun as we had both hoped it would be.

The conversion this is.

Nup- the conversion of Minky into a 'SSS' Micra is what I'm talking about.

Both Hannah and I have spent way more time on these little cars than they'll ever be worth (well actually- word on the street is that K11s ARE the next big thing within the trendy JDM world to soon start soaring in value..)

But we dont care because its been fun and we now have a neat little car in the combination that we wanted. Plus its bloody mint in condition so for the tiny bit of monies its cost us we now have a very good, low milegae modern daily.

Bargain.

Lets go back a couple of weeks though. Hannah started stripping Minky down. Out with her little 1.0 auto. We will flick those off for sale - low mileage and it great condition.

Then she cleaned the engine bay out and it came up pretty sweet. Not rust anywhere. K11s can be prone to rust along the bottom of the radiator support and Molly has some decent rot going on there...



So after Hannah cleaned the area we painted it black (easy to touch up in an area so prone to chipping/road grime) and I also filled the cross member with cavity wax..





Whist in that area we swapped the radiators. Minky had an auto one with extra pipes no longer needed plus a outlet in a different place which meant an uglier hose. So out with Mollys radiator, the bolts which were pretty rusty and gave Hannah a mini battle...



The battle was worth it though ! .... because....



Is what Hannah found behind Mollys radiator. We have no idea how long its been residing there but its quite rusty and could have been dropped in there by someone in Japan. It still works which is good but even better is the fact that its of a particular size! This must be sort of like finding a reverse black hole of the automotive trades world when one of these gets spat back out onto your lap...



We almost had to have a sit down after that and just ponder life.

Anyway.

Then Minky was removed from the hoist and Molly was heaved up in the air for the next stage of the conversion. We wanted her disc brake rear end. Luckily all the bolts holding it in place freed off nicely and it was removed with no dramas. Unlike many UK cars where those bolts are well known for being seized solid from corrosion. While in there I also removed the rear anti sway bar, the front one already removed ages ago when we had pulled out Mollys engine. Minky is devoid of such sportiness and will happily be gifted these treats.

We wire brushed the surface rust off and painted it all. Came up sweet. I also removed the calipers and gave them a workout, freeing up the slightly sticky pistons that had been sitting a while with no use. Luckily the pads and discs are fine.

While Molly was on the hoist I lifted Minkys bum in the air onto some stands and removed her drum brake axle, bolts having all been loosened while she was on the hoist. Axles were then swapped and it went well. Only other thing needing swapping was the hand brake cables, easy.

I am as yet unsure if disc equipped k11s have a larger master cylinder bore - no real info on this and it doesn't seem mentioned on any threads I have found. From what I have found when looking up new M/Cs there is one with a bore 1mm larger. Possibly this is fitted on Molly and we can swap it over if needed. The brakes seemed fine on the floor so test drive will tell for sure.

I didn't take many photos at this point but here's a few of the axle in place..





While Minky's springs were out Hannah cleaned them and found out they are Apexi progressives with a 30mm drop. Nice.



With Minkys drum brake axle swapped into Molly she was lowered back to earth and we could begin the dash swap. We stripped out Mollys setup first, just in case we might find a stumbling block. Luckily it all came out sweet as and much easier than I expected. We ended up removing the full loom as well because a workshop can never have enough automotive wire..



Hannah had a little helper...



Empty..





Then it was Minkys turn. Much bigger (uglier) dash came out leaving this...



Dashing...



Now to look for those differences. I know you're in there! Where are you? Ah- I see you. Steel frame work behind the dash.

Yep- one of those things was not like the other. In fact one of those things was not quite the same.

The support bars were different. But luckily the mounting points on the A pillars and floor were exactly the same. The heater assemblies were also exactly the same, as were the heater controls. They just moved them up the dash for the facelift. So with both cars stripped out I slowly built Minky's interior back together with Mollys bits. A few drill holes were needed. Oh and also- while the whole lot was out I thought best to add a clutch pedal because we might need that.

