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Ryan's Micra Blog

LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
Standard orange ones. Are these chrome ones good?

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The chrome ones shine orange but are silver from the outside, would tidy up the front lights by just keeping black/silver
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I'm already wearing out the lock button on my key.
I often look out of the window and press it. I freaking love this remote locking.
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Still eagerly awaiting anyone's help with the stalks. It's not fun to have no intermittent, and no automatic wipe when wash.

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A rainy day today, meaning no work on the car (exterior at least).
I'm going to borrow a volt meter to try and figure out if I can get the wipers to work. It seems no-one knows how it works. I'm hoping I didn't blow it up while trying out that blue wire.
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Soon I'll have the spring compressors and rivet gun.
Also I've found myself those wheels I want! But... they're miles away.

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Some more paint on the mudflaps. Trying to fill in the scratches and bumps from all of that old paint. Might just buy some new ones if I see some.
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Having trouble getting the wraparound off of Cassie...
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When suddenly...
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Time for a new spoiler.

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Quick wash, the wax is looking good still.
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I then fitted the front mudflaps. The paint isn't as bad as it was, and you wouldn't know unless you looked really close.
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Now on to the rear ones. The two vertical screws have nothing to screw into, I tried to just screw into the plastic but it needed drilling. So for the first time, I jacked up the new car.
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It was very dirty in there (even though I just cleaned it), so I cleaned it up a bit. No wonder there's some surface rust back here. Looks like it hasn't been maintained so well here. I've coated some wax sealant for now but I have undercoat stuff I'll put on some time.
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And the rear mudflaps are on.
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I managed to sell a few parts today but I realised I still have loads...
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Later on I decided to upgrade the horn. I actually decided to try out my disk horns rather than the snail ones.
This is of course before wiring. I finished when it was dark, as I lost my spade connectors. Had to recycle some, might need to do this again some time.
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My rivnut gun has arrived.

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I've transferred over the front foglights. I can see now why they were a little wonky, one of them has self-adjusted incorrectly. One is very rusty in parts, hasn't survived well considering it's only around 3 years old.
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Luckily for me, I already put the relay in when I was changing the steering column. And I also already wired up the switch and the diode for "flash with high beam".
Still getting a connection issue on the left side, which was happening before. One of the contacts is corroded. I cleaned it a tiny bit but if it continues to disconnect I'll take it off again and do it more thoroughly.
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And there it is. They're in. I also cleaned some glass alongside the lights I just added.
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I realised then that the left light was fogging up. So I took both of them off again and punctured both of the vent caps in each. Should unfog soon.
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Now for the dash clocks.
This time I've hardwired in almost everything with solder and tape.
I've spliced the backlighting wire without cutting it and split off one wire for the needle lights, and one to be used later for the mirror fold button backlight.
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The front fog warning light is also now hardwired in. The grounding point is now the indicator relay switch mount (which is different on this car). This main ground wire splits off for more functions.
For some reason this new temporary phone sees the blue needle backlighting as purple.
Though I've avoided using connector blocks until now, I had to use a pair to attach the needle backlighting as I want it to be easily removeable. This makes it 4 connector blocks used in total (may solder the first two at some point, dual reverse light wire)
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There it is. Already with all of the upgrades preinstalled.
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The damn left bulb disconnected again. Right after putting it all back together.
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Note to self: Now to find out the mileage of K11 #4, take given mileage and add 4837.

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I went to Eddie's to finally get that mid-spoiler of his painted.
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We sanded it down but it still looked red mostly. It became much more rough though.
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After primer, and the first coat of BW3 Tornado Grey going on...
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And more paint.
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Didn't have time to lacquer yet, but the final result so far is good. Pretty even paint, full coverage. It's gonna look awesome.

