My Little Micra

[LiamC]

Hello everyone. My name is Liam and I'm from the Midlands of Ireland. I recently got my first car but I've been looking on these forums for a while now. It's a 1998, 1 litre with 90-ish thousand miles.

It has its fair share of little scratches and dents, and a big one on the bootlid and the bumper. Mechanically, it's very good though.

I'm really looking forward to owning this car learning how to do things on it, because so far they seem very easy to work on.

I have a rough list of things to be done over the next while

~Clean up the paint removing all the stupid little dents and scratches.

~Replace the bootlid and repair the rear bumper from its little crash.

~Add a few parts from higher level cars, (parcel shelf speakers, rev counter etc)

~Also add some parts from Marches like rear lights etc.

~Lower it a bit, I think roughly 40 mm with 14 inch wheels looks just right on these.

~Eventually, find a 1.3 engine and swap it, but these are a rare beast to find in Ireland


Here's some pictures as well.

My personal favourite

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[LiamC]

The first thing I decided to fix was the big dents in the bootlid and the bumper. So I took a trip to my local scrapyard owned by my friends family and took off a new bootlid and bumper. The bumper is scratched but at least not broken and dented. The bootlid is off a vibe model and has the holes for my wrap around spoiler to go into which is a bonus to save drilling new ones.

While I was there I picked up a 2nd facelift rear wiper motor, a centre console from a mazda demio with cupholders and an interior map reading light from an old primera.

Edit. Here's a picture of me getting stuck in the primera after getting the interior light.

 

[LiamC]

Today I decided to change the rear bumper over to the new one, and also the bumper bar as this was also messed up by the crash.

I started by carefully removing the old broken bumper with my foot, this is what I was faced with after it was off

And here's the new one.

After having a very long argument with the bumper bar due to rusty bolts, it finally came off. Then I sprayed the area behind with underseal, just for some future rustproofing. This was all I could do because my friend snapped the bolts off on the new bumper bar taking it off, and also it needed to be wire brushed back and repainted with rust inhibitor.

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[LiamC]

A while back I bought a set of pre facelift March rear lights off a friend, which I just wired up to go onto my car. This was the first thing I had ever done like this on a car and I found it very interesting to do. I wired them up to have twin reverse lights, but I didn't want to overload or burn out the wiring so I decided to use LED replacement bulbs.

Also I got a set of rev counter clocks.

I was originally going to leave it with the rev clocks stock mileage, but when I was changing them I noticed that the speedo was only held in with 4 screws, so a bit of fiddling and a few minutes later, I had them swapped. This is the result.

Getting the speedo drive cable back in was the most difficult bit about this, and almost made me ask that fateful question, "why do I bother modifying cars?" Eventually after some effing and jeffing it just slipped in. At first half the bulbs where dead, and also had this weird blue condom thing on them.

I found a box of spare dash bulbs in the house and this was the finished result.

Today I passed my driving test too so one step closer to getting this pile on the road I spose

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[GregorStokes]

Looks good! Love the rev counter cluster


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[LiamC]

Thanks man, yeah I'd say it's my favourite thing I've done to it so far. I was looking for a black set for ages

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[GregorStokes]

Thanks man, yeah I'd say it's my favourite thing I've done to it so far. I was looking for a black set for ages

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Can't wait to see what else you do, looking forward to it!


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[LiamC]

Wheels and new springs to go on, but all after the rust is sorted

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[MikeHP]

Congrats on passing your test! You are now a free man!

Oh, and nice car.

 

[LiamC]

Thanks, yeah finally free. Be a couple of months before I can drive my car. I'll be doing most of the work for the nct (mot) myself so I need to wait for holidays and warmer weather

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[MikeHP]

holidays and warmer weather

That's a very familiar feeling!

 

[LiamC]

And rust repairs. Thankfully my neighbour is a mechanic and has a lift so he might be able to do the repair, and also let me have a look under there at the same time

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[LiamC]

That's a very familiar feeling!

Warmer weather might have been an exaggeration, I mean less crap weather

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[LiamC]

(big post)

So this weekend I started sanding down my super s bumper. I got this a few months ago off a friend who'd bought it off his brother, who had bought it of their cousin who had gotten it from England. I managed to buy it for a tenner.

