The Boring Cars of KwS

[tomble]

Somewhat off topic but I'd totally contribute to a leaf thread.

Swapping leaf engines into things is a thing.

Swapping non-leaf engines into leafs is a thing.

Upgrading leaf components and hacking them to go faster is a thing.

 

 They also work great for riling up your backwards racist uncle at the family bbq  

[87creepin]

Onleafans.co.ng 

[kws]

In my quest to not spend any money and do nothing on the Leaf, I spent money and did stuff on the Leaf. Yeah.

In my defence, part of it is maintenance, and part of it is stuff I had in the garage already.

A local EV part supplier was having a sale on a "Leaf Bundle" so I decided to grab one. It included a cabin filter, two front strut caps, and a LeLink OBD2 dongle for Leafspy.

The strut caps were pretty easy. I removed the two covers on the cowl

Which gives access to the strut tops. One of mine was in good shape but drowning in water, so I dried it out, buzzed the rust on the top with a wire brush, coated it in WD40 and fitted the cap

The caps are nicely shaped and 3D printed, designed to snap into the lugs in the center of the top mount. They completely cover the whole top mount, so there is little chance of water pouring into them

The other side was a bit crustier, so I dried it out and gave it a good scrub with a wire brush, before again soaking it in WD40 and capping it off.

Next, since the bonnet was open, I moved on to fitting some LEDs. On this car, the low beam is some fancy and really good at night LED setup, which is very crisp white. Nissan paired these up with normal yellow park light bulbs

I had some T10 LEDs already, so popped the big cap off the side of the lamp

Which gives access to the park light bulb holder

This rotates counterclockwise to remove the holder and bulb

The bulb then just pulls out. After test fitting and checking the polarity of the LED was correct, it was refitted

The results are rather obvious. They blend in with the low beam LEDs much better

In theory, they should use a little less power too. So, you know, savings. Eco.

The interior was treated to some LEDs too, for more eco-savings

The one in the boot didn't miss out either

Serial killer cold white, of course, for maximum SPACE AGE feels (not just because that's what I happen to have).

Moving along, next up was to set up the LeLink adaptor and fiddle with Leafspy Pro.

So my SOH is 71.56%, a bit lower than the 75% I was hoping it was, but shouldn't be an issue. The battery seems to be pretty well balanced too, with a low voltage differential of 17mV. Obviously previous owners haven't done a lot of quick charging either, as in 108,000km it's done 173 of those.

The other thing I wanted Leafspy for was to convert the language in the dash display to English from Japanese. The media unit was already converted by the previous owner. A quick and easy change in the advanced settings and everything was in English. Very easy to do, and almost worth the cost of the Pro app alone. People charge $80 for this service.

Finally, I had a nice replacement cabin filter that needed to find its way into the dash. This was a real pain in the bum, to be honest. I had seen a couple of videos about replacing them, so wanted to try the through-the-glovebox option first.

There is a little door at the back of the glovebox, that is removed with a gentle tug

With it removed, you can access the filter cover. This doesn't line up with the opening you just created, it is further back in the dash

There is a clip on the top which I lifted to remove the cover

With the cover removed, I grabbed the filter and started to manhandle it out of its home. It liked its home, it really didn't want to be removed.

It turns out, that the filter is much bigger than the opening, and needs to be crushed to fit through it. I got the filter half way out, but then the glovebox was in the way. Only one thing to do then. Remove all these screws

Remove this panel by popping it free and wiggling it out towards the rear of the car. The fusebox lives here btw. This might even be an optional step, I'm not sure.

And then with some wiggling and jiggling from both ends of the glovebox, pop the clips free and remove it. Dont forget to unplug the glovebox light from the top, if fitted

This gives ample room to access the half-removed filter

Once removed, this is the front door to its house

The new filter goes in the same way the old one came out, with brute force. You kinda squish each end to fit it in and then it pops out to fill the cavity inside the box

The cover then pops back into place

The old filter wasn't too bad, based on service stickers, it looks like it was replaced a couple of years ago, but it did have a kind of earthy musty smell which I'm glad to get rid of

Refit the glovebox, and all the screws, and you're done.

