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I HATE CARS posted:3. The 200SX isn't quite the same as a 240 (SR20DET vs KA24DE). And yet the mid-late model 180SX (Mad tyte JDM yo!) changed to an SR20DE(T) and still didn't change it's name... Xanth Eridani posted:im from the UK and i have a Nissan 200sx S14 (i think these are the 240sx in america) Silvia's are awesome, post pictures. I just hope it's not barry'd up...
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Jun 8, 2009 21:46
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At the weekend I was going to hunt a coolant leak, but then I backed into a tree and had to rattle can the rear bumper instead... and today I found a reason* to take the front bumper off and rattle can the poop out of that too. From all this I learned a valuable lesson. Rattle can hardly shows up on silver cars. All this panel removing and stuff sure has got me in the mood to think about a full repaint though... And in the process found that the PO had managed to rip the part of the left front mud guard out leaving me with some lovely rusted straight through brackets... RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Mar 23, 2010 |
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Mar 23, 2010 15:06
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Froderick posted:
Perfect opportunity to stitch y'allself some ostrich, dog.
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Mar 24, 2010 07:00
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Put the bumper back on last night and all things considered it looks pretty good as long as you don't get too close. Now I gotta find a way to make all the fender scratches look better without taking it off.
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Mar 25, 2010 02:05
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I bought and fitted some rain wipers. The car only came with snow wipers which I found out today are all way too short. I have now discovered a little trick known as visibility in rain... It really helps a lot.
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Apr 1, 2010 13:02
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Finally replaced the mud guard and bumper brackets today, in a convenience store parking lot in the middle of nowhere. All the while a group of old Japanese bikers were watching me wrestle with my $10 socket wrench set and old plastic rivets. Yes, I broke several of them.
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Apr 4, 2010 07:43
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Today I changed over to my summer wheels then took it for a test drive. It was suddenly driving terribly, always veering over to one side or the other, generally behaving badly... oh wait... air. Yup, forgot to even check the air pressure on them, they were all pretty much flat. Then drove around looking for a garage with an air compressor. Took it home tried the tires again, front right one was back to how it was when I put it on. Either the man at the garage screwed up or I have a leak... yay.
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Apr 16, 2010 12:44
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Took it out for a better drive today to follow up on the leak, tire's retaining air for now so I'm guessing it was a screw up. Also now I'm back to stock size wheels my speedometer displays the correct speed!
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Apr 17, 2010 11:57
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Today I finally got around to trying the old toothpaste headlight polish trick on my Kei's ever yellowing lenses. I wasn't expecting a lot but for the price of the materials the results were pretty drat good and the actual useability of the headlights has improved greatly.
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Aug 4, 2014 13:35
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wheez the roux posted:last week i went to go to the store, and the rear right wheel was making a horrible grinding noise. it hadn't done it before nor did it start while driving, and i never heard a squealing, so I thought the wheel bearing might be hosed but hoped it was just the brake pads. i checked, and the brake pads on the rear right were powerfucked. after only 5mi tops driving with the noise, the rotor was very badly gouged and pitted. What up accidentally gouged their Subaru rotors buddy! Mine was weird because it had passed a full roadworthiness inspection only a month or two earlier.
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Sep 6, 2014 14:29
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Today I finally got time to take my car down to a hand wash station at a gas stand. I would have liked to have done it at home but Japanese apartments don't very often have communal hoses. I took it through a regular car wash before but the dirt didn't really come off so I was happy to see they actually had a pressure washer at this place but it only confirmed what I pretty much already knew, the dirt was not ON the paint, it was IN the paint  Stupid crappy base grade paint job. Luckily I had already bought some compound shampoo and sponges and spent about an hour or so rubbing all the streaks out of the paint. I waxed it afterwards but I was already pretty tired and had work to get back to so I didn't manage any kind of good finish.Obviously, I need to buy a 12V polisher and go back for revenge. 
