Nissan Weekend #12

I think the last line in the previous post was almost an omen of things to come.

This was a very short "weekend" as we drove up Friday night and came home Saturday evening somewhat early. I managed about 5-6 hours of work time, although it seems a good deal of that time was mostly "busy work." I got started a bit after nine Saturday morning and wrapped things up around three or so that afternoon.

After numerous attempts, I was finally able to get the correct part from the dealer for that emission hose that I had fabricated on the last trip. I had also ordered the o-ring for the fuel pump cover and finally decided to order the entire cable assembly for the rear hatch/fuel door release. One small part of the cable was broken (and I'm pretty sure I broke it myself when we picked up the car in Waco); I had been trying to think of ways to "fix" it without buying a whole new cable, but when I noticed that the rather high price was for all three cables as well as the hinge (which caused the failure in the first place), I decided it was probably money well spent just to buy the full assembly. When I removed the fabricated emission hose and placed the new (correct) one in its place, I noticed that the entire fresh air intake assembly had shifted over slightly in order for the old (fabricated) one to fit. I probably would have been looking at one of the plastic sections breaking somewhere down the line from the stress had I simply left it the way it was.

...It's always nice when you realize that not cutting those corners will probably save you unnecessary money and trouble down the line.

Of course, the first order of business was to fix the fuel leak. I had hoped to be able to drop the fuel tank on one side and have the room to simply lift the pump assembly enough to slip the new o-ring into place. Although that hope turned out to be wishful thinking, dropping the entire tank really wasn't such a big deal the second time around. I thought it a bit amusing when my BIL said that as many times as I had had it out, I ought to be able to do it pretty fast! I found that amusing because I had only had the tank out of the car the one time when I first started the whole project. On the last trip, he had been with me when I removed the straps to drop the tank down a little bit, and was also there when I took off the muffler for more clearance/visibility; that isn't even close to removing the whole tank though. The filler hose business is actually the most time consuming part of the whole job since there are so many brackets and covers. I guess you could unhook the filler hose from the tank as long as you are willing to slosh gas all over yourself while you're jostling it. The muffler has one clamp and two hangers to remove; the straps are simply a nut on one side and a bolt for the other, then you turn them on their side to remove them (without an actual lift, that part is easier said than done though). I guess as a former professional, I always just get a kick out of how most people have a tendency to confuse which is the easy part and which is the more difficult (in actual practice).

Once the tank was sitting on the ground, I tightened the lines to the pump itself (just in case) and swapped the o-ring. I felt no need to try to check anything else or attempt starting the engine before putting everything back; since nothing was physically broken, there wasn't anything else TO be wrong. I had one little problem with the reinstall that I'm fairly sure will come back to bite me in the ass at a future date, but some things you just have to take in stride. It will never be a problem as long as the fuel pump is working, and it won't make a bit of difference otherwise. Once it was all back in, I pulled the wheel dollies and set it on the shop floor on it's actual tires for the first time since this whole project began.

Now that it was back on the ground again, I decided to tackle the "problem" with the timing that I had mentioned in the last post. I tried to bump the engine slowly to bring it to TDC (top dead center means number one piston all the way to the top of the block); I'm fairly sure there's a wire that needs to be grounded to disable the timing advance, so the timing light in and of itself wasn't as useful as I had hoped. It didn't take much bumping to figure out that I was indeed a tooth off on the distributor though. I had thought it was pretty odd that it would have been as far off of what it had been originally. Two screws, one bolt; it isn't as though there is anything remotely difficult about resetting it. I did learn one really interesting thing I wished that I had taken note of when I removed it though: where the distributor cap screws down on the distributor, the rotor should point directly at the right screw to be at TDC. It was all of a 15 minute setback, but it was still a "duhhhh" moment when I noticed how obvious it was. The engine still seems to have a very slight misfire after warming up to operating temp; I'm guessing it to be a vacuum leak somewhere, but it should be fine until I finish the paint and body work (I might hook up a vacuum gauge next time just to confirm). I really can't do any diagnostics until I actually take it on the road; the computer can't do a legitimate relearn cycle until it's actually been driven. I can tell that there is something (however slight) off; I doubt it would be enough to even affect the inspection though. JUST enough to annoy the hell out of me once I start driving it again though.

