PollyMobiles Rebuild

[pollyp]

POLLYMOBILES REBUILD COMPLETE INDEX PAGE

POLLYMOBILE II SPECIFICATION​

 

[pollyp]

Intro​

Hey everyone
I’m Paul and here’s a story bout the journey with my micra.

from 2007

and currently 2022

It starts with a turquoise 1998 K11 1.3 Micra SLX that’s been with the family since new. It had NATS, electric windows, body coloured bumpers & wings, 13” nissan primera alloys, airbag, ABS, adjustable headlight angle, rear wiper, sunroof and PAS.

My sister had it for few more years until in 2006 she needed something bigger and with less faults cos it was drinking fuel, misfiring, uneconomical repair bills etc. She had an eye on a ford focus but the garage said they’ll only give £200 part exchange for the micra.

Now, I’ve had me licence since 2003 and have yet to get my first car. Upon hearing bout her quote I thought I couldn’t just let the oppurtunity go since I know the cars history, would be cheap to run and was great to drive cos I learnt to drive in it in 2003 between driving lessons when it was me sisters. £200 sounded like a bargain so I agreed to buy it.

 

[pollyp]

August 2006​

I brought my first micra! Whohoo :grinning: It ran little rough and wasn’t perfect but I loved tinkering with bikes, had a degree in car design so I took up the challenge of restoring the micra by April cos:
• Its a hobby
• a great learning curve
• simply the means to convert a worn out car into something shiney n new (I like shiney & new)
• cheaper & quicker in long run cos I’ll know how to fix it myself and where to get parts
• great bday prezzy for myself :grinning:

First thing I done was fix the fan resister card. Only worked on full speed. Took the card out and the little resister had corroded off. I sanded it off and used conductive paint to complete the track and presto it worked.

Then the rear disc brakes didn’t work well as you had to yank the handbrake hard so I disassembled it and tried to figure out how to get in internals out

There was a circlip that was impossible to access so I tried pushing some collar part inward but oops, that didn’t work. Damn

So I ended up forking out £75 for a reconditioned caliper. Brakes work now.

Looked around n found a series of rusty areas

Lower crossmember has had it, holes everywhere. That’s when I discovered this invaluable forum and figure I’d have to weld on a new panel. Sounded like a bigger task than I thought but lets move on.

Picture underneath, nothing spectacular

CV gaiter was split

Exhaust joint bolt was totally rusted in, that’ll be a mission to get off

 

[pollyp]

November 2006​

Right! Car’s been SORN'd and its now in the garage

First thing to do is remove & clean the interior

Door card was pretty soaked

So I peeled the cover off to make a new one

Dashboard out

Clean the dashboard inside out

Got some hardwood and jigsawed a new door card

Tried all sorts glue around the house to stick the cover onto the board, none worked until contact glue did the job

Removed the ventilation

ECU

Heater matrix, almost ten yrs of debris

Curious to see inside the ecu

Heater matrix cleaned

Carpet out

Damn its big

Vacuumed and reinstalled

Here’s the abs module

Vent module cleaned

Interior reassembled

 

[pollyp]

Dec 2006​

Here’s the stock engine bay, dirty fingernail starts here

Bumper lights and wheel guards off

Took the engine cover off, eww has my sister ever serviced this car?

Exhaust off

Time for a new middle pipe cos old one just snapped off

 

[pollyp]

Jan 2007​

Got the head off and oh no this doesn’t look good

Coolant must’ve never got changed and has eaten the aluminium head

Pistons all cleaned and reinstalled

 

[pollyp]

Feb 2007​

Didn’t know where to go to about the corroded head. Do I get it skimmed or get a second head for £500? Then thankfully Goldenstar in here had one for £85. thanks

A lot of grease n hair around, couldn’t be good for the first run so I overhauled it

All the valve buckets came off ok but this one needed some force to pull it off, as though the areas been banged slightly. Swapped some buckets around to get it moving

Full of grease

Better

A worrying find. Part of the head near the valve stem hole has cracked off. Didn’t think it would affect much (but would later haunt me)

Reassembled head oiled up

Put back on the block

Now this is one annoying feature. When trying to work with the upper timing chain, this little finger on the timing chain cover gets in the way. Lots of swearing led to a hacksaw cutting it off later

Hmm on the new head there’s a hole for the temperature dependent cabin canister bypass valve

Which the old head didn’t have

So blocked it off with some plumbing

Opps bigger holes on the cross member and it’s also buckling from being jacked at the central beam.

Note to self: don’t jack the car at the central beam/cross member point cos the box section is too weak.

New front panel off ebay to weld on. I thought about hooking a 13amp spot welder to the house mains but dad thinks its too much for the wiring so I’ll have to get it done externally

New thermostat but found it didn’t have a bleed valve so have to get it proper from nissan

New lower arm

New trackrod end

Damn lower arm bolt is seized to the bush so had to grind it off

To get the arm off the bush for better access, cut the arm like this from below then bend it open with a flathead and hammer

With more access, cut through the bolt to free the bush. Make sure not to cut the chassis.

New arm n track rod end

New arm bolts from nissan and reassembled suspension

The old exhaust support hangers had corroded off and nissan quoted £40 for a new piece of bent metal! No friggin way man.

So I went and machined a replacement bar instead, yet to finish it

 

[pollyp]

March 2007​

New nissan thermostat

Engine assembled. Oiled, fueled, watered time to find if all this effort still works. Starting a fresh engine is so scary. Cranked without plugs to get oil pressure, oil light goes out, we have pressure.

Primed the fuel couple times. Start, and it runs first time. It’s alive

Work on the rear brakes

Uneven wear from the seized caliper pins

And the discs were really messed up with rust

Cracked wing mirror

Epoxied it back together

Sandblasted and painted the cover

But I rushed and sprayed too much without letting the layers cure therefore the paint underneath stayed jelly and ruined with my fingers

So sandblasted back off

This time thinner layers and left to cure

Sanded the lettering and it looks fab

Engine bay ready. Now for the front panel

 

[pollyp]

April 2007​

Its getting near my bday now.

