PollyMobiles Rebuild

[pollyp]

2023-09-02 Welding Peugeots sills

I was about to try replace the old daily Peugeots rear suspension bush but after hearing the sills crumble on the axle stands, I soon found the sills are rotten & needs welding first

Chopped & welded the left sill

and the drivers side too

now I can remove the plastic undertray for better access (old fasteners obviously snapped off)

These are the bushes I'm gonna replace soon. The chassis is pretty crusty underneath so that'll need repainting too

 

[pollyp]

2023-09-09 Print Adjustable Bends for Planning Exhaust Manifold

In order to better visualise & plan my equal length manifold, I designed some simple 22.5deg bends
(same radius as the U-bends I prev brought) which can each be swivelled and the groove markings show the relative angles

Took over 18hrs to print all 32 sections, enough to cover the 4-branches

Interesting to play with and make various shapes

made these inserts to anchor into the manifold plate

And it's worked. I'm able to adjust each bend to get all 4 equal lengths to join up and then use the info to make the real manifold

 

[pollyp]

2023-09-10 Velour Roof Lining

On a quiet warm weekend I'm finally able to finish covering up the bare metal roof.

I only have a limited amount of this velour cloth which a car m8 donated to me, so I measured & planned the cuts

Doing this sort of upholstery with spray adhesive for first time, it took lots of planning and was very tricky & messy to do

That's the top & front covered

Finished the sides & rear

It now looks soo much better & plush inside compared to the bare old finish

 

[pollyp]

A better look at the velour roof in daytime

printed this 45deg collector to complete the exhaust manifold mockup

brought more oil off ebay

 

[pollyp]

2023-09-17 Gizfab BBQ Meet

Eden was putting on the annual BBQ meet at Gizfab so I popped down on the weekend.
It was a big turn out, great weather, great builds and met few familiar m8s like Andy, Dawn, Jack, Eden & Andrew

 

[pollyp]

2023-09-30
Trying to locate an annoying rattle around the drivers A-pillar, I noticed the drivers door frame always sat further inwards than the passenger (maybe it's been bent before) so I tried slamming the door with few rags at the top to bend the frame back out to sit better & stop rubbing

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-01 Replace Electric Window Mechanism

Another rattle source are the old drivers power window mechanism, which I used every day and is worn loose & cracked.

Jack gave me a spare set of manual window mechs, which looks kinda similar and hopefully I can swap the motor over with little mod

grinded the manual handle spindle off

curious how the only thing holding the handle & glass position steady is the friction of this coil spring within the casing

drilled out the rivets holding the electric motor

new holes needed to be accurately drilled onto the manual mech bracket to fit the motor

one of the bolt heads also needed machining slim to clear the geared swing arm

bolted together & working. slightly slower cos there's a little misalignment & friction but moves

doesn't rattle anymore

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-03 Socket Set Holder

Finding a loose socket in my messy toolbox is like a needle in hay sack, so I printed this to hold em all together

 

[Twincam-Alex]

2023-09-17 Gizfab BBQ Meet

Eden was putting on the annual BBQ meet at Gizfab so I popped down on the weekend.
It was a big turn out, great weather, great builds and met few familiar m8s like Andy, Dawn, Jack, Eden & Andrew

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Looks a great meet up. Pity it's 150 miles away for me.

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-05 TIG Torch SuperFlex Hose

A feature I hate about my R-tech TIG welder, which hinders my comfort & learning, is just how rigid & stiff the rubber hose is on the small WP9 torch. This makes it difficult to hold it steady while trying to twist against the heavy hose.

So I need a more flexible lighter hose & heard of ppl using a red Superflex hose.
My WP9 uses a 3/8 hose fitting.