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Sep 10, 2014 14:50
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My Eunos Roadster (NA Miata  ) arrived and I spent a few good hours today just looking it all over. First things first I had to work out the soft top. It has a glass window with a defroster element which I had read needed to unzipped before folding but nope, no zips on this soft top, just gotta awkardly jiggle it down it seems. Once it was down I noticed water was pooling in a little pocket behind the seat belt. Turns out it's a drain and a blocked one at that. After some blind fumbling I managed to find the drain and get my sleeve covered with a couple of years worth of mystery dirt. Nice. With that sorted it was time to find reasons to rue the Previous Owner. And yes it turns out that even in the infallible and honorable glorious Japan, PO is an idiot. For no real reason the first thing I went for was the radio antenna. It was all properly wired into the stereo so it would only extend when switched to radio. Except it wasn't extending. Maybe PO didn't like radio? I can't blame him, Japan has an average of about 2 radio stations in any area. Now any normal person would pull out the fuse, after all it's right there next to the antenna motor.  But that's not PO thinking, so I attempted to extend the antenna manually.  Rip out the antenna, chop the top off and put it back in the hole? Yeah, that's some PO thinking. No radio for me! Oh well let's see if PO left me any presents.Free socks!  Free cigarette butts! (Multiple brands even!)  Free assorted bolts and wires!  PO is truly a generous man. Personally I would have preferred to find an owners manual in the glove box but when you buy a car from 1991 for $800 you tend to forgive the small stuff. After looking around a while I couldn't find any switch for the rear defroster and while I had found other stuff to distract myself I began to wonder if it was even wired in.  Oh.. Well PO, thanks for all your hard work. 
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Nov 9, 2014 06:50
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Seat Safety Switch posted:I don't think a 91 even has a rear defroster, mine didn't have the pigtail for it coming off of the car. Now you mention it, it is probably a '92 model. It was sold to me as a '91 because that's the year on the registration.
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Nov 9, 2014 07:11
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Memento posted:NA MX-5S didn't come with demisters at all on the soft tops. Unless there's some wacky trim level we didn't get in Australia. I think that's an aftermarket thing you have there. Yeah I'm pretty sure it's aftermarket, if the black v specials are in line with the green ones then it should be a tan top but it's black. It does have a defroster pigtail though.
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Nov 9, 2014 14:43
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Hope you guys like trivial Miata crap because I did more of it today! First up I made my second attempt at trying to get the wheels off. I tried yesterday but the lug nuts were all fairly corroded on and all I had was the lug wrench from the OE tool kit. Not that anything changed today. I managed to get two wheels off by pulling with my whole body straight up but I very almost put my back out so I switched to hopping on the wrench which worked too. Everything looked pretty good underneath, the brakes were even a lot better than I was expecting and PO had actually had some braided lines put on which I was planning to do myself anyway so there's $100 saved. Then the delivery guy arrived with my plug wires and plugs. Looking sharp little buddy! Blue wires were the cheapest   Obligatory old plug shot  I almost wish I'd known it had iridiums before I started pulling them all out but new plugs are new plugs. A little carbon build up on the plugs there and I could see some on the pistons too. PO didn't drive this car nearly hard enough. I also made a start on removing the tie-down hooks for cosmetic purposes but I only managed to get the back ones off because not only have the bolts not been touched for 23 years they're also some sort of weird hell bolt. The best thing my hardware store had for it was CRC 5-56, which after trying it I'm not actually sure even works.  They weigh about 750g per piece.
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Nov 10, 2014 11:48
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Chriskory posted:Did you install the copper NGK R? I think so, they got replaced with NGK V-power BRK5E. I actually thought I'd ordered regular so that was a nice surprise when I opened the package. Would I have been better off putting the iridiums back in?