So far I've been really enjoying the little Leaf. It's a funny little appliance. It can be fast, faster than people expect, but it also likes to be driven around sedately without a care in the world.

The Bose audio is great, nice and clear with some punch from the sub in the boot. Bluetooth works well, as do the steering wheel controls. The media interface is looking a bit dated these days, and I'd love an Android Auto option, but from Googling, it looks like hard work.

The heated steering wheel is LUSH. I've never had it before, thought it was a naff idea, but it's already won me over. Heated seats, not so much. They're VERY good and get real toasty, but I can't get over the feeling you just wet yourself and you are sitting in a "warm" seat. I'll keep trying it, as it's more efficient than running the heater over winter.

Speaking of, I tried the climate timer out before work this morning. Set to 21c, which might be a bit low (it was on 24c but I thought I knew better), but it's quite nice getting into a car that's not cold inside. I didn't need to run the heater this morning because the interior was already up to temp, and the glass didn't fog up as bad. This is another thing I'll play with and see what my best options are.

I bought a Type 2 to Type 1 adaptor so I could take advantage of being able to charge my car at work. Seems to work well, nothing like having a full tank of juice at the end of the day. Our chargers are only Type 2, hence the need to adapt it to the Type 1 Leaf. The adaptor I bought was Projecta branded, and the build quality of it is impressive. It's solid, made of nice sturdy plastics, and works with no fuss. I feel like the cheaper ones, with no branding, probably don't feel as good as this one.

Other than that, I want to change the reduction gear oil shortly, so I'll need to grab some Redline D6 ATF for that, and then I'll just keep zipping around, being a pest and using all my instant torque to win traffic light drags whenever possible.

[jakesae101]

The strut tops seem to be a nissan thing ! My missus Note is the same to the point it got pinged for a wof and I had to remove said very rusty nuts and fix it many choice words were said to get them off. 

[kws]

2 hours ago, jakesae101 said:

The strut tops seem to be a nissan thing ! My missus Note is the same to the point it got pinged for a wof and I had to remove said very rusty nuts and fix it many choice words were said to get them off. 

Yeah it seems like a real dumb design, the cowling is almost designed to funnel water right over top of the mounts and then there are no drain holes or anything to let it out. Wouldnt be surprised if a few models around that time had the same issue.

I had heard rumours that WOF inspectors had been instructed to check the strut tops. Will be interesting to see if they remove the covers to check them or not.

[Willdat?]

1 hour ago, kws said:

I had heard rumours that WOF inspectors had been instructed to check the strut tops. Will be interesting to see if they remove the covers to check them or not.

https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/98689/Inspection-news-issue-14.pdf

[87creepin]

A very questionable design, I’m sure the designers/engineers knew about this, but somehow the accountants/marketing department won. 

[jakesae101]

After replacing them I slathered them in anti seize and grease to hope to last longer my mechanic said super common issue and is a nightmare as I discovered to do without running the shocks 

[Sunbeam]

Welcome to the dark side. 

[kws]

1 hour ago, jakesae101 said:

After replacing them I slathered them in anti seize and grease to hope to last longer my mechanic said super common issue and is a nightmare as I discovered to do without running the shocks 

Thankfully my worst one, pictured above, looks fine after I hit it with the wire brush on the drill. Its a bit pitted and the nut would be fun to remove, but they'd be dicks to say its compromised. I hate to have to damage the Nismo shock to remove it, if it was that bad. Id probably just chop the mount into bits until i can cut the nut off.

[fuel]

You guys should be glad that's the worst of the rust you'll most likely have to deal with on a modern-ish car  Here's the underside of my ~10 year old VW 

Those lower control arm inner eccentric bolts were seized solid into the bushing sleeve, and the head of the lower shock mounting bolt snapped clean off after applying a lot of force to get it undone. I ended up opting to replace the whole knuckle assembly as it was easier than pissing around with extracting the remainder of the bolt. I'm in the process of wire-wheeling the subframe and coating with rust-kill paint. I've just replaced the upper and lower control arms complete as they are like $30 each from rockauto and not worth the hassle to press out/in new bushes and saves me having to clean them up too. All this after I just wanted to do a wheel alignment. I fucking hate road salt.