A body specialist came to quote the front panel welding. Left off the bumpers n lights so it’s a simple cut old one off and weld new panel on job which helps keep the cost down to £200. driving the car out the street it looked mad max-like with no front end lol

Few days later the cars back with a new front end. Annoying thing is they didn’t hook the PAS pipe through the panel hole so I had to unhook the pipe leaking PAS oil then feed it through

Sandblasted n painted battery tray

And few other bits

Sprayed the welds

Bumper n lights back on

Finished on 8th just in time

Old tyres

The new cross member was missing afew thread holes so the tow hook was only bolted at the side

Exhaust joint retapped n bolted

With no thread holes the PAS pipe bracket was epoxied onto the cross member (didn’t hold for long)

New rubber. Avon CR322

It passed its mot, guy saying I must've spent loads doing this car up

Exhaust support was tied to the pipe to reduce vibration

The engine always started slow when cold then rev up when warmed, so I took out the IAV valve gave a thorough clean. Reinstalled, had to readjust the idle and now idles nicely

When taking the air box off I snapped off the breather pipe

super glued it back on

 

[pollyp]

May 2007​

I noticed the engine was using a lot of oil where the level drops by ¼ each week, cylinder 4 is always up to 1bar higher than the others and it smoked slightly when setting off hard. Changed the pcv valve but no change and lacks power at 5th gear, always had to rev in 4th to match traffic. I did a wet dry compression test and there was up to 1bar difference so concluded it needed new rings.

Got these from nissan for £100

I used to have a polished metal ball door knob as a gear knob but it felt damn cold in morning and it developed a serious annoying loud rattle at high speed (turned out to be worn linkage bushes). So I got this from nissan

Head off

Weighs abit

Took out the pistons. So much crud from the burnt oil

Honed the walls. Was so nervous to do cos the hand drill didn’t have a constant torque so it was difficult keeping a constant speed while moving it along the cylinder.

Pistons cleaned

New rings

Shiney

New gasket

Head reinstalled

Cover & air box fitted

All assembled.
So nervous starting the engine with new rings. It started fine then immediately drove off to the countryside to begin the important bedding-in process

After 100m of hard bedding I changed the oil. Curiously I looked inside the filter and found a lot of grit. This was prob from the engine cover that I sandblasted and the grit got blasted past the rag and into the spark plug cavity area

 

[pollyp]

June 2007​

Since the engine cover screws tend to seize and round off, I replaced em with allen bolts

The rear demister had never worked (my sister suspects it was since it was hit from behind and had the boot replaced) so I investigated into the wiring

And found this! It could’ve shorted out one day
so I soldered it back and it works

I went about making the rear wiper horizontal

Dremelled the cover off

Some guides mention you relocate the pin on the other side of the wheel but that seemed a little dodgy to do so I cleaned up and reinstalled the parts

And reversed the wiring. Still didn’t work but later on I managed

Got a few gutter pipes to make a CAI

Fed from below the battery

The alloys had been pretty kerbed by my sister so I had a go at refurbing em. Body filled the scrapes, sanded, primed

Painted silver n laquered

Result. One wheel was enough work for me. Too much work to do all 4

Rust on the roof

Rusted bump on the rear arch panel

Surface rust by the rear left door

I attempted using those paint repair brush kits from nissan but due to the metallic paint they were rubbish

So I sanded it down to metal

Filled

Sanded smooth and roughened the front roof area with scotch pad

Painted

And laquered

The left side was also keyed. So that was sanded

And painted

Sorted

Couldn’t afford a nice stereo yet and those mp3-tape adapters were crap so I got an fm transmitter adapter to play my mp3. the plug was glued to a blank plate



So I could plug me mp3 player there to control


Stock interior

Right, the rear wiper mod. Since the reverse wiring didn’t work I decided to turn the contact track 180deg on the wheel, so that was prised off

New holes drilled. The protruding block feature on the wheel (where the contact would rest) had to be milled down with a dremel to let the track sit flat

Reinsert track

I cut some plastic card to fill the gap in the contact track

it didn’t stick well to the abs plastic wheel with superglue

View attachment 31377

So I tried some body filler

Then the superglue held onto that

Result

Door handles were sanded smooth

Painted

And fitted. Matches the body better now

 

[pollyp]

Oct 2007​

The epoxied PAS pipe bracket has loosened off again so I removed the bumper

And riveted it back on

Now the gear stick used to rattle like mad and selecting 1st was impossible. So I got a new gear linkage to sort out the bushes

Took cat off the access underneath

But hang on. The new linkage didn’t fit! Wtf?
Comparing old and new, and linkage musta came from a 1lt or a facelift

Running out of time, I drove to halfrauds just before it shut to get a nut bolt, grinded the universal joint off the new link and bolted it onto the old link arm

Fitted

 

[pollyp]

Nov 2007​

Got a wrap around spoiler from scrappies. 82 friggin quid for it

The boot didn’t have an access hole to put a socket in and I couldn’t be bothered to drilled the hole so I’ll bond the spoiler straight on instead

The engine bay had a mysterious rattle when setting off or when the revs drop, tracked it down to a bolt I forgot to tighten

Spoiler had a tiny crack which I glued back on

Sanded

Primed

Painted

Laquered

Worked through the night in the cold to fit it cos I don’t have patience to wait once I get started

Sanded the boot

Bonded on

Sorted. Looked well sporty

 

[pollyp]

Dec 2007​

Time to sort those rusty discs

Off they go

Mmm shiney

Much better

The intake port of the airbox seemed like a pea shooter so I dremeled it flat, opened it slightly to match the inside bore of the gutter pipe

Bonded a piece of gutter pipe

And jubilee clipped the CAI

Not too low. It tends to push the splash guard out and rub the tyre when on full lock

 

[pollyp]

Jan 2008​

Got some 22mm front & 20mm rear whiteline swaybars

Fitted fronts

The bolt for the rear swaybar bracket snapped, as usual

The droplink nuts also seized so they were cut off

Retapped with new nuts

With the bolt thread stuck on the rear swaybar mount point, I cut it off the axle and use nut&bolts

Droplinks fitted

Swaybar mount bolted. Omg what a difference, it’s now a gokart rather than bouncy castle. I’d keep the rear bar on middle setting cos the harder setting makes the back too twitchy especially in wet

The windscreen strip was abit perished so I ripped that off

And filled it with pu sealant that I used for the spoiler. Run thumb along edge to smooth the result.

