Ryan's Micra Blog

[flyboypuoi]

The small facelift one is bolted on and glued. Nice armrest btw. I have the same one. The heated seats buttons are normally in it if the car had that option. I fitted S14 seats because they have the back adjuster on the outside instead of the inside and have heating. The heated seat buttons from a primera also fit the armrest.

Which bit is bolted and glued?
And so I've heard about the heated seats. Looks like in the European models (specifically scandinavia) the heat switches are just under the radio (instead of the hole). All cars seem to have them (along with headlight wipers or washers) over there. My '86 Sunny has heated seats which is pretty cool for a bottom spec 80's car.

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[flyboypuoi]

The small facelift one is bolted on and glued. Nice armrest btw. I have the same one. The heated seats buttons are normally in it if the car had that option. I fitted S14 seats because they have the back adjuster on the outside instead of the inside and have heating. The heated seat buttons from a primera also fit the armrest.

Also I investigated the interior of the JDM March, both with the different mounts at the back of the centre section, thinner looking seatbelts and the adjuster seems to be a ratchet lever on the outside.
Gotta say using my belt now is a little bit more of a squeeze.

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[LiamC]

Also I investigated the interior of the JDM March, both with the different mounts at the back of the centre section, thinner looking seatbelts and the adjuster seems to be a ratchet lever on the outside.
Gotta say using my belt now is a little bit more of a squeeze.

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On marches the seats are narrower and the adjuster is on the door side of the seats. The sides of the arm rest will get wrecked from the seat belts sliding past it so watch out for that

 

[flyboypuoi]

On marches the seats are narrower and the adjuster is on the door side of the seats. The sides of the arm rest will get wrecked from the seat belts sliding past it so watch out for that

It's already pretty scratched up from that unfortunately. But my modified belt buckles clear it totally.
Sometimes the belts scrape against the seat when I fold them forwards but that I don't care about.

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[flyboypuoi]

I tested a McDonald's large cup in the bottle holder yesterday and it definitely won't fit. In fact the holder itself tries to take the lid off.
But a regular large bottle fits great!
I also found out this morning that you can fit more in there...

While trying to stuff in as much food as possible (usually I fill up the rear pockets but of course I don't have those in yet), I found that something else fits very nicely in the holder...

I will now refer to it as the pickle jar holder.

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[flyboypuoi]

I met up with Eddie today to have a little cruise.
We both went to an automatic car wash. I get cheap full washes because of employee discounts.
View attachment 60608
Just as I got into the car wash we realised that Eddie's aerial was going to be a problem. He couldn't unscrew it either.
It's a fairly long hard metal one.
We decided he'd just hope for the best.
View attachment 60609
I sat ahead, laughing at the chaos and talking to him through messenger (we have radios but the battery ran out just as I went in)
View attachment 60610
It was freaking hilarious. The top brush ended up making the aerial point directly up, after making the mount rotate.
Eddie had to pull it down, but the blow dry bar came over and bent it. I just had time to warn him on messenger (after laughing so much) that the bar was coming back and would completely wreck it. He had to open the sunroof and hold it down, while getting blown by water.

It was a good day.

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[flyboypuoi]

My photos seemed to break in that last post. I accidentally closed the app while my phone brought up a button to go to power saving mode as I was typing. Thanks phone.

Oh also I accidentally broke one of my bright incandescent sidelight bulbs. So I chucked in some orange ones to see what they'd be like in this car. I just added some orange paint as they were losing their colour.
The combination of the dark grey paint and no orange indicators actually makes it look pretty cool.
Though I think I might go for American style indicators again. Just in a different way.


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[flyboypuoi]

Since so many people have kept asking me over the years, "what bulb goes in here?", "what kind would you use?", and I keep seeing people asking in separate posts, I decided to make a little poster thing.
Especially as I seem to have a pinch of autism when it comes to lights in a car.

Also the orange sides on the new car are looking kinda cool. The picture doesn't show it correctly, they're more orange IRL.

I want to replace the indicator fittings with dual-filament bulbs, just like I did with my N13 Sunny in Finland. Then use nice quality white sides and have the indicators on dimly alongside. Can't really reuse the old method with the two LEDs as without the lens on the front it'll just look like two orange dots.

 

[flyboypuoi]

Look at who needs some aligning! This wasn't this bad not long ago. Just made a long journey so it's good I checked.

