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Baz's £20 K10...

Last night I had far too much to drink at a party in Manchester. This morning I put the remains of my crate of beer into my boot and drove the 45 miles home. I drive too fast at the best of times, and due going round roundabouts too hard God punished me by making one of the cans of beer explode as it hit the wall of the boot. I didn't know it had exploded until the point where all I could smell inside the car was beer. I pulled over to find that my interior that I just spent so long cleaning is now soaked in beer!:laugh:

Ah well, will have to pull it all out again I guess.

hahaha!! bad luck mate! your micra looks great
keep it up!
 
lol..yeah I was goana do that with my replaced noes a while ago...but something caused me to drop the idea...but I cant remember what it was!!!

AAAGH!
 
Yesterday I asked the MSC what could be causing my noisey sidelight problem:

http://micra.org.uk/showthread.php?t=15504

I was advised that one of the headlight bulb connectors may well be loose or even melted.

I checked this morning, and what do you know, they were BOTH melted lol

Driver side:

J203KGB-099.jpg


Passenger side:

J203KGB-103.jpg


So I went to the scrap yard and got some replacements, and spares in case it happens again:

J203KGB-098.jpg


And hey presto, no more noisey sidelights! Cheers guys!
 
Hi mate,

Great work on that K10- its been given a lot of love and its responding well by the looks of things, good work :k10:

Dunno if this helps but heres a couple of pics of the land crab with gloss black rims:

100_0924.jpg
100_0926.jpg


My cars nowhere near as clean as yours and I did a really quick job with minimal prep, but you can get the idea of what it looks like.

I'll keep an eye on this thread, keep up the good work and keep us posted :)
 
Cheers Dan, appreciate it, work has gone on hold on the rims at the moment due to me spending money on a stereo system that actually works, and also I've had a lot on recently. I think I'm going to buy 4 wheels from a breakers so that I don't have to disable my car for a few days whilst building up the paint on the wheels.
 
My spare wheel is flat as a pancake, I've tried filling it with air but it doesn't hold air for more than about an hour lol So I was gonna get a wheel from a breakers anyway, just as a spare, may aswell get four...also if I spray them all at the same time it's less work for me....which is always a benefit. Today was spent pulling out two tree stumps, re-grassing 2 areas of lawn, a dentists appointment, fixing a computer, watching the game, and that's about it :( :( :( I think the wheel situation maybe started this weekend. :)
 
Sonic, what size? Will they fit a K10? and how much? I am v. interested, as I am up your neck of the woods quite a bit, cheers. Bit short of cash at the moment, but hopefully will be able to sort a deal out asap.
 
they are K11 13" rims with 155/70x13 tyres, they will fit a K10 and you can have them for £20 if you come and take them away.
 
Sorry...hadn't noticed that you'd replied. Yeah I'll have them off you then mate. You're from Stockport yeah? I'm gonna be in Stockport today actually, I'll PM you in a sec.
 
MisterBaz just picked up the wheels from me and is the interior of that car CLEAN, the exterior is pretty good as well, I love the interior trim colour pattern as well, its the best I've seen in a K10. Keep up the good work Baz mate, it's a lovely example of a standard K10. (Y)
 
Cheers mate, appreciate that, exterior annoys me a lot as there's a lot to do to it, but I'll get it done bit by bit.
 
Cheers Anthony, I can assure you it doesn't look brand new in the flesh lol, but it certainly is an improvement on when I got it.

Today I had to get some parts from Chester and go and see my Gran in the mental home so I didn't have much time to do anything today, however I did manage to find time to change the oil and oil filter again. That's the 4th oil change in 1000 miles, because the oil that was in the car was seriously gloopy and had obviously never been changed. I was advised to use an engine flush product to get rid of all the really bad oil that was sticking to the engine, but you couldn't pay me to use an engine flushing product on an engine of this age to be honest, so instead I did lots of oil changes, the oil looks about right now so I'm pleased. Now I will just change the oil at the normal intervals.

I also discovered that when my stereo is on too loudly my back window and rear view mirror vibrate so that everything in my mirror is really blurry....this annoys me, so I'll keep the volume down until I can find a way to reduce the blurry-ness...not sure if that will be possible though.
 
Lol, sounds like Arnolds car!! The whole thing shakes so much. It feels like the seats have massage things in them!!
 
Yeah that's what I get with mine, the seats pulse quite badly and it's annoying when I'm concentrating on driving, I tried to take a video of the seats pulsing but you can't really see anything.
 