A proper CK9 Superflex torch & hose in R-tech website costs well over £200 and didn't say it fits my machine, so I blindly brought just the £55 hose hoping the fittings match.
Unfortunately it had completely different fittings so I returned it

alternative option was to buy this 3/8 superflex TIG hose with included connector/gas line on ebay for £40 from china

but turns out the connector was way too small

plus the connector is crimped solid to the hose whereas the R-tech hose is screwed to an adapter

Definately not gonna send this wayy back to china
since the gas port is correct, I just need to somehow electrically attach the bigger R-tech adapter onto this smaller chinese connector

so I simply machined & threaded both parts to screw together

and now I have a working WP9 torch with a much lighter flexible hose and it is sooo much better & comfy to weld with.
still need a ton of practice TIG welding though

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-07 Replace Peugeot Rear Suspension Bushing

For many yrs the rear bushing on the old daily Peugeot was perished and needs replacing, plus the chassis underneath is all rusty & needs repainting.
After gathering tools/parts & dry weather, I began removing the rear axle which was a real PITA

the brake hose nut was seized on and uses an odd 10.5mm hex, so not worth attempting that imo, so I'm just gonna let the axle hang down

rubber bush no longer attached

cutting it out with a reciprocating saw was easy enough

thought the new bush I got off ebay was correct but disaster, the original bush is 69mm dia whereas the new bush is 72mm!

failure to fix this ain't an option cos the car is currently sitting on axle stands blocking the back alley.
was slightly stressed & frustrated with this french car cos rain is forcasted to come soon.
but thankfully I was able to machine it down to 69mm on my mini lathe

slips on like a glove

reassembled fast as I could before the rain is due. test drove as all seems good, tight & straight.
gonna deal with the rusty chassis another day

 

[Seb_]

Another great design by french designers
Btw, I Sent you a PM Paul!

 

[pollyp]

Another great design by french designers
Btw, I Sent you a PM Paul!

yeah soo many annoying obsticles working on this french turd lol
sorry I havent been on here for awhile, replied

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-09 Lower Bonnet Latch Bracket

The bonnet latch was sitting too high & forward, even at the lowest available position

So decided to chop this section out to refabricate a new bracket

new bracket welded on

now I can sit the mechanism lower & further back on the bonnet latch

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-11 New Horn

The old original horn was getting all rusty and sounded like an asthmatic goat lol
so ordered a cheap dual horn off ebay

old micra horn vs bigger new horn

added a grounding lead

not as deep note as original but does the job

 

[pollyp]

Personal Update:

So since July I've joined a fitness program & Gym with the aim to improve my health, my body fitness, my mindset, my confidence & self esteem, escape this **** delivery job & restart my design/engineering career.

And that's exactly whats happened, I changed into a healthy diet, worked out 4x a week, got fitter, burning my fat away to reveal a beefy muscley body
This of course boosted my confidence.

Throughout October I overcame many obsticles, each accomplishment boosting confidence including:
- requesting a 1 week holiday off at end of the month,
- resolving my complicated british gas accounts,
- cancelling my broadband & seriously complaining to evil Vodafone bout their dirty renewal tactics,
- through some miracle I managed to connect with a brilliant new gf via my fitness program this boosted confidence 10x,
- eventually I managed to gather enough balls to request my 2wk notice to leave my job

I timed it so it'd be 1 final week of work,
then 1 holiday wk for a long overdue roadtrip (where I plan to meet my gf along the way)

 

[pollyp]

2023-10-29 Roadtrip To Bolton & Car Crash!

My roadtrip started off with a wet morning

plan was to head towards Bolton (where I first studied car design at Uni and haven't been for 20yrs) to meet up with my new gf.
the weather soon turned nice

next morning I cleaned the car to resume entering Bolton

but DISASTER!
soon as I entered bolton following behind this blue Tucson, I saw a lorry was about to join from the left, so I indicated to switch to right lane, the Tucson suddenly went to the middle of the road & emergency stopped for no reason and no traffic ahead

it was too late, I was startled, slammed & locked the brakes on this damp morning, slowly smashed into the back of him with a bang!
ah fck my poor baby, WTF the eejit stopped for!?

checked the guy & passenger are alright, he said sorry his tucson tends to jump outa gear for no reason ( later discovered it was an automatic?) and he said don't worry he won't claim cos theres very little damage to his plastic bumper and was gonna leave, whereas my poor front corner was caved...

woah woah fella, I was stressed & confused of the correct procedure during my first crash involving another car but I at least remember to photograph the scene, I had GoPro footage of the thing, I noted the guys details & mobile number, calling him to verify it's authentic too incase its a scam.