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[flyboypuoi]

Back home in the UK, the car wouldn't start so well but got going in the end. Managed nearly 300 miles on one tank!

Then I managed over 300 miles!

It was in desperate need for a clean after sitting under a tree where birds reside for two weeks.
Some monkey had broken off the hot foam brush (and the usual jetwash was once again closed) so I gave a high pressure rinse, shampoo, and low pressure gloss clean.

I mustn't forget about Cassie.

Annoying life things are in the way currently.
Today some centre caps for my steels arrived (from a fellow club member, thank you!). They need painting before they go on. Didn't get a picture yet.
But I did get a cool picture at Eddie's.

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[flyboypuoi]

Finally! At long last, another 16V badge has arrived here thanks to a fellow member. I also bought a coin holder that came from an R33 Skyline! Unfortunately it's not the right panel size so I'm not going to use it. Arrived while I was watching Turbos & Temples 2 (highly recommend!)

The 16V badge in place... Didn't seem to want to glue on, car must still have some wax or something on it.
I also pumped up my rather flat tyres.

I've updated my bulb guide. I got the flat-topped light spread totally wrong.

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[flyboypuoi]

My dimmer switch (the second one after Hermes lost my original) arrived! It was a gamble on the quality as the picture on the advert was terrible, but it's paid off as it's in great condition!

It's interesting, you can see the slider move along the contacts that give it resistance.

Both sides have these huge cooling vents as I imagine prolonged use of this would generate some heat! Luckily inside the arm rest is always very cool.

It's a four pin setup... I wasn't expecting that. I'll have to see what these pins do. And hopefully not blow something up.
There doesn't appear to be a backlight for the switch symbol. However, the symbol looks like it's backlightable so I might fit a small bulb in there to pretty it up!

Update:
Shining a light through the switch shows its definitely backlighted. Brilliant! I can see a blue incandescent bulb in there already.
A white LED upgrade would be awesome though.

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[flyboypuoi]

I opened the dimmer switch and a working bulb was in there as I had spotted. It was so dull though.

So I deconstructed a white T3, it would only fit with the cap removed and legs shortened. Looks excellent.

I then got the idea about taking the headlight aim switch apart to check that it's not backlightable.
And guess what I found!

It IS! Though only the numbers.
It's very tight in there so I've decided not to fully illuminate it. However, attached to the knob is some sort of selector arm. Suggesting that in a different model (or just early plans) that the number selected would be lit up.
That selector arm just happens to fit a naked T3 very snugly.

Now the issue is running two wires in there (where space is hugely limited), without interfering with the turning of the selector.

I've run out of time now (and have a nasty burn on my little finger from the soldering iron, ouch), so I'll continue another time. I'm pretty excited though.

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[flyboypuoi]

Check out that dimmer switch at night! Looks great.

There's a lot of light leaking out from the sides and especially the bottom. I might add foil to the bottom, but the sides should probably stay open.

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[flyboypuoi]

Just hit 100000!
...again.

Here's a photo from yesterday (after scraping on that weird curb)

I'm actually sat parked there right now as I post this.

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[flyboypuoi]

This was a couple of days ago. I tested the disassembled T3 in the switch arm for the light aim. Super bright!

The biggest problem was with the wires I had to put through it. There's no space for them in there when the knob turns. This was the best solution I could come up with, using recycled small gauge wire from Cassie.

After lots of fiddling, to get the wires out of the way, it worked. Though, it's still not quite as smooth as before backlighting.
My phone just couldn't get the light right. Here's with the flash on..:

And with the flash off..:

So. I decided to transfer over my air controls box that I had in Cassie, with the custom backlighting.
Unfortunately I've been very stupid in the past with removing the cables that are pushed when you turn the knobs, and have broken all of the fittings. I spent all day and night raging away in there trying to get these cables to stay in. The temperature one and the fresh air one wouldn't stay. I had to abort mission...

Today:
I have left the car looking like this for a couple of days. The wires going into the glovebox are going to the dimmer switch which was loosely in there.

With no pictures (it looks terrible), I managed to get the two cables to seat in place using a lot of hot glue and patience. I also inverted the C clips that hold them in place so more was holding them. Annoying I've bent a couple of the cables, so for instance the temperature knob, after you turn it to full cold, will turn back to almost where the blue ends. This might un-bend over time.

