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MadManMike

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Page 1000 of this iteration of the car thread! I wonder what we'd be up to if things hadn't been split all those years ago!


Boring car update:

Managed to get a couple of hours this weekend. Not a huge amount to show for it, but here are a few photos regardless.

 

First up, I decided it was best to check my thinking before finally wiring up these bi-xenon projectors. I’ve been very lazy and they’ve just sat gathering dust for ages. I don’t plan on fitting relays/resistors/etc as some folk have done, and wanted to see how they react to a raw 12v source. Fortunately they are spot on from a dummy check, no sticking etc, however a few folk have experienced no issues on a test then had sticking in the real world so I fully expect the same.

lightsolenoidcheck.jpg

Content that I can get these sealed up one night while Soph’s out, I went about repairing the damaged shroud so it’s all pretty well good to go one evening.

lightshroudjbweld.jpg

Next, I decided to investigate my iffy vehicle speed sensor. Rather than putting the car in the air, I thought I’d try from above and pulled the airbox out for access.

airboxout.jpg

A quick wiggle of the connector on the sensor and nothing was noticeable loose/similar. I’ll get in and clean all the contacts at some point.

With the airbox out of the way, I spotted something I’ve not seen for some time - a stock TIP! Typically, I sold my oversize silicone replacement just before Christmas and could now do with another.

stocktip.jpg

...and something distinctly non-factory too

greentape1.jpg

Hmm, let’s whip the battery out and inspect that a little further.

greentape2.jpg

Not sure why this would have been redone, unless something’s been played with, so I wondered if this was the root cause. Decided to pull the tape off and see if I could find any obvious breaks/similar.

wiring1.jpg

No visible problems with the wiring, and nothing I could feel with a fingernail either. Frustrating as I’d like to have a definitive solution here. Taped it all back up with TESA loom tape, much better..

wiringtaped.jpg

It was about this point that I messed up. I figured I’d pop the engine cover off and have quick check to see the state of things.

stockenginenocover.jpg

Nothing much to bear witness to in all honesty. Standard engine, #2 coilpack is different to the rest so obviously changed at some point but I’ve a new set to go in soon which makes it a moot point (That reminds me, need to pick up fresh plugs). I also noticed that the n249 valve (all still plumbed in), although it wasn’t sat on its mount quite right. It seems as though it’s been this way for a while, as when I went to move it, the brittle plastic broke. B*****ks.

brokenn249plastic.jpg

With no way of picking up another for a few days minimum, I took the hint and decided to delete the n249. I’m aware of the can’o’worms here so let’s not reopen it, and just say that I’m well aware of the details and have made the educated choice to remove this. With that in mind, I went to remove the small engine cover in front of the inlet mani only to find the bolts seized and rounded, and not wanting to shift. I soaked them in penetrating fluid to no avail, and without removing this couldn’t get to the 2x M6 bolts to remove the metal bracket beneath. Time to get a little more brutal than I like - mechanical sympathy is usually king!

enginecoversnap.jpg

Popped the inlet mani up to access the ports on the bottom and inspect the PCV hoses. They’re all in tact at the mo, so can stay a while longer. Tucked the injector wiring slightly while it was up, but there’s not a huge amount of length there so I’ll need to rectify that before tucking it properly to keep it looking as clean as possible.

inletmaniup.jpg

There was a slight spot of oil in the TB. Will keep an eye on that, could be some worn turbo seals/similar although I’ve not noticed any real smoking etc to cause major concern.

tboil.jpg

With that squared away, I popped things back together. With no n249 to hold in place, I swapped over to the cut down engine cover bracket I’ve had on the old car. Here’s a comparison with the stock unit. Much better, although could do with a respray soon.

enginecovermount.jpg

Popped the battery back in to complete the set, and noticed that the retaining bolt/bracket was missing. As before, simply grab the spare from the old car.

batterybolt.jpg

And with that, everything was back together again for the day. It’s been a while since I’ve owned a standard-looking engine bay and I must say, I quite like it.

stockengine.jpg

 

