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PollyMobiles Rebuild

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pollyp

pollyp

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just been to me local motor factor machinist to get the grooved discs edge lathed down & face skimmed. will cost £45 Each!!
last time i had both rear discs skimmed costed only £18. they must be jokin

also asked about making a metal gap ring between the hub and the disc bore, he said a 1.125mm thick ring would be too fragile so will need to machine the disc bore larger then lathe & pressfit a thicker ring into the disc, overall would cost another £45 each :/
no way , i'll stick to the old duct tape method.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

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since one of the rear brake pads are running low at 4-5mm compared to the others due to the previous sticking calipers/piston i decided to upgrade em to some black diamond fast road rear pads prior to the trackday.

http://europerformance.co.uk/pages/products/product_info.mhtml?product=576996

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also got new engine oil & filter to replace soon.

basically giving her a good service before trackday.
 

Guy

Has gone over to the oily side...
Club Member
Awesome thread! Just read the entire thing and I'm totally impressed (Y).
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
still waiting for me discs & rear pads.

was having a think about installing a cooling duct to the front brakes but abit puzzled on how to route it while avoiding the front tyres at full lock. couldn't route it from the front lower mouth cos the radiators in the way. nor from the sides of the front chassis cos the washer tanks in the way (could relocate tank to the boot but too much work).
anyone tried fitting a brake duct for k11 before?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
finally got me discs after paying flippin £105 for a simple skim and lathed edge. their excuse was the skimming costs £18 cos its a simple task but the long period of slowly lathing the lip down since yesterday lunchtime meant the time & cost goes up. um i'm sorry but a straight forward lathing is not worth the extra £87, besides i coulda took it to a local mech/eng and got it done free at fraction of the time. bahh

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also received a set of black diamond fast road rear pads i ordered on sunday, was delayed on tues due to out of stock, got it tday only to find they sent me a set of front pads for a flippin seat/VW polo :(

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tomorrow i'm gona drive down to leeds to buy a proper set from Larkspeed so that i could get on with bedding the brakes on saturday late night and then cancel/send the wrong pads back to europerformance.
 
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OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
ok sumthing is clearly not write here.

i checked on black diamonds website and their tables show that a micra k11 with rear disc would require their PP392 pads.

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now europerformance.co.uk has sent me a box labelled PP392 and the pads themselves are marked as pp392.

now either black diamond or europerformance are sending out mislabelled pads or that black diamond has made a mess up of their product line database.

eitherway, i'm sending these back to europerformance and checking the pads at larkspeed personally.
 
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OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
grr i set off towards leeds at 8am and rang larkspeed at 8.30 when they open and they don't keep any inhouse so i can't check they're the right ones.

the way back i decided to just get some stock rear pads from local factors, no one has any and has to be ordered for next week. bah

buying pads or anything for these rear discs are a pain.

ok i'm gona ring europerformance on monday to arrange returning these wrong pads back and find out if its the pads, their stock or black diamonds fault
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
refitted stock filter so that i can clean the k&n filter

also refine the CAI cos the inlet port seems to be too high, shielded out of the lower airstream by the bumper and sucking warm radiator air.

i elongated the pipe but it would cause the port to hit the tyre during full lock so i searched on bending pvc pipes. marked the spot, filled with sand, blowtorched the area and made a right hash of the bend. sand didn't work. was just a rough attempt, it'll do for now. need more practice.
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port now sits into the airstream
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OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
just spoke to europerformance bout the wrong pads and how upon opening the box the pads were exposed rattling about, which the guy said sounds like a cans of worms n someone prob mishandled it. so i emailed him the pics i took for him to look into it
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
sorted. the guy phoned back n it looks like they were updating their product database codes and ended up sending me this box of VW pads marked PP392 from the old database whereas the updated newer database for PP392 would be the pads for my micra. he said i could keep the pads and he'll send out the corrected micra pads free :)
we'll see in afew days if its the right one this time.
 
wow, ok , now this is a timeline of what you have done to your car, jeez ! its took me 30 mins to go through it :L
ACE job though, loved the cover being red, worked really well (Y) ... did your "drain pipe" intake make much of a difference even though it when through the standard airbox
anyways, keep up the good work (Y)
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
hehe glad you found it a good read :)

yea i luved the red cover. wanna repaint this one when i have the time.

i think the stock airbox breathes fine after i enlarged the inlet port.
i remember there used to be a slight more poke at high rev & high speed when i first swapped from stock peashooter to a wider straight gutter pipe then to a rough CAI but that was before the janspeed manifold & system/jun flywheel.
after all the mods, the larger inlet bore reduced restriction and so enabled full advantage of the janspeed system at higher revs

now after just lowering the pipe nozzle more into the airstream and scooping little more air pressure, it feels a fraction more torquey at high rev, full throttle & high speed.