still shaken up, I pulled over to the side to call & inform insurance with the details. since I have £300 excess, I could either fix it myself under £300 without claiming or increasing premium,
or claim if it's over £300 to repair but affects premium etc

well she still drives fine, just cosmetic and there's 4hrs of daylight left, I decided to nurse her home to mend.

soon after, this asian recovery dude came past offering to recover her to a local shop to mend with courtesy car etc for a good price, erm thx but nope. I'm set to fix it myself at home.

at this point I'm aware of the old Crash-for-cash scheme and was completely paranoid of everyone trying to scam me
my anxiety in survival mode just wanted to get home ASAP

I thought this was game over for kassandra & my chances of meeting up with my gf, I felt devastated

along the way home I decided to stop by Jack near home for some spares & mend her

with his help, it wasn't too bad, just needed some gentle taps to straighten things up

that'll do for now

back at home & finished hammering the panels straight and realigning the headlights

she's back to her original battle-scared wonky look but good enough to resume my roadtrip

 

[pollyp]

2023-11-01 Roadtrip Part 2

After repairing the crash damage I resume the roadtrip, heading straight back into Bolton haha

this time I went via another way & was fine

the plan was to meet up with my gf when she gets the train from down south,
unfortunately there was a big storm warning down south potentially disrupting trains and she was really stressed bout travelling by herself for 1st time.

so instead I decided to drive 6hrs through the early morning down to london to pick her up & bring her along her 1st roadtrip

we had a nice 1st date. I went to get kassandra a much needed handwash at tesco

we drove up to Kendal at the Lakes

found this nice underground parking, of course I had to take a photo

drove 7hrs to drop her off back home but due to expensive hotels down south I had to drive a further 3hrs through foggy b-roads to a hotel in cambridge, exhausted

next morning was a nice sunny drive home

 

[pollyp]

2023-11-21 Test Fit Front Panels

Visited Jack for a catch up and collect some spare parts to mend Kassandra including spare bonnet, front wings, door hinges & switches

removing the front end to assess the damage

the outer panels & bumper bracket took most of the brunt

the chassis legs remain ok

swapping the spare panels & bumper over

at first it seems the wings & bumper don't match up

the LH crash has definately crushed the left bumper bracket further back by 1cm

the bonnet also touches the wing probably due to the LH impact bending the raised bonnet hinges to the right

the biggest issue is that these newer preface wings appear to be slightly longer than the 1993 chassis, the front bolt holes don't line up
I'd have to replace & realign the whole front chassis panel to make them fit

I also swapped over to another spare genuine but damaged wings I got from Max Plester yrs ago and they fit my 1993 chassis much better
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/page-184#post-782101

the front curvature of the genuine wing aligns better with the spare genuine bumper. my current painted bumper seems to be a squarer copy part, which is why it never lined up with the grill/headlight/wing

the genuine wings are shorter and the holes line up to my chassis.
I'll be using these genuine wings in the coming summer but will need a ton of body repair to straighten all the dents out

note how the shorter genuine wings have Nissan stamped on whereas the later, longer pattern parts are blank

 

[pollyp]

2023-11-23 Replace Door Hinges

For the past few months I've had this really annoying buzzing sound from the door/A-pillar while cruising, which was really difficult to locate and stops when I press the top of the door.

Jack said it'll be worn door hinges allowing movement and yeah my 30yr old worn drivers door also has upto 2-3mm of vertical play
So replaced them with newer hinges

and now it no longer rattles/buzz during cruise. much quieter

 

[pollyp]

replaced the hazard switch which had a blown bulb

the top left turret top has some rust

cutting a small piece out to check underneath wasn't too bad

replaced the worn RH ball joint before her MOT

the cheap wipers I got from work doesn't last any longer than few months before it smears, so grabbed some better ones at halfords for a tenner, wipes better now

 

[pollyp]

2023-12-11 Welding Mercedes 190E Wheel Arch

In preparation for continuing to repair my m8s old rusty Mercedes, I made some simple free butt-welding clamps rather than paying over £20 in machine-mart

They clamp the thin panels closely like this

So visiting his garage, I marked the area I'll cut out to replace with a spare panel

Bit of the inner arch is also rotten

Due to the thick factory seam sealer, I ended up chopping both the rotten inner & outer skin off together

You can see the old sealant bonding the two together, making removal difficult, plus a fire hazard when welding back together