Sunday morning I received a message from a chap via FB who was after an 02M gearbox. I’ve got the standard box from the old car in the garage, so gave that one a quick wipe down as it’d gathered a bit of gunk being sat in the garage for a while:

oldgearbox.jpg

Decided that it was as good a time as any to give the new engine bay a quick clean. As with everything else, I’d like to get the car up to a decent standard in stock form prior to playing around with it much, so I’ll probably revisit this in a little more depth at some point however I’m much happier with it now than it was. As always, photos of a fairly simple engine clean aren’t much to look at. Perhaps there’s a difference from the photo above, though I suspect it’s negligible other than digging out the battery cover to replace another missing item.

cleanedbay.jpg

I also popped the NSF door card off again as I realised I’d not added any extra sealant around the speaker. It seems the speaker has cracked a touch around the rivets (likely from Mr Rude Boi playing his mixtape too loud - he genuinely gave me several copies with the car and it’s not something I’d want anybody to catch me listening to...

You can see here where the mounting points are cracked, and the little tell-tale sign of a slight dribble below (happens to us all with age). Bead of butyl sealant should do the trick and stop anything getting in to the car.

speakerleak.jpg

With that sorted, I figured I should sort out a minor niggle to keep things road legal. Soph had spotted that the OS tail light hadn’t been working when following me home one night, so I grabbed the bulb out of the black car and popped it in. No dice.

Having heard of folk having issues with the bulb carrier, I decided the easiest thing to do was to simply swap this over too as it’s a 30 second task. I have the lights on the old car plus another full set spare so no biggy, but it didn’t solve the problem. I decided to quickly clean behind the light housing to procrastinate.

taillightcircuit.jpg

osrlightclean.jpg

I went to grab a multimeter to check the terminals, but as I walked past the front end of the car I noticed the sidelight on that side wasn’t working either. Now, it turns out that that bulb has gone, however before I discovered that I checked the fuse which powers both together and found it to be dead. With a car full of spares, it’s a nice solution.

taillightfusegone.jpg

...and that's about it for this week. All very minor stuff bringing the car back to a level I'm happy with. It's still a way off, but it's a lot closer than it was.
 

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2 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

Page 1000 of this iteration of the car thread! I wonder what we'd be up to if things hadn't been split all those years ago!

The other half is 1184 pages.  I could probably merge them back together now.

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As a result of OldCarThread™, TB and I are currently sharing stories of Pete Wright (southern) and Pete Wright (northern) :lol:

@dann2707 - Started using an old camera for photos rather than my phone as the quality is better (although I then go and compress the shit out of them for online use...) but it seems to have a slight problem at the edge of some photos so I've just set a PS action to crop a touch, resize and stick a plain border which eliminates it. It's actually growing on me a little.

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Right bitches. TF CAR MEET.

I've volunteered rainbird with this too to help. I'm voting somewhere Oxford way as it's fairly middling for most. I get there's people further up then me but f**k em.

Prospective date.. June 3rd. Dunno why but seems far enough away for people to get time off or get organised etc.

I will be making a new topic for this, people local to Oxford etc please suggest a potential pub with decent parking, preferably with a link or something if possible.

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Just exchanged the fuel pressure sensor on the S40 and oh man.. I should have changed it ages ago, not only after the check engine light started coming on from time to time. Apparently the old one kept reporting a too high pressure resulting in the engine randomly cutting out under acceleration.

1st gear is actually driveable with no jolts, pulls better. What takes getting used to is that the revs don't seem to drop quite as fast when letting off the throttle.

Easy half hour job if you don't let the torx driver get jammed after clumsily letting it fall into the engine bay. :P

 

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Had 20 minutes today to experience German engineering at it's finest at the local track. All I can say really is that the front end felt weird and the rear end felt weird and that the engine sound is the best thing I've experienced to date. More interesting is the owner of this car. He runs a travel company, is by far the most humble and most tatty guy on the track, always arriving in old trainers and a worn out tracksuit. He doesn't use gloves, special shoes and doesn't even have his own helmet, always renting one out and going for the cheapest one we have. He has an old Nokia with a keyboard. His daily driver is a tatty old '95 7-series which he has 3 of. His garage consists of those, a new Turbo S, this GT3RS and soon to arrive GT2RS. And none of us will be very surprised if he comes over in a 918 next year also wearing his hobo outfit :P 

8eC8Nxe.jpg

 

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