This is the state I got it in from my friend

When I got it both the lights were fecked and it had also been "modified" by some ape who cut out the number plate recess

The first thing I set about doing was remaking the number plate holder and also strengthening it back up cos it was fierce wobbly. I did this by cutting and bending an old piece of facia board from the roof of the house. I used an old jig my dad had made for making new keels for the boat and a heat gun to bend it (which caught fire as I was finishing this)

After the incident with the heat gun I started about attaching the new piece to the bumper. I was going to use rivets because I had loads of them but the were just a bit too short.

So instead I used a few bolts

Here it is after I finished this stage

Next I went about filling in the bits at the sides where the centre bar had been cut out. I used some old plastic I had lying around and then I screwed and glued them in. After that I fibreglass fillered over them to get them fairly smooth and then body filler over that

I also bought some new lights for it courtesy of r-reg-sr, look great

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[LiamC]

I also bought a few bits for it

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[LiamC]

Yesterday I spent a few hours up at my local scrapyard owned by my friends family. They have 4 micras and also got another one in the other day so always bits to get there. I started off by getting new speakers from a second facelift as my passenger one has died recently.

I got another set of micra mud flaps as well from the new one they got in, which is also the only micra I've ever seen with a check engine light on it, although we did get it started eventually.

I also did an amazingly stupid thing. I removed the handbrake surround from that car (future plans) which I left on the roof. After the surprise of getting the car started I brought it for a rag around the yard, during which the stuff on the roof fell off, and I then managed to run it over . Anyone else ever do anything amazingly thick like that?

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[LiamC]

Swapped all the wiring in the bootlid to include my boot light switch, and also swapped the boot lock and the barrel. Ready to put this new bootlid on now next week, bye bye dent

By the way here is the the boot wiring with the extra wire for the light switch to plug into the lock

 

[LiamC]

Today I decided to go and swap over the new bootlid onto my car, which turned out to take a good bit longer than I thought it would.


I removed the struts and took off the bootlid, only to find this.

Luckily it was all just surface rust and had nice solid steel underneath. It seems to be a very badly painted area on these cars, with just a thin layer of primer on it.


So I set about fixing it up, by sanding fully back to bare metal and spraying with zinc primer.

I actually have some experience with fixing rust, being the owner of a rusting old Peugeot 309 as well.

After the zinc primer dried I sprayed red primer, and then top coat. I used holts paint, and for anyone with the same colour car as me, it's a very good match.

Having fixed this rust, the rest of the swap was pretty easy, with the only problem being realigning the boot. It seems the small crash wasn't as small as I thought, but it closes now and there's no dent so it's fine by me.

Thanks for reading people.

 

[LiamC]

So after putting on my new bootlid it needed some adjustment. It turns out that this crash it was in was a bit bigger than I thought, which only showed up with the new bootlid on it.

I started off by filing out the holes on the latch to try and get a bit more room for adjustment. Although this was working, it was taking forever. So my dad suggested using a hammer to bend the rear slam panel back into shape abit, as this was the main cause of the problem for it. This was also working well, but it was also taking forever, so then came the real solution.

Finally we resorted to a sledge hammer, and after just a few hits it was all back in shape (ish). Problem sorted, and I have the best closing boot I've ever seen.





On a side note, my friend who is usually a man for Toyotas bought a march. Here it is in all its Jap glory.

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Can't wait for them to be on the road so they can meet each other.

 

[LiamC]

So recently I haven't had much time to do stuff on the car. It turns out that my friend is deciding to break his March and he bought another starlet instead. Good thing is I'm in line for a few bits, bad thing is that a nice clean march is being broken for parts but that's life.

Did a bit more to my super s bumper in terms of sanding and priming. Also have been t-cutting like a mad eejit getting a couple of little scrapes off the car.

Also my cross member has developed a hole where the bonnet latch support bolts on, so now the bonnet doesn't close anymore.

Fitted a new 16 led light into my centre light, and worked out my wiring for my primera map light to be wired in, just need time to do that.

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[LiamC]

Also took off the vibe sticker off the bootlid, and cut the headlight bolts off since they were spinning where the head should be held in. So now it's ready to get its cross member welded over Easter all going well

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[LiamC]

So I'm off now for 2 weeks from college and got a bit of time do stuff to the car. I gave it a bit of a t cut all over and and some touch ups in places. I removed the old number plate and replaced the boot handle and rear wiper. While I was doing this I tried out my spoiler, which I was planning on painting body colour but I'm not sure now

I also wanted to have a better look at my cross member, since I knew it was rusty when I bought it but didn't know how bad

I had a picture of it but it got corrupted, the cross member was pretty bad so I've ordered a new one. I'll take it off and put the new one on, and get it re spot-welded on in the mechanics up the road



