Day 3 in the house........ Well on the drive actually ;)

 

OK, OK, I'm not doing all that well, but TBH I never expected to do all that well. I expected to have seized and rusted bolts, and not to be able to get at them properly, as that's 'part and parcel' of doing any work on any car, unless it's fairly newish.

Day 1- Well the front bumper came off after the wheels were romoved. This was after discovering that my trolley jack wont fit directley under the front of the car :headvswal bloody typical!! So I came up with the idea of jacking the car up with the cars own jack, then when it was high enough shove the trolley under the front and continue from there, then put the stands under...................... cleaver eh? Well i thought so at the time ;)

 

 

Wheels removed, with nice shiney discs, but not for long....

 

 

That was about it for day 1, as I didn't get a very early start.

 

Day 2- A lot more huffing and puffing, and finally the rad was out, and about time bloody too!! :D

 

 

Cam covers and water pipes off...

 

 

And the rad, that will require a good clean out before it's put back in, as it's full of gunk!!

 

 

And by about this time that was about it for another day. Because at this point I realised that I didn't have a 27mm socket, and my pulley puller was far too big without removing the AC rad, which I wasn't prepared to do. So a quick trip into town to spend some more money............ And daylight about gone for another day :rolleyes:........

Day 3 - And onto gett the crank pulley off........ Well you may see in the Help And Advice section the I posted a request for help this morning regarding getting this pulley off. Just after I'd posted, my dad came round, and in his usuall ingenious way, sugested bracing a length of wood against the pulley and belting f*** out of my T-Bar!!!! :D lol Nothing was damaged in doing this, apart from a few markes on the T-Bar handle, but I'm not bothered about that.

So once this was out I continued to follow the instructions, for a few mins, and then found out that I had three seized bolts holding the lower cam cover on, two of these were quite inaccesable :headvswal more bad luck.

With a bit of inginuity :smash: , I finally got it off, but will need to take a trip to my local Nissan dealers to obtain three new bolts!

Anyway a few more covers and bits are now off the car, but as all of today has been spent head scratching, that was about it.

 

This is what it looks like tonight....

 

 

Not a very good pick, but somthing as to what the new covers will look like when they are back on.

 

And a random picture of the passenger intercooler...

Jeez looking good, I did this in the summer and that was bad enough, god knows what you are going through in this tempreture :D

 

i've put off my cambelt change until the spring at least,

Jeez looking good, I did this in the summer and that was bad enough, god knows what you are going through in this tempreture :D

 

i've put off my cambelt change until the spring at least,

Nice sunny warm, long days would have been better, but tbh it's been ok weather wise so far, lets just hope it stays that way :D

This has got to be the biggest job I've ever taken on on, a car!!!! But as long as I follow the write-ups I've got, and remember where all the bolts came from ;) it should be OK :D

I'll try to do a daily update on this thread.

:bow: :bow: :bow: enough said mate.

Nice sunny warm, long days would have been better, but tbh it's been ok weather wise so far, lets just hope it stays that way :D

This has got to be the biggest job I've ever taken on on, a car!!!! But as long as I follow the write-ups I've got, and remember where all the bolts came from ;) it should be OK :D

I'll try to do a daily update on this thread.

 

 

yuh and torque up everything to the lb as in the manual ;) very very very important, you don't want anything coming undone or breaking under to much pressure.

:D Dave, all i can say mate is good on ya bud :D and cant wait to see the finished article.

Matt

:D Dave, all i can say mate is good on ya bud :D and cant wait to see the finished article.

Matt

 

ditto to what sarge says hats of to you mate :D

Moucho :bow: :bow: :bow: good job Bud

I actually miss having an engine to play around with in the garage. :(

 

Are you replacing the cam seals? Is that just spilt oil on the cam wheels or is it leaking form there?

I actually miss having an engine to play around with in the garage. :(

 

Are you replacing the cam seals? Is that just spilt oil on the cam wheels or is it leaking form there?

If I can do it, I will be replacing them. No it's just spilt oil from when I took the inlet cam covers off, along with the coolent that is everywhere now. Before I took anything off the engine was dry, not one leak anywhere! Lets just hope it's the same when it all goes back together.

 

Thanks guys for all the support, but I must get on, as daylight will be lost ;)

Brrrrr thats scared the crap outa me.

My remidy is work harder and longer and pay mechanic lol.

 

Top man, but good luck

Day 7

(yeah I know I've missed a few days out :D)

 

Well after a few days of intensive work, and forgetting to take pics at key stages :rolleyes:, I'm now at the following stage......

 

All new seals inplace,

New Cam Belt on,

New Tensioner on,

New Water Pump on,

Bottom Cam Cover on (Only three bolts, awaiting fresh bolts)

Drivers side top Cam Cover on (temp bolts inplace, bolts being cleaned)

New water hoses on,

Crank Pulley on (temp, not torqued yet)

 

 

To do list......

Passenger side Cam Cover,

Top & bottom alloy water pipes (being polished)

Crank Angle Sensor (Being polished)

Rad and hoses,

PTU move,

New Injector conectors,

New Coil pack plugs,

Fresh harness tape,

APEXi Induction kit,

'99 Spec front bumper and indicators.

 

It's getting there, wont be long now :D

 

cool! keep the updates and piccies coming mate. youre doing a grand job!

all i can say is fair play to you mate...... ive worked on very car ive ever had. except the Z. one look at the engine bay and it scared me half to death

 

Good on ya bud

 

nick

Day 8

 

Well work is progressing nicely at the moment........ At lunchtime I'd got the CAS on (polished), passenger side Cam Cover inplace, both water pipes (polished).............................. Slow start today as my Escort had to be taken in to have a flexible brake hose replaced (finally sorting a very anoying lack of braking :rolleyes: ) and then picked up again.

