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2005 160SR 3dr

I guess since this is what all the cool kids do, I'll start a thread here for mine. Can't say it'll be too interesting mind.

Was looking through Autotrader while at a Harvester, <£1250 and local (I do this a fair bit), and up comes a little 3 door red Micra with RARE in the title and 1.6 / 108hp in the stats. I check the insurance for it, and its mega cheap - halfway between an Aygo and something more sensible like a diesel Fiesta/Polo/Corsa, but with 50% more power and 40% less 0-60. Go over to check the car out the next day, at which point I realised I hadn't even looked at the MOT history yet, but it turned out just on my limit
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of acceptable (although that might be a bit flexible). Got a quick go as a passenger since I'd never driven properly on road at this point, and it was great. Pulled quite well, went around roundabouts far too fast for its own good, and sounded not too terrible with the cherrybomb on it.








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A couple days later, and all the paperwork was sent off and the car on the drive.


I guess I'll add more stuff to this as time goes on, but I'll work out what to put first.
 

Mika The Finn

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tdp2612
So 6 months later and it's still on the driveway, but it passed an MOT a short while ago first time with a real tester. I'll finally write up the heater controls, since I'm dicking about with it again with an Amazon Fire headunit (downgraded my plans from a fully custom Ras Pi since I'm not smart enough/too much hassle/too much money)

So the heater control knob swap, from Note onto Micra

Nice and easy to start with, just removing the top half with the radio (4 bolts) and then the bottom half (2 bolts iirc) as well as unplugging the 12v+ hazards switch to have a bare heater dials unit-thing, and 4 screws to take it out of its mount.


Some assistance with a flat head screwdriver got the clips around the edges of the 'faceplate' undone, I may have snapped one since the whole thing had turned brittle (seems to be a common issue) but since I was replacing it because of the front being all cracked up, that didnt matter to me. The AC and defroster buttons were another job for a screwdriver, although they arent held on very tight with a small notch at the bottom. The slider and knobs were all just a pull to get them off (yep this is an innuendo minefield). Once everything was off the Micra, I had this.


To compare it directly to the Note, here is this photo. You can see most importantly that the outer diameters and spacing of everything is identical, so there is nothing stopping a straight swap, however the inner diameters are larger on the Note, so you couldnt for example put Note knobs onto the standard Micra.


Now, the greatest difficulty was the white plastic pieces between the buttons and the button faces. They are the same overall with the round oblong shape, but while the Micra uses square corners, the Note has round corners on the very outside, so the Micra ones will not go into the Note faceplate. I couldnt then use the Note ones unmodified, since they are ~5 mm too long. After failing to sand the Micra pieces smooth, I instead opted to shorten the Note pieces. With a dull hacksaw blade, this maybe took 10 mins per piece, but it worked enough. I then added pieces of plastic across half the width, as this is the part that actually makes contact with the button in the mechanism. This photo shows the two next to each other, a modified and unmodified Note piece. However, I later added a 2nd piece of plastic, as it wasn't quite long enough for the button to travel properly. The other side that isnt covered is to let light pass through, for the backlit button faces.


Once that was done, I had the much easier part of clipping the Note faceplate on, which has the same tab locations so it really was as simple as giving it a firm push. IIRC, I may have used a bit of blutack to hold the white pieces in place, so that they didnt fall out when installing. In hindsight I probably could have just installed the button faces, but since I didnt, they were next, and again just push on with a small amount of force. This got me to here, where I was pretty happy with how it was looking.


Next was to reinstall the lower trim cover with the 2 screws, plugging in the hazards switch and 12v, which all fit fine (as expected) over the Note dial surrounds. All was left at this point is to push the knobs on, and put the end on the recirc/outside toggle. This is probably what I'm least happy with, as the knobs have a different connector to the Micra knobs - they fit, but the 2 larger ones can be pulled slightly in and out, while the middle one can easily be pulled off entirely, however in normal use (just trying to turn them) they are all fine, and I'm happy with the tradeoff since they look so much better. Once all that's done, it was just left to put the top half back in, which I must say I'm pretty rehearsed at by now. The end result is a much more black, cleaner look (although my phone made a mess of making the hazards switch pink)


And I guess I'll finish this off with at least one embedded image

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Dashcam Install and Wiring

Another 2 months later and it might actually be about to go on the road, so finally did the smart thing and got a camera in advance of starting to drive - it didn't drop my insurance quote but for when I inevitably bin it as all new drivers are expected to do, maybe this'll help.

