I bought some USDM rear lights off Ant1
(ignore the sponge, its there to stop the garage door bonking the spoiler when I partially close it). I love the look of them and after a quick purchase off ebay I got some W21W silver indicator bulbs for £5 ☺ Got 2 sets, one for the rear lights and one for the front
SO! Onto the turbo
only recently I’ve noticed that I get exhaust fumes from the engine bay on start up, on closer inspection I found the turbo elbow is cracked ☹ The turbo had to come out! It was also blowing soot onto the radiator from the wastegate sleeve join and manifold/turbo join.
I also wanted to do something with that ghastly blue finish the cold side of it had on. So after some f’ing and blinding, it all came off as one ☺ Notice my experimental paintwork on the manifold – just some black/grey VHT paint I was testing out to see if it worked.
Here’s the crack in the elbow.
So off to Paul (neverneverman) to get fixed, also, here’s the blowing from the join. I’ve tried to get the bolts off and after a fair bit of head scratching and some clever socket arrangements, I got them off! They will be replaced with ARP ones
With bits and bobs out and about to other people getting sorted, I thought I’d spend a little time on that turbo cold side
I really didn’t like the blue finish and had a good look at it to see what it was, paint or some sort of ceramic coating, either way I poured the nitromorse over it and hoped for the best. An hour later the plasticy coating was falling off as a rubbery goop. It took a few hours working with it to get the last bits off and out the tight spots but it finally went back to bare alloy. With some wire wool and metal polish it came up nicely
Very pleased with the results!!!
And also gave the cusco catch tank the once over again
The observant will notice I got rid of the crap blue colour to replace with satin black
Whilst having a paint, I thought about re-doing the gearbox as some of it was getting grubby and falling off. Rather than remove the gearbox completely, I removed all I could to reveal as much surface area of the box, all the ironwork and little mounts were removed, sanded down, zinc primed and sprayed satin black to match other little parts ☺ The rubber vents had been painted silver (god knows why) so I gave them a clean up with some hot water and soap, paint fell off and then I gave them some rubber treatment
Then onto the gearbox, this was easier than I first thought. I degreased it and got the wire brushes out as well as get the attachments for the drill and went nuts!! After giving it a full clean off, masked up the area and got the paint out! I LOVE the result, really impressed!! So much so, I did the thermostat housing too! Once I gave it 24 hours to dry so it went solid, I started to put it all back together. I also noticed I’m starting to collect random stuff too lol
On Saturday morning I was rudely awoken by the posty with a box I thought I recognised, yep.. it was my turbo elbow back from Evolution Solutions
Next job is to order a set of ARP bolts for the turbo->manifold join and I can start putting it all back together
One thing also I really wanted to investigate was the excessive play in the steering, its always bugged me but I’ve never had the chance to sit and diagnose it. For ages I thought it was just the rack, but I checked all the ball joints, tie rods for play and nothing, I took a glimpse at the steering column and saw it moved with the wheel, so it wasn’t that either. My head scratching I phoned the old man to see if he knew, he said he had something similar with one of his old mini’s and to try where the column attached to the rack. So went back to the car and pulled back the carpet to reveal the pinch assembly….with no bolt in it. Yep, that’s right, no bolt holding the clamp onto the steering rack. Shocked? I felt sick. I found it further under the carpet so put it back in and gave it a bit of threadlock and a good tighten.
In the midst of not having any electricity running through the car, I took a chance to have a look behind the clocks as the odometer LCD panel was awfully dim compared to any other evo I’d seen. So once I took it out I could see it had some random dash bulb in it with a blue rubber cap over it. I still chucked it and got a new one, also some LED rear number plate lights from Halfords (on sale for £5 a set ☺). The sensor wire from the PS pump was also re-attached and heat shrunk to keep it on there.
With it all sorted, I got the battery back on to test it all only to be deafened by the alarm at first. Again, I left it on ignition to see if I was getting any faults through, ABS and engine light went out ☺ Nice. Tested all the lights and I finally have an odometer I can read!
Also got started on the J panels to match the wing mirror base plates. Usual wet and dry process, plastic primer and satin paint. Very impressed with the finish on these
They’re now drying in the sunshine
And whilst in the painting mood, I got rid of that sky blue colour on the engine block. Never liked it. So painted it hammered black
Picture doesn’t do it justice unfortunately.
So thats it for now! Just waiting on prices on a few things from Gav at Co-ord then i can get it ordered and carry on
My bits from Ross Sport and Evolution Solutions have been ordered, so looking forward to them arriving in a massive box to cheer me up