Painted the rusty airbox clips

New belts

Trimmed off excess sealant with blade

Painted the boot handle as it stood out like a blokes moustache

Better

Looks better. Noted without the rain strip, the rain etc tends to run off the windscreen and along the driver side window rather than over.

 

[pollyp]

Feb 2008​

It was tricky to unclip the tb mesh so I dremeled it off

Bypassed the tb coolant to keep the intake cool and the tb wax was seized anyway

Rounded the edges. Revs slightly easier but only slightly

The original seats are really uncomfortable on long drives, poor lumber & side support which felt like it was profiled for small women so I won these sport seats off ebay £70

Hot glued it to the old rails to see if it fits

Abit close

Umm yea, much too high. Can’t even fit my legs through. Guess I’ll need to custom make the frame

The seatbelt buckle was fitted to the seat pivot point

The mounting points were cutt off the old frame

Since the sliding rails on the seats were shorter than the original, the mounts were welded onto longer box tube then welded to the rails

Bolt up the rails

Fitted. Feels much better

The rear swaybar tends to slide across the axle and knock against the handbrake cable so I anchored a piece of tubing on the inner sides of the bushes to keep it centred

 

[pollyp]

March 2008​

MOT day and oh dear the rear sills rusted

So they were welded up next day

The rear arch rust surfaced back up so I sanded

Treated

Primed

And painted

Painted the front and rear bumper while I was there

 

[pollyp]

May 2008​

Ooh a janspeed manifold :grinning:

# y.m.c.a # lol

Easy tiger

Stock manifold off

Hello janspeed

The cat was blowing due to the rusted face

Trying 2 gasket didn’t work

So on goes a new £70 cat

Secured

Boy does it like to rev hard now

New K&N filter

The ignition timing didn’t move far enough so I widened the rotor hole

And screwed in more angle

Sparco pedals to aid heal & toe

Clear indicators. Bulb holder didn’t fit so I superglued it on

Clutch felt really sticky n full of friction so I oiled it up

And also opened the rubber gaiter incase grease got trapped and resisting the clutch movement

I wanted to fit a bee sting aeriel but this screw was seized so I grinded it off

Pulled out

Ducktape’ll do for now

 

[pollyp]

June 2008​

Old silencer was blowing abit so new one was fitted

Here’s the hole

Another crack

Inside a stock silencer

Got some dolly wheels so I could park head on into the garage to fix the aeriel

Sanded the area

Splat! bodyfiller

Also filled the dented rear arch

Smooothed

Primed

Here’s the bee-sting aerial and damn postman snapped it

Rear arch primed

Painted

Received a new aerial not snapped, so time to take roof off

Inside roof and sunroof drain

Front drain

Fitted

Bolted to roof

Soldered to old jack

The low down CAI could suck up water if I encounter floods after heavy rain so I experimented with piping down the wheelarch cavity shielded by the bumper

Enlarged hole

New piping

The silencer was blowing abit and found the piping pretruded out too much against the center pipe and that the standard o-ring gasket is useless cos it gets shafted offset by the large hole during installation and doesn’t seal so the offending pipe was dremeled in

And used exhaust paste instead

 

[pollyp]

July 2008​

DISASTER!

Twas a late night. Just drove back home following a m8s party in london. Was tired but for odd reason I wanted to drive out to watch Dark knight as it just released. It finished at 2am! So I drove home knackered turned a sharp damp foggy corner and the back came out. Oh f!

Opposite steer but mistakenly I lifted off instinctively. The front gripped and snapped back to where I steered.

Tried to steer back but was too late, its gona happen so I braced as she span and striked the high bus stop kerb BANG!

The deafening silence of a stalled engine.
I’m still alive but oh F!!! F!!! F!!! my car

Ignition lights on. Started engine, it runs phew. It’s stuck in 3rd, ok tried to move, nope its proper stuck. Got out onto the wet weeds (that’s smell now haunts me). Oh god the rear axles buckled sideways
Sh!??

Felt really angry n embarrased at myself for this mistake.
But I was lucky too cos afew more inches away was a concrete rail post which could’ve totalled the car or even myself eek

Serious camber

Bent rod

Wheel hit the chassis here

But the huge impact then snapped the axle

Damaged the handbrake cable, chipped brake hose

Chassis is slightly bent

Slightly crumpled chassis beam after being side striked by the wheel

The trailing arm mounts were twisted by the sideways motion

Bashed rim, even though I refurbed it few months back. I suspect such impact has bent em so new wheels needed

The rear seats don’t click in place

Attempted to claim insurance but the approved repair garage quoted it at £2000!! and advised writing it off. Bug off grr I’m not letting this amount of work go that easy. I thought writing off meant they take everything.

So it was either let insurance write it off losing everything and just give me £400ish where I’ll be back to square one with an unknown crap car and higher premium or

Get it fixed private, maybe cost abit more, save me car, save me no claims (just 1)

Obvious I chose to keep cos I luv it too damn much

Got it to a garage and he quoted £400 and take a couple days, great :grinning:

While waiting I ordered a replacement nissan alloy off ebay. Was real hard to track down. Went to local tyre shop to fit and turns out it’s 14” rather than 13” bumma
Tis a big paper weight at the mo

 

[pollyp]

August 2008​

Almost a month pass and I’m getting real aggrovated at this cowboy each week.
Turns out that he ordered the wrong axle cos mines a disc brake axle and was sourcing some panhard rods, bushes, hubs etc

And the cheeky sod charged over £550 for the extra time n effort. Looking at his work each week I passed by there, I could’ve taken back my car earlier and did a better job cheaper and faster cos all he did was just replaced the axle alone without sorting out the damaged chassis. But NOoo, he said he’s already halfway through, he cannot cancel the job and I’d have to pay the full amount. Never trust garages again

Anyway £550 later I got the car home and ripped it all off to check his work and reassemble it to my standards cos I don’t trust em.