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[davyboy]

So I'm off now for 2 weeks from college and got a bit of time do stuff to the car. I gave it a bit of a t cut all over and and some touch ups in places. I removed the old number plate and replaced the boot handle and rear wiper. While I was doing this I tried out my spoiler, which I was planning on painting body colour but I'm not sure now

I also wanted to have a better look at my cross member, since I knew it was rusty when I bought it but didn't know how bad

I had a picture of it but it got corrupted, the cross member was pretty bad so I've ordered a new one. I'll take it off and put the new one on, and get it re spot-welded on in the mechanics up the road



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Keep it black ....looks good buddy.
Two black front wings, or black bonnet maybe would look good, with black alloys.
And maybe this (?)http://i1323.photobucket.com/albums/u585/davyboy8/IMG0320A_zpsneayqzwl.jpg

 

[LiamC]

Thanks for the reply. The thing was I was thinking of colour coding a few bits so I think it would look funny with that black and everything else body colour

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[davyboy]

Thanks for the reply. The thing was I was thinking of colour coding a few bits so I think it would look funny with that black and everything else body colour

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Black bonnet with the black spoiler ....smart.
Lowered with black alloys, and colour coded front grille ...smarter again
OR...carbon cover the spoiler and the bonnet and wing mirrors

 

[LiamC]

Black bonnet with the black spoiler ....smart.
Lowered with black alloys, and colour coded front grille ...smarter again
OR...carbon cover the spoiler and the bonnet and wing mirrors

I'm really going for a nice clean look with a few optional extras, nothing too mad. Probably a bit of colour coding on the mirrors, bumpers and bump strips. But thanks for the suggestions

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[LiamC]

Over the long weekend I spent a bit of time working on the car. During the week my new cross member and brake shoes arrived thanks to micks garage.

This is the state of my old one after attacking it with a hammer and a screw driver just to see what it was like. Not good.

Also a bit of rust just above it, which I wire brushed and treated with metal prep.

I took everything off that I would need to to remove the cross member, including the rusty bonnet lock support and alternator heat shield.

I gave these a good going over with a wire brush on my drill and metal prep, before zinc primer and 2 top coats of simoniz tough black paint. All ready to be fitted on with the new cross member.

And I marked all the spot welds to be drilled out early next week hopefully.

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[LiamC]

Bit of progress of the last couple of days. Went to the scrapyard do get a few bits and came home with these from a march.

The dash pod isn't in great condition but it's fine for the price. If anyone is fitting a cupholder in their car you need to drill a small hole for a locating peg on the right side of the surround. 5.5 mm drill is perfect.


Started drilling out the spot welds too, some of them are very tricky to get at but I'll get there eventually.

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[davyboy]

Hell of a find there with that dash pod buddy - nice one

 

[LiamC]

I'm happy I got it but it's a bit broke in places like the door lock and the coin holder. It's good to have connections in the scrap business. Lots of grannies here like having imported marches for no apparent reason which is great for us looking for parts.

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[LiamC]

I've finally finished drilling out all the spot welds so I thought I'd tell everyone where they all are to save problems for ye in the future.

I found 23 each side that hold the cross member onto the car, but some others need to be taken off to get at others.

There are 4 each side behind the towing eyes to the sides of the bar. To do these you are drilling through the chassis legs into the cross member so this will leave holes to plug weld into later.

There are 9 on each side looking from the front of the car.

There are then another 4 on the inside face of it, 2 are normal welds and the other 2 on the bumper brackets, go through 3 thicknesses of metal. These are annoying and take longer than usual.

The 4 arrowed ones need to be removed to take of the cross member. The circled ones just hold the bumper bracket onto the CM, and what I did was drill the top one and break off the bottom one by twisting it off. This gave me access to the next ones below.


Again looking from the front there are 6 more behind this where the front panel joins the the CM. Here you are drilling through the front panel the same as the first 4 welds on the outside. (Mine was rusty here so I drew arrows to where they were approximately).

And that's all the spot welds holding it on. I hope this is some use to someone in the future, there was a guide on here but the pictures don't work anymore, not for me anyway.

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Found this possibly helpful thread on the astra owners club after I'd finished drilling the welds, might help someone else
http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/foru...int/39447-replaced-micra-radiator-crossmember

 

[davyboy]

I've finally finished drilling out all the spot welds so I thought I'd tell everyone where they all are to save problems for ye in the future.

