dylspil

been preparing the engine bay for paint this week. drilled out the holes to mount the amphenol plug through the firewall and removed one of the oem radiator mount brackets, then primed the areas. test mounted the radiator and found that the oem bracket should work, but i may have to widen the holes to attach the bushing thing to slide it to the a little way from the oem position



next i decided to test mount the hood so i could align the hood brackets and install them before painting. looking like my rust repair job under the right side hinge will hold up just fine. headlights are a bit out of alignment up/downwards because i only had the 2 upper bolts securing them in





once i was happy with the alignment i tightened down the hinge bolts and then removed all the panels again. next came a full wet sand of the primer sealer to prepare for paint. once everything was dry i wiped it all down so that i could seal the hinges to the body and fill a few other small gaps in the engine bay that i missed before laying down the primer sealer earlier this year.



all ready for paint, should be getting the colour mixed up tomorrow morning and hopefully spray over the weekend

can anyone help me out identifying what this bolt hole is used for, if anything? i know all what all the other ones on the back of the block are for, apart from the one circled in red. as far as i can see i dont need it for anything, but just making sure

dylspil

front end of car is now in paint! had good weather for it yesterday so i wiped down the car and masked it all up ready to spray. i've started seeing a few cars of similar colour online recently but i've never seen any like it around my area, and i've wanted a variation of this colour for years now.

paint before mixing.


3 coats of base colour and then 4 coats of clear over the top while still wet, looking pretty good for a diy job so far. i've had a good look over the car today in the daylight and found a few little spots that i will touch up but nothing major. i should be able to do that quickly with a fine paintbrush later this week maybe.





next up is the brush on sound deadener. i'll try to get around to that this week also

Yume_Cars

Nice Job with the restoration so far can't wait to see the finished product

dylspil

thanks mate, same here

dylspil

been pretty lazy over the last few days but still managed to touch up the engine bay paint with a small brush in all the areas that the spray gun couldnt reach. it's all looking good now, very happy with the result. i'll most likely leave it as is until dropping the engine in, then see if i feel like sanding back the obvious parts a bit and spraying more clear coat to really shine it up.

yesterday i decided to apply the brush on sound deadener stuff where it was needed. applied it to both front wheel wells, and the lower portion of the firewall which came out looking really good i think.
pretty messy job as i forgot to wear gloves, but by the time i realised it was too late to worry about putting them on, so i probably spent about 20 minutes cleaning my hands with thinners last night haha.



back to studying for me on monday so updates wont be coming all that fast or often, but i'm hoping to get working on the wiring side of things next.

Josip.

Great progress.

dylspil

thanks!

dylspil

got a few things in the mail recently, with some more bits and pieces still on the way.

turbosmart boost gauge


nrg shorthub and 2.5 quick release kit. didnt really need the nrg stuff, but found an australian seller on ebay doing these at a good discount and with free postage. also some dress up bolts for the engine bay

austenjanzen

Looks awesome keep it up

dylspil

thanks for the support

BoRiCuA

Wow!! Crazy Insanely Done!! luv it

doozyj

Bookmarked!

dylspil

thanks guys

sorry for lack of updates. a few more parts have come in and i've got started on the wiring loom but not too much more progress lately.
i'll try to get online to post some more pics sometime in the next few years haha

650_crx

Very nice build, jealous of all the cars outside of the U.S.

dylspil

finished university for this year, only one semester to go now until i'm done for good. barely touched the crx since my last post over a month ago, but have got a few more parts ready to go.

15mm laser cut mild steel flanges, and extended exhaust manifold studs with elliptical locking nuts



cheap catch can, and new RTA bushings


turbosmart wastegate and bov with v-band flanges. long way off fitting these yet but got them at good sale prices so couldn't pass them up



now i'm on holidays i'll be putting a lot of time into the crx as well as general maintenance and a few small things on the silvia. first thing i'm aiming to do is convert the power steering rack to manual so i can then fit the new tie rod ends and reinstall the subframe and all suspension and get the car back on the ground.