Axle off

Cleaned

Rear hub felt bit stiff

So off it went. Axles still rusty, he didn’t bother to wirebrush brush it

Ew bearings in a gummy thick state

Cleaned n regreased

Wirebrushed n greased axle

Spins freely now

Replaced damaged brake hose

 

[pollyp]

Sept 2008​

The alloys were actually straight n true following the impact. Strong little fellas
so in their extra kerbed state I got em refurbed by Wheel Specialist for £180

Just like new

New hole on the rear arch sill

So foamed it up till it gets welded

OMP strut brace

Yummy bilstein streetline suspension kit
Ordered from rallynuts it took flippin a month to arrive
They were apparently waiting for the italian supplier to make em to order

Fitted

Front struts

Ahh sits much better. The diving pitch tendency is all but eliminated. Feels much more solid n planted

Whiteline panhard rod came a week later. The threaded bar was damaged cos some weld debris got trapped and wrecked the last few threads. So I cut off the damaged thread, retapped and its fine

Original bush was seized to the axle so I cut away the rubber

And fit the rod onto that

There was a squeak at the back which I didn’t know were it came from until I found this brake compensator spring where the shaft was rubbing against the plastic as I hit a bump.

So I cut it off and tied the spring to the mount. sorted

 

[pollyp]

Nov 2008​

Cusco lower strut brace from demontweeks for em £65

 

[pollyp]

Jan 2009​

The engines still drinkin abit of oil even after new rings but not as bad as originally. Although now the exhaust smokes abit only when the engines warm. It’s ok when cold. Cylinder 4’s still got a high compression and after long drives the plug holes fill with oil (prob a loose sparkplug tube/cover seal)

I know renew rings cost at least £100 but is a lot of work that might not fix the prob. Whereas £195 got me this spare 1.3l that’s done 60k

Scrap guy says its been tested then pumped with thin oil for long storage. When ordered, the oils drained away ready for use so no need to rebuild.

Yea right. Gona rebuild it anyway cos you never know the actual condition of it and looking inside with me scope it’s got all sorts of carbon debris.

Tried to manually lift the engine & box out but nope, way too heavy, So got a crane

Flywheel off. May as well change clutch too soo got it resurfaced. Ohh shiney. shame it’s goin back on

Swapped sump off original engine to the new one

Cover off the new engine, looks ok

Head off. Hmm original gasket like soggy cardboard as usual. Abit of crap in cylinders. This is why I don’t trust the guys word. I wouldn’t wanna run the engine with this inside

Timing gearing off

Crankcage off. Bearings ok

Tube up the rods to protect crank during removal

Inside the crankcase where the oil vapours go past a strainer mesh, up the front pipe into the top cover and by the pcv valve

Ooh this block must’ve been from an automatic judging by the reinforced cylinders. Should be stronger. Problem with piston 2 cos it’s formed a cylinder ridge and don’t have ridge cutter. Machine shop needed afew days to do it, I don’t have few days so just left it.

Cleaned pistons

Looking closely there was a slight crack or defect on the block. No worry cos I can’t do anything bout it.

Rear crank seal ready

Crankcage installed

Timing gear & oil pump cleaned

Assembled front

Head off the original engine

Cylinder 4 has a lot of wet buildup from the excess oil

Original engines tensioner on left, new engine tensioner on right (more worn prob from lack of oil change judging by the dark stain)

Original buckets (still shiney from the freq oil changes) vs new

A ha. May have found the cause of the smoking warm engine. The chipped valve stem hole that I ingnored from goldenstars head had allowed oil to seep down.

When cold, the oils thicker and mostly in the pan so it doesn’t smoke. But when it warms up and more gets pumped up to the cams, the warmer thinner oil pools in the head and seeps down the cracked valve stem guide before being burnt by the hot exhaust therefore smokes

Degreased the new head

Scraped off the sooty exhaust ports

Head gasket kit came with new valve collets. Twisted the old collets out with a socket and pushed new ones in

New clutch & pressure plate

Oh dear. Upon fitting the gearbox, this pegs in the way. All the holes match up though. So pulled the fella out

Now it fits

Back together. Fingers crossed and it started, yess

 

[pollyp]

Feb 2009​

It’s been slowly losing coolant and traced it to the return pipe to the pump. This pipe was removed from the original engine and put into the new one and must have disturbed the o-ring seal

Cut old ring off

New ring from nissan sorted it

With the new engine sorted, I had nothing to do so during boredom I decided to completely clean the original one up just for the crack

So cleaned the front

Cylinders

Crankcase

Oil pump cover

Insert pistons

Crank

The valves were layered in carbon deposits so I found that sticking em in a drill press with a small blade

Was able to scrape it off with ease and polish em nicely

Rebuilt head

Reassembled the original engine with goldenstars head.
Was originally gonna sell it to a scrappy but decided to store it in the garage.

If anyone wants it for £150, plus I have the original head which could be skimmed to replace goldenstars chipped head and a bag of valve shims to adjust the gap, p/m me

Found oil in the plug tubes again, annoying. Swapping the original red cover with the newer engine cover did the trick. Seems you could only disturb the plug tube seal a certain # of times before they fail n leak. Can’t see a way of replace those seals cos the inside cover plate is bonded to the metal case forever

 

[pollyp]

Pollymobile 2​

With the engine sorted, next thing to bug me was the damaged chassis.
I thought if I could get a similar slx with a better body I could just swap everythings over.

So throughout feb I was searching for a low cost 1.3 slx. Saw afew in autotrader from £400-600 but sold like hotcakes. I saw a good low milage £400 slx in good nick so I was trying to book a holiday off work to see it and by that time the car was sold grr. It happened several times and was getting frustrated. Afterwards afew came at £700-1000 which was was beyond my £500 budget.

Then a grey 1993 1.3 slx came up for bout £520. Done 60k, has sunroof, rear wiper, electric windows and body coloured bumper & mirrors but no tax. Pretty bog standard slx. The bodywork was ok from the web pics but need a closer look as you can’t see the state of the sills or crossmember. So booked a holiday next day asap and took the train down to manchester to inspect it.

The car was at some countryside house dealership. First impression, it was visually a little on the worn side, but never judge a book by its cover. First thing to check was the crossmember and sills cos the chassis was all that I was after, all intact and little bubbling on the rear sill.