Roughly trimmed a new section to test fit

Carefully trimmed the ends till the curve lines up

Shaved the rest of the panel edges till it very precisely matches the cut hole within 1mm and used my new clamps to hold the edges aligned

Tacked on

& slowly stitch welded it together. grind it flush later on

Cut some pieces to rebuild the inner arch

Rebuilding the front part.
Welding within a tight wheel arch will always be very awquid, hot & difficult with a few burns

& the rear part

 

[pollyp]

Changed oil & filter

Here's a look inside a micra horn

12v would energize the voice coil,
pulling the middle plunger down, which breaks the contact switch,
coil relaxs, plunger springs back up, contacts touch & repeat.

The curved dish attached to the oscillating plunger creates the horn sound

The tiny screw on the side adjusts the contact resting point, which affects freq and thus horn pitch

 

[pollyp]

With her MOT coming up, it's time to remove the decat

but realised I fitted the old janspeed exhaust this year, which uses the normal flange whereas my prev exhaust used V-bands

Decided to chop the flange off and swap it over to the cat

 

[pollyp]

Kassandra passed her MOT but barely

handbrake was too weak (I'll overhaul the calipers & replace the rear disc/pads),
my modded tie-rods might be an issue (so may need to revert back to standard hub/arm/rods),
fast idle emission is barely ok but really struggles on low idle (primary cat is probably worn out by now).

lot's on my to-do list

 

[pollyp]

rear pads are now half worn and discs have a noticable rusty lip but feeling little weak so it's best to replace em

fitted some new discs (BrakeWorld RS3657) & spare pads that Jack gave me. the thickest set of pads (DriveMaster PAD780) were 18.15mm (way too thick to fit within the calipers) but it was easy enough to sand em down to 17.5mm to fit inside the fully retracted piston

 

[Micra Paul]

rear pads are now half worn and discs have a noticable rusty lip but feeling little weak so it's best to replace em

View attachment 87642

View attachment 87643

fitted some new discs (BrakeWorld RS3657) & spare pads that Jack gave me. the thickest set of pads (DriveMaster PAD780) were 18.15mm (way too thick to fit within the calipers) but it was easy enough to sand em down to 17.5mm to fit inside the fully retracted piston

View attachment 87644

Quote: “discs have a noticable rusty lip but feeling little weak” curious?

Pictures of said discs with lip & brand, age & useage is of considerable interest please?

 

[pollyp]

Quote: “discs have a noticable rusty lip but feeling little weak” curious?

Pictures of said discs with lip & brand, age & useage is of considerable interest please?

Brake pads were Blueprint ADN14283
Brake discs were Bosch 0986479104
Fitted back in January 2020
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/post-781787

Currently only half worn, they've covered 36.5k in 4yrs, daily commuting with occasional intense long trackdays.
The inner pads always wear out faster than the outer
During this yrs MOT her hydraulic braking force is fine but the handbrake force is barely ok & weak (either the mechanism needs adjusting, handle still clicks upto 7, or the pads are old & glazed, therefore replace em)

They look like this now

The outer side looks meh ok

But the inner side you can see the lip where it's been constantly rubbing away over the yrs

 

[Micra Paul]

Many thanks & good info food for reflection.

My 26 year old K11 on 65K has original Nissan front discs, exhaust, ancillaries, clutch, & eng/gbox & has never reqd any MOT/welding!

It just keeps going & passing straight thru successive MOTs with no advisories, only my simple basic DIY maintenance & I keep it away from any garages & mechanics.

Sometimes steady is quick & less is more?

Happy days.

 

[pollyp]

It's been a terrible last few months for me.
Quit my last job as delivery driver since Nov (in the hope I'd have the confidence to find a new proper job in the new year).
In december I split from a lady I was seeing since Oct, who used me and broke my confidence.
In new year I very briefly met another lady during dinner with m8s, we got talking but it didn't work out, and this finally broke me.

