Smidge's K11 Micra Project

[smidge]

hey guys, thought i would start a thread with all my progress on the micra so far and document everything as i go along...

the day i bought it...

Totally stock except for a pod filter and some MASSIVE spot lights!

it was a high K but exceptionally well looked after country car that spent its like in the hands of a uni student girl who drove it up and down the coastal highways, then in the hands of a mining engineer who did the same

next step was to get a decent set of wheels on the thing, as the factory tyres are so freaking small, and in this case uneven size as well...

i picked up these ROH made wheels from the 'bay, and after discovering one of the tyres had an unrepairable puncture, got a set of sticky new rubber put on which totally transformed the amount of grip the car has

i was warned wheels this big would slow the car down, but the advantages of the extra grip and security has vastly outweighed any issues i had with performance

so after getting the wheels sorted a good detail was in order...

pics tell a thousand words... it came up great i think!

i'm not a big fan of the stock steering wheel, or one tone grey interior so on the 2nd weekend of ownership i set about fixing these two issues...

a pulsar N14 boss kit and autotechnica wheel made the car much more enjoyable to peddle around...

just your average micra back seat! would love to get my hands on a higher spec interior bits...

next came a stereo install, my first project was to get an ipod input happening on the stock stereo which worked quite well for a while... got $0 mod for those handy with a soldering iron...

eventually after some extra work came through and my birthday i decided i'd buy myself a stereo... the lack of bass on the stock system was starting to get annoying!

i purchased a pioneer head unit, ipod controller interface, jaycar response 4x50wrms amp and 10" pioneer subwoofer in a sealed enclosure

overall am quite happy with the sound of it, and its not an uber $$$ system that people are going to bust their nuts to steal...

next in the micra saga came the purchase of an Aircon system, i drive this car into the city to work each day and sitting in traffic it gets bloody hot... i'm not a fan of the extra fuel consumption and load on the engine but it has become necessary...

here are some pics of my progress on the retrofit...

and thats where i'm up to as of today.... i'm missing the aircon tensioner bracket so i had to rip it all off and try again another time

also i'll custom wire the AC as its too much hasstle to try and splice the AC loom out of that SLX loom you can see pictured above

am trying to track down an AC wiring diagram so i can make sure i get it all connected up right

i've also got most of the bits i need to turbo it too and am currently getting it all together for a low boost turbo setup... more on that later!

forgot to mention i also installed central locking about a week after purchasing the car as this is something that sucks not to have

was pretty straightforward and works very well to this day

 

[James]

Wow you certainly don't waste any time getting down to work on your car! Not many people over here have retrofitted aircon so kudos to you if you get that working (maybe you could post a full DIY guide )

Welcome to the club!

James

 

[smidge]

i shall post a DIY on that once i do it, the A/C wiring is the hardest

 

[Craig]

Could you not just completely swap the looms over?
Craig

 

[fraz_micra_88]

best of luck mate....reallly like dem rims lol

 

[smidge]

pics re sized and post edited so they show up, personally i reckon if the pics don't load in the thread they aren't really that interesting

 

[smidge]

made a little more progress on the A/C install tonight, rigged up some decent lighting in the garage so i can get stuck into it!

 

[NeX]

woah i was gonna do an air con upgrade but after seeing all that i think i will give it a miss, but well done for giving it a go if you could make up a guide that would be great

 

[andy]

not realy worth going to all the trouble realy in this country but if you need it you need it

 

[smidge]

hit it again today and got STACKS done... holy crap this is a massive job...

managed to mount the reciever dryer, pulled out the whole dashboard, repalced the heater panel to install the switch for the aircon system

popped out the grommets for the pipes to go thru

had a ###### of a time trying to bolt down some of the high pressure lines

the fan box actually has to be cut up with a hackswa to get the AC cooling box to fit, that was probly the scariest bit... but i managed!

 

[smidge]

Aircon is finished!! What a massive job...

it onvolved cutting the heater box to bits with a jigsaw...

also got it tinted yesterday! 20% tint... looks pretty good

 

[tris]

ahh... smidge that looks like a f***in effort.... does it all bolt up though?? like are the supers and slx chassis the same or whatever....

 

[Swiper]

ahh... smidge that looks like a f***in effort.... does it all bolt up though?? like are the supers and slx chassis the same or whatever....

basically all k11's are the same, just a few differences between the 92-98, 98-2000 and 2000-2002 models. but the body etc is the same.

 

[smidge]

did some mods to a spare grille... eventually i'd like to get colour coded front bumpers, bad boy bonnet etc... this will have to do for now while the budget is tight!

basically all k11's are the same, just a few differences between the 92-98, 98-2000 and 2000-2002 models. but the body etc is the same.

considering we didn't really get anything here after 98 it means MOST of it will interchange

from what i can tell there are two specific air con setups used on micras...

i think it depends on the year but the easiest way to tell is to see weather the condenser goes across the entire front of the car or just half...

 

[goldstar0011]

Great thread!

 

[smidge]

glued in some plastic for the filler to stick to

bog bog bog bog bog... hate the stuff but great for small jobs like this

sand the bog down till its nice and smooth... take your time here this is the big that determines how good it will look... i had to do it more than once cause i put too much hardener in it and got holes!

i mixed this up at the auto parts store i work at... hopefully it matches okay

waiting for clear coat..

i think i'll end up doing this again, not 100% happy with it but overall its not a bad job

will use fibreglass next time i think, bit stronger than bog as i nearly cracked it putting the clips back in!

i like the look of it though!

here are some pics

 

[joelh]

get it lowerd smidge

 

[smidge]

it already rubs on the back wheels with a load in it and won't be able to get it over the driveway at work that looks like this ^

swaybars and other goodies first, lowering later... maybe..