I took me fault checklist book out and listed the issues:
• Faded bumper,
• chipped bonnet,
• broken glovebox,
• broken centre vent,
• missing nissan badge,
• broken passenger mirror handle,
• burnt fan card,
• fuel cap release mech broke,
• missing jack/tools,
• rear tyre split (prob been run flat),
• blowing exhaust,
• partly hanging silencer.
• Broken radiator fan housing held by a coathanger!
• Front frame seemed to be replaced, explains the good crossmember

Didn’t have engine light so couldn’t check ecu or the lambda but I checked the compression, all 12bars perfect so engines in good state, not much smoke.
The guy was impressed

Took it out for a drive. Now without PAS I was surprised at how heavy the steering was, coupled with the stock jelly-like suspension I thought I’d never make it round the first bend. Was a nervous drive but it worked.

Back at the house I pointed out all the faults and he agreed to discount abit off at bout £500, which he said was how much he paid the previous lady owner. Fine, cos it was either get the train back home empty and wait for another bargain or settle with £500 and drive home tonight. Gave him my perfectly ironed & bounded £20 notes and I got the keys and v5 new ownership doc. Smashin :grinning:

Now to sort out tax disc. Went to local postoffice but damn i forgot me insurance doc but didn’t matter cos it wouldn’t say bout the new car anyway. So I’m stuck fwn
Phoned the guy up to help and he popped over to try with his own insurance but I I filled in the new ownership slip address with my addr not his so was invalid Grr.

So we drove to another office in manchester that had his details and managed to finally tax it, phew.

Drove the car home, but as I exited the town the engine cut off! What!?
Stopped quickly before traffic lights and investigate. Turned out that the dizzy connector was not fully plugged after I did the compression check, doh. Sorted and worked and could go home now.

On the motorway the steering vibrated like mad, guess the wheels need balancing.
Gearstick was real seized so hard to select gears.

OK now I got 2 micras ready. Blue one outside with resident parking permit and gry one in garage. Took me ages to plan out how the heck I’m gona do this restoration with 2 cars in such short time (cos I only have 1months holiday) let alone the 1 blue car which first took me 6months to finish. But now I have the knowledge, experience and tools to do this more efficiently.

The plan I figured was to totally strip out the grey micra except the engine to treat the chassis and store all the parts in the small garage nextdoor.

Then strip clean and transfer all the parts, except engine, from the blue car to the grey car.

The engine lifting part was left to last in order to keep the crane rental costs down to a week. So after most of the interior parts were swapped, both engines were lifted out to be inspected, swap bits, cleaned and rebuilt within the week.

With the engines out, the engine bay parts, steering, brakes, loom etc could be swapped.

Then the rebuilt engines could be reinstalled, return back the crane, finish off reassembling the grey micra. Then do the same with the blue micra.

 

[pollyp]

March 2009​

To start things off I checked the rear drums. Running near thin so new shoes installed. What a bugga of a system. It’s near impossible to unhook/hook those heavy springs while keepin the self adjuster in place with the hub obstruction.
So I removed the hub for more access and was much better but was still a faff to do.

Remember to take the self adjuster apart, clean and grease the threads then screw the ratchet gear all the way to reset it. When you pull the handbrake several times it ratchets away each time bringing the shoes closer until it’s 1 teeth away from touching the drum

Removing the blowing exhaust. Geez this exhaust had been a cut n shut job. Must been too long so the guy shortened the resonance tube with some dodgy welding.

The rusted bolts at the silencer was hard to access so I cut the bloomin middle pipe apart instead since it’ll be replaced.

Centre vent was broke. Replacement from scrappy was the wrong colour but fixed with some primer

Replaced broken rear winder with new winder from scrappy

Worn original seats from the blue micra. Scrappys didn’t want em so tipped em into recycling

Replaced fusebox cover

Took out the arch guards and omg so much crud hidden behind

Stripped front end

Engine bay loom out

Engine out

Stored nextdoor to be rebuilt with the blue cars engine soon

Dashboard out

Hmm interestingly there’s a cvt controller.

Upon further investigation when I was ordering grey paint from nissan I found out this car used to be automatic? Huh. That may explain the replaced front frame, lots of hanging connectors, cracked radiator fan housing and maybe why the exhaust needed shortening.

Seems like it was involved in a nasty frontal smash at one time, so much that for some odd reason it was converted from auto into a manual. Every car has a hidden past, guess I found mine

When I first carwashed the car it leaked and soaked into the passenger carpet. So I ripped off the sound deadening stuff as it’ll grow mould or never dryout, plus it’ll save little weight

Sorting out the loom

Disconnect the non-PAS steering

Time to inspect the grey micras engine. Gearbox off

Head off and ooh what a surprise. The cylinders all perfect, nice even clean coat of carbon, seems like a keeper. Gonna be using this engine back on the grey micra

Cleaned up the block with new HG. Not gonna bother taking out the pistons cos they run perfect and don’t wanna disturb the rings

Got this gorgeous new jun ultra light flywheel today. Mmmm. Costed me over £450 overall to get it from japan but I wanted it

It weighs a feathery 3.6kg (left), 2.5 times lighter compared to the hefty 8.4kg stock flywheel (right)

The block looked a tad gloomy so gave it a lick of silver and boy its amazin what a can of silver spray can do

The gearbox mount on the grey car was only held by 2 bolts so was not for this gearbox (prob the original auto box mount) so got the proper one from scrappy with new bolts too. Sprayed up

Wirebrushed the box

New jun flywheel installed. Wonder how this beast is gona rev like mad when I start it

Rebuild the starter motor

Time to treat the engine bay. All rust wirebrushed, rust treated and painted

Undercoated the entire arch

Entire underbody is coated

Rust treated and painted front panel

 

[pollyp]

April 2009​

Few weeks back I made a stupid mistake in a dark garage. After working on the blue micra, I jacked the car up to remove the support stands, pushed the stand to one side and lowered the car without realising in the dark that the stand was still under the door sill. i heard a slow crunching creak, which I thought was just the rear brake discs creaking only to look back a saw this axle stand pushed halfway into the sills!! Oh F!”?

Another costly expense to fix. also repainted the surface rust at the rear arch

Took apart the janspeed manifold to be wirebrushed n painted

Resoldered the TB, removed the mesh and rounded the tb lip

I ordered a janspeed catback system from rallynuts to complete the exhaust but after waiting for another month I was sick to death with their poor service. So I called matt humphris, real nice guy and it arrived next day!