CAI does help, especially if positioned in a high pressure area with a funnel mouth but be careful of debris or water entry if placed too low
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
got an extinguisher from tesco for a tenner

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cleaned and repainted the discs with high temp paint

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tday the correct rear pads finally came

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already fitted with back shims
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so awaiting a dry night, prob fri/sat, to fit all this lot.
front discs & pads, rear pads, new oil & filter, cleaned k&n filter
then burnish/bed the brakes in after midnight

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r-reg-sr

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Site Supporter
pollyp; i quickly ran towards Reg before he reached the exit for a jumpstart said:
i checked my leads the other day and theyr fine
yeh real fine.....apart from the wires arent connected TO ANYTHING sorry geez!
 
OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
lol did like the lead separate from the clamps. maybe also a good idea to add some solder to the crimp joint to guarantee connection?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
changed the oil & filter and popped the k&n filter back on.

here's the old pulsar disc vs grooved disc lathed down 2mm

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old mintex vs new black diamonds

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reapply tape on hub to centre the disc. takes about 4-5 layers of duct tape for a snug fit.

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spaced out the caliper carrier by 2mm from the hub to get it centre to the disc

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fitted the front right pads. the disc is just slightly below the edge of the pads. least there wont be any rusty lip edge after few miles

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had to retract the piston all the way in to fit cos there's so much meat on the new pads

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fitted front left pads. much better, the edge is just flush with the pads

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off goes the old rear left worn pads

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disc has very good smooth even wear

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new rear pads

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all fitted ready. now waiting to bed em in at 1am
 
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r-reg-sr

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Site Supporter
yeh more chunkier than the older pads more surface? hope its gone well with the bedin most people in bed at this hour,,and your on a night mission:grinning:
done what you said with the leads(solder wires on)
funny a month before meeting yourself a fto was broken down in one petrol pump looking sorry for himself.so i aproched him
an he telling me no power at batt----so gave him the jump start which wasnt happening due to leads:laugh:
still though got a tow rope on him and he second gear jumped it so was on his way er happier
 
OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
yeh more chunkier than the older pads more surface? hope its gone well with the bedin most people in bed at this hour,,and your on a night mission:grinning:
done what you said with the leads(solder wires on)
funny a month before meeting yourself a fto was broken down in one petrol pump looking sorry for himself.so i aproched him
an he telling me no power at batt----so gave him the jump start which wasnt happening due to leads:laugh:
still though got a tow rope on him and he second gear jumped it so was on his way er happier

less surface contact vs old pads but prob different compound/behavior.

goin out to the industrial estate after midnight is the only way to ensure i can fully burnish the brakes in safely with no traffic/rozza in sight.

you'll needa paint ur micra bright orange n like label it Mic"RAC" Rescue Services at the rate ur helpin broken cars :p
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
just got back after a long night/morning, shattered.

first i drove down towards the industrial estate gradually warming the brakes up.
almost there when some undecisive rabbit type creature ran in front & was playing chicken with me. it ran to the middle, saw my lights, i kept left, it changed its mind and ran left back towards the kerb, i went right, changed again etc etc till it decided to service the underside of the car :/

can't stop now to check damage cos brakes r hot. on the straight road i began blasting to 60 & brake to 5mph several laps. original thought was heat em up, transfer the layers, it eventually fades and so i start to cool down..instead after 5 or more laps it just keeps on braking with no fade. so i started cool-down after 10laps.

when the brakes r now cold after bed cycle 1, it barely works. have to heat em up abit to get workin. went for bed cycle 2 in country. cooled down. i always notice that just after any bed in session the brakes feel crap n no bite till its heated. then regains bite after driving afew days.