I was just thinking, "I should label all of these wires, in case I need to open it all up again". And then I found a label with exactly the information I wanted on it! This wire is here for the mirror switch backlight when it goes in. Good job, past me!

Sadly I've not got that many photos after this as I was concentrating too hard on it all. I trimmed down the dimmer switch as I thought it was clashing with the container in the arm rest. Turns out it was just the wires, they had no room.

So I settled for this rather rough looking wiring. Luckily, if the two wires that are really bent do touch, nothing will happen other than the air controls box being super bright.

While I was waiting for the glue to dry on my seatbelt buckle (it's been broken for a while now), I took the relay bracket I had been using to support the arm rest and chopped it in half, and added another hole. So now I have two brackets which shamelessly are cable-tied once again to the arm rest, but now with two of them it's much more stable.

Near the end, I got a notification that one of my favourite YouTubers, ChrisFix, had heart-reacc'd my comment on his latest video. Hell yeah!

All done, both switches in place, backlit, and functional! Sadly, the dimmer switch never did go all the way in, and it barely dims the lights, but it's good enough. The headlight aim is being a little annoying in that it won't quite select option 3 unless I hold it, but that's almost never used anyway. Edit: Some time has passed and the wires have settled in, it now selects all options with now problems.

To finish off (as I was starting to freeze out there) I rewired one of my horns that had broken due to a faulty wire, and switched to regular T10s in the sidelights as one of the orange painted ones were burning and becoming black.

Still much, much more stuff to do on this new car, but I'm getting there. Slowly.

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[flyboypuoi]

Night time shot... ignore how bright the headlight aim switch looks. It's bright but not like in the photo.

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[flyboypuoi]

Today I went and got some paint and other supplies. So I decided to stick some paint on the centre caps for my winter wheels.
Here they are pre-sanded from a while back.

And with primer on...

The black coat was taking ages to dry, it's very humid today. So I've left it in the garage to dry overnight.
Tomorrow I'll look into getting tyres.
I'm going for winter tyres on the front and all-seasons on the rear. If it's not too expensive. I've checked with an MOT station that it's legal to do that.

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[flyboypuoi]

The black paint after drying.

I quickly added some lacquer.

I'm already having connection issues with the backlight on the dimmer switch.
Tyre change is booked for Wednesday!

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[flyboypuoi]

The new tyres are on! Boy did this car need it. These are my first winter tyres. They're only on the front end, all-seasons on the back. These need a little wearing in, but at first these feel super soft (both to touch and when steering). The plan is still to keep these steels for seasons of bad weather (snow is becoming more common!), while still hunting for some of those Almera SRi alloys (which will have good summer tyres on).

Thanks for torquing my wheels on, garage, but I must immediately take them off.
They rebalanced all four wheels too, awesome! (maybe that's normal when getting tyres changed..?)

Slightly crap photo, but here's the tread on the winter and all-year tyres.

So, I cleaned them both up and grinded them a little with a wirebrush on my drill. Little sandpaper at the end too. I could have made these smoother, but I don't have all day and some of the creveces are hard to get to.

So, masked up (much better this time) and clean (enough). I nearly forgot to mask the valve stems.

Primer on..!

Base on..!

A slightly dryer shot (the drying speed was enhanced by use of a hair dryer)

A little preview with the centre cap on...

After some laquer. Looks good!

And to finish off, for the new tyres, a little tyre-shine (just a little as it wasn't exactly that dry yet).

Here we go! All back on. I added the spacer at the back while I was doing this, to push the rear wheel out a little more. Again nearly forgot the valve stems, had to take them off here.

To finish off, the centrecaps on.

It's kinda weird, but I like it! Remember these wheels are only for Winter (or whenever).

Of course, I added the spacer to the other side at the back, but I have run out of time today to paint, so the other side is as it was. Busy night ahead and next day. I might do the other side on the weekend.

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[flyboypuoi]

Later that night..:

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[flyboypuoi]

Bring it on, snow!

The sills were in good condition and seem to have not been repaired yet.

I'll get on to coating the other side when I have time, I think the other side is completely rustless.
Snow has been falling a little around these areas recently and there should be some within the next day or two.

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[nissan boy]

For the sills may want to strip the inner half , the factory underseal can hold water in , just sorting that out on a 52plate tempest and rear inner arch/will

 

[flyboypuoi]

The snow has fallen! Idiot me decided to wipe the snow off of the windscreen with the door open and literally fill the door card and a lot of the carpet with snow.