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I put a standard, rather blank looking wiper stalk in to check that I didn't blow up the Terrano one, and luckily enough it seems fine, as this one works just as much. It must be that little blue wire that is on the smaller plug that controls the missing bits. I might try tracing it on Cassie but I doubt I'll have much luck.
An interesting new discovery, though: I can get the rear wiper to work on full now if I switch to it as the relay clicks for intermittent. A slight inconvenience to have to time it, but I can live with that.
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While I had the stalks exposed I found the rear fog wire and attached it. I'm liking this new satisfying click when the relay turns it on. Maybe it'll be brighter on this car because of that.
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I tried to get the surrounding plastic to fit better but it's still not great around the ignition switch. Annoying.
Mirrors are off of Cassie and this time actually have an outside seal on them.
I want these body-coloured this time. But I want someone to do it for me, properly. I also want the spoiler painted properly. When I find a new one, that is.
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I took the front anti-roll bar out from Cassie. It was as expected, a little difficult. This time I'll use proper washers on both sides to space it out.
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While I was there I got carried away and took the coilovers out. I didn't seem to be getting those spring compressors so I'll just swap the whole setup over.
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I'm going to miss Cassie...
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I put the front foglight covers in to make my driveway look less like a scrapyard.

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A nice night shot with the moon.
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So!
I made an initial suspension measurement before swapping over the coilovers.
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This took no time at all! Easy as pie once you've done it a few times. I'm like those club members that allegedly take "30 minutes" to change an engine.
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And an after measurement.
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Interesting to see how the length is the same, but the number of coils is different.
*Edit: Just noticed. Same number of coils, just distributed differently
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I did another measurement with both sides swapped and dropped.
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Of course this'll probably go up a little when the rear is lowered.
For 30mm lowering springs I would expect better. Then again, they were only £50 lowering springs. (They've had time to settle on Cassie)

These were an absolute bastard to get back in! But they're in now. The rear left shock absorber nut/bolt was tight as hell. My poor ratchet will never look the same now because I spent a considerable amount of time hammering it.
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So there it is. I was thinking that 14" wheels would exeggerate the difference, but it seems to work the other way. Cassie is up in the air now.
I went for a drive immediately after (this once again made me late) and the only difference is Cassie is now a little closer to outer space and the new car is a little closer to Australia.

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Looking good mate! Looks like you need some new tyres though!! (Although I’m assuming the plan is to transfer Cassie’s wheels over to the new Micra)


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Well that's annoying. This is the new car.
It happened just like on Cassie. On the motorway with like 10-20% throttle.
As before my OBD2 device doesn't read the code.
Since this car is mechanically basically stock, it must be to do with the air filter setup.
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I was previously thinking it was because of a gap between the sections with oxygen sensors.
I might just remove the engine warning bulb at this point if it persists...

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Got a decent full tank mileage!
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That's like almost 100 more than I did on Cassie with those huge wheels.
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And I've been hooning around most of the time. I guess I owe it to these pathetic thin tyres. Even though many times I've been running out of grip. And even one occasion did a huge fishtail (5 swings, nearly spun!)

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LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
Got a decent full tank mileage!
View attachment 59984
That's like almost 100 more than I did on Cassie with those huge wheels.
View attachment 59985
And I've been hooning around most of the time. I guess I owe it to these pathetic thin tyres. Even though many times I've been running out of grip. And even one occasion did a huge fishtail (5 swings, nearly spun!)

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I get about 330 miles from a tank in my 1 litre pre face, and there's plenty of times I don't drive sensibly. That will be well down in winter with all the cold starts but I would still expect a lot more than that

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Quick update.
I think I forgot to say, my rear wiper did what I call "Doing a Nissan" and miraculously just fixed itself. It now works completely.
So it's just the front wipers I need to finish up.

Interestingly, having the car loaded with 4 people seems to have made the springs settle a bit more. Or at least I think so anyway. I should do another measurement soon.