Once that part was out of the way, I basically just drove it outside for a wash job. I'm going to be having a few problems down the line a bit; I found that there are some pretty major leaks in the weather-stipping (or adjustment) of the rear hatch. Water actually began to pool up in the rear after washing it. Once again, I suppose that'll wait until the paint work is complete. I have a lot of reasonably inexpensive leads on that front; I'm simply choosing not to worry about them just yet. I'm still toying with a few ideas about the window seals (I know the drivers side is leaking); my heart nearly stopped when I found out that the rubber for the t-tops cost more than a freaking engine though! I have found some good forums, but forum posters tend to work in extremes. Overly simplistic vs overly anal with little middle ground; there are always alternatives that lie in between "spend a grand on new seals" and "rub brake fluid on it to expand the rubber" (also deteriorating the rubber).

The mere act of driving the car outside for the first time was cause for a lot of celebration though. I was washing it down when the sister and BIL came up the drive from town; the BIL started shooting one of his guns out the truck window when he saw the car outside (a Colt replica loaded with blanks, but still). Like I said the last time ...it was an impressive moment for the layman, but there wasn't a thing in the world (except maybe for the temperature) stopping me from driving it out last time had I really wanted to do it. There wasn't really THAT much stopping me from starting it on the Christmas trip either; I'd rather have have had it running reasonably well with ALL the parts connected rather than run like crap with only most of them. ...I'm just anal that way.

After the wash job, I thoroughly swept the shop floor where the car had been before pulling it back in (and took sarcastic advantage of the photo-op). I went to the house and got some Windex and went to town on all of the windows (inside and out), and even some of the body. After this was over with, it was mostly just busy work for the next hour or two. I took off both of the door panels and pulled the radio assembly out of the car, took off some of the rear body stuff (third brake light, reflectors; I started to remove the tail-lights but they were glued in a bit too tightly). Then I made a stack of things that I needed to take home with me, and put all my tools away.

...I think this was the first time that I hadn't thought far enough ahead that I really didn't have anything else planned to do if/when I ran out of time. I was really amazed at how clean the body was though; the only real damage is to the passenger side, and even that part is pretty minimal. I still have a bit of trepidation given my utter lack of experience in body work, but it was amazing how a mere washing could make such a huge difference in both the looks and how I'm viewing the "challenge" of fixing it.

I'm hoping that this will mean a downhill run from here out, but only time will tell. It's just nice to see a light at the end of a tunnel at long last.

Nissan Weekend #11

So it would appear that I'm finally into the double digits on my weekend(s) project; I'm of two minds about how this one went over though. As a former professional auto technician of 20 years, I don't personally feel as though I got a whole lot accomplished. From a layperson (and a disabled one at that) standpoint ...I suppose it was at least a mediocre accomplishment. The BIL seemed to think it was a VERY substantial weekend, but then he isn't as anal as I am about determining what qualifies as "progress."

I guess that the first notable thing to keep in mind is that I really wasn't all that up to working in the first place (I have doubts that I'm ever really all that up to it); since the death of my dad, I just haven't quite been all that "with it" for all the understandable reasons anyway. Although working is a good stress relief for me, I also have a body and mind that just won't quite keep up with my ambitions most of the time.

We made the trip up Friday evening, and I got to work Saturday morning. I spent a great deal of time simply puttering around; I didn't tell anyone there, but I'm fairly certain that BIL's best friend had used his shop since X-mas and cleaned up a little bit. Very nice thing to do, only none of the nuts and bolts for some of the parts that I had disassembled on his workbench were anywhere to be found. I wasted a fair bit of time searching, but didn't go too all out on it. I had been looking for bolts for the new catalytic converter at the parts house when it occurred to me that my Daewoo trunk was chock full of metric nuts and bolts; I had brought enough of a mix along that it seemed a bit futile to spend too much time looking for the original ones. I installed all of the exhaust, that headlamp motor I had burned out on the last trip, the rear wiper motor and I removed the rear spoiler while I was at it. I also cleaned out the glovebox (no mean feat) and removed it to bring home with me and see what I can do with its mysteriously malfunctioning latch.

Even on the Christmas weekend, I had two "mystery" vacuum lines (I wasn't quite sure where they went); I found where one of the two went at least. One of the things that I had forgotten to do was get vacuum hose and come up with a reasonable facsimile for that one oddball emission hose that the dealer had told me was no longer available (more on that later on). Basically I started out the morning with "little stuff" and even the execution of that was punctuated by another little problem. The BIL has had the shop for about three years, and he had yet to clean out the rain gutters ...and I believe he figured out they were totally clogged.