Well today me and my dogs (Meg and Bud) decided to get cracking on the refurbishment of my steel wheels.

wheels.jpg


As you can see I am only doing them in twos. This is because despite the fact that I currently own 9 Micra wheels (including the 4 on the car), 2 of those wheels have got screws stuck in them, so I don't have a complete set to swap my four over with unfortunately. Anyways, I started with the two rear wheels. As one of the rears was in the worst condition out of the lot:

wheels1.jpg


Yuk. Anyways, after much wielding of the angle grinder with wire wheel attatchment, I got the worst wheel looking like this:

wheels3.jpg

wheels2.jpg


I haven't got all the muck off yet because the wheel wasn't big enough to get into some parts of the wheel, and I don't have any bigger wheels in the garage, but I think I've made a good start on my refurb. I also need to get the tyres off the rims before I can do much more cause they're getting in the way, especially where the valve is.

Getting this far as thrown up another issue for me. I was originally going to paint the wheels black, as I think it would look better than painting them silver...as I think silver paint can look very tacky very easily. However now that I have taken off the original Nissan wheel paint, the metal under neath is quite a nice colour, a deeper colour silver, and shiney...and I quite like it. So I was thinking of maybe just cleaning them up thoroughly and then just spraying a clear laquer over them to seal them from rust.

Comments would be appreciated as I'm not sure if that would work.
 
baz, that is a brill job youve done there!!! i definatly think that is better than black! i think this will be the route im taking!

To everyone..... Will sandblasting do the same job?? (i got all the kit so price isnt an issue)

Keep up the good work mate!
 
Cheers guys. I hadn't thought of sand blasting...I could give that a go on the next wheel if I can find the sand blaster...I'm sure my dad has one kicking about the house somewhere.

I've now got the tyres off the wheels (much swearing was involved) so tomorrow I will continue my attack on the 'wheels of steel'. My next problem is going to be removing the valve from the wheel. Gonna try and pull it out with plyers, but I don't think it will work. If not I think I will have to hacksaw the back off it and take the wheel to a garage to re-fit new valves (grumble, grumble...hate taking things to a garage)...which will probably take 10 seconds and they will probably charge me some ridiculous labour charge.

Does anyone know if using a clear laquer to coat the wheels will be enough to prevent rust? I dunno much about it.
 
Make sure you use laquer that can sustain a high temp... after a drive feel the wheel nuts (or rather dont if you like skin on your fingers!) ... the wheel get VERY hot from braking... you prob knew this but just a reminder!!!

Kinda same topic... are you going to paint the calipers and drums red? or paint them at all?? (also with high temp paint ;) )
 
Nah, not gonna paint the drums or calipers red. I'm not a fan of drum painting to be honest...I think it just highlights what you haven't got (i.e. rear discs). Also you would be hard pressed to even see the brakes thru steel wheels I think. If I paint the calipers it will be black with yellow or red lettering.

If I do decide to stop DIYing everything on this car, and actually spend some money, then one of the first things I will be doing is buying better brakes on the front. Also I would buy better suspension...I dunno if it's just my suspension, but it's rubbish...my car thinks it's Zebedee.

Cheers for the advice about high temp laquer...I did know that the wheels get hot, however I probably wouldn't have thought about that when I was in the paint shop buying normal laquer lol.

I think that ultimately I want the car to be uber-clean, and also to look stock from the outside, even if it's got bigger brakes and stiffened suspension...kinda boring I know, but that's what I'm going for. Once I get to that stage though I will no doubt do something daft with the engine.
 
To everyone..... Will sandblasting do the same job?? (i got all the kit so price isnt an issue)
For your convenience, I just sandblasted one wheel...it took a lot longer than I expected (never tried sandblasting anything before) and it only took the paint off when the compressor was at full compression, so I could only blast for about 10 seconds before the compressor went off pressure and thn had to wait like a minute for it to build up again...plus I used a hell of a lot of sand, and I still didn't get all the rubbish off because I ran out of sand....and the result...a cleaner wheel, but not shiney, at all. I lent my digi cam to my little brother but when he comes back I'll post up the results so you can see. My compressor is only a 25 kilo compressor, if you've got summat like a 200 kilo one then you'd make short work of cleaning up anything.

I'm sure you could sandblast them, then use a polishing wheel to get them shiney again, however I've decided to just paint my wheels black after all. i wanted to go with the shiney finish, but I've spoke to a few bodywork people and they've all recommended NOT laquering onto the shiney surface as, apart from the fact that the wheels get too hot, the laquer also won't grip the surface. It's a bit annoying but to be honest it's taking ages to get the wheels to a shine that I like, and one wheel in particular is suffering badly from pitting from where the rust was. So, once I've finished cleaning them I will coat them in red oxide to stop the rust, then primer them, then paint them.

The other option if you are desperate to get a rust-proof, shiney finish, is to get them chromed. I don't want to do this personally as I think that makes them TOO shiney, and it also costs about £50 a wheel which defeats the object of my 'budget refurb'.
 
