cobby's na6

[NitroDann]

Nah it wont because the white flakes off the undercoat, not the paint and undercoat off the body, so its still protected.

Dann

[cobby]

First ACTUAL issue this car has presented to me so far: it over heated twice today...

Going to try a bit of diagnosis tomorrow, as well as replace the radiator cap.

I'll do that first and then drain the coolant and test the radiator for flow.
If that's okay, I'll move onto the thermostat. If not, it's not doing to Brisbane tomorrow like I planned haha (got dealership training down there for the week).

I'll pull the thermostat out and test that in some boiling water somehow. If it doesn't open, it's not going back in. I'll just run no thermostat until I get paid next week, grab one from a repco in archerfield and chuck it in down there. I may just take the thermostat out and leave it out anyway, just depends on if I can be bothered testing it or not haha.

I'll post how I go tomorrow night.

[cobby]

So this morning I was dreading what was thought to be ahead for the day. I had to sort the cooling issue, clean up all my parts for the inspection tomorrow, clean my room and then pack my sh*t and get to Brissy by like 6pm. Not a massive task but sounded big at the time lol.

First up, went down the Auto1 and got my self a radiator cap, because I knew it would quite possibly be the issue and it was the only thing I could afford haha. Took the old cap off out the front of Auto1 and had a look at the seal, pretty much the same as the tappet cover gasket haha, so brittle and all cracked and gross. I chucked the new cap on and went home, with a couple of 7k rpm runs at lights to try and replicate the conditions from yesterday. I got home and temp was still good. This was a pretty big relief because it meant that I DIDN'T have to take the radiator out and test it, nor the thermostat.

Fast forward to now, I'm in Archerfield now and the 5 didn't miss a beat. So stoked that it cost me $12 to fix haha. And absolutely stoked that there's no signs of engine damage from it over heating.

Also updates involving new sh*t will probably be next to none, as a few mates and I are now saving up to go to Japan for a drift heaven week, including drift matsuri and hopefully a car to bring back here.

[cobby]

Old radiator cap:

[cobby]

So it's been a while since the last update, and things have been pretty good so far...sort of

Since I replaced the radiator cap, it ran pretty good until it started to overheat whilst waiting for another mate. Not sure what caused this because it was only idling on a fairly cold night, the fan works too. Hasn't done it since though.

After that, everything was all sweet again until last Friday afternoon, coming back from the Mazda training centre in Brisbane, diff said no.

Earlier in the week, I started to hear an unusual noise I hadn't heard before. Only way I can describe it would be like minor tyre noise, except only under engine brakes right through the reve range until about 2000rpm when the load isn't there anymore. Acceleration and coasting was fine. I got it up on the hoist at the training centre on Tuesday and felt the pinion had some play in it (moving the drive shaft up and down at the diff, shouldn't be any movement) but I just decided to keep an eye on it and make sure the noise didn't get any worse. It didn't, right up until I left to go back home on Friday.

Half way along Kessels Road, a couple of k away from the Gateway Motorway, I felt something through the floor pan. Turned the music down and sure enough, massive clunking sound coming from the drivetrain somewhere. I originally thought it was coming from the gearbox. At that point I thought to myself, "oh, I'll just see how it goes on the way home."

Got onto the Gateway and about a k up the road I just HAD to pull over, the noise was getting slightly louder and I knew that a noise like that wouldn't last an hour and a half up the motorway lol.

After I pulled over I had a quick look underneath to see if anything was hitting on anything but no good. I knew at this stage that it was going to be something internal. About 200m up the road there was an emergency stopping bay, and another 500m or so from that was the Old Cleveland Road exit. I thought, "Oh, I'll just get off at Old Cleveland Road and make some calls."
It was as I went to merge back onto the Gateway that the symptoms became so obvious. When the wheels were moving, the car would jam up and then go again, like 2 gears were grabbing together. Now being 90% sure of what had happened, I rolled down the hill to the emergency stopping bay, feeling every clunk.

I jacked up one wheel and turned the driveshaft in neutral to see if what I thought was right, and sure enough, every 3-4 turns of the driveshaft (from what I can remember, it may have been more often) it wouldn't do anything to the wheel. Which means that there was nothing there in one spot to drive the wheel. This means that either the crown wheel or the pinion gear are missing teeth. I then got a free tow to the nearest servo and got Dad to come and tow me home with a trailer. He's getting used to towing me I think haha. Not good though lol.

