Lewie's K12..

[Vesparado]

Hi there guys,
Been a member for a while now and thought i should finally post!

As the title suggests i own an '03 1.2 S 5door which was given to me from my Grandma, who can no longer drive - as you can imagine the car came complete with plenty of scratches (and a particularly dodgy paint repair).
Using this as an opportunity to have mess around and hopefully learn in the process .
Over the past few months I’ve slowly managed to make her look a bit more respectable, but still have a way to go. Ive finally managed to get some alloys on her after saving the pennies to get some quality rubber on them, they may be a bit small for some peoples taste but i like them and importantly have made the car handle SO much better than steelies.

Mods so far.
Vinyl wrap & colour coding of interior details (ongoing)
wind deflectors
New Stereo and speakers
Tinted windows (tint was too dark so re-doing it slightly lighter)
Alloy wheels
Front 'splitter' painted white
chrome grille strips blacked out

Future plans
lower 40mm - ordered springs today
tidy up the wheels
a good service!
custom manifold & exhaust (made by myself)
colour code mirror and doorhandles

Heres one from a few months ago...


and one from a few days ago, just to give you an idea


Cheers for looking

 

[k10shaun]

Alright lewie cars looking good mate

 

[Vesparado]

Well, Its been quite a while and an update is definitely needed.
I finally managed to get round to lowering her, which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare as it was near impossible to get the drop links off! After i finally managed to get the bolts to budge (with a blow lamp! ) it was quite straightforward - doing it this way did mean destroying the old ones so not only do i have new springs i also have nice new drop links - which can only be good. The car feels so much better with a lot less body roll, now that the car is much stiffer i do find myself dodging potholes though - especially some of the craters in the road that exist around where i live! .

Well it seems bad things come in 3’s and the past few weeks have proven that. first of all a dozy postman managed to leave a nasty scratch along the passenger side! After a few phone calls royal mail agreed to cover the full cost of the repair so i cant really complain. About a week later i received a cheque through the post and the was re-sprayed in no time! i cant really fault the job the garage did, they had to spray both doors and in the process got rid of a nasty paint blow out from a previous repair - winner!






Anyway, fast forward about a week or two and after spinning out thanks to a patch of ice and bouncing off a kerb, the micra was back to handling like a shopping trolley! After an inspection it turns out i have bent the rear axle/beam.. D’oh! Its not made the car undriveable but i will definitely be sorting it out out once all this christmas malarkey is out the way (bah humbug!). Finally.. at the weekend just gone the car overheated and the radiators blown! Ive managed to source one this morning at a pretty good price and will be arriving towards the end of the week. My apologies for the lack of pictures and amount of waffling! Hopefully thats the last of my bad luck for a while now and i can get on with some more fun tinkering! Should be another update on here soon after I’ve got my rad sorted. I realise i havent put many pictures up on here, the old girl is looking a bit sorry for herself at the minute so ill take some after she's had a good wash. Expect plenty more in the next update and thanks again for looking!
Cheers

 

[frank]

overheating and a blown rad usually indicates a headgasket issue hopefully not eh

 

[Vesparado]

Cheers Frank, altough i hope not!
I couldnt find any water or milky stuff in my oil so i think i might be in the clear.. (ill keep my eye on it though)
plus when i filled the rad up the car managed to empty it again all over the floor in about 30 seconds upon start-up
i think i might just check again to be safe now though!

 

[frank]

emulsion on the oilcap is when the h/g is leaking between a water gallery and an oil gallery eh, the more common leak on the fire-ring will suck coolant in (white exhaust smoke) and will blow combustion gasses into the coolant (hard coolant pipes, and blown rads)
but a simply knackered rad can blow under normal running also tho

 

[Vesparado]

Cheers mate, i will give it all a good going over before i put a new rad in just to be safe.
lets hope its just the rad though, with christmas round the corner and what-not!
even though she's low miles, she'll be 12 in january so im hoping its just an age related mishap..

 

[k10shaun]

Finally haha looks good mate if you need a hand with the Rad mate just give us a buzz

 

[Vesparado]

It was time to sort out my radiator! After finally having some time off work, and getting a mate to lend us a hand to make the fettling easier. I managed to source a new radiator on ebay for £34 which i thought was a bit of a bargin . After consulting the Haynes manual, which recommended removing the front bumper. well, we both decided B*****ks to that and got cracking.


All pipes & rad removed

After detaching the fan & removing all the hoses - and getting a mouthful of coolant in the process (not the nicest taste ) there was only two bolts holding the rad in on the bottom slam panel, after removing them it was a case of wangling out the rad.


new rad ready to go back in

Before i put the new one in i attached the fan & other gubbins back on and slid it in through the top of the engine bay. The only pain was getting the top pins to sit properly in their rubber mountings (this is where a second pair of hands definitley came in handy). It seems the new rad has sorted out the problem - the Micras running like a dream again .


Manky knackered old rad