Janspeed funnel like trumpet. As if a rocket flames gonna shoot outta it

Another cv boot gone poof from motorway speeds, prob left some air inside from last time which heated expanded and poof so fixed that.

Front suspension removed

Engine out

transfered all engine bay parts to the grey micra

Blue micra without an engine. Perked so high lol

New engine from the blue micra. Newly machined flywheel looks alright

Clutch is still like new. Gonna use this on the grey micras engine

The original clutch from the grey micras engine (left) is 6.5mm and will be used on the blue micras new engine. The newer clutch (right) that’s 7.5mm is going in the grey micras engine

Removed the cabin and engine bay loom from blue micra

Had to choose between two clutch pedals.

The one from the blue micra (left) had a bistable spring mechanism which helps push against the cable tension beyond a certain point but I felt it was too light and lacked feel. The one from the grey micra (right) was a simple return spring, slightly heavier feel but more feel

Engine bay parts in place

Here’s an issue with the central member. The rear engine mount from the grey micra is different to the blue micras rear mount, by so much that the side engine mounts would be pushing forwards against the rubber stops which is not good. There’s a 10mm difference! I’ll just use the blue micras rear mount on this grey micra and plonk the other wrong mount on the blue micra later

Rebuilt grey micras engine hoisted in place

Sorting out the seized gear linkages. Grinded off the rivet but its proper seized onto the bush so had to bend the flange open with a hammer till the joint can be released then fixed & lubed the linkage joints

With the grey micras engine sorted, time to sort out the blue micra cos the weeks hiring time was running out. All the engine bay rust spots had been wirebrushed, treated and painted

Reinstalling the engine bay wiring looms and hoisted the blue micras new engine in

This was the problem the grey micras original rear mount was causing as it was incorrectly too high, tilting the engine forward

new manifold gasket and janspeed manifold on grey micra

Reinstalled bilstein suspension, driveshaft, front swaybar & lower strutbar on grey micra

In the blue micras chassis which is originally a manual, the clutch pedal lower mount area features a 10mm petruding feature which spaces out the mount away from the chassis.

In the grey micra which was originally an auto but converted into manual, this petruding feature is not there, just a simple hole that the converting mechanic made for the clutch cable.

Therefore when I installed the clutch pedal it sat way too low such that at its bottom stroke it hits the floor. After finding this difference between both chassis, I made two 10mm spacers from the old gear linkage bushes to space the pedal out enough to clear the floor

Cabin loom installed

Another issue with the ecu’s

The grey micras original 1993 non-nats ecu is half sized which the blue micras 1998 nats ecu is full size therefore the brackets were different

So the blue micras ecu didn’t fit in the grey chassis

Now it fits

Ventilation installed

Now with an inspection scope I discovered what causes the common rusting sills. The sunroof and aerial drain pipes lead down the a-pillars and is simply draining straight into the closed end box sills with nowhere to go and pooling inside. There’s some drain points along the sill but they’re so tiny and gets blocked by dirt fast, poor design fault nissan

So to reduce the problem I drill a hole straight underneath. The mudguard screw point was conveniently in the right place. extended the drain pipe with extra tubing. The same hole was drilled under the front wing panel too.

Janspeed backbox painted silver. The very thin original black paint was chipping off easily. The system is resting too far back against the rear bumper, needs afew more adjustment

Front end complete, lets do the rear end. Drum axle dropped

Sourced a spare lower trailing arm from a facelift micra, 95 friggin quid a pair!

Removed drop links. Hmm looked like someones been at it before judging by the angle grinder cut marks.

If the filler pump keeps cutting off prematurely before a full tank at the pumps due to fuel splashing back on the nozzle early, this may be the reason. The fuel tank uses a soft rubber breather pipe going from the top of the tank, through the chassis beam and has to take a 90deg turn before joining the solid breather pipe exit. The rubber pipe tends to kink at this bend therefore restricting the tank from evacuating out trapped air fast enough, and so fuel fills up the filler pipes till it triggers the cutoff while air is still in the tank. Air keeps slowly escaping from the tank and the fuel level drops back down to continue filling.

Tank lowered

More panels to rust treat and undercoat.

To resolve the kinked breather hose, I’ll replace it with a reinforced conduit pipe so its flexible but wont collapse to block the airway

Swaped, cleaned & painted the disc axles

Cleaning this gunked brake valve

 

[pollyp]

May 2009​

Drilled afew drain holes below the windscreen cos I thought water would just collect there (this would case bigger probs soon)

Engine bay done

Rear disc axle in place

The backbox was resting on the rear bumper so I tried to push the middle pipe more into the manifold lower joint but then the middle pipe started to rattle against the central support member and gear linkage

Plus the upper trailing arm point is bashing against the backbox pipe

Little cusion didn’t work

Primed then colour match the rear bumper

Nicer

Back box hanger mounts needed some jiggling to centre the pipe on the bumper

To stop the box resting on the bumper and give more room, I cut off the lower edge

Ready
I started up the beast and wow it roars onto life and revs real fast like a ducatti

I had a dilema of what to do with the old blue micra, wether to sell the parts and scrap the chassis (as it’s in bits at the moment anyway) or rebuild it back and sell it on.

I decided to reassemble it and sell it on cos it would take way too long to sell each bit while the cars taking up the garage and also would seem a waste to lose another micra from the community as it has a lot more life to it.

Blue micra pushed into garage

Undercoated arches

Front suspension on

Gap issue with the rear mount

Tried drilling a new hole on the bracket but didn’t work cos the brackets hitting close to the mount

Taking the rear spoiler off the blue micra to put on the grey micra

Assembling the bay

At the scrappies I looked to see if the rear engine mounts or bracket are different. The bracket here looks different from one micra but the mount is the same type

Got the rear mount & bracket from the scrappies but turned out to be a 1ltr bracket and the rubber mount was the same as the grey micras grr
ok I’ll just reuse the wrong bracket I guess

Rear spoiler removed. That PU sealant is real tough stuff, used alot if string to try saw the spoiler off. Left a lot of marks on the boot

Sanded flat the marks and primed the boot

Painted

Stock blue micra all assembled

The wheel covers were abit scuffed so I sanded primed and sprayed em with a can of silver, which was suppose to be LK0 gunmetal grey for the grey micra but instead the halfrauds lady had made me KL0 silver, a waste of money as I couldn’t return it, but looks alright for the covers.