I found 23 each side that hold the cross member onto the car, but some others need to be taken off to get at others.

There are 4 each side behind the towing eyes to the sides of the bar. To do these you are drilling through the chassis legs into the cross member so this will leave holes to plug weld into later.

There are 9 on each side looking from the front of the car.

There are then another 4 on the inside face of it, 2 are normal welds and the other 2 on the bumper brackets, go through 3 thicknesses of metal. These are annoying and take longer than usual.

The 4 arrowed ones need to be removed to take of the cross member. The circled ones just hold the bumper bracket onto the CM, and what I did was drill the top one and break off the bottom one by twisting it off. This gave me access to the next ones below.


Again looking from the front there are 6 more behind this where the front panel joins the the CM. Here you are drilling through the front panel the same as the first 4 welds on the outside. (Mine was rusty here so I drew arrows to where they were approximately).

And that's all the spot welds holding it on. I hope this is some use to someone in the future, there was a guide on here but the pictures don't work anymore, not for me anyway.

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Think I would stick mine in a garage and let them do it ....lol
But good work there mate.

 

[LiamC]

Think I would stick mine in a garage and let them do it ....lol
But good work there mate.

Yeah it was a slightly bigger job than I'd thought anyway. Ended up having to loosen an engine mount and jack the engine up for space to get it all apart.
It's all off now though, a nice shiny new one ready to go on.

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[LiamC]

So this morning I got this in. It doesn't line up perfectly because it is a pattern piece, but also I took the old one off with a sledge hammer. Had to retap one of the threads because it was destroyed at one end for some reason. Anyway it's in and the engine is supported so all is good.

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[LiamC]

I had these shot blasted and powder coated over the week, came out really well.

Was all set to do the back brakes with new shoes and cylinders over the long weekend, but the Irish climate had other ideas. I did a dry run anyway just to get it into my head.

Only got a few other small bits done including these which I got ages ago

And I also have the bonnet closed for the first time in months since when the cross member mounting broke. Not that there was any point in closing it

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[LiamC]

In the rare bit of sun we have here, I got an urge to fix a small thing that was strangely annoying me. My third brake light was very faded in the sunlight and looked crap, so this morning I sanded it back, plastic primered it and painted it. Much better.

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[LiamC]

I forgot to mention I was at the scrapyard the other day, and grabbed a plastic rocker cover off a march. I'll get that cleaned up and on very soon.

Also found this exact twin of my car, the exact same spec on everything except alloys and laquer peel.

And there was a nice high spec second facelift with everything on it, hopefully I'll get a few bits off it (electric mirrors etc)

 

[LiamC]

Found another march for parts local to me, going to rob a few more bits off it next weekend hopefully

Did a bit more to my super s bumper, using a new type of filler I got.

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[LiamC]

Went and picked up a few bits today from the scrapyard. Got a few small bits, including a number 99 relay off a mk3 golf.

I have one in my other car, it's for making adjustable intermittent wipers, so I got another one to try in the micra and see if it works.
While I was at the yard, another micra got delivered in with these strange wheels I hadn't seen before.

Also picked up some parts of another march up the road, which are all for sale now.

The March also had this cd auto changer in it, never seem one of those either.

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[LiamC]

This week I got a bit done to the new rear bumper, it's now primered and the black strip is to be colour coded to match the super s bumper.
I was looking at the wiring for the driving lights on the bumper and noticed I have the connector and fuse already there, but no relay. I saw in a thread some time ago about a relay box being in the upper left of the engine bay but I don't have one there. Could anyone tell me if the relay goes in beside the fuse box next to the steering column?

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[LiamC]

In the last few days I tried to work out how to get adjustable intermittent wipers with my new relay. It would actually be fierce handy being from Ireland, where the normal intermittent is just never the right speed in the endless rain we get. Finally found out that the wiper relay is that box beside the motor in the engine bay, and unless I go rewiring it with a new holder, it's not going to work. But watch this space, we'll see what happens.

Swapped my dead passenger side speaker and gave inside the door pocket a good clean too.

Found a set of genuine march floor mats which I might buy, as they are basically brand new looking.

And I now have a place for welding the cross member back on, so in the next 2 weeks hopefully that will be done. I'm hoping to get a look underneath while it's on the ramps, and maybe fix the heat shield rattle that's slowly driving me mad.

