Today I did something to my car (volume 2)

I started tackling the orange peel on my Prelude the other day.

I wet sanded a couple of panels and used a denim cutting pad on them.

It's very time consuming but I've wanted to do it for ages now.

Yeah, that's my pal's one. It's a bit of a strange egg. It's a JDM 5th gen but it's an early one so it has 4th gen wheel hubs, no 4WS and F22 in it.

We sanded it down when he got it and another friend painted it white for him. It looks well.

It’s a time consuming job and takes a delicate hand to tackle paint work like that

i tackled the noisy carrier bearing on my 4x2 Mazda BT50 ute. She’s a bit of a pig that I use to get to the airport once a week and do trips to the hardware store in. Had a loud booing noise that I thought was either diff or carrier. Luckily when I dropped the shaft to check a few months ago (long finger kinda job) the carrier was very rough sounding.

Drive way job. Haven’t done universal joints in about 15 years I’d say but it came back reasonably quickly. Splitting the yoke off the shaft was a PITA. Desperate measures called for wd40 and the mrs hair dryer. Not sure which was the fix but 10 mins on a hammer and chisel and it was off. Bearing on. The wrong way. Beating off and back on the right way and my booing sound track has gone

Had to clear out the car port today. Winter decided to do a test run and job that was on was not one you would want to do outside.

Mrs’ young fella has a single charged 1.4tsi Golf and was getting cam/crank synchro errors and a rattle on start up. Timing chain change out was put off for as long as I dared and tackled it today. 6 hours of phcuking about but in the end was not outrageous bad

The kit I got was supposed to have everything in it. No bolts so the old ones went back in. I guess time will tell if my calibrated arm got them in the lucky “tight enough to hold, not so tight they shear” range

The "today I finally had some time to show what I did to my car few weeks ago" post. ;-)

Well ms jou's car, not mine, but I did what I did.

Niro EV goes without a spare wheel, no option at the dealers even to have a space saver, and both myself and the missus prefer to have a spare wheel, especially there's a room for it in the boot.

That how the boot looks like factory spec:

Plastic thingys removed and prepared for the cut:

Jigsaw involved.

Will it fit? First try. It fits!

17 inch alloy off adverts, standard size tyre, very tight fit. I already had a tyre, but would be better to have slightly smaller one.

Final look:

Ms jou's happy. And if she's happy, I'm happy. :-D

Gravity.

Missus always has so much garbage in the boot that loose wheel under the floor would be the least concern in case of crash. Apart from that, the wheel fits tight. VERY tight. But thanks for suggestion. :-)

Now that I've finished the bodywork I decided to give my wheels a bit of a freshen up. I didn't laquer them because the stuff from a spray can is pretty ****. I'll do that in my pal's place in the next few days.

I'm hoping to get the car back on the road for the first of next month and going to some car shows over the summer.

@Titzon Toast so has the restoration process made you want to do another.... "I know let you enjoy the prelude first"

So... Importing a 31 year old has its drawbacks, especially as mine was off the road for a long time, in the last month alone:

Battery. Sorted... After two batteries...

H4H bulbs (INSANELY INSANELY EXPENSIVE). Sorted.

Alternator (Had to refurb or else china special). Sorted.

Mental electrical issues after alternator (alarm, immobilizer, windows, locks just doing mental things). Sorted.

Transtop refurb due to gears missing teeth. Sorted.

Sourced full ms-design kit. Sorted(ish). Problems fitting rear because of where exhaust is mounted, work in progress.

Managed to get hold of dc2 type R spoiler. Sorted.

Full service.

That's what's done.

What's on the list for this week:

Either fuel pump has packed it in or I've a lump of turf stuck in my fuel filter. Hard to start and cuts out a lot. Car currently horrific to drive.

Sort rear ms-design splitter.

Finally install coilovers.

Hub conversion to get rid of ghastly wheels for something JDM.

Long term jobs give me a headache and hurt my bank balance so I'm not even making a list. That's it for now fot the littlest siR.

It's coming together but it's painful. Always seems like one step forward and two back. I hope it's worth it to have something unusual.

Seems to happen no matter how much fuel is in the tank. I've checked sparks, distributor, fuel filter and pump appears to be working. At this stage it's beyond what I can do.

Amount of fuel in the tank wont have an effect - the fuel sock is just there to filter the fuel that the pump is picking up. It’s gets gunked up and stops a regular flow of fuel.

After that I’d be clearing fuel lines, and finally injectors.

Changed a few bits on the car last night, just back from the shop now this morning and noticed I done my journey with a screwdriver left on the wiper trim panel 😄. That screwdriver is a keeper

This lot landed today. Should keep me busy for a few days at least.