Stock engine bay abit dirty but will clean it later

The rear speaker didn’t work well, it was really quiet so I got one from scrappies. Taking the broken one apart revealed that the magnet had unbonded from the casing and trapped the coil

Removed front bumper on grey micra to spray

Sanded, primed, painted & laquered

Sprayed the real boot handle too

Installed the coloured bumper

Rear bumper n boot handle

Whenever the car was loaded or I go over a big bump, the rear end knocks loudly. So I loaded up the boot and two people sat at the back while I peeped under and saw the rear pan rod and axle was striking the backbox. The exhaust can’t be moved further back so the axle will have to come forward and that requires an adjustable trailing arm from whiteline. Wish I’d found out earlier to save me from buying that £95 stock trailing arm.

Completed grey micra as it stands. Rear spoiler yet to be installed

 

[pollyp]

June 2009​

Whiteline adjustable trailing arms arrived from matt humphris

Nice

Stock arm off

Whiteline arm on and adjusted forward

Boot sanded ready for the spoiler

Doorcard off to remove the handles

Painted the handles

The RH mirror casing on the grey micra was cracked so a spare mirror from scrappies was sanded

Primed

Painted and fitted

Rear spoiler primed n painted

Bonded on and held with lotsa tape

Smoothed the excess

When the sealant cured I tried to speed up the removal of the excess sealant using a caramel wheel but it just rubs away the paint from the spoiler, damn

Not sure the paint had cured

So took the whole boot off to work on the spoiler paint

Repainted and fit the boot back on

The cv boot that I recently replaced had failed Again! With a pinhole leak from rubbing on sumthing

With the wheels off I may as well rotate the tyres to even the wear

 

[pollyp]

July 2009​

CV boot replaced, this time I pushed all the air out of the boot before zipping it up

Marking drill holes in the boot to install the central brake light

Light bolted on

The car is ready for it’s first mega holiday trip around the uk

 

[pollyp]

UK holiday trip drama​

When I set off, the biggest monsoon I ever seen thundered in as I went past newcastle. Visability was impossible and I was worried bout my CAI sucking up rain so I pulled over to remove the pipe, ok. Moving further on as the rain lashed down hard I looked at the passenger floor and shocked to find a pool of water on the carpet, crap!

I pulled over again to soak up the water with a towel. Something is telling me not to go on holiday tday. Now I’m not gona carry on my trip if this leaking problems gona happen whenever it pours down so I think I’ll go back home to check it out.

When I tried to start the car it ran for a sec then died, WTF? Tried again and it wont start and the engine lights now flashing, omg crap nooooo not now.
I don’t have breakdown cover cos nothing much goes wrong, if it was local I could just ring me parent for a tow and for longer journeys like this uk trip I carry a full toolkit.
Right keep calm, I can fix this.

I took out the plugs to seen if its flooded, nope nothing on the endoscope inside the engine. Took out fuelpump fuse to flush the cylinders out incase, nothing. Checked all fuses, fine. Called nissan who said check the fuse connections near battery for corrosion, nothing wrong.

Almost outa ideas. So there was a monsoon which flooded water into the cabin somehow. Now the water could trickle down past some wiring inside the cabin and electronics don’t mix well with water, especially the ecu which runs the engine and also has NATS which could also stop the engine.

Right so I looked around the dash and noticed the central area is also damp so I took out the ecu and it was dripping wet! That’s not good for it

Opened the casing to find evidence of fizzing and foaming around the ecu circuit board at the connector. The water musta poured down long the ventilation and down to the ecu filling it up till it shorts out the electronics.

So I dried it up with tissue, reassembled and hoped this works. Engine light still flashing, waiting few secs then it cleared, try starting and it finally ran, Yess!

Ok lets get home ASAP before it happens again. On the way back the monsoon came back and fearing that the rain might soak and cut off the ecu again on the motorway which is a bad idea, the only way to give me more time is to recirculate the air which lets the diverter flap at the fan to shut out the incoming air and potentially water.

Only problem with this in the rain is that the windows steam up ridiculously. So in the blazin monsoon I had one hand steering and changing gear while the other is continuously wiping the windscreen and side window as it steams every sec. meanwhile in the horrendous weather a van ahead lost control and hit the central kerb and I had to brake hard to avoid him. Geez it was the hardest and longest drive back home ever

Back home I immediately took out the dash and assess were it’s leaking using a hose and it was traced back to this plastic clip on the chassis that the wiper scuttle panel clips into. Seems the rubber seal had perished over the years and the rain running down the windscreen seeps past the seal and down into the fan blower where it pours into the cabin and ecu

So I pryed em off

And bonded it back on with PU sealant

But the biggest cause was my mistake of drilling drain holes below the windscreen cos it drained just over the fan too

So I sealed up my error

Ripped out the soaked carpet, won’t be needing this anymore. Probably lighter without it

The perished foam tape at the blower inlet was difficult to fix at short notice cos no one sells such foam tape nearby so I improvised with bluetack

Does a better job

After my mega holiday the tyres were reaching their end

Looked all over for the best 13” tyre and I fancied some Yokohama A Drives cos the avons bit more pricy and don’t want some cheap unknown tyre or expensive pirelli/mich and I thought maybe the jap tyre has more grip

New rubber

Handbrake seemed spongy and didn’t hold well so looking further the coily outer cable was actually damaged and squishing so replaced it

 

[pollyp]

August 2009​

In selling the blue micra I asked afew friends if they were interested cos it’s had upto a grand worth of work on it and I would rather sell it to friends or family for lower cost first. The slx model of this condition averaged around £700+ I offered it to a family friend at £750. She previously brought like £200 bangers which kept breaking or failed mot and wanted summin better. I showed her around it and kept a folder with all documents, receipts, etc she was real impressed. She left a deposit to reserve the car till she has enough cash

The blue micras bay was tidied up by respraying the airbox black and the engine cover silver

Sills have been undercoated and the mudguards fitted back on

The previous CAI was coupled to the airbox with aluminium ducting tube from halfrauds and it kept cracking after a week due to vibration fatigue so I replaced it with a silicone duct coupling from demontweeks

With all the engine mods complete it was time for a remap.