Luckily the auto equipped cars have the same pressings and they even have the bolt crush tubes mounted in place!

No hole for clutch cable...



Hole for clutch cable...



Couldn't be easier. Thanks Nissan...



Tarted up Mollys clutch pedal with some black zinc it....

 

[yoeddynz]

Now wiring time. There were a few plugs that needed changing. Facelift Marches * and Pfl Marches share the same instrument pod. Its identical. Its just the ugly dash they changed around it.

*actually- some facelifts, maybe Euro versions, had digital speedos. But not so Marches.

So this is nice.

But the plugs are all different on the back as are all the lights inside and wiring traces, esppecially with one pod suiting an auto and not having a rev counter (which we just had to have!!!). Made trickier by the fact that Japanese built Marches use many different colours for things compared to European Micras and we only had wiring diagrams for the latter. Those diagrams were infact pretty useless for a lot of it.

So we had to do a bit of paperwork, head scratching and suss some things out...



This involved scribbling on paper, looking up stuff on nerdnet and beer...



Kevin thought it best to sleep this one out...



Eventually we had it all sussed (we hoped). One annoying thing was that Nissan decided to save pennys by not including the required trigger wire for the rev counter into the loom from the ECU. I had to make one up, fit it into the ecu plug and run it up through. Then , with carefully scribbled notes to hand I started splicing mollys set of plugs over to Minkys loom, adding and subtracting what bits wee needed..



My new wire stripper tool was much better than my old one. I like new tools, even better when they are getting used!..



A neat little thing I have not seen before was a little reed switch on the speedo, to send a pip signal back to the ecu/abs for speed... (take note @Roman )



Electrics all sorted I turned to swapping over the steering column. Mollys one had black plastics to match her dash and a very nice leather rimmed steering wheel. Bonus points also awarded for being height adjustable.

Extravagance!

I needed to swap the lock barrel over - because whilst having two sets of keys is sort of quirky cool when you own an old ****ter its not going to wash it for a modern...



Dash assembly was fitted back in, with each piece of the jigsaw carefully cleaned (although not at all to the super high levels of monsieurs @ProZac or @Snoozin ) , plugs were plugged in and steering column fitted. It was looking good!!!...





ENGINE TIME!

Oh lordy- how far should we go with cleaning this little beauty of CG13 goodness? I was strong and didn't get too carried away. But it made sense to give it a bit of a tickle while out and so easy to get to.



I admit I did spend a bit of time cleaning up an gearbox that no one will probably ever see, but for which hides an LSD within, again, something very few but the most geeky of K11 boffins would ever spot. I couldn't help myself...



Minky was carefully lowered down over her new heart. What a thoroughly exciting moment (for a car geek enthusiast) and everything bolted up fine. I had to do a bit more wiring detective work because autos and manuals are a fair bit different with the switches for reverse and neutral...



I fitted a new water pump because it makes sense when its such a prick to do in situ..



The exhaust from Molly was swapped over. The main pipe was bigger by 3mm but I had also discovered that minky's 1.0 exhaust had a sound deadening reducing plug halfway up one of its straight through mufflers, only visible when the exhaust is off and you look in with a torch. Oh plus - Molly has a nifty little chrome tail pipe extension that cleaned up well and looks better than the 1.0 pea shooter.

We also changed the dizzy out. The facelift cars ditched the Mitsubishi dizzy for a beefier Hitachi unit that apparently has a more robust coil. There was a bit of heat decay to the plastic trim on the ignitor terminals so I plopped a bit of epoxy on them. While in there I noted that it has a 4 point optical trigger. Just the one I couuld see. So without an obvious cam angle sensor this surely means that the injection must be batch - not fully sequential. Discuss...



With all the fluids topped up, gearbox filled with brand spanking new oil, blessed by the Castrol gods because LSD and the battery charged up with much excitement and a smattering of nervous energy I turned the key. Will the thing start?

No. No it didn't.