I didn't trust anyone and deleted almost all my friends.
I don't even trust myself rn, just sleeping lots, zero motivation to do anything, avoiding ppl, gave up exercising, gave up my diet, eat sleep tv + game, drain my savings

I'm falling back into my 2015 depression anxiety days

 

[pollyp]

So Jack was aware of my situation and asked me to give him a cruise out since he was gonna go buy another micra (it gets me out the house and he paid the fuel/food which was cheaper for him than taking the train)

while Jack was buying the car, I noticed my air filter duct was broken, oops another thing to mend once I return home

 

[pollyp]

2024-01-23 Print Stronger Air Intake Ducting

After the drive with Jack down south to collect his new car, I discover the printed air duct was now deformed (maybe from heat & vibration & not being rigid enough)

I redesigned a stiffer mounting

took over 15hrs to print

while it was much more sturdy bolted to the chassis first, it meant that taping the air filter onto the ducting afterwards is a PITA being soo close to the wheel well/turret

but once it's all assembled, it's rigid & clean looking

 

[pollyp]

printed a little dust cap for the BC BR coilover top mounts

 

[pollyp]

Checking the brake wear today.
Discs look good

Front pads fitted 7mths ago are nicely bedded
but the fresh rear pads I fitted last month ain't fully bedded in.
bare in mind I had to manually sand it thinner cos it was originally too thick, so it wasn't perfectly flat hence why the edges ain't worn down yet and braking force ain't 100% yet

front pads wearing at a normal rate

thicker fresh rear pads barely bedded in, they need at least 2k miles or 3mths

spent the day cleaning & buffing the brake dust off the wheels after a harsh winter

 

[pollyp]

these screw tops on the catch cans always been a PITA to access

so I printed a simple press-on cap.
the cans ain't under pressure so they'll be fine

just needs a new label

 

[pollyp]

2024-02-17 Replace Handbrake Cable

The old handbrake cables are now getting old, hard, sticky, not fully releasing therefore making the rear brakes drag slightly

Jack sold me a pair of spare LH cables for disc brakes

Comparing the old cables with the 2x LH cables, I'll need to mod one of them to fit.

The support brackets are easy enought to swap

The locating peg stills slots onto the chassis hole but the fastening hole is on the opposite side, so I simply bent a P-clip bracket to secure the cable in place

Fitted the rest of the brackets

The handbrake now works really smoothly and relaxs fully so the brakes no longer drag slightly

 

[Seb_]

I can see on your last picture that we have the same "Makifake" impact wrench Paul! Bought it with a battery and the charger for 30 euros shipped a few years ago, one of my best purchase!

 

[pollyp]

I can see on your last picture that we have the same "Makifake" impact wrench Paul! Bought it with a battery and the charger for 30 euros shipped a few years ago, one of my best purchase!

yup for the odd light wrenching on/off they're fantastic value & really handy/speedy

 

[Seb_]

Yes exactly, I've been looking for a long time at some cheap ones sold at Lidl, but they are always sold without battery nor charger so in the end all combined they turn to be too expensive, and I'm not really fond of tools on battery, but this tool is so compact, lightweight and no hose, much more practical than a pneumatic one. Also pretty handy for track days.

 

[pollyp]

Yes exactly, I've been looking for a long time at some cheap ones sold at Lidl, but they are always sold without battery nor charger so in the end all combined they turn to be too expensive, and I'm not really fond of tools on battery, but this tool is so compact, lightweight and no hose, much more practical than a pneumatic one. Also pretty handy for track days.

I agree.

Yeah it makes wheel swap on trackdays soo much better whizzing em on off.
Used to take forever to hand screw all the wheel nuts in the early days

 

[pollyp]

Engine bay is abit filthy & needs cleaning for Japfest coming soon,
I printed these little covers for the spark plug holes

then jet wash all the dirt & oil stains off

wipe dry & reassembled

added the labels onto the new catchcan lids

the rear caliper dust boot was recently damaged so I brought this caliper seal kit

she finally reached 220k recently

Years of gathering materials in my messy workshop needed a good sorting/organising/stock check and it's such a rabbit hole to dig into

 

[Micra Paul]

Looks like sorting out Pandoras Box

 

[pollyp]

Looks like sorting out Pandoras Box

pretty much, least it's all organised now & I know what I have in stock before building stuff

 

[pollyp]

The preface speedo pinion is leaking a tiny bit of oil past the shaft, plus curious what's inside compared to the electronic pickup

easy enough to punch out the roll-pin and take apart. can see the shaft/seal area is quite worn

the seal is deep inside the casing and hard to remove so I'll leave it alone, ain't a big issue

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-01 Pipe Chamfering Tool

For chamfering the pipes when welding up my exhaust manifold, I designed this jig for the bench grinder

printed the tool

it holds the pipe at the correct angle/distance while I spin the pipe across the grinding wheel

giving a smooth consistant bevel

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-01 Lathe Cutting Tool Sharpener

Modelled the cutting tool angles I'm aiming for

Designed this jig for the bench grinder.

