Tale of too many Silvia's - Vegemite Edition

[gmr1234]

With the LCAs done the rca kit could be bolted in and torqued up properly.



At some point the vice will get bolted to a steel table which will make it a lot more useful. Cut the steel nearly a year ago and need to pull my digit out.



Everything in the car finally.





Not without issues of course.



The standard ball joint normally sits on the knuckle which is thicker than the rca kit. It's still sitting on the shank properly, but the r clip hole is now sitting proud. I don't have photo but I ended up putting washers under the castle nut so it sits at the right height. Bit killdeathy, but will keep an eye on it.



The LCAs did the trick and the front wheel is sitting pretty now. Ignoring the slight toe out lol. Can't wait to get the car to Razz for Dan to align it properly.





Got a few other little jobs done. 

The very last part of the front suspension was replacing the original rubber steering shaft bush. The S14/S15 have a one-piece steering shaft whereas the S13 is two piece. When the bush gets old it leads to a lot of slop in the steering.

???????



Gktech make an aluminium replacement. They also make a polyurethane one which has a bit more give.



Just a matter of pressing the bushes out and in.







Next up was the gearbox and engine mounts.



Everything soft and squishy is getting replaced with something solid, I like good vibrations..



Gktech make a pretty neat gearbox mount too.







The engine mounts were pretty well farkd after 200k km's, they looked original.



A mate of mine had Cusco mounts in his car and took them out, he no like the good vibrations..





I also wired the Defi's in. This was a fkn saga. The wiring under the dash was an utter mess.



Stripped all the aftermarket st out, fixed up some of the ecu wiring, redid the stereo, managed to end up with no indicators - fixed that, had no fuel pump - fixed that, and then without boring everyone with endless multimeter photos.. I had some functioning gauges



All back in and together. I managed to lose the din fascia for the stereo which I can replace off of fleabay. I'm also trying to find one that suits the defi's. I still have the plastic covering them like Nona's sofa.

[RC1807]

There’s a whole lot of fabrication, tool fixing and detail going in here.
It’s really interesting for someone like me, who can’t do any of this stuff!

[samoht]

I remember having the rubber steering column bush replaced with steel on my S13. On longer trips, I ended up with a slight tingling in my fingers from the vibrations at the wheel. Nothing serious though.

Looks good

[gmr1234]

Thanks gents I appreciate the kind words.

[gmr1234]

If you venture back to the early pages of this thread you'll find at one point I had 2x broken S15s in pieces and a running Honda civic. At the time I cracked the sads, sold everything and had a break before starting again with cars.

Well, 7 years on and I again find myself with 2x broken Nissans.... aaaaaaaand as of today a Honda civic. I need to book an appointment with the shrink to work out why I'm broken and repeat these bad pattern behaviours
:knockknock:​



Have started a separate thread so I don't confuse myself https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[gmr1234]

The 180SX came with a chingaling radiator. I've had a bad experience with one cracking in the past and while most of the china rads seem to work just fine I didn't want to take a punt given SR20s pull a premium all the time and not just before race wars now.



The replacement Koyo.



Also picked up a new shroud to replace the existing one which had been damaged by the clutch fan.



Was left scratching my head when I bolted the shroud onto the Koyo. It was a 180SX rad but there are no legs on the shroud which should slot into these holes.



Zip ties to the rescue.



I also had to trim the shroud around the sensor bung.



And there was a big gap between the radiator and the shroud which was filled with same taped padding.



Nice and tight.



Only minor gripes but annoying nonetheless. What was more annoying was the fact that once it was all bolted in the fan was hitting the shroud. I had replaced the stock clutch fan with a RB25 fan which has a couple of extra blades and pulls more air, but hitting the shourd had never been an issue in the past.







Did some googling and it turns and when using Cusco engine mounts it raises the engine enough for the fan to hit the shroud.. bugger.

Thought about oversizing the holes in the shroud so it would sit higher on the radiator but soon abandoned this idea as the way the plastic is moulded I couldn't do this and also the sensor bung was in the way.

The only option I could think of short of going electric fans was to raise the radiator using a couple of washers under the mounts.





Nismo tax.



But was it too much of a lift to fit under the bonnet reinforcement..





Thankfully not! No touch.




And the fan now clears.



Happy days, radiator done



I also finally had a chance to get down to Pakenham to get the phase convertor fixed. The guys there were great, had it fixed in a couple of hours and they backed their product with nothing for me to pay.