GrantMC2

Nice progress mate

dylspil

thanks!

yesterday i did the steering rack modifications without any real issues. new inner and outer tie rod ends are going in today so i should be able to move on to something else tomorrow and post up some more pics soon

dylspil

so i got the steering rack converted (i think) and installed along with a bunch of other small things. for the power to manual rack conversion i basically followed the combination of a few different how-to articles around the place and decided to do it by completely disassembling and cleaning all the rack internals, removing the piston ring from the rack, greasing everything up, putting it all back together, and filling the power steering line fittings with some gasket maker. not too sure how the gasket maker will hold, but we'll see. it's not like anything is going to leak out if they fail.

the disassembly process





all cleaned up with the piston ring removed


the fittings filled up and reinstalled


now one thing i forgot to take pics of, something i've read that happens when people do this conversion is a bit of slack in the steering where there is a dead spot of a few degrees where the steering wheel begins to turn but doesnt engage the rack. this is caused by the dowel pin sort of thing you can see in the second picture of this post, as twisting the input shaft of the rack produces a small rotational movement in that pin, but i suppose this effect would be dampened in a fluid-filled power steering rack. i've seen people custom make block off plates that secure this pin but i couldnt be bothered to do that so i attempted to make a sort of bushing that fills the gap between the pin and the bore it sits in, so as of now it feels like there is no slack when turning the input shaft which is great. again hopefully this holds up

all bolted up to the rear crossmember, also installed new inner and outer tie rods and boots

dylspil

quick pic of an after/before of the upgraded calipers during cleaning to prep for paint. the right hand caliper is the before, really doesnt show how filthy these were to begin with


these were disassembled and painted a basic gloss black, im not really into flashy red or yellow calipers etc. I was debating getting a set of black wilwood front brakes but decided that would probably be overkill


engine bay with the booster, master cylinder, front hardlines and rear subframe all installed. also have put the prop valve in but didnt grab a picture of that. I plan to do the rear brakes after getting the front end together so the master will still need bleeding and reinstalling before i tighten it all down and connect it to the prop valve.


front braided brake lines installed. didnt realise at the time i must have been sent the wrong set - length and fittings are good but mounting brackets are all wrong. not a big issue so i dont mind.


it's all coming together. upper and lower control arms, coilovers, knuckles and calipers all loosely fitted up making this start to look like a car again. i decided to leave the lower balljoints and wheel bearings alone since i couldnt see anything wrong with them. i've got the new balljoints already but i'll just see how these ones go and replace the lot when the time comes.

SIR-G Amp

Looks awesome! Excited to see this thing finished. I modeled my CRX after the SiR, I just wish I had a real one. lol

-Amp

dylspil

thanks mate, haha yeah a real one is nice but generally expensive and tough to find parts for.

dylspil

got the traction bar in and torqued everything down that i could, minus the parts that need to be loaded before torquing.


decided to have a look in the gearbox to see if anything needs attention. completely standard jdm Y1 non-lsd box, never opened as far as i can tell. oil was changed maybe 10,000km ago but before that i've got no idea when it would have been looked at. since i've had the car it's had the typical 3rd gear grind at higher rpms, and a noise from the input shaft bearing or throwout bearing. I've tried to clean the visible parts of the box over the years when detailing the engine bay but this thing is still filthy


opened it up and saw this before i started pulling it apart


checked over the shift rod assembly and the gear teeth and everything looked in pretty good condition externally, there would surely be some issues with the 3-4 synchro assembly but i'm not going to the trouble of replacing those at this stage, can't really justify spending the money at the moment.
pulled out the main and countershafts and saw the culprit of all that debris on the magnet. new input shaft bearing and seal ordered the same day.


might be a week or more until i get the new bearing and seal, but apart from those bits i'm just going to clean everything up and put it back together ready to bolt on to the motor.
in the meantime i've started focusing on the cabin wiring and obd0-obd1 conversion harness

ssmrico

wow awesome progress very clean!

Bently_Coop

I see you've already painted and started assembling stuff.

Will you only be using the one bracket for the radiator? I rece purchased some ASR lower mounts with bushings that may also work for you.

Keep up the progress and great work so far.

dylspil

thanks!

yeah this is the best bit, putting it back together is a lot more rewarding than taking it apart
I was just going to use the standard top and bottom mounts. the bushings dont seem in too bad a shape, however if you've got a link for the ASR bits i'll definitely have a look