Finally, my "yellow" sidelights arrived. They're more warm white, but I like this more. I thought I'd try out this design of LED (despite it being in a reflector housing). These are bright.

This is how they look off. The more serious ones tend to have that base with the resistors.

To compare... the one on the right isn't off. It's that much dimmer than the new bulb on the left.

They actually reflect well in these housings, and are really bright.

And they match the actual headlamp colour! I'm sticking with this. I might get another set for my number plate. They took ages to arrive but they were seriously cheap.

(With a slightly lower exposure)

So, I had plenty of fun today in the snow. The winter tyres really helped, I didn't get stuck at all.

Unfortunately my underseal job immediately started to become undone. Oh well, I'll just do it better next time. It was really rushed.

The snow built up in the wheels in an interesting way.

I met up with Eddie to have fun.

At the end of the day, a first look at those lights. They're actually quite white looking at night, but my phone displayed it as yellow.

Once I got home I rinsed the whole car down (including the underside) with a hose to get the crud off. Most of that underseal paint fell off here.

I'm thinking I need to clean up these headlights as they have a green-ish aura about them. Also the left front foglight got a bad connection once again today. It also looks a little dimmer than the other so it might be getting partial power. I really need to just clean up the contacts in the unit.
Big journey planned for tomorrow, let's see if any snow remains.

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[flyboypuoi]

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[flyboypuoi]

Today I've gotten around to painting my other two wheels. Between drill battery charge times, I had a closer look into my left foglight as it's had a crap connection lately.
I noticed that inside the reflector it seems to have burn marks...

Additionally, these little wire things are curling up.

But the main problem is the connector. It's melting on one of the pins. And it's actually been lit up dimmer than it should.

So, I cut one of the foglight connectors out of Cassie and soldered it in in the new car. There's still a slight connection issue, I may need to replace the bulb (as the bulb includes the connector). There was a slight connection issue from day one with that bulb.
For some reason my nice new sidelight bulb was having a bad connection too. Seems to wiggle around in the socket.
I test fitted it in the number plate socket and it's still a bit iffy. It doesn't quite fit in the number plate lens, so if I do get some for it, they might need adjusting.
So! Back to those wheels!
With less of a time constraint this time, I cleaned them up a little better. Still not perfect, but I can't be bothered to make them perfect. Also getting into the lowest part with a wirebrush is almost impossible.

Ready to go!

Primed!

Base coated!

(A little dryer)

And some lacquer.

Without even letting them dry I put them back on.

And all done! I really want to wash the car as it's filthy, especially the tyres. I'll have to wait for a day or so because I can't risk the new paint being not 100% cured.

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[flyboypuoi]

I've been having consistent problems with the left sidelight and foglight.
It seems there is a bad solder joint in the sidelight bulb. Probably from being slightly bent in the headlight (it is a tight fit). Every time I wiggle them both and take a nice photo...

They soon after stop working.

So today, I cut into the sidelight (it's made out of silicone) and tried to resolder the joints to the filament. It wasn't completely successful, but it seems to work okay now at the usual angle. I also trimmed the top down a little.
As for the foglight, I bent the pins on the bulb to try and guarantee that they have good contact. It's still not perfect either, but we'll see.

I bet later today they'll stop working again.
I would buy a new set (or two) of the sidelights, but the ones in "yellow" don't seem to be stocked anymore and equivalents are way more expensive.

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Update:
The sidelight failed again before I even used the car again.
Front fog seems to still work even after driving.

 

[flyboypuoi]

I spent a little time today with Eddie and he showed off his fancy new wind deflectors...

I must say, I've realised all of the benefits to these and have started to like how they look a lot. I'd love some, combined with popouts at the back.
Later on, I convinced Eddie to swap his silver centre panel for my black one. My old silver one just looked a bit rough from where the brake light switch was added, so I can try again with this one. Plus it's cool to see Eddie with the black centre.

The silver panel looks pretty crazy, contrasting against the black dash. I love how it makes the lights shine more.
I just need to clean up a scratch on the top of it. Might make it more shiny with a polish. Providing it doesn't pull the paint off (could be really thin). Maybe I'll try on my old panel first.
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[nissan boy]

I got oem Deflectors and they make a lot of difference
And playing some Euro beats there? Gas gas?