how the discs look

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i think it needs more wear & bedin cos 50% the surface is transferred pad material but the 50% specks of rusty pitting looks like the skimming marks are still left over which may explain the lack of braking. i think that machine shop skims/scores the surfaces too deep. will take awhile to get it smooth.

rear brakes are ok

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note to self, do not ziptie a microcloth to the exhaust corner to cusion against the nearby swaybar cos it just melts and sticks to the pipe

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gona have to chisel all this melted plastic cloth off the pipe tomorrow
 
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OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
checked the brakes next morning

rear discs little scored but smooth

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rear pads only half bedded, need many more miles

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pitted front disc

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couple of pits on the front fast track pads

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little bit of the red bed-in coating left on the edges

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overall they needed many more miles. so i went for a long drive. 200+ miles later the cold bite has come back and feels much better now. yet to inspect the pads again
 
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Shaun

***StaGGeRed***
have you got an actual bed in schedule? as this would be rather handy to learn for myself...
also i need to talk to you about one of your mods for the K11 as i would like to copy :D
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
Bookmarked that video! very informative. Pm'd about mod :D

will try get back to ya with details tomorrow cos i just came back home at 1am after watching inception and brain hurts n confused :p
back to norm soon hopefully after sleep
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
last week little pollymobile 1 came back sick.
me friend said she took it to 2 prev garages for a fix and then after the 2nd garage it was overheating, hard to start, high idle rev & stalling when stopping. so she thought she'd ask me to hava look first before getting to another garage. (heard she previously had a tendency to break several cheapo bangers, prob lack of service)


she came over, car idling very high. temp gauge reads high after being driven down the road and coolant tanks empty so popped the rad cap off, jeez nothing in there. so i poured some coolant in and it must've been running dry cos i had to pour in alot, no wonder it overheats quickly.

purged air out, left rad cap off to check if it bubbles slightly from a leaky gasket. instead, when i cranked the engine the whole lot came gushing out like a fountain, coolant everywhere! yikes thats not good :eek:
fitted rad cap and tried again, she fails to start and coolant/gas is just gushing into the overflow tank


took sparkplugs out to look inside and they were all pooled in coolant, cyl 4 was oily. very very bad.
oil level was at low and found some mayo on the oil cap.


ok so its clear that the overheating has resulted in a seriously blown head gasket. she's not gona be driving this for afew days.

moved my car outside and her car in the garage to rip the head off to change the gasket and find the cause.
dunno what sort of monkey garage she took it to but some of the valve cover bolts were loose/missing, exhaust mani nuts loose, spark plug 1-3 only finger tight and seems they pryed the sparkplug leads off with a friggin screwdriver damaging the rubber seal and the stem is just hanging loose from the lead head (they coulda just pulled it)


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pulled head off, the soft composite gasket had proper fused to the Alu cos of the heat so it seperated in chunks. will take ages to remove all this

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inspecting the gasket closely i found a sooty residue at the bottom the gasket where cyl4 was blowing past the gasket ring into the cooling jacket which may have cause the fountain of coolant to gush out earlier.

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carefully used an old card & razer to scrape the old baked gasket off the head & block, was such a tedious, long slow process making sure theres no scratches. started off at one end, got sick of it quickly. to finish over the next few days

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phoned nissan bout a new oem MLS gasket, quoted £65. wtf it used to just cost me £35. had to be ordered from amsterdam apparantly.
ordered a £28 gasket on ebay instead that i thought looked like the nissan gasket, turned out be a normal composite type. meh it'll do, couldn't be bothered to change it.

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ordered £9 can of gasket remover in hope of making the removal easier and less risk of scratching

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tried it on some areas are sure it soaks, loosen and gunging the smaller residues but has minimal effect on the thicker residues. bah, back to the razer that took forever
checked the head warpage and is just within spec, she's lucky there's no more damage

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finished off with 1200 wet dry, sucked oil outa the bolt holes, retapped threads, dry with brake cleaner, reinstalled gasket, head, cams etc


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took off the temp sensors & thermostat to test they're in spec. sensors fine but the thermostat is stuck closed. aha this must be the cause.

the old thermostat musta seized shut, engine overheats, Alu engine swells hugely, crushing the gasket rings, under compression the gas blows the coolant outa the cooling system and overheating more under induction the coolant is sucked into the cyl, flooding it and making it harder to start/run & stalling

next day got new thermo from local shop. doesn't have a bleed hole but doesn't matter.