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Nov 11, 2014 01:05
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Did somebody say Miata? Payday came and today I tried to put as much of this stuff in, under or on my car:  After some running around town for some last minute tools and some curry, I started with filling up the clutch reservoir as it was kinda dirty and running on minimum. As I was sucking the old stuff out some old guy from the building saw I was working on my car and came over. This being Japan and me not being Japanese I was almost certain that he was about to tell me not to make a mess and take it to a garage or something but he was actually just really interested in the car, even told me how important it is to do your own work then he went on his merry way.  Next up I decided to go for the shifter boots. I had looked at them a few weeks ago and just as everyone said they would be, they were crusty and broken all the way down. It felt kinda weird going into the dealership considering that most cars on the road in Japan are less than 10 years old but they were actually really helpful. When I went to pick them up a salesman bounded out the front door like a Labrador, asking me if I was the guy for the Roadster parts. He used to own one too apparently and in all the excitement he didn't even bother checking my receipts so if any other white person in the world had wandered into that particular Mazda dealer in the middle of nowhere they could have walked home with $50 of free parts. Take off the center console and the weird insulating crap and we're left with this.  The insulation falling down from the top boot and the oil shooting out the bottom boot made an awful cruddy black mess. The blurring is from my phone camera  The bush on the bottom of the shifter had not only fallen off but had snapped and disintegrated a bit too.  All back together with new bits.  And installed.  All that's left for the shifter was the install the new top boot. Before I put the cosmetics back on though it was a good time to take out that ugly old stereo. The CD player doesn't work, I don't have any tapes, the previous owner cut the antenna, you can't attach an aux input to it and it was made in that awkward time around the turn of the century when silver electronics were in fashion. I don't own any CDs so I went with the cheapest aux/usb unit that Amazon had to offer me. How times have changed.  Luckily the color codes on the old aftermarket harness matched up with the new box. Only problem was that the grounding screw on the car is almost inaccessible. The previous owner had realized this and decided to just crimp the end of the car's ground wire. After I unsurprisingly managed to completely strip the 23 year old screw head I decided to do the same. Luckily I live across the road from a big hardware store.  And it works!  I had to pull out the set 3 times though. First because my brackets weren't aligned, then because I had forgotten to plug in the radio antenna, then I managed to drop a screw down inside the console when I was trying to reinstall the fascia. And all back together looking much better than before.  Then it was time for oil. I'm ashamed to say this is the first time I've ever changed it by myself. In Japan you can buy oil packs to make throwing oil away easier. Turns out it's really just a box full of rags. Work got held up again though when I realized that the drain plug is 19mm and my cheap set only went up to 17. Luckily I still live across the road from a big hardware store...  Yummy.  At the end I was tired and bleeding (courtesy of the contortionist act required to replace the oil filter) but as I sat in my car and drove it around the pitiful space that I'm legally allowed to move it within before it gets registered, it felt great. RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Nov 29, 2014 |
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Nov 29, 2014 12:00
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Seat Safety Switch posted:I still haven't figured out a way to replace the oil filter without cutting my hands to ribbons. It's even worse with the ABS pump in the way. I figure it might be a little easier to get the filter from the side but it required getting my body further into the wheel well than I was comfortable with on cheap jack stands. I wouldn't call it super stiff but it was definitely firmer, yeah. Had some trouble getting it back in the turret and it popped out a couple of times but it was fine once the bolts were on. RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Nov 30, 2014 |
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Nov 30, 2014 13:35
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I did the transmission and differential oils in my Miata today. The drat fill plug on the transmission was in so tight I needed to use the jack to force the wrench, had to do it several times too as it only came loose after about a whole turn. Got a nice cut on my elbow and an exhaust burn for my troubles and while the car really doesn't feel that different I'm just glad it's done for now.
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Feb 2, 2015 16:34
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When I got my Miata it had the wrong shocks on it. It's an NA 1.6 but it had 1.8 shocks on so the ride height was kinda funky and they were bouncy blown out turds. Today I put even wronger shocks on it.  Top is the old stock shocks with rusty old springs and rustier top mounts. Bottom is some kind of Bilstein apparently from a 2000 model. The job was fairly simple but I was still surprised just how long it takes. The ride height was way off just after I put them on but it slouched to a fairly reasonable height after the test drive. Overall I'm pretty pleased. While I can definitely feel the imperfections in the road more, it doesn't bounce nearly as much as it used to.
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Feb 7, 2015 12:23
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Old greasy torn boot with PO grime and cigarette ash: Nice new clean boot:  Got it from a guy on Yahoo Auctions who makes OEM style boots and other upholstered items mostly for cars like the AZ-1 and the Beat.
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Feb 22, 2015 11:36
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I messed around with my Miata's suspension again. I'd actually been meaning to fix it since pretty much after the last time I changed it but moving and new jobs got in the way. I did have the NB8 Bilstein suspension on there before but being a much lighter NA6 it was riding pretty drat high. I did buy a set of lower springs second hand but they came on matching fancy "sport" shocks. The hardware was all clean so I put them in as is. Unfortunately the shocks were either rear end to begin with or had become rear end over time so I needed to put the springs on the perfectly fine Bilsteins like I'd been meaning to in the first place. Also weirdly the back was sitting just a little lower than the front. Today I did half of what I meant to do, maybe two thirds at a stretch. I got the springs on the right shocks on the front but I ran out of sunlight and impact driver batteries (screw hand wrenching spring compressors, I'd rather poke my eye out manually thanks) so I tossed the bilsteins in the back as is. The result was a smooth enjoyable ride with rake like the Mad Max car, which actually looks kinda silly on a Miata. Otherwise, I'm half tempted to keep it like this.