Last night I drained the diff oil and there was a tooth sitting in the drain hole, and the oil was metallic as sh*t, so I got the magnet in there to eventually pull out this:


Tonight I got the diff out, tomorrow night I'll separate it and see what's actually happened.

The car as it currently sits:


Here's some instructions in case this happens to you:

1. Get it on stands, take the rear wheels off, and you will need a 19mm, 17mm, 14mm and a 12mm socket, preferably impact if you're using a rattle gun like me, also a 14mm spanner.

2. Using the 14mm socket and the spanner, remove the upper wishbone from the rear hub on each side:



3. Unbolt the two half-shafts from the axle drives:



4. Unbolt the PPF brace from the diff and the gearbox and use a pry bar or something to slide it sideways off the box. There's a little dowel thing that one of the bolts runs through in the diff that will have to come out as well for it to come off the diff. Note the 3 bolt holes in the second pic. It may be a little stubborn if it hasn't been removed in a while:



5. Unbolt the driveshaft. Try not to let it slip all the way out of the gearbox otherwise you'll be covered in oil haha. If you don't have a rattle gun to do this or the half shafts, you'll need to get something long and straight to wedge between the shaft and one of the bolts to stop it from turning. A second pair of hands will help if you do it that way:


6. Unhook the 3 rearmost exhaust mounts and let it hang there, you'll need to do this to give the diff enough room to come all the way out

7. Get a trolley jack and use it to support the diff so it doesn't fall on you as you undo the last few bolts:


8. Undo these 3 bolts on each side, making sure the diff is being supported as you undo the last one. These are the ones on the diff hangers/arms, which go down to the housing:


9. Once all that's done, you should be able to wriggle the diff around as you lower it to get it out. I had to pull the diff to one side to clear the exhaust as well, once it was lowered a bit.

It only took me an hour and I've never taken a diff out before. That's also including the time it took me to realise that I was going to have to lower the exhaust to get it out. A little common sense goes a long way ;)

It's gonna be a little while before I can afford another diff, so I'm just taking this one apart because I can. I'll update tomorrow some time when I've got it all apart and know exactly what the problem is. In the mean time, I'll be removing all the suspension arms and cleaning everything up, because I can and there isn't really a better time than now to do it.

Cheers,
cobby.

[NitroDann]

For the tailshaft, I usually put it in gear to keep it still, and take it out to turn it between bolts. Yes its a long process.

Dann

[cobby]

For the tailshaft, I usually put it in gear to keep it still, and take it out to turn it between bolts. Yes its a long process.

Dann

Maybe a long way to do it but it's a great idea if no one else is around

Cobby

[cobby]

Here's some pics of inside the diff, nasty sh*t right here:



Got bored tonight so I thought I'd have a crack at chucking in a stereo with a CD player. This one's a double din unit from a Nissan Patrol. Little bit of a mission but I'm getting there. I've had to take the stereo apart so I can drill into the side plates so I can still use the original brackets from the MX5. I've got the holes drilled so now I've just gotta get some nuts from Bunnings tomorrow after work. Once I can fix those brackets into place I can wire it in. I might ring around tomorrow morning to see if anyone has the connectors for it so I can make up a patch harness.

Where it's at now:


How it should look like:


Holes drilled and brackets dummy-mounted, might have to "adjust" the holes a bit so it lines up nicely:


And this is one plate drilled vs one that isn't:


Here's hoping it looks decent when it's done, and I'll finally have a cd player haha.

You might be wondering why...it was free so why not haha

[cobby]

Okay the stereo didn't work. Wired in the constant, the ignition and the earth and fried it haha. I've got a feeling that because I soldered wires directly to the back of the unit that some solder may have been shorting across 2 of the terminals at the bottom of the plug. Ehh, who cares.


Onto more important things:

After the "audio install" failed, I decided to take out the seats to clean underneath them. A wild Nokia appears. It was a pretty old one, 60-something something. Still had a sim card in it too! Among other things, more money and such, happened to be evidence of more rust. Oh damn it. Took the driver's seat out and same deal. Just where the carpet has been cut out for the seat mount holes is where you could see it. Had a little peak underneath the carpet and it didn't look pretty. Job's on.





Here's some tasty dust where the seat belt used to be...