First I sharpen the side cutting edge, held at 10deg

Followed by the front cutting edge, held 90deg to the side cutting edge

The final step is grinding the top to add Rake angle on the front cutting edge

Printed the jig

Spent hours slowly grinding the tip

Cuts really nicely

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-09 Measure Fuel Level vs Fuel Gauge

During the process of swapping from a preface fuel tank to a facelift tank, I was curious to compare the fuel gauge accuracy to the actual fuel level.

I ran the car till the gauge was empty and drained the tank

Removed the walbro pump out the tank before the water test

The current fuel sensor (top: from preface 1998 SLX) has a separate fuel warning light moisture sensor,
whereas the spare facelift sensor (below) doesn't

I measured the resistance range of the sensor throughout the 55deg range of the floating arm, note the reduced ohm sensitivity near the min/max to compensate for how the arm would swing more as it gets near the top/bottom of it's circular stroke relative to the vertical fuel level

Refitting the tank briefly, I fill it with water while monitoring the gauge, noting how many litres it took to reach each marker

Here's the resistance of the float sensor relative to the amount of fuel remaining

And this is the amount of fuel in the tank relative to the fuel gauge needle

Notice how it over-estimates the top end and under-estimate the low end.
Since the graph shape of the sensor resistance matches the gauge reading, it seems the pear shaped fuel tank could be causing this odd behaviour.

The bottom of the tank is smaller compared to the mid-section due to the exhaust pipe clearance, which explains why the last 1/4 tank always run out fast.

And the top half is smaller than the mid-section due to all the odd indentation, breather pipes, access hole and sloped shape of the back seats taking up space, explaining why the top 3/4 seem to drop fast soon as you drive a few miles after a full tank

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-09 Swap Pre-face Fuel Tank with Face-lift Fuel Tank

Since 2012 I've been running a Walbro 255lph pump in a pre-face fuel tank.
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/page-36#post-482610

The prefacelift pump motor/housing are larger than the Walbro pump, which was meant to fit smaller facelift tank housings, so for years I had to simply wrap the pump with rubber sleeve to fit the large opening and I'm concerned about durability of foam rubber.

I brought a spare facelift fuel tank to fix this
(left: preface tank, right: facelift tank)

So here's the old walbro pump wrapped in rubber and wedged into a preface mount (left)
vs the smaller enclosed facelift pump (right)

Comparing the larger, open-top early pre-face fuel pump surge-tank (left) to the smaller, enclosed face-lift surge-tank (right)

The preface surge-tank was very difficult to remove and had to break it out.

From the bottom view, note the fuel return pipe which features a narrow jet nozzle aimed at a small opening into the surge-tank, which uses the venturi-effect of the return flow to help force fresh surrounding fuel in the large tank into the surge-tank.

The surge-tank keeps the pump pickup submerged for few secs during any sudden sloshing (especially during low fuel) to reduce fuel starvation.

The preface has a larger surge-tank but the open-top design could let fuel slosh out the sides.
Whereas the facelift tank is smaller/shorter but fully enclosed, so more of the fuel inside will stay with the pump for longer during hard long accelerations

The surge tank bottom mounts are kinda similar (preface: left, facelift: right)

But the reason the preface surge tank was difficult to remove was due to this 1-way inaccessible latch (top)
while the facelift surge-tank has a rounded latch allowing the whole thing to easily removeable (bottom)

Comparing my current walbro pump to a facelift pump, I noticed a big issue.
The fuel pickup strainer that walbro supplied me in 2012 was actually upside down and wayy too long for the facelift tank
walbro is also 2mm longer than a facelift pump.