[kws]

Yeah nah, you guys that have to deal with salted roads can keep that shit, ain't want any of that  Its no wonder modern cars are disposable over there

My 50-year-old Marina looks better than that, let alone any of my newer cars.

[kws]

There is a funny little myth around EVs, that they "don't need servicing". They need less servicing than an ICE car, but they still need to be serviced.

On the Leaf, there are a few items that need to be serviced; Brake fluid, brake pads and rotors, bushes, coolant, washer fluid, the 12v battery and the cabin filter. The same stuff that needs to be done on an ICE car, just without the regular engine oil and filter change.

Being that my car has over 110,000km on the clock and no service history, I wanted to give everything a good look over and change the reduction gear (gearbox) oil. Technically the reduction gear oil is "inspect" every 12 months or 24,000km but has no change interval, which is stupid.

I started by checking under the bonnet. The coolant level was good, and I had topped the washer fluid up the other day. The brake fluid looked very clean, so I wasn't too worried about it but stuck my tester in to see how it was anyway. After removing the cap, you need to remove the little filter basket so the tester can get to the fluid.

A perfect reading, less than 1% moisture content.

Next was to check the 12v battery condition. These things can make the Leaf go a bit crazy when they start to degrade. The Leaf uses the big high voltage main traction battery to charge the 12v battery as needed, but it needs the 12v battery to trigger the contactors and allow the HV battery to work.

I connected my TOPDON BT tester

And passed with no issues. A nice healthy battery

Now it was time to get the car in the air and roll around in the rain puddles on the ground. I'm not a big fan of working on cars that have been out in the rain.

I removed the front left wheel so I could have a look around at the suspension

All looked pretty good to me. The bushes were a bit old, but not torn.

The rotors look almost brand new, and the pads are about 1/4 worn. They don't get a lot of use due to the regen braking. The rears are a bit older, but the pads are only about half worn.

To get to the reduction gearbox you need to remove the under tray. Half a dozen clips hold it in, along with a bolt in the recess at the back, and a row of bolts along the front edge. All bolts have a 10mm head.

With the under tray off, the motor and gearbox are accessible.

The reduction gear drain and fill are here. It's a nice simple replacement, much like a manual gearbox. Fill is the orange arrow, make sure to crack this first. Drain is the green arrow.

Both use a 10mm hex. Mine were SUPER tight and needed some extra leverage.

With the fill plug removed, some fluid may seep out. When removing the drain, be aware the fluid is very thin and will come out with some speed, so expect it to go some distance. I used a clear jug so I could check the colour and level.

The level was close, about 1.3L, but the colour was very dark, almost black. No signs of the red it should be.

Both the plugs are the same and both are magnetic. Mine had a little coating of sludge on them, but nothing concerning. Give them a wipe, and swap the washer for a nice new one.

The fluid spec is Nissan Matic-S. A lot of people use Redline D6 ATF, but locally a few people have used Nulon Full Synthetic Low Viscosity ATF, as this meets Matic-S spec. This was available locally on a Saturday morning, so that's what I'm using. You need 1.4L of fluid.

Reinstall the drain plug and torque to spec (34NM, or one elbow click). Now fill the gearbox. These bags are very handy, just pop the hose into the fill hole and squeeze. Access is very good, so a pump would work here, or others have used a hose and funnel from up top down to the filler.

I pumped in one full bag, and enough of the second bag until it started to come back out of the filler.

I let it run for a bit, reinstalled the fill plug, torqued it to spec and gave the area a clean with brake cleaner.

Reinstall the under tray, and you're done. A reduction gear oil change is no harder to do than a manual gearbox fluid change on an FWD ICE vehicle (heck, access is better than a lot of ICE cars I've done).

Finally, before I was done, I wanted to grease the axle splines. This is a very common issue with the Leaf, where there will be a clicking you can hear and feel from the front of the car when you come on and off the throttle. Nissan has released a bulletin regarding the issue, and the solution is to undo the nut, push the axle back and grease the axle where it goes into the hub.

Nissan recommends replacing the hub nut during this service, and you'll ideally want a new split pin too. Apparently "Clicking could occur" if you reuse the nut, but I can't see what difference it makes.