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Been busy busy busy so my updates have been on hold.
I managed to grab myself a rear anti-roll bar! I've never seen one of these before. Only £20 and delivered right near where I live.
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And I got a new spoiler at the same time! Only £30 and this one still has the studs (one is a little short)!
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The only downside is that the spoiler has cracked, presumably in transit. I'm going to talk to a friend about repairing that before I send it (along with the mirrors) off to get painted.
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I noticed that when I was swapping over my old coilovers, the left one was a little loose at the top.
The would explain why it's been so noisy over bumps.
I've been thinking of borrowing a swan-neck spanner from somewhere to do it up properly.
I checked it today as it was making even more noise.
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It was completely loose! That explains that then.
I decided to have a go at tightening it as much as possible with just a ratchet.
Suprisingly enough, the shock absorber stayed put and it is now tight. Nice.

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Well, it doesn't look like I'll be doing anything big today.
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Absolutely typical. I even cleaned (including the underside) my car last night.
And now it's raining heavily all day. One of my only days (partially) off.
Got me in a pretty rough mood.
Oh, and what's worse is that my rear wiper has un-fixed itself back to requiring some timing to get it to work on full, and my front right brake is making some nasty sounds. Pads could be dead, disk could be really warped...

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Those of you who aren't new to my blog probably aren't surprised that I decided to do car stuff today anyway.

I used that rust remover stuff on the rear anti-roll bar. Crazy how it makes it change so much. Mine is a bit different to vinvindan's, it's a liquid, but it's quite easy to paint on with a brush. It also works ridiculously fast.
Here's how the bar looked after probably less than an hour:
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I then chucked on some of that expensive primer that supposedly reacts with rust. (This was quite lazily done as you can tell)
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I closed up the garage door and got cozy in there, and started some wire work.
A technician at uni gave me this variable resistor. I want to be able to dim the air controls backlighting, because while it is glorious at daytime, it's a little ridiculous at night.
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And it worked!
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...until it didn't!
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This didn't come as a surprise to me, the technician thought it'd blow it up. It lasted for a while though, and it only failed at the middle range of dimming. Guess I just need a beefier resistor.
Once I know it works, I'll try to get it fitted. That is unless I wait until I change the dash over. But then I want to do electric windows and mirrors at the same time to do it all neat. And I want the mirrors painted first.

I had a quick look at the lowering-ness.
Yep, it has gone down! Now we're on a solid 6cm from the inside of the outer lip to the wing arch. This was previously about 7.4cm!
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LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
Those of you who aren't new to my blog probably aren't surprised that I decided to do car stuff today anyway.

I used that rust remover stuff on the rear anti-roll bar. Crazy how it makes it change so much. Mine is a bit different to vinvindan's, it's a liquid, but it's quite easy to paint on with a brush. It also works ridiculously fast.
Here's how the bar looked after probably less than an hour:
View attachment 60036
I then chucked on some of that expensive primer that supposedly reacts with rust. (This was quite lazily done as you can tell)
View attachment 60037
I closed up the garage door and got cozy in there, and started some wire work.
A technician at uni gave me this variable resistor. I want to be able to dim the air controls backlighting, because while it is glorious at daytime, it's a little ridiculous at night.
View attachment 60038
And it worked!
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View attachment 60040
...until it didn't!
View attachment 60041
View attachment 60042
This didn't come as a surprise to me, the technician thought it'd blow it up. It lasted for a while though, and it only failed at the middle range of dimming. Guess I just need a beefier resistor.
Once I know it works, I'll try to get it fitted. That is unless I wait until I change the dash over. But then I want to do electric windows and mirrors at the same time to do it all neat. And I want the mirrors painted first.

I had a quick look at the lowering-ness.
Yep, it has gone down! Now we're on a solid 6cm from the inside of the outer lip to the wing arch. This was previously about 7.4cm!
View attachment 60043

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I got a primera p144 dash light adjuster from one in my local yard a while back, could do the trick and should be more then beefy enough
IMG_20181107_183752.jpeg


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So, I took the brake pads off of the front right. And holy crap. Look at this!
There's barely anything left on these. And some damage to one, a heat spot maybe?
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Who knows how bad the other side are too?
For now I grabbed my spare used ones.
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But I couldn't get the caliper piston to go back in!
Ran out of time and had to rush off to work. It was also dark. Had to fit the shagged pads again and throw the whole setup back together.