Ha- but only because I had removed the fuel pump fuse so I could build up some oil pressure on an engine that has been sat for ages. Fuse in and it started straight away - just like a good little K11 should

Neato! So we did the correct thing and took it for a good hard hoon!

Wow! The engine pulls really well, the box has a super nice gearshift action and the LSD is a delight on all the narrow twisty roads we have around our place. I think for normal shopping car duties it would obviously be a waste but as soon as you start really using the gears out of corners there is no scrabbling at all. It just pulls out from corners beautifully like a good front tugger should.

The rev counter works! Yay. Got that right then..

The exhaust sounds nice. It has a subtle burble and a sporty sound when revved hard but not at all noisy.

The car really needs the anti sway bars fitting asap but for now its ok. The 70 series profile budget 'supercat' tyres, although in good tread, are comically noisy when heated up and started chirping everywhere. A shame because even though unfashionable in their height they fill the arches nicely.

We ideally need 14" wheels anyway because there is barely a well rolled joints worth of space between the calipers and inside of the steels at front. If we want to upgrade the front brakes the 13's will have to go

So anyway- its all good. Lots of fun little cosmetic jobs now (ignoring the elephant in the room that is painting and then swapping on the PFL wings, spoilers and bonnet.

Here's some pics I took yesterday evening...

 

[fuzzy-hair-man]

We also changed the dizzy out. The facelift cars ditched the Mitsubishi dizzy for a beefier Hitachi unit that apparently has a more robust coil. There was a bit of heat decay to the plastic trim on the ignitor terminals so I plopped a bit of epoxy on them. While in there I noted that it has a 4 point optical trigger. Just the one I couuld see. So without an obvious cam angle sensor this surely means that the injection must be batch - not fully sequential. Discuss...

Does each of the 4 slots indicate the position for the 4 cylinders and the little square differentiate number 1 from the others. Being driven from the cam 360 degrees will equal 720 degrees of crank rotation.

 

[yoeddynz]

yeah - you're correct. I was just presuming the little square donated the tdc but I'd obviously not had enough coffee....

I need to mull this info over

 

[yoeddynz]

Milly went to her new happy forever* home today. Her proud new owner is none other than my friend Will from the Oldschool.co.nz forum.

Will had managed to keep this k11 purchase a secret from his lovely wife (who also happens to be a Hannah..:scratch::lol: ) and the look of excitement on her face when she first laid eyes on the new family car was amazing. She was literally speechless :neutral:

I took a photo of our tiny K11 convoy as we headed over towards the dark clouds of Richmond to deliver Milly. Will was super stoked that we are including, free of charge, the beautiful custom made windscreen sunshade with Milly.

We spotted a total of 3 other K11s driving in Nelson but were sadly not quick enough to snap shots for the busiest thread on oldschool

In other news.. we drove Minky to Blenheim for Xmas. With the anti sway bars added she handles even sweeter. Such good fun. Really only let down by the terrible tyres but they will get changed when we suss out what wheels to fit. For now I'll just have giggles making huge amounts of squeally sounds at not very fast speeds.

When we got back near home we re-filled and Minky had done something in the vicinity of between 4.7 to 5l/100km - was tricky to tell exactly because awkward to get the last bit of fuel in. Super stoked with that given we had some proper good fun on all the hills there and back.

The G# 'sports' seats that are now fitted in Minky, although supportive, are no where near as comfy as the Recaros in my Imp so we are going to keep a look out for some to fit. But not expecting much luck given how much folk ask for them nowadays.

After following a friends Yaris thread on oldschool and watching a fair few Micra turbo vids on the tube I am certainly going to have some fun in the future building another engine or turboing this one. But that will wait because some might say this little gap filling shopping car purchase has already snowballed a touch...


