Popular Post fuel Posted December 11, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 11, 2017 Long time no update etc. Now that I live in Canada I've been doing a bit of shopping from North American sellers, and will eventually send it all home to NZ in the future. Have bought: - Whiteline 26mm adjustable rear sway bar - Evo 8 AFM, Injectors, ECU, loom adapter and plug in tablet to update the fuel management side - HKS elbow + refurbished throttle body with new seals that has been bored out to 63mm - Evo 9 Bilstein front and rear struts - AMG grille and new Depo orange corner indicators 16 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted April 11, 2022 Author Share Posted April 11, 2022 has been a while - still have this (obvs). I only got around to chucking on the AMG grill and amber corner lamps - the HKS TB elbow had a temp sensor hole drilled into the underside and ideally it needed a proper bung welded in so it doesn't leak. Ran out of time to chuck in the Bilsteins but still need to figure out how to mount the ABS sensor cable and brake line bracket onto those struts as they don't have the same mounting brackets as the original struts. Did end up having to refurbish the brakes though, put it through a WOF and it failed on the rotors being below min thickness and pads low which I knew about so already had some EBC yellow stuff and new rotors all round sitting there waiting to do the job. Problem is once I compressed the pistons in on both the front calipers at least one of the pistons per caliper started to get stuck. There was some gross yuckyness inside the calipers (but not rust). I ended up rebuilding the calipers with new seals, and then when it came time to bleed them back up both of the front lower rubber hoses had blockages in them so ended up fitting braided lines. This thing was fighting me every step of the way basically haha. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post fuel Posted April 11, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 11, 2022 Thankfully the original pistons cleaned up good with no pitting etc 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post fuel Posted April 11, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 11, 2022 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted December 22, 2022 Author Share Posted December 22, 2022 Rear brakes were also renewed at the same time, but only got around to swapping on the braided brake hoses this visit Also replaced some bushings in the gearbox side linkages with custom machined bronze bushings, made a bit of an improvement reducing play in the shifter. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted December 22, 2022 Author Share Posted December 22, 2022 Also finally fitted the Whiteline 26mm rear sway bar that has been sitting on a shelf for 5 years, was a bit of a mission to get it out with the subframe in place. I dropped it down about 2 inches as the handbrake cables, ABS sensor wires, 4WS fluid lines etc were connected and couldn't be bothered disconnecting it all. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted March 9, 2023 Author Share Posted March 9, 2023 After driving this thing the ~1200km to nats and back it went largely without issues, blew off an intercooler hose while four up passing a car which was mildly inconvenient, and I stupidly left a 10mm spanner on the clutch slave bleed screw which made it all the way from Taumarunui to Marahau - cheers to @Cullen for spotting that cause I wouldn't have for a while, prob not until I was back haha. Just some maintenance updates really - swapped out the clutch slave yet again because it seems the previous one I fitted ~5 years ago was wrong all along (thanks Rockauto) and that was what was causing my shifting issues as the clutch wasn't fully disengaging. The bleeder screw on the correct unit is in a much more difficult spot to access so no more accidentally leaving a 10mm spanner hanging off it again. I've also had some new driveshaft hanger bearings and uni joints that I got off trademe yonks ago for like $50 that I've been meaning to get around to swapping out. There is a noise in the drivetrain somewhere which has been driving me crazy for the entire time I've had the car, it is hard to pinpoint where it is coming from but it sounds like metal on metal scraping and can generally hear it above 50km/h especially when the windows are down, to me it sounds like it's coming from the left hand side but mostly because the noise reflects back off things like houses and parked cars which are typically closer to the left side. Figured I may as well start with rebuilding the driveshaft and then work my way through process of elimination rebuilding or renewing things along the way. I know it's not the wheel bearings or ABS sensors because they checked out fine when I did the brakes, reckon it has to be a driveshaft bearing, front driveshaft hanger bearing, transfer case, rear diff or gearbox. Pulled the original shaft out and got the new parts ready Mark the sections so it remains balanced and joints in sync 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted March 9, 2023 Author Share Posted March 9, 2023 Rear section was the first to be split, was easy enough to undo the nut and pull the flange and old hanger bearing off. I struggled at home with a vice and g-clamp for ages trying to press out the old uni joints and then had enough and took the lot down to my local workshop, thankfully my mate there is a GC and let me press them out myself 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted March 9, 2023 Author Share Posted March 9, 2023 Got them home ready to reassemble Can see the originals had sagged and rubber perished, not that I heard or felt any thumping while accelerating, though there was a bit of noise and vibrations on deaccel but think that's the rear diff More grease in the lobro joint (didn't bother replacing this or even the boot because it seemed in good nick still) 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post fuel Posted March 9, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2023 Married the pieces all back together And gave it a lick of rustkill paint as the original paint was flaking off and starting to surface rust up pretty bad so wanted to keep that at bay. Just waiting on the paint to dry before I refit and find out if it made any difference or not. 16 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post fuel Posted March 9, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2023 Found in my stash some new driveshaft bolts/washers/nuts and gearbox/transfer case oil fill bolts I must have ordered new years ago and forgot about Driveshaft back in with new hardware installed - shame no one will see my handy work. Can see the abovementioned new clutch slave sans 10mm spanner And.... the noise is still there. I have a spare transfer case think I will swap it in and see if it makes a difference. The original transfer case had a leak which there was a recall out to fix the leak (which comes from the driveshaft yoke rather than the transfer case itself). The recall applied to Japan and the US but of course not used imports into NZ. I got a 'recall kit' some years ago which included the yoke, first uni joint and tailshaft seal and swapped them on which sorted the leak but am thinking maybe damage was done if it got a bit too low in oil. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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