Model is an Apeman C370, bought partly because it was very cheap on Amazon (£24) and partly because I've had an Apeman action camera for a fair while and have been very happy with it. I wasn't really planning on getting one of the wedge shaped ones, but again it was cheap, and I'm kinda glad I did now since the small size means it takes up much less screen space. Paired it with a 128gb Sandisk card, as I have always stuck to Sandisk cards in my phones, and it was one of the cheaper options on Amazon, meaning the total only came up to a round £40. I know the image it will produce won't be great, but from sample footage I've seen it's reasonable enough, and if I end up not being happy I'll just stick it in the back and get a new dash cam for the front.

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Now I'm no ICE specialist or anything, and my PC can prove just how hopeless I am with cable management, however the generally poor fit and finish of my Micra meant the wire routing was very easy. I didn't realise how easy it is to peel away at the front of the roof lining, so the wire was very easy to tuck along the front. From there, across to the left corner, under the top of the A-pillar trim, and then down between the pillar trim and door seal rubber, all the way down to under the glovebox. For now I'm not sure what to do with it, so it just goes into the otherwise empty glovebox and then back out the other side into the 12v socket.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the wiring, as the only visible parts are just around the glovebox and where it goes into the camera, so I think it looks reasonably neat for now.

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And from the outside:

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Not exactly invisible, but at the end of the day the whole car is worth less than some phones so I doubt anybody's gonna break in and nick it lol.

Will attach a Youtube link with sample footage in the future - Only a year late, here it is
 
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Stereo replacement and aerial fix

Been driving for over 3 months now with no issues, done a few little bits to it so worth adding them here. As you can see in the photos above, the car had no antenna since I bought it, as the old one had been snapped off, with the screw part still in place. This meant I couldn't just screw a new one in, and since it looked like a pain to change reaching through the headliner, I never bothered. The left is the new one, the right is the old one with the broken part stuck inside. Actually was a bit easier than I expected, a socket on the end of a universal joint was just small enough to fit, and I used the joint at ~ 90 degrees as leverage, worked well enough. Installation was the reverse of removal, and the eBay special replacement fit perfectly into the mounting holes. Its rained a fair bit since, and I can say it stays dry inside - maybe a tiny bit of condensation on the bolt, but I never checked if the original did that, so might be normal anyway. Add to that a generic aerial cheap off Amazon (I bought it back when I passed my test at the start of 2020 - that was a bit ambitious) and it works great, get plenty of stations and really chuffed overall. Should've done it sooner.

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Now the radio - that was both easier and harder than I was hoping. Since my car came with the early 6 CD changer from factory, I already had ISO wiring, which saved me the cost of getting a Micra->ISO adapter. For choosing a radio, I just wanted something cheap - I didn't care about audio quality, volume or build quality (within reason anyway), so there was no point spending 100s on a big name, all singing unit from Alpine etc. As I had mentioned further up, I had been looking at just using a tablet - I still have everything I would need to do that, but I ended up deciding I wanted to be able to make use of the steering wheel controls, as well as having easy to access buttons - which would be impossible if I had the headunit hidden behind a screen. I might still do something with that, but it's very much so on the backburner for now.

What I instead settled on was a cheap Chinesium Android based unit for roughly £60. My main need for whatever I bought was to have GPS, or failing that, AndroidAuto to connect my phone (wired, as I don't have Android 11 yet), although preferably the former. With what I bought, it takes a generic GPS box plugged into the back, which also means I could upgrade it with a more accurate unit in the future if needed. Of course it includes the other basics like an FM radio and Bluetooth (works great and auto connects when I have my phone BT turned on, which I have to anyway for my blackbox :( ) and since it is basically an Android tablet with extra buttons and connectors, I can install anything on it.

Here is the fun part though, trying to install it into the dash. I started off by taking the old one and the surround out, and then separating the surround from the 6CD. I removed the 6CD from the cage, and then took the cage outside. To try and make it look a bit neater, and to hide all the surface rust - not sure why it's so bad, but whatever - I gave it a coat of a Poundshop rattle can. I plugged all the holes with blu-tac, just in case they acted as earthing points and there needed to be a bit of bare metal showing.

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Since I was going from the 6CD changer, I knew the surround was a little bigger than 2 DIN - the later 6CD changer, and the OEM Satnav came with a surround with a smaller opening, much closer to 2 DIN. I've tried to show it in the photo below, but it's not the best. Either way, since they attach to the same screw holes underneath, and the cage fits in both the same, with a little bit of modifying to the plastic (cutting off 2 clip things at the top) I could use this to make the new stereo fit a little bit neater. Unfortunately with the stereo I chose, this was a lot of trial and error to fix it to the cage, and I don't have a photo of it, but it was a bit of a mess. However, it was secure, so was good enough for me.