 

[flyboypuoi]

I got oem Deflectors and they make a lot of difference
And playing some Euro beats there? Gas gas?

I was in my Eurobeat folder today, yes! Instantly gain 50hp.

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[flyboypuoi]

Eddie came over today so we could share parts and tools.
He recently (finally) switched to his nissan alloys (14" used by the K11 and N16).

The plan for me today was to put the rear foglights on my new car.

They were very rotten and needed quite some convincing to come out...

I'm switching to incandescent bulbs. I had some lying around from front indicators. Here's with the incandescent (notice how the contrast adjusted so much that the background is black)..:

And the LED bulbs I had in there previously..:

Incandescent is just so much more powerful, and designed for that reflector. You can feel the heat from the bulb at a distance!
I also sprayed some chrome into the light housings as the top and bottom are just black, not reflecting all of that light so well. I added some lacquer too.

Now with the silver inside, it's a little brighter.

Final result. So bright compared to before.

Just for fun I put Cassie's bumper on the new car.
It matches that replacement mirror. I also tried putting the red LEDs in the indicators but it wouldn't light up for some reason. Tried putting it in Eddie's tail light but we couldn't get the bulbs out.

I didn't take many more photos as I was trying to get this all done. It was kinda loud so I wanted to finish before 5pm (I did)
Here they are, I've kept the holes tight this time. I think I did a better cutting job. I Sharpie'd the pale cut plastic bits but eventually I'll repaint the black on the bumper.

It was getting dark as I finished off, but here they are! This time, I've used what I think are stainless steel nuts and bolts, so they won't rot away like the last ones. Again I've gone for 3 nuts on each bolt. One to hold the bolt to the bumper, and two to hold the lamp at a certain position so that it's relatively flush with the bumper.

This time around, I've got three things making these brighter and better.
1: Proper bulbs which are actually brighter.
2: More reflection inside.
3: A relay controlling these lights.
They look so awesome! So much better than before.

And they light the floor up pretty well, which should help with being seen and not totally dazzling people.

Very pleased with today's efforts. I didn't even scratch the bumper this time, I think.
Meanwhile, Eddie managed to finally fix his broken horn once and for all with a totally new wire coil for the steering wheel.

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[flyboypuoi]

Today, I transferred the boot light into the new car. It looks a little rough but with some wiggling it came back to life.

Not the best setup but it's good for now.

This time I decided to mount the switch in a more permanent location. I was considering wiring the light to come on with the boot open, as it's supposed to, but I like being able to turn it on myself (and I couldn't really be bothered). I've also, this time, powered this up in a much smarter way. Rather than trailing a wire all the way from the front of the car, under the rear seat (this wore away and ended up blowing fuses!) (Did I really do it so badly all those years ago? Yikes.), I borrowed some power from the relays at the rear and also wired in the ground nicely. Still only using solder, no connector blocks filling up this new car. I drilled into the plastic and felt pretty bad for damaging a black trim piece.
Unfortunately the dremel chewed the trim slightly to the left, the chuck(?) was rubbing on it. Too bad.

Cutting the black boot carpet also felt pretty bad. Ended up getting a nice tight fit for the light.

A quick test to see if it all worked...

And there we go! Boot light transferred! Looks quite smart in the black too!

The light is now accessible from the rear seats too. I don't imagine it'll ever be needed, but who knows, I could have luggage in the boot, the parcel shelf removed, and a rear passenger might want to light the boot up to look for something in the dark.

I didn't stop there. I felt like doing some more work, so I got the interior light (the additional one from the front) out from Cassie. Now that I had more tools, I cut down the remainder of the plastic sticking out from the lens (this is a different type of boot light, where the lens is also the bulb holder).

I got the old light in...

And I put the main interior light in from Cassie. This one actually clicks between on/off/door, rather than most K11 lights that are floppy and have a very vague "off" zone in the middle.
I also noticed that the original one had melted slightly. Weird.
I also moved over the bulb from Cassie. This annoying thing rotates slightly when you flick the switch. I might look into getting a better one.

Wiring in, and working. Soldering that close to the headliner was a little scary. These wires needed more tucking and tidying than before as the sunroof is an additional obstacle.

There it is!

With everything re-assembled, it's looking pretty good. Looks like I got it more central than last time, nice!

I can't wait to try these out later. Proper interior lighting. I've also left a wire trailing down to the floor on the left side. This, in time, will power the footwell lighting and the rear pocket lighting.