Oh yeah you can get steel reeeeeaaaallllllyyyyy shiney with enough work. My dad got a steel rocker cover absolutely gleaming a few weeks ago. You can definately get it shinier than I have gotten my attempt. That's just shiney from the wire wheel spinning at about 10,000 revs per minute, if I used rubbing compound and a polishing wheel, then I could get them almost mirror finish. But, as I said, I can't find a laquer that will stick to it, so I'm just gonna spray them black. :( After sand blasting them, it's keyed the surface really well so it's perfect for spraying.
 
could u not just coat them in like wd40 every time u was the car to sela them ( then no laqure needed ) if u speak to a polishing place they will have the right laquers for shiny stuff
 
you could always get them powder coated, that gives a good shine and is heat resistant enough for wheels, there's a multitude of colours to choose from.
 
to look stock from the outside, even if it's got bigger brakes and stiffened suspension...kinda boring I know, but that's what I'm going for. Once I get to that stage though I will no doubt do something daft with the engine.

do i spy some inital d hatchi roku style sleeper modding lol? me thinks you then need some yellow front fogs. when are you painting it panda style and put some fujiwara tofu shop stickers down one side? :p or is that a bit to far? :laugh:
 
do i spy some inital d hatchi roku style sleeper modding lol? me thinks you then need some yellow front fogs. when are you painting it panda style and put some fujiwara tofu shop stickers down one side? :p or is that a bit to far? :laugh:
:laugh: hahaha already set about fitting my Takumi Fujiwara style cup holder for the water ;)
 
General comments I have on work here:

Sandblasting is incredibly messy, its only really pratical if you have a blasting cupboard which you can do it all without getting the grit everywhere. Its also expensive if you do not reuse the grit. It also leaves a speckled appearance on the steel. not shiny. Steel will rust amazinly fast when its cleaned like that Think of brake disks as an example. Clear coat will not like to stick to that steel, and it will soon look bad. Consumer spray cans do a pretty poor job of stuff like that, and to be honest the best way is to use primer and paint them.

People always go on about heat, truth is they dont get /that/ hot. On the K10 the brakes will usually fade way before the heat has made it all to the metal, and even so it will witstand 100 or so deg no problems.

I have a new set of shocks for the front of the K10 if your intersted. Standard ones do tend to go very soft after a while.

Ed
 
General comments I have on work here:

Sandblasting is incredibly messy, its only really pratical if you have a blasting cupboard which you can do it all without getting the grit everywhere. Its also expensive if you do not reuse the grit. It also leaves a speckled appearance on the steel. not shiny. Steel will rust amazinly fast when its cleaned like that Think of brake disks as an example. Clear coat will not like to stick to that steel, and it will soon look bad. Consumer spray cans do a pretty poor job of stuff like that, and to be honest the best way is to use primer and paint them.

People always go on about heat, truth is they dont get /that/ hot. On the K10 the brakes will usually fade way before the heat has made it all to the metal, and even so it will witstand 100 or so deg no problems.

I have a new set of shocks for the front of the K10 if your intersted. Standard ones do tend to go very soft after a while.

Ed
Cheers Ed, as I say I'm pretty much decided I'm gonna paint the wheels now rather than make em shiney. The one I sandblasted doesn't look pretty at the moment but it's well keyed for painting. (I had never sand blasted before and using a cupboard sounds like a great idea...I'll make one for the next time I sand blast. I have a proper spray gun to use rather than using spray cans. I was planning on spraying the wheels with red oxide paint to protect further from rust, then to prime, then to start layering the paint on.

When you say new shocks, do you mean new standard shocks? or uprated ones. Once I've tidied the bodywork up and done the wheels, I'm planning on giving it a much stiffer ride...I'm fed up of feeling like the car is going to roll over everytime I go round a corner lol. Not sure how I'm going to go about that yet though as I've never done uprated suspension before really. I think I will make front and rear strut braces too.
 
Long time, no update.

Shortly after my last post I moved back in with my mother for a few months whilst I sorted out a new job. I had two cars, Mum asked me to move the Micra off her drive, but I didn't get round to it. Some gypsies came past whilst I was out and offered Mum £20 for the car, she accepted and within seconds they'd smashed the window, cracked the steering lock and loaded it onto a low-loader to take for scrap. When I got back I was pretty gutted because I'd worked hard on the little thing, but also because my jacket was under the seat and my tools were in the boot! Hence me not being on this forum since!

Anyway I had been working on the stealth shelf the night before the car went, and I still have it in my garage if anyone is after one?
 
Long time, no update.

Shortly after my last post I moved back in with my mother for a few months whilst I sorted out a new job. I had two cars, Mum asked me to move the Micra off her drive, but I didn't get round to it. Some gypsies came past whilst I was out and offered Mum £20 for the car, she accepted and within seconds they'd smashed the window, cracked the steering lock and loaded it onto a low-loader to take for scrap. When I got back I was pretty gutted because I'd worked hard on the little thing, but also because my jacket was under the seat and my tools were in the boot! Hence me not being on this forum since!

Anyway I had been working on the stealth shelf the night before the car went, and I still have it in my garage if anyone is after one?
Just read through that thread.... what a nightmare, bloody pikys! :(
 
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