Back in June I contacted Ed at fusion motorsport about remapping the 1.3 nats ecu. He didn’t have any boards available due to high demand so I had to wait till August before he was ready.

I popped down to surrey and began work on the ecu. A nistune type 4 board was soldered to the ecu, uploaded the k11 image map and tried to start it but it didn’t run. The engine light didn’t turn on during ignition except during limp mode so something wasn’t right. We tried all sorts and nothing worked. It was getting late so I had to go back home for work. Ed sent my ecu map to nistune to sort it out and so I’ll have to go back another day.

Before its mot the small rust hole under the sill was welded up

Last pics of the blue micra in imaculate condition before it was sold. I was very excited waiting for her to arrive, we went to post office to tax the car. Back at home I showed her all the features then after sorting the forms and cash off she went to a new life. Fair well little micra

 

[pollyp]

November 2009​

To help with the recent poor fuel economy I replaced the o2 sensor before the remap. The model # and nozzle on the sensor (which originally came from the grey micra) looked different to the new one.

I drilled some holes at the bottom of the ecu in case the water flooding happens in future

 

[pollyp]

ECU Remap​

20th november I made it back down to surrey for the 3rd time to get this nistune board working. Ecu out, ed sorted out the programming and hey presto it finally works after 4 months of work

Drove to the dyno, hook it up, Ed programming the ecu while charlie runs the car.

On the stock first run it managed 85hp. The lower graph is power and upper graph is air/fuel ratio.

The wondering power line verified the numerous flatspots I felt through the revs. The stock fuel ratio was also quite lean prob cos its breathing more air from the intake & exhaust mods.

So the CAI, k&n filter, JUN flywheel and janspeed exhaust system gave a 11hp increase with a stock map

After several runs, Ed increased and smoothed out the overall power upto 92hp and torque is improved throughout the revs. The upper revs showed the most increase cos the engine can breath more easily and boy does she love to rev

Here’s a graph of the power and AFR. The mixture was richened up to improve power & torque

Here’s the nistune board

Connector ribbon soldered to the ecu

Underside of board

Topside of board

With the nistune board screwed on top of the ecu casing, the flat lid can’t be fitted back

So I dremeled the surface down afew mm

Now the board sits further lower yo reinstall the lid

On the way home I did an economy trial and it did 45mpg from travelling 70mph and also heavy congestion on the m1 etc which is the same range as before the JUN flywheel & janspeed catback exhaust

2nd trial was for hard urban driving, full throttle and high revs for short commutes and it did 38mpg, very good

Thanks Ed & Charlie for the stella remap

I’ve ordered a nissan consult cable, datascan and datalog viewer from BliZt to check on the sensors in future. Awaiting delivery.

 

[pollyp]

bear with me as i upload all the pics cos the imageshack links don't work so i'm having to tedeously open each pic link and copy paste the full address. my fingers & eyes r hurting now.

 

[Tom 1.0]

brilliant,

really comphrehensive blog,


i dont know if it i just me but no pics work after the first few months mate.



EDIT: just saw previous post,

sorry mate.

great blog!

 

[pollyp]

thanks tom I'll let ya know when i've done all the pics. fingers really aching from copy n dragging

 

[pollyp]

all pictures uploaded. Enjoy

 

[ronin_kid]

probably one of the most thorough blogs i've ever seen - brilliant!. (Y)(Y)(Y)

 

[Tom 1.0]

really good read,

do you have any pics of fitting the bucket seats to your grey slx?

 

[pollyp]

really good read,

do you have any pics of fitting the bucket seats to your grey slx?

should find how i fitted the seat under Feb 2008. Moving to the grey micra was simply unbolting from pollymobile1 and bolting to pollymobile 2

 

[Shaun]

A-mazing read So you wanna take a look at my k10? lol only kidding your doing an awesome job!
well done! (Y)

 

[Seb_]

Crazy. Congrats mate, a nice job shared with everyone !
Cheers
Seb

 

[pollyp]

cheers shaun
ur k10's mint. we almost got the same stereo n seats, mines a JVC KD-BT11 bluetooth.
shame bout those cowboy mechs not doing the waterpump, one of the many reasons i've done things myself.

thx seb

 

[Shaun]

cheers shaun
ur k10's mint. we almost got the same stereo n seats, mines a JVC KD-BT11 bluetooth.
shame bout those cowboy mechs not doing the waterpump, one of the many reasons i've done things myself.

thx seb

i know but i dont know enough about cars to do everything myself and cowboys are everywhere and they are expensive! as its my first car... got some axle stands and basic tools for spark plugs etc. slowly getting there (Y)

 

[pollyp]

that's how i started off. basic tools, haynes bible, common sense and this vast forum of knowledge was all I needed. The more ya tinker and get stuck in, the more you learn while asking ppl here for tips n tricks n advice.

 

[imp124]

that's how i started off. basic tools, haynes bible, common sense and this vast forum of knowledge was all I needed. The more ya tinker and get stuck in, the more you learn while asking ppl here for tips n tricks n advice.

The haynes will tell you how to do everything on the k10 using simple language, i have only took 2 stroke engines apart in the past and i found the k10 lump quite easy to rebuild with the right tools

 

[pollyp]

most of the book is understandable, though there are some bits that are like, umm what?, and no pics to explain.

i think i've almost done everything in the manual.

the cg13 was quite a breeze to build as i followed haynes and kept everything organised and remember what goes where.
and yea havin a good assortment of quality tools make tasks easier

 

[pollyp]

Hey

I was abit bored over the weekend so i decided to clean & rebuild the blue pollymobiles original engine as it was gathering dirt in the garage corner and since i discovered that the smoking fault was with goldstars cylinder head, I'll strip it all down and put the original cylinder head back on.

so i stripped everything off, cleaned the block before retapping all the threads

pistons cleaned n reinserted

timing chain installed

stripped the original cylinder head to degrease n rinse clean. looked closely at the gasket face and the important sealing regions looks solid n smooth, just the odd surface pitting where the coolant ate away.

reinstalled head and cams ready to adjust the valve clearances. took me 4 times to check the clearances, take off cams, recalculate the required shims, swap shims over, reinstall cams and recheck before i got the clearances within spec.

here's the finished block. wrapped in bin liner to keep dust out. I'll post it in buy&sell section amongst other parts from the project