You have to sort of know me and my condition, but I have a problem with certain acoustical settings ...large places that echo give me a LOT of trouble (meaning my "dizziness" gets a lot more severe). Wal-Mart and Home Depot's are NOT friendly to my condition ...quite a few Target's do the "ceiling" rather than leaving the upper section with the "warehouse" feel ...and they seldom treat me as poorly. You kind of have to use your imagination with that in mind when you consider me in a large metal shop with somebody beating around on top cleaning out rain gutters. It was just after lunchtime when I realized that I was getting bad enough that I probably couldn't even have told you my own name; I also had enough done that about the only thing left was to either get busy on (finally) starting up the engine, or pull out the carpeting from the front section of the car.

It was a bit of a relief that I hadn't gotten the emission hose. I also needed vacuum line, but in a pinch I could have simply used the windshield washer hose for what I needed; actually ...I DID use it for two things until I found out a third needed a section large enough that cutting would have been required. It was a good excuse to get myself out of the large tin can that somebody was beating on the outside with a stick in any case though. I washed up and drove into town only to find that in itty-bitty towns like Winnsboro, the only parts house closes at noon on Saturdays. My first thought was that I might as well just drive to Sulpher Springs ...well over an hour out of my way, but when you need it, you need it.

The second thought that hit me was that I could probably find stuff that would work at a plain old hardware store. I actually went as far as to call the house to ask where the local hardware store was, but then it sort of occurred to me that a thorough search of the town proper would take approximately 5 minutes since it only consists of about eight blocks. I also seemed to recall having seen it in the downtown area during one of the parades somewhere down the line, and sure enough ...it took all of three minutes of driving to find it. I went in and was immediately surprised that in a town the size of Winnsboro, that the man who came over to assist set my "gaydar" off like a fire alarm; I had (sort of) joked that during the '08 elections about all of the McCain/Palin signs and a couple of curiously Obama/Biden shaped charcoal briquettes in a yard or two.

He kinda stood out in other words; the veritable "pink sheep" if you will.

He was a great deal of help in any case. I got some 1/2" rubber tubing for the emission hose and 1/8" for vacuum ...it wasn't really made for auto application, and I have a bit of doubt that it will handle the heat, but with a couple 90 degree angle elbows for the emission hose I was good to go; and for less than four bucks to boot. When I got back to the shop, the BIL had just finished with cleaning the shop gutters, so I counted myself fortunate in timing.

I got back to work and installed the vacuum lines (and restored the washer hoses to their rightful places), then fashioned the emission hose. The hose ...uhhhm ...worked. It was just a touch too long, but I still managed to cram it into place; I had to use clamps to hold the center section together, but not much could make it even attempt to budge the side hookups even un-clamped. I'm thinking I'll be trying to find the CORRECT one again at the dealer; why in the world the dealer has three part numbers for the identical part on the three "types" I have no idea (types= turbo, non-turbo, 2+2). I tried to order once before and they simply ordered the wrong part; they've discontinued two of the three part numbers that are the same part (if that sounds a bit confusing, it's only because it is), so they gave up when the non-turbo showed discontinued. The clear rubber tubes I got at the hardware store look like they might be affected by the heat, so I may go ahead and spring for some "real" vacuum hose while I'm at it. The main thing at this point was that the engine was at last ready to try to fire up.

The good news is that I was able to tell by the pitch of the noise from the fuel pump exactly when it was primed and ready. With my foot all the way on the gas, the engine actually fired up very quickly; only problem was that it DIED just as quickly as it started. I hadn't really expected that it would be easy to start ...one of the bad things about the Nissan's in those early days of computers was the computer relearn procedure. When I left it sitting for long enough for the battery to go totally dead, it would never run right until it ran through the relearn process ...and that always meant babying it until it started idling on its own. Now with a freshly rebuilt engine, I wasn't really able to tell the difference between an essentially new engine not wanting to start, and what/where the problem was. AND I developed another problem in the process: a fuel leak at the gas tank.