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looked inside cyl and damn cyl1 is wet :(
cranked engine with plugs out to build oil pressure and dry the cylinders.
plugs back on, prime fuel pump, try to start.

she refuses to barely start, maybe a little stutter from cyl1. bugga
plugs out, and cyl 2-4 were flooded. ah ffs!!

cranked again to clear cylinders. plugs back in.
this time crank like heck cos it either works or not. throttle floored, she slowly tries to fire, getting better gradually.

eventually cyl1 fires. misfiring, i rev her abit. exhaust plooming away behind. after afew hard revs she clears up and runs on all 4 cyl. idle is too low so readjust the idle screw. with rad cap off i rev her to check for blowing, seems fine :)

kept her running to heat up. temp gauge goes to middle, stabilizes then fan kicks in, temp reduces abit, fan goes off. running normal after few minutes. she works :)
water in cats n exhaust has steamed away and now runs smoke free.

cooled her down then retested again later and yet again she passes. plugs out and all cyl were nice n dry. changed oil cos it was black and prob never serviced since i sold her it last yr.

called her to pick her car up, she was dead happy.
the gasket, oil, coolant costed £60 so charged her £100. i read this job'll usually cost £350+ but i'm doing it for a local friend and she's pretty tight on cash.

neway £40 profit later on, there's one happy client and i'm glad to her her out:cool:
 
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Shaun

***StaGGeRed***
Firstly, Inception was a good film wasn't it? :D

secondly isn't it quite rare for the thermostat to seize shut? as my K10 once seized open and i think most cars do?

Am happy you sorted it all out for her! and for such a low price! (Y)
 

Guy

Has gone over to the oily side...
Club Member
That's your karma points for the week earned (Y). Who were the ar$eholes who 'fixed' the car for her and missed the stuck thermostat grr.
 

r-reg-sr

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Site Supporter
i like it
sort of like that story when they had to make it back on the railway system with everyone in town chasing them
see what i and every one else means when garages have been screwing our cars with a screwdriver
if that type of garage is reading this-you are --it you know that? you do now
 
OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
Firstly, Inception was a good film wasn't it? :D

secondly isn't it quite rare for the thermostat to seize shut? as my K10 once seized open and i think most cars do?

Am happy you sorted it all out for her! and for such a low price! (Y)

awsome film indeed(Y) cool hans zimmer soundtrack too.

yeah odd that it seized shut. originally pollymobile 1's thermo was also stuck open. neway i took a blowtorch to it to find if it even works..it eventually opened when the spring coil glowed red :p

that's 2 bargains she's had from me now, i'm just too generous :wasntme:
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
That's your karma points for the week earned (Y). Who were the ar$eholes who 'fixed' the car for her and missed the stuck thermostat grr.

dunno which garage she went too but she'd better remember to bring it over anually for routine service rather than to any local monkey garage scattered round here which i don't trust and prob wreck the car

odd thing bout the thermo is that when i took it out, it's clearly been disturbed by some garage cos when i rebuilt the car, i use a clean bead of black sealant. upon removal there's a mess of brownsealant over the old black sealant :/

so it seems the garage took out the thermostat to inspect and then either thought its working ok or they ignored the fault and refitted it straight back with brown seal. dodgy.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
just checked the brakes

RR brakes. discs fine but once again for some reason the outer pad is wearing at an odd angle. maybe some residue on one of the finger of the caliper/outer pad surface or the caliper's not aligned square to the disc by fraction deg.

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RL brakes. discs fine and pads wearing evenly but only 80-90% surface area used so prob need summore bedding in.