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[flyboypuoi]

Got myself some stickers the other day...

Today is my new car's birthday! Happy 16th, unnamed grey K11!
A change of scenery today as I took some tools to Eddie's and we did some work over there.
I added my sticker...

Same as on Cassie. Maybe a little more to the left.

Meanwhile Eddie's car is levitating.

I had a rather un-flattering photo of eddie under his car grinding back some rust, but since I took it on Messenger it's not here.
He bought a sticker from me and placed it in exactly the same place.

After getting home I had a quick look at the boot light in the dark. I'm loving it.

MOT runs out today too, so I've booked a slot very soon. Should pass. Hopefully.

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For some reason the app has added an additional photo that failed to upload as my phone switched Internet connection. Okay.

 

[flyboypuoi]

MOT tomorrow... here we go.
I have faith in this new car. Even though no cars I've ever owned have ever passed first time.

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[flyboypuoi]

I can't believe it!
For the first time ever, I took a car to an MOT station and passed first time!!!
Before I went, I tried to sort out that front left foglight that has been having an intermittent connection. I think I may have sorted it out this time. If not, I may as well buy new bulbs.
I also went to tighten the shocks on the front coilovers... but they aren't loose. I don't know what it is, but something knocks fairly loudly when a sideways force is applied to the front wheels. The sound comes from the far side and mostly effects the left side. Seems to happen most when reversing and steering.

I was pretty nervous, since I went all the way to Leeds to get this car.

Rear foggies looking impressive...

No holes on this one...

So yeah! Finally, a straight up pass!

Just the front pads wearing thin. No biggie at all. I knew they were on their way out anyway. They were some used spares I had!

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[flyboypuoi]

Over 300 miles on a full tank where I was mostly on motorways/A Roads. Wasn't driving particularly efficiently either.
Could probably do a few more miles but refuelling now rather than tomorrow morning in traffic makes more sense.

A random photo after getting the MOT.

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[flyboypuoi]

Here's a random photo of me parked up nice and tucked away in the corner far from any clumsy doors.

Also, I think I forgot to mention, I got this a while back!:

It's the Nismo prefacelift edition. A much harder find than my G# model.
One more thing. I just got home from a long journey, where I bought myself something I've been looking for for ages...

14", 5.5j Almera SRi wheels, a set of 4 with centrecaps. All tyres have some tread but one is flat. Been looking for these for some time now!
The total mileage of the journey (almost entirely motorway, from one full tank):

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[flyboypuoi]

I got a look at the new wheels in the light finally.

They all look pretty good. Dirty, but not broken. The tyres all have tread, the flat one has quite a lot. But I can tell they've been sat around outside for ages. All of them are perishing and splitting. None of them have valve stem dust caps.

I thought I'd check on how my new tyres on the winter wheels are doing...
Rears are looking fine but the fronts are almost already down to the tread depth markers! Surely winter tyres aren't this soft? They were budget ones but how can they already be that low on tread?!

Anyway.
Here's how the SRi wheels look next to the GTi wheels.

They have the same centre caps!

While I had some time I fixed my horn which had disconnected itself by snapping the feed wire.

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[LiamC]

I got a look at the new wheels in the light finally.
View attachment 62775
They all look pretty good. Dirty, but not broken. The tyres all have tread, the flat one has quite a lot. But I can tell they've been sat around outside for ages. All of them are perishing and splitting. None of them have valve stem dust caps.

I thought I'd check on how my new tyres on the winter wheels are doing...
Rears are looking fine but the fronts are almost already down to the tread depth markers! Surely winter tyres aren't this soft? They were budget ones but how can they already be that low on tread?!

Anyway.
Here's how the SRi wheels look next to the GTi wheels.
View attachment 62776
They have the same centre caps!

While I had some time I fixed my horn which had disconnected itself by snapping the feed wire.

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I have these as winter wheels, are they hard to find in UK? I had noticed the centre caps were a similar design to GTI wheels and wondered if they were the same, thanks for solving that one

 

[flyboypuoi]

I have these as winter wheels, are they hard to find in UK? I had noticed the centre caps were a similar design to GTI wheels and wondered if they were the same, thanks for solving that one

I've been searching for months, and only now found some!