Such is the car fanatic way

 

[TORK10]

Selling G# interior ? ??‍

 

[yoeddynz]

Selling G# interior ? ??‍

It's fitted into the yellow car, including the black pfl dash and leather steering wheel, gear knob etc

 

[TORK10]

It's fitted into the yellow car, including the black pfl dash and leather steering wheel, gear knob etc

My bad I was more so speaking of seats as u were saying the were uncomfortable

 

[yoeddynz]

Whilst we were in town yesterday afternoon Hannah and I popped into the local wreckers yard so I could have a browse through their collection of alternators for my flat six project.

We ended up finding these treasures of round...



15 x 7 et37 Italian made Momos! Yum.





Exactly the sort of dishy rim we've been looking for. Its been tricky finding 100mm pcd fwd offset rims that actually have some decent amount of lip on show. We took one home for trial fitting. Bonus points for them being big enough in the bore plus having tapered nut seat which work perfectly with our nuts and I got almost ten full turns of thread with the stock nuts.

I think they'll work bang on...



They need full restoration and we'd paint the centres a dark bronze or a dark gun metal grey, then polish the heck outta the lips.

Hopefully the wreckers might have have the centre caps, which are the style common in the 90's where they cover the whole centre and hide the nuts. Held in place by a single countersunk socket head machine screw. I'll machine up something bespoke.

With 195/50 tyres they'll match the current fitted wheels in diameter and the speedo reads bang on with them. I'll get a tyre on to try them for sure.

More pics.

 

[yoeddynz]

Sadly those wheels I found were just not meant to be. When I went back to get a tyre fitted I double checked the other rims on the balancing machine and discovered that two were bent- one really badly to a point I'd not want to attempt to rescue.

So that sucks. Back to the search then.

In other news @Sanfiddy came round and helped us take Mollys skeleton to the grave.





Once there at the dump Hannah and I stripped off the doors which will be heading to @Willdat? and the hatch as a spare for when the a ford ranger (insert other penis enlarging device) backs to into our tiny car at the supermarket because he cant see beyond the girth of his massive machine.

We also grabbed the front struts, rear springs and steering rack. The front springs from this G#/autostrada model I have discovered have a higher rate. The steering rack might possibly be geared higher - it showed 100mm less travel at the rim lock to lock. Even if it isn't actually quicker, and I can't yet find any definitive proof on internets that there is a quicker rack on some but for rumours that the UK super S / JDM G# might be so equipped. Anyway- its still good to keep a spare.

We were both a little sad to see Molly sitting there, soon to be turned into a Nissan Cube. She was actually a solid as little car, a rare model at that, with which only half a day of work would have made roadworthy. But can't turn back time and the goal was always a 2 door yellow PFL which is now even better equipped than we first dreamed. Mollys heart and other organs live on in Minky and Milly anyway

 

[TORK10]

Just from looking at photos
You made a boo boo (or correct me if I am wrong)
But you left the bumper mounts bolted to the front, and you need these to fit a G# bumper as the mounts used for standard bumpers are different

The G#/SuperS bumper mounts are different as the are shaped to fit around the rear of the spotlights

This is why when I strip down a k11 I literally take everything

 

[TORK10]

You will always find once the car is gone you will say oooo F*ck I should of kept this should of kept that
So if you have the space it’s worth holding onto As much as possible

 

[yoeddynz]

Oooooh bugger. Hopefully its not crushed yet- I should pop up today and have a look.

 

[yoeddynz]

I'll have to modify/make some mounts to suit when the time comes - I just rang the refuse centre and the shell has already been crushed. Its been transformed into a Nissan Cube.

 

[TORK10]

I'll have to modify/make some mounts to suit when the time comes - I just rang the refuse centre and the shell has already been crushed. Its been transformed into a Nissan Cube.

Bummer

 

[yoeddynz]

yep. But I'll just modify stuff to suit

 

[yoeddynz]

Well having just one K11 didn't last very long then. While we were having a bbq and entertaining guests the other night I got a call from @Sanfiddy to say he had just picked up a March and wondered if I'd like to buy it from him. It had failed its wof on rust. Rego is on hold.

"hmmmmm? " I hummed as I moved away from the bbq area out of earshot. He then says some magic words...