The BIL came out after a while ...I had already taken the muffler back off and dropped one side of the tank down, but it took his coming out to actually find where the leak was: on the seal for the fuel pump cover. We tried a few things, and I still don't know WHY it's leaking instead of just stinking (it's at the exact top of the tank ...with only 5 gallons of gas, it shouldn't be leaking at all, though "smelling of gas" is a common complaint when that particular seal goes bad); end result is the same though ...it needs a new o-ring that conveniently didn't come with the new (two hundred and fifty fucking dollar) pump. We eventually made it stop leaking by taking off the gas cap and relieving the pressure, but it'll still need to be fixed unless I want to drive it with the gas-cap off (which is pretty much illegal everywhere).

Between all the cranking and the trying to fix the fuel leak, it literally took hours to get the car to finally idle on it's own ...even though it did sound as though it was only running on about three cylinders when it finally did. I suspected from all the backfiring that it was a timing issue, but it was running so poorly that it died every time I just looked at it wrong until it finally made it to operating temperature. I finally got it stable enough that I was able to start adjusting the distributor ...and after around three hours just getting it to idle at ALL, it took about three minutes to get it idling WELL. The main problem at this point is that the distributor is way off what it was before rebuilding the engine, which leaves me with a few questions. BIL nor I had a timing light that would work, so I wasn't able to check it any way but by ear. The distributor is all the way at the opposite end of its range of adjustment, so I may have to remove it and see if I can move it across one tooth if the light shows it to still be out of time. Problem there is that it may throw it out the OTHER direction; it may just be that way until the engine wears in a little bit too though. My gut feeling is that I'm going to need to try to move the distributor back one tooth, but for the present purposes it's running ...and running pretty WELL at that!

BIL was ecstatic ...I was feeling a little bit let down. Back in my "prime" I probably could have had it running in less than an hour; with a fully equipped shop (and maybe my old toolbox), the whole days work might have taken three hours. I felt like I hadn't gotten much accomplished, but it was still pretty nice just to hear the thing running again after all this time. There was no big rush on leaving the next morning, so we just called it quits for the night then.

The next morning was a mixed thing as well. As it turns out, the carpeting is likely to be a lot more "involved" than what I had hoped it would be ...there was a pretty good deal of stuff that had to be taken off to get the old out ...the driver's side was completely saturated with brake fluid from the previously leaking clutch master cylinder, the drivers seat track was rusted beyond belief. The seat anchor stud's nut was so rusted that the nut was literally peeling apart; if I had been a betting man, I never would have thought it would have come off without cutting. I soaked it with penetrating oil and beat an impact socket onto it; sure enough, it ripped the sides off the second I zapped it with the impact. I went down two sizes and beat THAT socket on and zapped it with the impact: honestly ..my initial thought was that the stud broke, but what was left of the nut actually came right off! When the carpet finally came up and out, there wasn't a bit of rust damage on the actual floorboard. Of course, when the carpet actually came out ...I also found that I couldn't have been much further off on the color of the carpet. I really need to take the swatches and compare again now that it's out, but I think I'll be okay regardless.


We got the carpet out and side-by-side, and BIL talked me into what I had honestly thought all along ...that I needed to wait until LAST thing to put the carpeting in. My main reason for changing my mind was that since the self-destruction of my Daewoo ...I probably need to have the Z READY to drive just in case. Now that it's actually running again, I'm thinking that I'm not really in a different "boat" with the carpet in or out ...if I HAD to drive it, I still could. When the body work is done is the time to put the carpeting in though; I guess I just needed someone else to state what I already knew. I did go ahead and remove the seat tracks, sanded them and gave them a good coat of rustoleum. I'll need to be sure to check the passenger seat, but I think I would have remembered if it would have been anywhere near as bad. It also had no reason to have the paint peel off since it wasn't saturated in brake fluid.

So the numero eleven weekend was mostly just getting some minor accessories put in, the carpet taken out, and now it's running again. On one hand it doesn't sound like a lot, but on another ...I can't complain about the results. I figure the next trip will be simply fixing the fuel leak, and then DRIVING it out (for the first time in nearly 4 years!) and giving it one of the most thorough exterior wash jobs ever; it's all mostly cosmetic from here out. It will probably seem like taking steps backward when I start pounding out dents and adding bondo and primer; I guess if one were to go by looks ...the next trip will probably LOOK the most productive of all of them to date though.

...even if it really is just going to amount to a car wash. *snicker*