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May 1, 2015 15:37
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The other day I decided to try out a glass compound on my windscreen. It wasn't that bad anyway so I'm not exactly how much of a difference it really made but it definitely feels shinier and clearer Then I followed it up with a coat of Rain-X so now I actually kinda want it to rain, even though my car is black.
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May 9, 2015 03:36
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My Miata had no auto up/down on the original power window switch and considering how slow my drivers side regulator is anyway I decided to get a later switch which did have auto. The connectors are actually a straight fit and if you get an earlier one with the original length pigtail you only have remove the old one and plug the new one in. Unfortunately I could only find a much later one with the short pigtail so I had to cannibalize the original but it did make a good excuse to buy a new crimper as my cheapo one didn't have the right grooves. I actually kinda like the original design a little better but the new one looks a lot cleaner with the markings intact. Not bad for about $1. Bonus: Ultra simple circuit for the original switch.  In the ongoing process of updating Miata I also have to find time to paint these:  I love the smell of auctions in the morning!
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Jun 18, 2015 13:43
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For as long as I've had my car and I'm assuming a considerable amount of time before that the license plate has been hanging off of these: And sitting right in the airflow:  My side bracket arrived today though!  (The glare is hiding how badly I need to wash it.) I also put that plastic frame on to cover all the sharp edges that have now been put out in the open. That was pretty much the only plain black frame I could find in the whole city. The other choices were all varieties of chrome, carbon and black with jewels... stay classy Japan. Not quite sure if I like how the bracket sits though. Every picture I'd seen before was of the Cusco brand bracket which sits slightly differently.
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Jul 25, 2015 09:03
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I rebuilt the rear calipers on my Miata. Apparently unsurprisingly the snap ring pliers I bought could not reach the c clip inside and I had to jimmy it out with a pair of picks. Apart from that the only other bizarro thing was the handbrake actuator arm seal that came out looked nothing like either of the ones in the kit. The worst part of it though was it got dark before I managed to properly bleed to calipers when I put them back on. I did momentarily think I accidentally drained the master cylinder but it turns out it was just my ghetto vacuum bleed setup sucking in large amounts of air from somewhere else. Managed to get it done today though and the pedal feels more than good enough for now. Hopefully the speed bleeders I ordered for the rebuild should finally turn up sometime this week and then I can do the fronts, flush the whole system and then we'll see what the pedal feels like then.
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Aug 30, 2015 17:06
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I rebuilt my front brakes this week and put speed bleeders on all 4 corners. Should stop pretty good now Speed bleeding is the best.
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Sep 6, 2015 09:06
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My friend asked me to take a look at his car because he thought it was making too much noise. Turned out that yah, the welds on his tiny little kei car catalytic converter had gone and the exhaust pipe was just rattling around in the end like a straw in a fast food drinks cup. Also the engine oil was so low it wasn't even reaching the dipstick, so we changed that together. We also refilled his ATF because for some reason the ATF drain plug is the exact same size as the engine oil drain plug and they're almost right next to eachother... 
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Jul 25, 2016 14:24
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Elsa posted:The good news is the motor mounts still have about half their rubber left. I don't think that's how it works dude. 
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Aug 20, 2016 07:39
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I woke up too early today but the weather was nice enough that I decided to get outside and do the spark plugs on my Miata that I meant to do at the weekend when it was too hot. (1-4 left to right) I don't think they're too terrible, right?
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Aug 29, 2016 22:59
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Recently I've just been doing stuff in the run up to inspection next month. Most recently I changed all the bulbs that I haven't touched myself in my 2 years with the car. I also changed the headlight bulbs from a colder than stock bulb to a warmer than stock bulb. Comparison shots:   The finished look:  Quite a bit more yellow than I was expecting actually but I'll run them for a week and change them back if I don't like them. Also when I was changing the little parking light bulbs I found out that the plastic sockets had gone bad and they disintegrated as I took them out. They are now both duct taped back in because apparently I am the PO. v v
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Nov 1, 2016 09:51
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Ugh, my second attempt to do my steering boots has ended in failure. First time around my wrenches would not wranch the shaft and bolts and now going back with better tools I find my hammer is too small to remove the ball joint via the conventional method so I've just decided to pony up and get a puller, it should be here on Sunday. Really running out of time to get it through inspection now though.