"its a manual and I think it might be a 1.3...oh and its a 2 door. Plus it's got spotlights in the front spoiler"

I glance over at Hannah, innocently sitting there unaware of what I was about to do. I'm sure she'll understand I say to myself. I'll tell her later. Maybe in the morning..

"yes - I'll buy it! "

So he sent me some photos via messenger and I checked them out like a husband might look at porn when the wife is out shopping* and looked its rego up on carjam for any extra details I might gain. Sadly it was a facelift model but hey- very hard to win them all in this game.

Hannah ended up finding out about it before we went to bed and luckily she did not kill me. In fact she was quite excited because we could have some fun tidying it up and hopefully turn in a decent profit when we sell it on to an enthusiast in the making..

So this afternoon we drove out to collect it.

We roll up and the first thing I spot is the rear spoiler.



Next thing I was happy to confirm after having spotted the potential from the photos I'd been sent was the black dash. I have never seen a black dash on a facelift. In fact the only black dash equipped k11 I have seen so far is our setup we scored.

Next thing we spotted was that this little K11 (Meredith?) has sports seats just like what we have fitted into Minky! But these have a even nicer colour and are in great condition, with matching door cards

Sadly the rear seat does not split so hannah instantly said no to my idea of swapping the lot over

Hannah pays Sanford the money, much like an addict pays for their fix...



Meanwhile I scamble about underneth to see what other treats she might be hiding. Rear disc brakes? Sadly no. But hey - uprated rear dampers (well ok- I'm basing this fact purely on them having stickers on them with some branding) and lowering springs (but quite possibly just Makita one ways) which have her sitting at about the same height as Minky.

The cars battery was dead so we brought along a spare we'd kept from Molly and sat it into our new K11 (Mildred?)

Started sweet as and sounded good- possibly a dry bearing on one of the fan belt idlers. We drive in convoy to the supermarket. It drives really really well !!! Neat. Its a bit bouncy- in that fun sort of slightly over sprung way that a boyracer car does when fitted with cutties.

We manage to score parking spot side by side at the super market for maximum coo value from all the punters as they walk by and spot the two little k11s parked together (in my world this happens)..



We drive home. I was going to put some extra fuel in it because its a bit low but when I arrived at our local station there was a line of paranoid idiots waiting to fuel up after having heard ominous tales of further fuel price rises.



So we continue homeward. I have some fun on our hillclimb racetrack road tailing a flash bmw coupe that couldn't shake me. Little cars, willing little revvy hearts = such fun

Took some photos once home.







These driving lights work and look neat..



Sporty seats. Funky patterns...





Black dash goodness. Steering wheel looks like a Primera item?



Bit of rust on the wing/guard. There's a bit on one door as well. Nothing major though.



Now inside where I'll hoist it into the air and sort out the rusty front crossmember..



Then give it a good clean, replace the missing trip around the screen (it has a windscreen chip that has been repaired) and we can advertise it for sale. I'm just stoked we saved her (Martha? Yes !!! Martha

Hannah's has a sister named Martha. Perfect) because there was a strong chance this car was going to end up crushed.









*I would never look at such things. Honest.

 

[TORK10]

I want the seats ?

 

[TORK10]

I can confirm for you also that this is a facelift march G# autostrada model
It’s obviously 1.3 cg13 yes??

Steering wheel and seats and black plastic dash/trims come in this model

Nice little find man

 

[yoeddynz]

I can confirm for you also that this is a facelift march G# autostrada model
It’s obviously 1.3 cg13 yes??

Steering wheel and seats and black plastic dash/trims come in this model

Nice little find man

Cheers. Yeah a few others on Facebook have said it's a g# too. What a score.

The autostrada is the 4door version of the g# (the one we split for bits) and from what I've read the autostrada has rear seat headrests, as are now in Minky, but which this one (Martha) doesn't.

Also- its been pointed out that we bought this k11 march on March the 11th....

I'm sure we will find an enthusiast buyer for this car in NZ. Especially with increasing fuel prices!