I removed the split pin and the little cap slid off

Next, I used a 32mm socket on my rattle gun to ugga dugga the nut off

The left one was a bit stiff and took a couple of hits from a soft face hammer to move. You only need to push it through the hub a little bit (as far as it goes) and don't need to completely remove it, or anything around it. I found it easier to turn the wheel so you can see behind it better. Heck, for the RH side I didn't even remove the wheel, I could access the axle from under the front of the car.

Excuse the blurry photos, I was shooting blind and the focus got a bit wonky. Both axles were completely dry, with some crumbly remnants of what I presume used to be grease.

The spec for grease is Molykote M77, which as far as I could tell doesn't exist new New Zealand. If you can get it, use it. In my case, I'm taking a punt and using some high temp bearing grease. I've greased axle shafts with it before on other cars with no issue, so it should do the job here too. I applied it with an old brush. It's messy, but everywhere it needs to be (the top of the splines and the face of the bearing where the axle sits). I cleaned around the axle once it was refitted, to remove excess grease.

With the axle greased, I pushed it back into the hub and tightened the hub nut until it stopped turning, just to seat the axle. I copied this work to the other side of the car too, and then lowered the car to the ground.

Once on the ground, I torqued the hub nuts up to the required 121NM, refit the locking cap and new split pin.

And that was the service done.

A quick test drive shows the car still works, so that's a success. More noticeably though, it appears the clicking I have had from the axles is mostly gone. I'll keep an eye on it when I take the car to work on Monday, but it looks like it's fixed. It'll be interesting to see if I get any improvement in economy from the new reduction gear fluid, some people have reported a noticeable difference.

That should be enough servicing to keep the car happy for the duration of my ownership. It's due for a WOF next month, and some more RUC in 600km or so, so unless something fails in the WOF we should be good to keep on zooming for another year or so.

I've done almost 3000km in the car since getting it, and it's been pretty great, to be honest. The boot is smaller than the Fit, which isn't a surprise, but the shape of its kinda crappy and the Bose sub gets in the way. Speaking of Bose, the audio system is pretty damn good, combined with not having any intrusive IC noises or vibrations, I'm often having a one-man rave on my way to work in the morning.

It's very much an appliance, there is little feeling from anything it does, other than ripping away from the lights. The handling is solid and fairly reassuring, but it never feels sporty. I'm sure the Nismo suspension upgrade is helping in that regard, standard ones must be so wobbly.

There's a decent amount of low-down punch, but it lacks anything "up top" at speed. It'll pass other cars, with your foot to the floor, but the Fit would wipe the floor with it at speed.

It is a pretty nice way to commute though. Peaceful, easy, comfortable and cheap to run. It'll hang around for a bit longer.

[lowlancer]

Back when I had my Mk6 Golf Gti (270hp at that stage), I got smoked at the lights by a leaf. Past about 30kmh I deleted it, but jeez they go alright off the line.

[tomble]

My leaf made me an absolute menace. If there's a gap in traffic, you know you'll make it. But not everybody else involved does...

[kws]

1 hour ago, tomble said:

My leaf made me an absolute menace. If there's a gap in traffic, you know you'll make it. But not everybody else involved does...

So many traffic light drags, even if no one else knows it.

The shooting a gap thing is actually a bit of a concern when I jump into my ICE cars as I forget none of them can quite zip like the Leaf does.

[thegreatestben]

Maybe one day we can have a drag race and see how a Leaf goes against the E208

[kws]

3 hours ago, thegreatestben said:

Maybe one day we can have a drag race and see how a Leaf goes against the E208

Badly would be my guess Looks like you'd have a 20kw or so bump in power on a Leaf

[shrike]

4 hours ago, kws said:

So many traffic light drags, even if no one else knows it.

The shooting a gap thing is actually a bit of a concern when I jump into my ICE cars as I forget none of them can quite zip like the Leaf does.

Been on a motorbike lately?

[thegreatestben]

13 minutes ago, kws said:

Badly would be my guess Looks like you'd have a 20kw or so bump in power on a Leaf

“I almost had you”