 

[danimicra8]

that front grill looks great on your car, my aircon is broke at the moment and I think looking at the massive amount of work needed it will stay that way lol. Great blog so far .

 

[smidge]

thanks! i just put some black mesh in behind it and it looks a little better i think

not 100% happy with it as yet but its getting there!

 

[smidge]

installed some clear indicators today! pretty happy with the results, really matches the tint and wheels...

 

[Swiper]

looking good, small touches like this make a big difference

 

[smidge]

i installed some new front speakers today, can make this into a faq if anyones interested but i didn't take pics of the usual wiring stuff which is what would probably catch people out more than anything, any questions just ask...

 

[smidge]

fitted AD18V nissan pulsar brakes to the micra yesterday, also change the rear drum shoes (WHAT A ####### OF A JOB THAT IS!!!!!)

front brake conversion was pretty straightforward, had to rebuild the calipers though which is a little daunting trying to get the seals in properly without pinching them

cost about au$300 all up

 

[joesouthgate]

looks really good m8, i could do with getting as good colour match as that on my grille!

 

[smidge]

finished colour coded bits..

 

[joesouthgate]

is the sheet of A4 saying Nissan just incase we didn't know?

 

[smidge]

nah its cause i cut it out and sprayed over it onto the mesh but didn't work too well and didn't want to go bigger so it would...

 

[GT88]

nice job.. im liking the pics nice an sunny

 

[smidge]

glad you like it! the car is coming along slowly but surely... its gonna be time for an exhaust soon i reckon

we've had some good weather here this summer, more rain than in the past few years than usual but the sunny days have been just perfect

 

[smidge]

put some new front seats in today, out of a 2004 subaru forester... arm rests, YEAH!

will get better pics later...

 

[joesouthgate]

nice (Y) how difficult were they to fit?

 

[hoodedreeper]

Really like those seats,seems to fit the Micra interior very nicely! Keep up the great work!

 

[Nis]

We've done the reverse to you! We REMOVED the aircon from james's micra lol.

Ivan

 

[smidge]

nice (Y) how difficult were they to fit?

i've done it before in some other cars so i knew what to expect, also i think alot of subaru seat mountings are the same...

the front inside mounting hold lines up, then its a matter of basically cutting some really thick metal plate, drilling holes into it to line them up, and then high tensile bolts through the holes and into the seat mounts

not as safe as getting a fresh mount welded up (that i had considered doing also...) but its in there pretty tight, if you hit something hard enough to rip the seat off the mounts you're pretty screwed anyways i reckon

picked up some nissan bluebird side skirts today... will update when i've made some more progress

 

[Swiper]

looking good, can i suggest converting some of the images to url's as it takes ages to load up the page. puts people off viewing your thread.
seats look good too. don't seem too wide as i thought they'd be.

 

[smidge]

nah threads with only URL's put ME off viewing threads so i'll do it this way

wouldn't be so bad if it was divided into pages more often, no biggy

if i could have the seats lower i would, i'm pretty tall so even the stocky ones feel to high to me, will look into modding them soon

 

[smidge]

here are some better pics of the seat install... alot of stuffing around, but well worth it..

i ended up transplanting the foam and covering on the micra seat frame so i could still fold it forward easily

 

[Craig]

Is that a Legacy I see in the garage?

How hard was it to swap to foams over, it looks a lot better like that, though IMO

 

[smidge]

not an easy job, at least not the first time around!!

next time i'll weld on the arm rests and head rest mounts and a few other bits

yeah 01 subaru liberty we call em over here, not a bad car! pity its auto... i used to drive a 96 GT-b spec twin turbo... what an awesome car!

 

[smidge]

Smaaaaashed....

 

[Craig]

Noooooo, dead car then?

 

[James]

That's a write-off isn't it? (correct me if i'm wrong) Really sad to see that mate, you did so much to that car!!

 

[smidge]

yeah pretty certain it will be a write-off... or rather, unrepairable cause of the weird location of the damage... A pillar damage is usually death cause it won't have the rollover strength it originally had if one's been tacked in

 

[James]

How did it happen?

 

[smidge]

on the way to a friends wedding in the country, the pics tell the story but basically sitting on about 60-65, moved to the middle of the unselaed road to avoid some ####e on the road, went to move back to the left and she went straight ahead, overcorrected and started pumping the brakes but by then it had swapped ends a few times and ended up in a ditch... didn't hit the ditch hard, maybe at abut 10kph, but a tree did the rest of the slowing down for me..

smash repairer reckons its not worth fixing and would be questionable selling it on to someone when its had a hit on the A pillar

if i can find a cheap enough shell then i'll swap everything over with some additions hopefully and spray it a nice colour, good impetus for a BIG micra project...

 

[Robb]

Thats a shame dude, you sound like you have the knowhow to get the most out of that car though. At least you didnt ruin your tints or did you?

 

[smidge]

getting a 2nd opinion on the front damage this week, A pillar is fine internally but that will be the deciding factor, the damage at the front is pretty minor

will see what happens! either way i think i'll probly strip it back and get it sprayed (Everything except the engine bay anyways)

 

[pjmagee]

woah, oh man. =/ so whats your plan now?

 

[smidge]

up to the smash repairs tomorrow to see if it can be repaired to be as safe as it was

if not, i've got another shell lined up i can drop my stuff into...

will post up how i go