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[flyboypuoi]

I went out to swap my front and rear wheels over to try and reduce the wear on the super soft winter tyres...
And whew! They weren't rearly as bad as I thought they were. What I thought was the tread depth marker is just some line between the outside blocks. I did notice the sipes were worn down on the outside but they're not too bad. I have been driving them hard lately. I might increase the pressure as they have been looking a little fat at the bottom (much like myself!) and the wear is concentrated on the outsides.
Still, I've put them on the rear for now as it's not been so rainy and I'm not sure we're getting a second winter this year.
Should be better grip with all-seasons on the front anyway.

I had a quick look at how the SRi wheels will look in the future... I can't wait. They look really rough right now.
I'm going to get some nice (not budget!) tyres on these and give them a fresh paint. They'll look even better when the car isn't lifted up.

I changed a blown number plate bulb last night. That must be only the second bulb to blow in 5 years on these cars. I also changed the other side as it was a bit burnt and not as bright.

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Update: Suddenly the car feels much much stiffer when steering. I must've gotten used to the squishy winter tyres.

 

[flyboypuoi]

So, I figured I might get a list on here for what I want in the future too. Currently university is heavy, so I'm both very short on available time, and have no job and thus no money!

Purchaseables:
•Some upgraded front brakes. Something bigger and cooler. Braided lines would also be nice.
•Disk rear axle with ARB mounts. I've decided.
•Some Nismo side spats some day would be pretty cool. Probably would paint the mudflaps body colour in that case. And I guess the lower areas.
•Quality tyres for my SRi wheels, along with paint.
•Get some SR/Super S front seats, and probably retexture them and maybe extend the bolsters a little (Not bothered about rear seats, I like the single seat.). I'd also have to swap the top halves over if possible because I'm assuming the seat adjust is on the inside, which won't work with my arm rest.
•New wiper blades, all 3. They're all in a terrible state.
•Maybe some new floor mats. The cheap ones I have are actually really crap.
•Speaker upgrade. The stock ones are pretty good. But at high volumes the bass can crackle.
•4-2-1 stainless steel exhaust (whole system (maybe not the back box as I have a Powerflow one already)). I think I'm going to cancel that turbo that's in my garage!
•Some under bracing to stiffen it up.
•Some nice pressed plates.
Non-purchaseables:
•Get another car cover for Cassie so I can start pulling off bigger parts like glass and also tidy up the driveway.
•Get my popout windows in!
•Paint my power folding mirrors with indicators and get them on!
•Paint my new wraparound spoiler and get it on!
•Correctly underseal the car.
•Maybe paint the door handles body colour?
•Get my electric windows in.
•Transfer most (going two-tone) of the old interior in, including the dash (and new footwell lights). I'm going to add some mesh behind the glovebox because things like flying off behind there and dissapearing.
•Get my soundproofing in the doors.
•Front and rear ARBs need to go on!
•Get the 1.4L engine in and give it a good clean. Also putting the 1.0L gearbox, flywheel, and crank pulley on.
•Figure out how to get my wiper stalk working fully. I'm still unable to get intermittent wipers (which sucks a lot because I have a variable-intermittent wiper) and it doesn't wipe when washing.
Misc:
•Remove the rust in the engine bay and repaint in there.
•Get a new sunroof seal, clean the glass and look in to rerouting the drain pipes.
•Remove anything of value or that could be a spare from Cassie and then remove Cassie :'(
•Actually sell my heaps of spare parts. I'm starting to get too many.
•Lots of polish and wax. There are a lot of scratches on my new car.
•Check out that horrendous clunking noise from the wheels. Could be steering.

 

[LiamC]

I've been searching for months, and only now found some!

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Oh they're still everywhere in Ireland, most mid spec almeras had them and it would be rare to see one on steels

 

[flyboypuoi]

I had a go at disassembling my power folding mirrors.
Despite asking a few people how to safely remove the glass, the true method is to pull it up from the bottom and pry the two clips off with a screwdriver. There are then two top tabs that you just pull it out from. It took some time because I wanted to be super careful. Replacing these wouldn't be easy.

Next up I took the glass motor out and then the folding motor.

Just because I missed them, I lit up the indicator lights.

They're almost entirely directed forward. Which does make it easier to see your indicators for people in front of you.

Unfortunately though, I can't get the outer casing off. Normal power folding mirrors don't have this outer shell on them, which makes them much smaller. The indicator wire is still connected which is making this quite difficult.