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FR brakes. discs ok, little less pitting but a section of the outer pad is pitted/crumbling (top left corner of the top pad in pic)

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FL brakes. discs & pads fine

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OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
took off the RR caliper and seems there was abit of PU sealant left on the corner of the caliper finger causing the outer pad to wear more from the rear upper corner where the old residue had been left.
i just wire brushed it off and will take couple hundred bed in miles to wear it back flat again.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
hmm tiny issue tonight. just returned from giving m8s a lift home and the front right wheel bearing seal area is making a "rubbing rubber against smooth metal" like sound at very low speed as if the wheel bearing seal is dry?
tried some oil at the inner bearing seal with no effect. tis prob the outer bearing seal but that requires removing the brake & disc for access so will have to wait tomorrow night after work. hope its something simple.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
on the way to work, seems the rubber seal is fine when cold but once warmed up it starts to audibly whistle at 0-5mph
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
ok back home now and it's gone away. either the oil i dripped in last night had worked into the inner seal or the outer seal had worn past whistling stage or that it sorted itself out somehow. meh

preparing tools n spares for trackday nxt week. how exciting the time is near :)
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
went to birmingham the other day to buy a fastime 21 stopwatch to record laptimes.
on the way back i filled up at esso but accidentally overfilled as petrol spilled out onto the wheel, bumper and my shoes, eek.

this discoloured the tyre abit but i cleaned & polished the wheels tday before giving that tyre a good scrub with brake cleaner and the orange haze cleaned off before i repainted all the tyre letters back on.

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i needed to cusion the exhaust pipe against the rear ARB with something metalic since the last microcloth was burnt onto it, so i used some steel wool and tied it with some thick wire.

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in an effort to make a smooth pvc pipe bend for me CAI i have tried numerous diy methods on youtube & web like packing it with sand or induce some air pressure before bending, none worked cos it simply buckled.

but tday i may have found the solution by cutting several dozens of cardboard discs that fits snugly inside the pipe with a compass cutter. the discs maintain the round profile all along the pipe while the stacking arrangement allows the pipe to be bent when softened

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once enough discs are packed into the pipe, i stuck a rod wire through the middle compass hole so i could support and keep spinning the pipe while a heatgun on me other hand heats the pipewall evenly

when the pipe is soft enough i bend the pipe on a round template with a gentle curve such as a bicycle wheel rim whilst pulling it apart slightly to reduce any crinkling

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once cooled, just push out the discs and there's one smooth bend

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i'm gonna do several more bends then butt them together with ducktape to make one seamless smooth CAI pipe into the airbox
 
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OP
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
i found that bending the pipe tighter than the bicycle wheel causes the inside to buckle cos the soft corrigated cardboard is being squished.

so i made several hundred discs from hardwood using a hole cutter

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tried to find some 57mm pvc pipe cos that matches the pipe thats bonded to the airbox but no one sell em so i had to get the normal 53mm pipe. at one end of the pipe is a 57mm flare so i'll utilise this to fit straight onto the silicone coupling, wanna eliminate any step edges along the pipe to reduce turbulance. this meant the first bend from the airbox is crucial and done right first time. i had plenty of practice by now.

tip: because i'll be taping the pipes together i need the ends to be perfectly square so i used a mitre hand saw for a straight clean square cut. tidy the ends afterwards with a scraping blade

stuffed the wooden discs through the entire pipe

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to achieve a tight enough bend i obtained this can, stuck on a cardboard edge to indicate the desired angle

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heated the pipe evenly with heat gun till its flexible enough then bend & pull the pipe to the set angle and cooled it by blowing

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perfect

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made to 2nd bend with a softer radius

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finally the 3rd tighter bend using the small can again

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i wanted to flare the mouth out so at high speed it helps ram more air in. i utilised a beer bottle as a wedge tool.

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at first i tried heating the whole pipe end before pushing it onto the bottle to wedge it apart but the pipe just simply buckled. i then tried heating only a portion of the lip at a time to flare it while the other cooler sections support the load. it works

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may have over stretched the tip abit but it'll do

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fitted. one continuous CAI pipe, i'm proud of how well it worked out

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tools & spares all sorted ready

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need to wash body tomorrow then book b&b for mon & tues cos i'll be driving to a b&b near rockingham monday night so that i don't have to wake up so early for the 7.30 sign-in.

after the trackday on tues i drive back to the nearby b&b for a rest, then drive back home the next morning.

this i feel is a more sensible schedule cos the other option of driving to rockingham from 4am-7.30am, drive round track 9am-5pm then drive all the way back home would mentally be insanely dangerous.

bringin me dad along so hopefully there'll be some photos from the day
 
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