 

So this is what she looked like....

 

 

This afternoon, all the belts were put on and adjusted along with the fan. With everything being torqued up or adjusted as required....... Now that takes quite a long time.

Now the rest of the job is on hold untill some bits turn up, and this is where I've broken my new years resolution already................. I've spent some more money :D :x:

I've brought some more bling :cool:

I've orded a Hard Pipe kit and a Rad Pipe kit from Smithy :D So untill these and some bolts turn up it's on hold. But then I don't think I'm going to get anything else done this week due to my working patten, as it'll be dark very soon after I get home all this week :(

 

Anyway I'll post some more pics when there is anything to see.

No service updates, but a few things have turned up, just in time ready for this weekend's (as I'm off :D ) marathon of trying to finish it off, just intime for the following weekends Midlands meet in Newark :D

 

Items that are now here.....

Lower cam cover bolts........ Thanks very much AndyDuff :bow: :bow: Top bloke :D

ECU ........ Thanks very much to AndyP :bow: :bow: Top bloke aswell

Rad Pipe kit and Throttle cover Bling ...... Thanks very much also to Smithy :bow: :bow: again top bloke.

 

Will try to do some updates over the weekend, with pics, hopefully ;)

EDIT** And the 99 spec front bumper has gone into teh bodyshop to be painted

Day........ ermmmm.......... sod it, i cant remeber anymore :D

 

Right following on from yesterdays problems with the Rad Pipe kit, I've sorted it today.

But first yesterday,

Radiator was succesfully put back, but on putting the new stainless steel rad pipe kit in, I found that the outlets on the rad seemed smaller than they should have been (well it was cold, and we all know how things shrink in the cold :eek: ), so I gave up on that and posted a request for help, which came up with quite a few options, one of which I've used today.

Anyway, I decided to do a bit of splicing of my new connectors instead. So the new ECU temp sender connector was done and then the harness was taped up. Then I moved onto the PTU, first though I do have a fresh pair of series one connectors on their way, but came up with the idea of directly splicing my series two ones in, which I did, and then taped it all up. That was it by that point, as I was ****ing freezing and felt like sh1te :(

 

Today,

Well I started by sorting the rad pipe problem, Smithy sugested that I should be able to clamp up the difference (37.5mm down to 35mm) being carefull of the plastic rad outlets. Well it seems to have worked OK, it's been filled with coolant and I'm waiting to see what happends, leak wise I mean ;)

I did connect the battery back and started the car, but it didn't run very well, but I'm putting this down to the fact that the turbo hoses were off still, so couldnt get the car upto temprature yet, got to wait for the hard pipe kit from Smithy now :D

Have also fitted my PURPLE grounding kit I got from Pete Shrimp. Then finished off by fitting the HID kit fully, and rebuilt the front of the car upto the point of having to wait for the 99 spec front end to come back from the bodyshop :dance:

 

So in short, it's almost there :D

 

One thing I will add, is that, although you don't need to remove the front bumper and headlights, the extra room it gives you along with removing the danger of damaging either of these parts, is well worth the extra 1/2 hours work. And also the headlamp buckets are an essential place for placing nuts/bolts, spanners, cloths etc. Well i found it very usefull anyway, but then I am replacing my bumper and fitting the HID conversion.

You are doing a grand job mate !! ;)

 

See you are the same as me and no garage, all outside !! :eek:

 

Big pat on the back !!

 

Alan............

You are doing a grand job mate !! ;)

 

See you are the same as me and no garage, all outside !! :eek:

 

Big pat on the back !!

 

Alan............

Yeah, I may be moving house again later this year, hopefully find one with a garage this time :D I'd have got a lot more done sooner if I'd have had one, but at least I'm not rushing it and, hopefully, not making mistakes ;)

 

Can't wait to drive her again, and I hope that when she's all back together she won't cough and splutter all over the place when I stick my foot down. And it won't be embarrasing when I get some knob up behind me and I have to give way 'cus I haven't got any more poke :cry:, 'cus I've had the ECU done aswell ;)

Well done Dave. Looks good so far.

 

I know exactly what you mean with removing the bumper. I did a very similar job a couple of months ago and the front bumper drove me crackers!!! Getting the radiator back in place and adjusting all the tensioners was the biggest PITA!

:D Dave ya doing good mate, keep up the good work and all will come good in the end bud :duffer: when it does..:cool:

Matt

nice one dave,must be satisfying DIY

 

fitted a new starter motor yesterday 1st thing iv ever done on a car apart from brakes

dave, looking veeeerrrrryy good mate. how much did it cost to spray the cam covers and the centre throttle cable cover?? looks very nice

Thanks guys, I can tell you it was scaring the crap out of me before I started it, incase I'd bitten off more than I could chew :D I was also very nervious this morning when I struck her up, it seemed OK though, no need to adjust any of the belts anyway, just gota get the hard pipes on when they turn up.

 

dave, looking veeeerrrrryy good mate. how much did it cost to spray the cam covers and the centre throttle cable cover?? looks very nice

I took them to my local bodyshop, he's done all my work in the past, quite good aswell (prob not as good as PPS though) Charged me £35 for them, and I've got the front bumper there now aswell. The bling strip is from Smithy (thanks Paul :bow: )