Only reason it worked on my preface tank is cos it had a longer surge tank & I could mount the motor upside down

To fix this, I removed both strainers

And fitted the facelift pickup onto the walbro pump.
It's a little squeeze fit with the longer motor

Surge tank complete

Next issue is swapping over the heat shield, where the facelift plastic mount was broken off

I simply tigersealed the thing on lol

All assembled and now has a strong buzzing sound during startup.

Ecu map may need a slight tweak cos there's an odd leanout during light throttle
(have to check if it's a mapping isse, wideband issue or fueling issue)

edit: I took out the sensor to just inspect and looked clean and now it doesn't randomly lean out. maybe just unscrew/screwing the thread made a better contact, does a wideband sensor ground via the manifold like a regular narrowband or does it have it's own ground within the 5pin plugs?

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-15 Inspecting Fuel Tank Components

While feeling sad I decided to dismantle some old parts to see how they work.

Pre-face fuel pump vs face-lift pump:
so here's a preface pump which is larger and has a slightly different inlet port

the facelift pump is slimmer

the pump itself are the same on both using an axial flow impeller

the major difference are the preface motor has a larger diameter Armature and the contact brushes slide in from the side like all normal motors

the facelift motor has a smaller cylindrical Armature and the contact brushes slide in from the rear instead, never seen that before

brush still has plenty of life left

Fuel tank Breather system:
always been curious whats inside this small tank on top, I thought it was some baffle system to stop fuel sloshing back out the breather

erm nope it's simply an empty hollow chamber lol

inside the check valve is a combination of a regular diaphram valve at the top and an inertia ball valve at the bottom

the orange diaphram on top allows air from the carbon canister to flow into the fuel tank as fuel level drops and some fuel vapour to slowly seep out to the canister while parked but prevents any dense liquid fuel or slightly pressurised gas flowing out to the canister.

the heavy steel ball valve closes a pinhole/breather whenever the car is under any g-force or tilted/upside down (only opens when sitting upright and stationary or cruising steady)

Fuel Cap:
inside a regular fuel cap is a ratchet slipping cap (limits how tight it's screwed onto the filler pipe so it's easier to remove next time),
rubber o-ring seals the cap to the filler pipe,

but inside is a 2-way valve similar to the radiator cap.

if there's ever too much vacuum pressure in the tank (ie fuel level drops while driven but evap check valve stuck closed) the large Green valve allows air in.

but if there's too much +ve pressure in the tank (ie fuel vapour builds up pressure on a hot day but evap valve is closed cos car is parked on a incline) the small Red valve allows gas to escape

 

[pollyp]

2024-03-14 Insurance Drama, Mental Illness

I rang Adrian Flux for a renewal quote and was jaw dropped when quoted over £750 fully comp, £600 TPFT !
what the hell? that's almost doubled of the £410 I've been paying for last few yrs
Called afew more insurers and not many will insure her or still quoted the same £600-700, but that's where I found there's still an incident logged on my system under 'my fault'.

WTH I simply reported a small crash, didn't claim, was informed by AXA they'll send a letter to other driver plus Adrian Flux to verify it's been settled and then close the case, and yet it's still left open and I'm punished with a doubled Premium?

What's the point of paying for insurance or even reporting anything without claiming if insurance is simply gonna fine us for being an honest person?

I'm already going through a big depression/anxiety this yr after breaking up with my ex, quiting my job and giving up hope (same cycle as in 2015)
but now after the stressful call (I hate phone calls) I'm even more worried I may not be able to afford running kassandra for next 5yrs, may have to give up the car, the upcoming shows, my hobbies, my life

#######################

After a sleepless night full of -ve little suicidal thoughts, the next morning I had to gather yet more energy to call AXA about why that incident case is still open, which is mainly why all my quotes are through the roof!

It turns out that AXA (insurer) sent a letter about the incident to Adrian Flux (broker) & the other driver awaiting confirmation it's been settled before they close the case BUT they actually didn't receive any reply therefore left the case open under my name At Fault

Since it's been 6mths later, the guy said he can now close the case, email me the confirmation to show my insurer it's been resolved and hopefully that'll lower my premium.

My mind is scrambled egg
I'm questioning whether I really need to goto GP to get diagnosed for depression, anxiety, autism, ADHD, APD cos I'm still scared of finding a new job, scared of making the wrong choices 'again' cos I feel something is definately wrong with my brain