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[Agent_Sm1th]

This week I got a bit done to the new rear bumper, it's now primered and the black strip is to be colour coded to match the super s bumper.
I was looking at the wiring for the driving lights on the bumper and noticed I have the connector and fuse already there, but no relay. I saw in a thread some time ago about a relay box being in the upper left of the engine bay but I don't have one there. Could anyone tell me if the relay goes in beside the fuse box next to the steering column?

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I'm not exactly sure with yours, but the driving lamp relay is top left in the fusebox in the cabin on the second facelifts.

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[LiamC]

I'm not exactly sure with yours, but the driving lamp relay is top left in the fusebox in the cabin on the second facelifts.

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Thanks for the reply. After ending up in the car upside down trying to look, there's 4 spaces for relays beside the fusebox, 2 are filled and I know one of them is definitely the horn. So my guess is it's one of the 2 free spaces above that, I'll rob some spare ones from one in the scrapyard and put them in and see what happens.

PS, your car is definitely one of my favourite facelifts, and gave me the idea for the Almera wheels.

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[LiamC]

Today I got to spend a few hours up at my local scrapyard after work, where I picked up another GA16 Primera airbox, a parcel shelf with speakers, some new covers for the speakers because the other ones are shagged, and a couple of small bits including relays to try and get my driving lights working. If anyone still has ideas on where that relay should be going that would be very helpful.

 

[LiamC]

Got my Super S driving lights working, or at least the drivers side because thats the only one with a plug. I took out all the bolts holding in the fuse box to move it just enough so I could wedge the relay into the top slot, which thank god was the right one because I was not going through that again.
I re-faced my car too, so it looked half decent to be driven up to my local mechanic, where the cross member is being welded on and I can use the lift at the weekend to do a couple of bits underneath. The car will be on the road in a few weeks now all going well. No pictures at the minute because as usual I smashed my phone but I will have some this weekend.

 

[LiamC]

Been a busy few weeks recently with the car. Sadly I have no pictures because I broke my phone but I will fix that shortly. The car has been up at a neighbours garage where we could use the lift and tools etc. The car is fairly solid underneath, bar some small patches to the sill which I knew about. While we had the use of the lift, we cleaned up the brake lines and fuel tank straps, fixed the gear lever return spring that had snapped off and also tried to fix the heat shield rattle (we didn't, its still there). Next the front cross member was cleaned up and welded on, and the front end is back on. After doing that we started on the brakes, where we had to play around with that little compensator thing on the back to get them even both side. All that was left was small things like headlight adjustment and tracking. Also I have been repainting a new rear bumper in the evenings after finishing work which has turned out very well for a first attempt if I say myself. All in all a very productive few weekends and evenings work which hopefully means that the car will pass its NCT first time.

In other news, my friends yaris decided to disable itself by loosening its timing chain while driving, meaning an engine swap is on the cards. Dont trust toyotas and their stupid oil controlled chain tensioners, micras for the win.

 

[LiamC]

Few pictures of my newly painted bumper. Very happy with the outcome of the paint, but the lacquer finish isn't great due to the lack of pressure from the cans. I might sort it with a spray gun in work someday if I can be bothered.

Gave the car its first official wash the other day, came up well considering I did it with washing up liquid (I know there are many reasons not to do that but I didn't have anything else).

My slipping clutch finally died while me and my friend were hammering down a backroad. Although right before it went I was chopping his yaris so all is good. New one was ordered and fitted by a family friend for 150 euro so I'm happy with that. Can get all the mighty power down to the ground now instead of making a smell of burning clutch.

Random picture of my car outside work while I was waiting for the gates to open

 

[yorkiesteve]

Hi Liam, great work so far mate, the dashpods often have buggered clips, I got a replacement from 'Murica ( via ebay ) the clip is cheap, but postage is a butt rape....http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-OEM-...NTER-STORAGE-AREA-LATCH-SPRING-/292161076181?

 

[LiamC]

Hi Liam, great work so far mate, the dashpods often have buggered clips, I got a replacement from 'Murica ( via ebay ) the clip is cheap, but postage is a butt rape....http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-OEM-...NTER-STORAGE-AREA-LATCH-SPRING-/292161076181?

Oh hello again. Yeah my clip is shagged alright, doesn't bother me too much though. I have a mint one though still, which I might put in instead of selling it. How's your cup holder going?

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[yorkiesteve]

Hi Liam, yeah cheers mate the cup holder is spot on ( don't forget to hit me up when you find another one ) also regarding the dash pods, while the groove in the center looks like its for keeping coins safe in fact it is for holding a flare ! Part of some Japanese road rule i am lead to believe.