In worst case, I'll have to cut the wires and resolder them later. Masking the indicator lens and sanding around it will be really difficult though. And messing this up could ruin what are potenitally the only mirrors like this in the country.

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[flyboypuoi]

Front anti-roll bar fitted!
And this time with appropriate spacers rather than a load of small ones and a couple of seatbelt spacers.

I'm going to go try it out on a twisty road now as the weather today is amazing! I may need to tighten the lower mounts as I wasn't sure how tight they need to be.
I'm gonna go wash my car too.

Popout windows right now would be very nice, but I should get a car cover for Cassie so I don't leave her with glass missing, exposed to weather.

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[flyboypuoi]

It was so good to drive with the front anti-roll bar. Some time in the future I'll have the slightly wider GSi wheels on and I'll have some decent tyres. But until then it's been improved hugely.
After I got back from the wash I noticed that the car wasn't entirely clean so I gave it a further quick clean, and tried to T-Cut polish the bonnet scratches down some more (and some others that I've gained).
I finished up with a little wax.

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[flyboypuoi]

Sorry for the lack of updates. I was at a crucial period of university. I broke my backup-backup phone, so here's a photo from yet another backup. Really wide camera aperture, great for photos as I don't have to be so far away.

I'm completely out of money now so I can't buy anything for my car, real sad times.
Today, I gave the car a wash with my newly gifted pressure washer!

I rather contraversially used dish soap (the washer can mix with a bottle of detergent). The only time you should use this kind of degreasing soap is if you want to re-wax the car. Which I did want to do today.
After a rather heavy polish on the front end...

And a heavy wax session too...

Figured while I was waiting for that to dry in, I'd once again fix that damn left foglight.

And all buffed off. Looking good! Those horrbile scratches on the bonnet are slowly fading away. Too bad the grille area has already suffered the same fate as Cassie did, huge chips of paint missing from stones. The grille itself needs new paint soon too.

Anyway, I think I did a pretty good job on the front end. You'll have to ignore the wax dust and the detail bits that still have wax on them, I'll tidy that up when I next wash it.

I don't think I'll do the rest just yet. The weather noticed I went outside so the sun hid away and it became cold and dark.

I'm starting to get sick of stepping out of my car on a hot dry day and getting electricuted! Would it make sense to attach a grounded wire to the body and have it touching the floor? Or would that not work, or even cause an issue?

I forgot to mention, this car is low on both coolant and oil.
I've found it's low on coolant as it should be visible from opening the radiator cap. Additionally, when starting the car, coolant can be heard flowing into the heater matrix. If the car is started with the interior fan set to cold, then switched to warm, the coolant can be heard flowing at that moment too.
Oil is low because I recognise the sound of a starved oil pump. It makes the sound at startup and now when turning even just a little. In harder corners, a quick flash of the oil pressure light appears.

Since I'm not planning on keeping the engine, I'm going to do little about this for now. I know it will still run as the CG engine is tough. I had less oil in the 1.4 because of a leak.

Also, a side note, to those whos blogs I follow, where's your updates? I keep checking the forum and getting sad because everyone's gone quiet.

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I

 

[flyboypuoi]

Today after a rinse I polished the scratchy roof. (also did the pillars)

The scratches haven't gone but I'll win some day.
I then waxed the roof and pillars.

I also chucked on some wax on the tail lights just as I was done. Didn't seem to do much, but they are clean now.

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[flyboypuoi]

Looking good in the sunshine.

I gave it a rinse when I got home, ideally I should dry it with a microfibre cloth/towel but I don't have any clean ones.
Bonnet, wings and roof (and pillars) polished and waxed, just need to do a few more bits and it'll look excellent.

Looks pretty good from one of the windows on my stairs, looks like a highly detailed model.

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[flyboypuoi]

I ended up rinsing the car, doing an alright job of drying it, and polishing/waxing the windscreen.
This should help it stay cleaner. Right now there's a bug armada every time I go anywhere. Additionally it'll help with aero a little (combined with the other parts I waxed).
Another nice thing is that rainwater will drip right off of the screen.

Nice!

I noticed something however. Other than that I have quite a lot of tiny chips.
This glass was replaced at some point, it's obvious, it's different to the factory one. But it looks like someone didn't do the seal correectly on this side. The other side is correct. Not a problem currently but I'd like to fix that.
A nice opportunity to look at the polished A-Pillar (didn't do the door).

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