All that was last night. So today, I was thinking, and I've decided on ditching what I don't need from the interior. Will also be obviously getting rid of all this rust and respraying inside. We all know pure white interiors are sexy ;) Turns out to get the carpet out properly, it's dash out too. Ughhh. This is before I started:


Half way there:




As it sits now:








Some close ups of the rust:










Also, through my endeavors to find other bolts for the dash, I discovered this:


When I first saw it, I was wondering if there was gonna be any metal left underneath because it was all bunched up in the corner lol.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. Plan is for Sunday to get rid of the rust, and next week buy some dry ice and get cracking on the sound deadening (no pun intended )

[PaulF]

So today, I was thinking, and I've decided on ditching what I don't need from the interior.

Cue NitroDann, telling you that you don't really need any of it.

[cobby]

I'm waiting for it haha

[cobby]

So after I got back from Matsuri I didn't do anything on the car, but the next morning I woke up just as some people were leaving our house. Turns out they bought Mum and Dad's Rav4. It sold for more than what they expected too which was nice for them, times have been tough lately. Anyway, on Monday, Mum and Dad told me that because they had the extra money from the rav selling, they could afford to loan me some money for the diff. Stoked! Sort of. Meant that I'd be back on the road and away from the buses once more, but then again, I'd be back in debt to them, once more.
It came to me that I had no way of getting to Brisbane next week for trade school. So that pretty much settled it. Dad went and picked me up a wet weather LSD from MX5+ yesterday while I hit my boss up to fit it at work. Bit of a hassle to do it at work because it meant a trailer to get it there as well as paying for my own labour (my work is pretty stingy like that) to do it. The only reason I did it this way and not at home is so I could get it to count towards the driveline competency for my apprenticeship.

Did that this arvo and it's back! 1 seat and all! Drove it home and everything seems okay, except I didn't have a taco, the headlights didn't go up and my passenger side window didn't work.
Room fuse is blown also but I think I'll leave that out to save the radio wires from shorting should the tape come off.

Got home and sat down for a bit, had dinner and what not. Went out to tackle these problems. First thing I did was check fuses. Only found the room fuse blown so didn't worry so much about that. Busted out the old multimeter and did some quick checks. Tested the resistance in the motor, that was fine. Checked to see if I was getting power to the motor, nothing. Had a quick look at the switch itself and everything seemed fine there. Went back to the motor and started tracing the wires back. Bingo! I forgot about the 2 connectors on the left side of the dash, just in behind where the glovebox was when I refitted the dash. Just so happened to be the ones I was chasing. So now the only thing that doesn't work are the useless interior lights, which wouldn't light up 2/5ths of F*** all. Decided to get rid of an annoying rattle that has been there since I've had the car. The left hand headlight rattles like a bitch at idle so I had a look at it and the headlight clamp ring doesn't hold the new headlight in properly, not as tighter fit as the other one which looks like an original headlight. If you haven't been following, I replaced the LH headlight to pass the roadworthy.

Electrical tape around the outside of the lens where the clamp ring goes and wallah! Dead quiet. WIN!

Here's how the inside looks now:







Some of the rust that got taken out:






Also picked this little bad boy up from Charlie (cheers! good to meet you by the way) at Matsuri on the weekend, should have it in this weekend:


16mm Whiteline adjustable rear stabiliser.

[Jace]

Did you sand or wire-wheel that rust before you converted it?

Always a good idea to actually remove as much of it as you can before applying a rust stopping convertor type product.

There's rust stopping paint made by Por-15 that aircooled VW guys swear by for stopping rust forever, if you don't mind the floor being black (i think they make grey too).

I like this thread, good to see someone getting stuck in.

[cobby]

Did you sand or wire-wheel that rust before you converted it?

Always a good idea to actually remove as much of it as you can before applying a rust stopping convertor type product.

There's rust stopping paint made by Por-15 that aircooled VW guys swear by for stopping rust forever, if you don't mind the floor being black (i think they make grey too).

I like this thread, good to see someone getting stuck in.

I used a wire wheel on the grinder, so much quicker than sanding for rust removal. I've also got some mini wire brushes for the tight spots.

I'll look into that paint. Do you know if you can paint over it? If so, I'll definitely get some. If not I'll probably just use etch primer and filler. I'm planning to have a snow white interior.

[Jace]

I used a wire wheel on the grinder, so much quicker than sanding for rust removal. I've also got some mini wire brushes for the tight spots.

I'll look into that paint. Do you know if you can paint over it? If so, I'll definitely get some. If not I'll probably just use etch primer and filler. I'm planning to have a snow white interior.

It needs proper sanding prep but it only needs to be brushed on (so not too great if you're worried about the finish), it's been keeping VW floorpans solid for decades.

It's pretty expensive though, probably is better than other products.