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Not a great Saturday noon.
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Another car and myself collided at the mirrors.
We both stopped. Talked. And decided to just continue on due to insurance, effort, the fact that I'm replacing these anyway, and that we both really could've been further to the left of the fairly wide road.

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One of my disk horns stopped working. I checked, and the ground wire had broken. The other disk had also a damaged ground wire. Odd coincidence. Now I've used my new parts to give them a good connection.
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I got a mirror from Eddie. Couldn't get the glass out otherwise I would have swapped it over. Didn't feel like smashing more glass.
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While I was trying to get the brakes sorted, I coated the arch and suspension with the rust remover.
When it was done, I sprayed it with the anti rust primer.
I still couldn't get the brake piston to go in. In the end I had to cheat and remove the metal plates on the pads. Still seems to work fine.
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After that, I sprayed underseal paint in the arch to finish off.
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I've glued my new spoiler. When it's properly cured, I'll sand the excess glue then it's ready for painting.
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In addition to this I've tightened my handbrake.

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Same treatment today on the left side. The brake pads look alright here. A little uneven but still with enough pad on them.
Here is after some cleaning and grinding, then the rust remover added.
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And rust primer and the proper top coat. Really rubbery stuff.
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I know it's not wise to paint nuts and bolts, but I'm being a bit lazy.
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The lower arm and the tie rod gaiter look surprisingly new. I hope this car hasn't been crashed and had this corner replaced or something.
Nothing else suggests it though.
As I'm writing this, suddenly there's fairly heavy rain. That was good timing. The paint should be quite dry now.

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As some of you may know, warming up your spraypaint cans allows them to spray at a higher pressure.
I've always done this, for years. However I've recently been putting them in kettle hot water. It's been fine so far, but today I tried it with a smaller can.
...don't do this. Use hot tap water.
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After my paint cans decided to stop trying to be grenades, I finally chucked on some red on the rear anti-roll bar.
I know, it looks pretty crap here but the final result should be better.
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I've also finally coated both of the rear arches for winter. Same as before, cleaned them, drill/wirebrush'd the rust off, brushed on some rust converter, cleaned, sprayed on rust-reacting primer, then sprayed on rubbery underseal goo.
Didn't get any more photos as it was well into night time when I finished. Again.
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Before I finished up, I added lacquer to the rear ARB and begun adding some paint to the front one (which was prepping when I was doing all of this).
I ran out of paint (damn, these cans are small), but I coated one side fully. May or may not add more paint.

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Now what I want to do some time soon (I rarely have time right now, and it's frequently cold/wet):
•Clean up and underseal the sills, rear axle, and body underside (particularly near the back)
•Add the rear foglights from Cassie (and use incandescent bulbs this time)
•Find someone that can professionally paint my spoiler and mirrors (if it costs too much, I guess prepare them to paint myself)

I want to find:
•Some Almera N15 SRi wheels!


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Last edited:
I got a primera p144 dash light adjuster from one in my local yard a while back, could do the trick and should be more then beefy enough
View attachment 60044

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Are you still willing to part with that switch? I may be buying a centre arm rest, which appears to have two switch blanking panels. Do you know roughly the size of the switch?
Also, looking at those wires, does it have its own backlight? Freaking sweet if it does.
 

LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
I was going to use it for my own interior lights tbh but you should be able to find one for breaking closer to you (I'm based on the emerald Isle). The switch fits perfectly into a march arm rest slot with a small amount of filing to the clips on the back of the switch (will upload a picture of fitting after work). Also a coin holder is a nice little upgrade there, very handy to stop the loss of coinage down the pit of doom under the seat
 

LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
It is the right size for the hole but the little clips near the top on the second picture would need to be gotten rid of or filed down to fit in snug. By the way, I'm the same lad who was telling you about the coin holders in the arm rest slots (they came from the same primera I robbed that dimmer switch from)
 