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This isn't finished yet, as I still need to buy an adapter for the steering wheel controls - I've found one, designed for the Note, but is £26 so I have put it off for now - at the moment, I'm just using the up and down volume buttons. In theory this should be plug and play, but we'll see.

EDIT So I've now done the steering wheel controls, found a 'used' adapter on ebay for a bit less than new - still sealed, presumably the guy bought it and just left it in the garage, the packaging was a bit tatty but everything was inside. Same part number as the new one I linked above so wasn't worried about it not working. For my generic 'Chinese self learning' headunit as the instructions referred to similar systems as, I followed the instructions just to connect one wire up, labelled KEY 1, which was the same label as on the new stereo harness, and it worked fine.

Set up the scan up/down and volume up/down buttons to do what they did originally, ie skip forward and back tracks and do the volume, and it works great. Unfortunately, the SRC button wouldn't do anything, and I'm not quite sure why, although I don't remember using it with the old 6 CD changer either, so I don't really miss it, although it would've been nice to have it set up as a home button or similar. Might just be a common issue, I'll have a google of it but won't be losing any sleep over it. More importantly, the Info (i) button still works no matter what is plugged into the stereo wiring, it's not like it needs something plugged into the steering wheel controls wiring just for that, it's on its own loop. Glad I did it, although it does seem a bit expensive when it adds like 40% to the total price, but now it's just the reversing camera to sort.

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The radio also came with a reversing camera, but so far I'm not sure where I want to mount it, and have instead been looking at getting a camera built into a number plate holder, and getting a new set of plates made, as the existing ones are a bit tatty. I'll update this thread when I get around to it, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
 
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tdp2612
To celebrate my 2 year anniversary on the forum, thought I'd add a little update

I undid what I did with the stereo fascia, putting the original one back in, as it fits the touchscreen a little better. To mount it, I 3d printed some brackets, only in PLA, but they are holding fine for now. I'm no closer to fitting the reversing camera, but I'll get to it eventually

Here's to another 2 years, thanks for putting up with me

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tdp2612
Posting this here for safe keeping, nicked from Tamer Tul on one of the FB groups

Cheap Transmission Drain Plug
I changed the transmission oil of my manual Micra K12. I was kind of frustrated because I wanted to replace the drain plug of the transmission and couldn't find any aftermarket one. The only way would have been Nissan directly, but I was totally not going to pay like 10 to 20 € for a tiny ass bolt.
Funny thing: like 6 years ago, I accidentally ordered the wrong engine oil sump plug for my Micra - it was actually the one for the Diesel engine. I kept the plug until now and noticed the following: the oil sump plug for the K12 Diesel is the exact same one as the transmission sump plug and you can easily find aftermarket ones.
Hope that information is helpful to you. Sure, you don't need to replace the whole plug, but mine was 19 years old and was kind of corroded and worn down. Most important is to replace the washer and note the torque of 25 NM.
Brand and Part Number was Corteco 220100S

Will eventually change the gearbox oil in mine, but might be useful to other people too if you want to change the plug on the cheap
 
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tdp2612
Since it's coming up to the end of my first year of driving, wanted to come back and finally add a link to some sample footage from the dashcam. It really isn't great, but again it was very cheap, and fortunately I haven't had to rely on it so the quality hasn't been an issue. I'm also upgrading it from 128gb to 256gb, it previously would fit ~ 20 hours of driving which for me is about an average month, but that'll go up presumably to around 40 now, and considering the low quality anyway it might not hurt to drop to 720p instead and get a few more hours in, we'll see. Radio still works great after over 6 months of using it, and the 3d printed mounting brackets haven't melted or gone brittle which is perfect. I've also bought some 2010 K13 style mirrors to fit, but will need to be painted first so that'll be a little project, my first go spraying something I actually care about how it looks.
 
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tdp2612
Just checking in again, stereo is still working (with the same printed mounts), dashcam is still working and I've recently hardwired it in, planning on putting in rear parking sensors (the hidden 'tape' type) and when I grow the balls to do it, fit a hidden reversing camera (but that will involve modification to the boot, so I'm scared to cut into it for now. I'll post it here when I do though, if it works I'll be mega proud.)
 
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