Didn't want to have it written off, my first accident so didnt know what would happen if it got written off. I all sounded proising when the guy said he would sort it all out, respray of parts the lot. Should have known it was too good to be true.
You live and learn though. No one was hurt, it was done as a genuine mistake, and I still have my car, can't really moan at that.
Ok, so bare with these pictures, I took them as I removed the front of the car as a reminder of what order to rebuild in, they might help if anyone has to do the same job.
Remove inner wheel arches
Remove Headlights, take care not to damage that bastard little pin in the green clip .......... glue bastard little pin back into headlight housing both sides, pics not shown
Stick your head under the car and look for some screws
Undo the screws below where the headlights were, and the ones that attach the corner of the bumpers to the wings.
Give the bumper a tug and it should come off in your hands...... if you have fogs take care, and unclip the bulb holders.
It should leave you with something like this. (if you look closely you can see the bent and twisted bits)
Wings off, left and right, remember the bolt behind the door, and the 2 siezed ones on the sills
A convenient time to take a look at my reshaped condenser
Washer Bottle removal
Tow loop comes off (some of these bolts hold the front panel assembly in)
Next off, bumper mounts, one either side.
I'm assuming this is some kind tow item, but its got to come off fot the same reason as the one on the left.
Remove front and top sections of the front panel
Undo the 2 bolts that secure the engine mount brace to the fron cross member
You will end up with something that looks like this (this is actually a pic after replacement but it looks the same)
Drill the spot welds, there's a few. You can either buy a spot weld drill off ebay or use a larger drill bit, and not go through the rear panel, just to make it easy to weld on the new on.
Get a guy with magic metal to attack your pride and joy, if only I could use one of those metal glue guns.
Put your bits back on in the reverse order you took them off, here's a couple of them, I didn't take many of the build back up, as was busy working on the car.
Took the car for a wash and tidy up
Gave the engine a quick clean too.
Not bad for 2 weekends work if i do say so myself, 2 cars apart and one back together again
Next updates for RED will be taillights, headlights if I can ever get a set sent to me unbroken, and the sportex catback system which needs modifying to fit as its off an earlier model.
Fingers crossed the bulb will be here tomorrow for the rear lights.
Bit more of an update, I sold my almera airbox and BMC filter, thats in the post today. When I fitted the standard airbox again I was surprised how quickly the car ran out of puff. It definitely doesn't like the restricted breathing.
The car is in having the exhaust modified to fit today, as its off an earlier micra, has no lambda boss and is a slip on system it needs a few tweaks to fit. As my enthusiasm outweighs my ability in this area, i've taken it to a local/ish garage to sort it out. That will mean that the only part left to free up the gas will be the manifold (and cat which i'm keeping). I'll be looking at sorting the manifold soon though.
Next items on the list Green Cotton STORM filter and associated pipework to fit
The previous picture is when the car was having the sportex system finished. It sounds great, very deep but it costing me in petrol :-( I can't stop putting my foot down lol
I am now waiting for the car to be able to breath properly, the standard air-box is definitely strangling the car since its refitting.
The first part of the induction set up arrived today
Whilst I am collecting the parts for the induction kit, I am also preparing a spare throttle body to be bored out to 48mm with new butterfly.
All of this is in preparation to a re-map, larger injectors, and relocated maf. Hopefully all to be done this year.
Finally all the parts have arrived, I've had to trim and modify them, and ideally I need to move the expansion tank but here's some pics of today's successes
The kit is made up of the following:-
Green cotton Storm filter
ASH Black 90° Silicon Bend 70mm diameter
ASH Breather filter
Creations Motorsport 45° Polished alloy tube 70mm diameter
60-80mm Jubilee clamps
Well last week the management at work decided that the managers clearly have too many people to manage, and a reduction in staff is necessary, sadly i'm on the at risk list, and quite high up I think due to the lack of work in my department. This means that the micra is going to be less of a project at the moment :-( due to not wanting to spend any money that's not needed.
Not to let is stop me, there were a few things that I wanted to get sorted.
I've had some black chrome film hanging about, and decided it was time to use it for the intended purpose.
Its hard to see the chrome, but its the one that looks grey
Masked Ready to paint
Painted
Another thing I wanted to do was to put my headlight protectors back on. They had headlight tint on before which made night driving quite difficult. I decided to leave only the top bit on as some tinted eyebrows I guess.
These are the covers fitted on my standard lights.
Back to the headlight mod, you can see from this picture, once they are reassembled, they look shinier than plain black, but less in your face than the chrome.
New black chrome and black headlights fitted without covers
Not much extra done to the little lady, but should have some optional arches and a manifold I can open up coming along soon.
The best news for this week was that my throttle body has been machined and my new 48mm butterfly valve has been fitted. There is also a bung for when the MAF is relocated, and a machined sleeve to smooth the air going into the body.