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Dec 9, 2016 06:30
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MrOnBicycle posted:Now I'm properly scared of suspension springs. You probably should be. I had a little accident with some suicide sticks when I was testing them out. Somehow nothing hit anything expensive but the spring put a pretty interesting dent in the floor. I've looked through every supplier and catalog in Japan and all I can find here are suicide sticks or those expensive hydraulic pillar arrangements, I think next time I have to mess with springs I'll just order a set of those jaws from overseas.The hit on shipping will probably be worth it.
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Jan 7, 2017 09:56
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Tomarse posted:Can you get these bad boys over there: Thanks for the heads up, found something very similar. Different design on the compressor screw but nearly identical plates. A bit expensive but it'll probably work out cheaper than shipping something in.
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Jan 7, 2017 18:11
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I tried to take off the gaudy purple hub spacers that PO had put on the rears only of a four-wheel drive vehicle, for a reason I have yet to identify. (Stockish wheels, stockish suspension, nothing looks like it should be rubbing too badly) Thankfully the original wheel studs were intact but nuts for the spacers were so incredibly thin that they barely cleared the opening of the sockets I have. I got one off but the second I tried threatened to strip so I gave up there until I can find the time to file down a cheap socket or something.
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Feb 15, 2017 14:49
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Did my first proper round of maintenance since I got the bugeye WRX, put in a new aircon filter, and intake air filter. PO had some kind of aftermarket filter in there, the kind with a wire mesh, but I went with a regular OEM style one. Also changed the oil, according to the sticker on the door jamb, PO put in full racing spec Wako's 10w50 for some reason but I changed back to a more daily drive friendly 5w30 from Takumi, who I hadn't tried before but their 1L cans weren't disproportionately expensive (4.5L capacity be damned) so I gave it a try. It's noticeably smoother on the low end now. Also put in a sweet new head unit, then an amp, then realized the amp uses the same amplification chip as the head unit so all it really did was make it louder. (babby's first amp  ) I'd have thought about returning it but it came with its own harness and I snipped the wires for length during the install  Goodbye  x10
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Mar 26, 2017 19:00
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Finally got PO's dumb fart can catback off my WRX and replaced it with a stockish setup. One of the bolts sheared off but having launched a freshly sheared exhaust stud into my face before I had already bought some fresh fittings just in case. I mostly made the switch because the noise was just the very worst of over emphasized boxer burbling, but the car actually seems to run much better with the stock pipes.
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Apr 10, 2017 10:50
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A bit of light crossposting from the subaru thread. It came to my attention about a week ago that my WRX was not making as much boost as it should be. PO's gaudy boost gauge told me I was only getting 0.5 bar, what the Japanese hobbyists like to call '0.5 disease'. After a bit of research I decided to check the cheapest solution first and squeezed along the boost bleed vacuum lines looking for the restrictor or an absence thereof and what do you know, it was missing. Really what should have immediately tipped me that something was wrong was one of the vacuum lines was zip-tied on.   (Also pictured, PO's gaudy blue grounding kit and the yellowing aquarium piping to the boost gauge) The restrictor piece was on back-order at the dealer though (and is curiously called an 'orifice' in the Japanese literature) so I had to wait until today to pick it up. In the mean time I got some new long nose pliers (or 'radio pinchers' as JIS specifies them according to the label) because my old cheap ones rusted shut, and I also saved some JIS disposable chopsticks from a trip to the convenience store.   Missing restrictor in the top left of the bag. A bit of chopstick poking and a warm up later I took it out to the back roads to see if it worked. The boost comes on a lot stronger now and goes all the way up to 0.8 bar. Not a bad result for a $2 fix. RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 12:52
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chrisgt posted:It's probably a poor translation that doesn't mean anything close to what it says in English... On this occasion it is a completely on point translation that says near enough exactly the same as what it says in English. BigPaddy posted:This seems to be valid RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Apr 24, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 14:00
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 01:23 |
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I installed a Cusco strut tower bar on my WRX for the heck of it. I bought the basic tower bar used and it didn't come with a couple of brackets needed to move the brake booster hard-line out of the way so I had to rig it up with generic hardware store parts. I also bought an integrated brake cylinder stopper bracket for the drivers side.  Also visible is PO's aquarium hose boost gauge line and cheapo grounding kit.
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Jun 30, 2017 10:55
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