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It is the right size for the hole but the little clips near the top on the second picture would need to be gotten rid of or filed down to fit in snug. By the way, I'm the same lad who was telling you about the coin holders in the arm rest slots (they came from the same primera I robbed that dimmer switch from)
Looks like I may have that centre rest then. And woah, when Facebook and the forum come together it's a sudden moment of realisation

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LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
Looks like I may have that centre rest then. And woah, when Facebook and the forum come together it's a sudden moment of realisation

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Yes I would advise buying it, also that one you're looking at buying from that meiks lad is a black one from a March G# one, would you be interested in swapping with my grey one as I'm buying a G# black interior and I will pay all postage of course if you are interested? Yes I had the same moment about you being Ryan on Facebook when I noticed some similar mods going on back when you had the tornado grey one
 
Yes I would advise buying it, also that one you're looking at buying from that meiks lad is a black one from a March G# one, would you be interested in swapping with my grey one as I'm buying a G# black interior and I will pay all postage of course if you are interested? Yes I had the same moment about you being Ryan on Facebook when I noticed some similar mods going on back when you had the tornado grey one
I didn't realise the one I'm likely gonna buy was black. Well, I do want to swap my black interior for my old grey one. But I do want some black parts. I'll let you know when I decide!

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Before you get your hopes up, I'm thinking of keeping the black one, as I want to keep the black gearstick surround and the panel in front of it (to go nicer with the black carpet etc), sorry :/
But like I said I'll decide properly when I get it.
 

LiamC

I've ruined my car ?
Before you get your hopes up, I'm thinking of keeping the black one, as I want to keep the black gearstick surround and the panel in front of it (to go nicer with the black carpet etc), sorry :/
But like I said I'll decide properly when I get it.
That's alright, it's probably in better condition than my one anyway, mines a bit broken at the back. Anyway keep an eye out for p114s for breaking and they should all have that instrument dimmer just to the right of the steering wheel
 
Look at what arrived!
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One black JDM centre arm rest.
It's got a little area at the front for putting small things, and two small switch panels
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And at the back...
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A popout bottle holder
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The main bin has felt on the inner lid and bottom of the bin. A small magnet holds it closed. The hinge is a little wobbly.
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And, since I doubt anyone's published a photo of the inside, here's the inside.
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Nice and hollow so I can run wires through.
Speaking of which, a dimmer switch is on its way.
I might use the other switch panel for a coin holder. For the jetwash.

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Back of the car up in the air for some work today. I've been finding it hard to get the time to do anything!
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The arm rest wouldn't fit because of basically everything on the inside of the seats. I've removed the trim, the adjuster wheels, and the remaining part was the seatbelt buckles. These needed some modifying to fit.
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After prepping the rear axle for rust repair and coating... I realised something really really annoying.
The rear anti-roll bar only fits in 2/4 of the places it mounts to.
The drop links both have the suitable holes, but the main bar has nowhere to go on the axle.
I spent all day trying to come up with a solution.
My final plan was the move the bushings inwards to the part where the bar is lower, and putting some rivnuts into the axle and mounting it from there. With the wrong drilling tools, I eventually got one hole ready, but the rivnut was refusing to go in, and when I forced it in it destroyed it and sealed the hole. Thorougly annoying.
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At least I can now get the arm rest in. Well, kinda.
The front screw is the same, to hold it in place, but the back is different on Marches. I found an old bracket that helped secure the back, but it's still a bit floppy.
When I get my dimmer switch, I'll need to take it off again anyway, so it'll do for now.
I glued the broken bit back on (it was in the first pictures I took) and gave it a good clean. Unfortunately it smells of smoke which is a bit gross, but that'll probably go in time. I hope.
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The small facelift one is bolted on and glued. Nice armrest btw. I have the same one. The heated seats buttons are normally in it if the car had that option. I fitted S14 seats because they have the back adjuster on the outside instead of the inside and have heating. The heated seat buttons from a primera also fit the armrest.
 
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