evolution of the vert

[DeXteR]

all right, this project has officially begun. i finally got enough stuff moved around and cleaned up to get a couople cars in the polebarn. first on the list is the 240 verts. i'm really tired and at work, so i'll elaborate later. for now, pictures should suffice...

anyways, we're just going to do an engine transplant. we got the white vert running last night... she lives...

finally got the silvert into the polebarn

face off - chuki vs. silvia

in this corner: damaged, yet unmolested 93

and in this corner: hacked up, beaten, converted 93

teamate fady trying to get the downpipe disconnected

shot of the old vert from the pov of the new vert

almost ready for the pull

out with the old...

i figured this would be the best way to a) drain all the fluids and b) get ther right exit angle

fady inspecting some of the "quality" work put into this car

nearly empty and ready for a cleaning

ok, so that's the pictures. here's a little background and some planning:as most of you know/remember, my wife and i were victims of a suicidal deer one evening while driving the pictured white vert last october. we did not have full coverage, so we couldn't afford to have it repaired - which is another long story. well it has sat with a cover on it ever since. until yesterday...

we started by cleaning up a lot of the glass on the inside and removing the bulk of the broken HUD windshield i had in there. once enough glass was removed to sit in the car without turning yourself into hamburger, we stuck in a charged battery, cleaned up the plugs a little and fired her up.

she lives

a little history: we owned this car for just over a year when it got wrecked. as she sits, she's got about 220,000 miles on her. ran like a champ till the day of the accident. of course, it had it's 220k problems like coolant and oil leaks and things of that nature, but my wife and i drove it about 3,000 miles on our honey moon through the apalachian mountains and across the outerbanks without any trouble.

anyways, we picked up this silvia-converted vert a few weeks back as a "fresh" slate. obviously it has the silvia front end on it. other "mods" include a 5-speed swap, coupe doors, electric fan (from some car?), emissions deleted, "custom" exhaust, and a few other things here and there. i was told the engine had bad compression and the transmission was about shot. the "wiring" for the lights and fan were not pretty, nor was the "emissions" delete. there were nuts and bolts missing all over the place, brackets hanging loose, lines pinched off, and other signs of a sloppy/careless install. lastly, the exhaust is pretty much a one-piece hodge-podge of exhaust components all welded together. the only flange i found was the one connecting the downpipe to the manifold.

all right, on to the plans:of course, we're going to swap in the engine from the old vert and hopefully some of the other unmolested parts can be substituded for the parts that have been fiddled with. my other teamate, zach, hooked me up with a working 5-speed that i can change out also. the interior of the new vert is in more dissaray then the engine compartment, so most of the interior will get swapped as well. the coupe doors currently on the car are manual and i'd like to put them back to power, so i'm going to use the coupe doors i have from my old coupe. i'm also going to be doing the HUD swap on this vert too. hopefully i'll get more than just the windshield. another little trick piece i picked up was a digital climate control that is 75% complete. i just need a few sensors and it'll be good to go.

of course, i'm going to put the 962's and cat-back that were on the white vert onto the silvert. i'd also like to get a lip spoiler for the trunk as it's currently wingless. i'm also trying to find an r32 gtr center grill for the front and a zenki lip to top things off. wrap it all up with a fresh coat of paint and i think i'll call that the end of stage 1 in this project. that should get me through the summer. if i can find a tubular header and a vlsd, i'll toss those on too.

i'll update this thread as progress is made and more pictures are taken. thanks for looking.

Modified by DeXteR at 4:19 PM 5/29/2007
Modified by DeXteR at 6:11 PM 5/31/2007

[ishkabibble]

Hurry, before it starts snowing!

[DeXteR]

in canada it never stops snowing

[Hijacker]

Mmm...silvia front convertible.

Looks good so far dexter!

[gravetolife91]

Wow.....I am kinda speechless

[DeXteR]

so, we got the silvert pretty stripped down last night. the only thing left of the engine bay is some lines and wires and the only thing left on the inside is the HVAC stuff and the steering column. we even removed the fenders, lights, doors, wiper assemblies, and windshield seals.

here's the pictures:

bill and i turning wrenches

even less stuff in the engine bay

zach and fady pulling the dash

here's what's left of the inside

and here's how she sits right now

[DeXteR]

let me start off by saying: fady is a nag! geez. he'd be happy if i didn't do anything but get the vert done. if it were up to him, he'd have me quit my job, divorce my wife, sell my house and finish the vert immediately - to hell with everything else!

:roll:

whatever, i have other things to do.

saturday, bill, michelle, and i spent all day building tables/shelves for the polebarn (which from now on will be referred to as "the shop") so we could clean up some more floor space and bring in the mir3vo from the elements. needless to say, i didn't get very far on the the vert project, but i do have a lot more room in the shop and one more vehicle.

fady showed up later in the evening to nag me some more and brought bandit along. they lent a hand prepping the ka in the old vert for extraction. we labelled all of the wiring connectors and vaccum lines as we disconnected them. we got the coolant and oil drained and that was about it for saturday.

yesterday, bill came over to work on the mir3vo but we ended up getting a lesson in wiring a dryer from my father-in-law. it's a long story... bottom line is we were messing with live 110 in my basement and finally got my dryer hooked up (much to fady's dissaproval). it was 9pm before we got to the shop to work on the cars. i didn't even get to work on the vert until about 10pm anyway because i had to re-assemble my shop cart that i got from christmas. so once i finally did get to wrenching on the vert, i got a few things pulled out like the radiator and the fan and all that stuff. i drained the transmission fluid and relieved the ac system. again, didn't accomplish much, but didn't spend a lot of time either.

so here's the pictures:

bandit getting his hands dirty

hood's off for the first time

i can't remember what he was saying, but it was funny...

bandit took this picture - turned out pretty nice, i guess...

and this is where i'm at right now

hopefully i'll get some more time into it tonight. maybe the wife will get her hands dirty on this one. she has yet to turn a wrench since the silvert has arrived (although she did man the circle saw and nail gun when we built the tables/shelves). she needs to get in here and work on HER car.

[Glyph]

Looking good. I'm glad you decided to stick with a vert even after your accident. I found this and thought you might be interested....http://sandiego.craigslist.org/pts/344068639.htmlGood luck.

[Eikon]

Really nice thread Dexter!

Keep us updated as you go! Lots of pics too! Let us know if you need anything.

[DeXteR]

my first reaction: $140

then i noticed it's for an s14...

thanks anyway. i've got a friend down by detroit who's on the look-out for me. last time he got an s13 zenki lip was at a u-pick yard and only paid $5 for it!!!!!

i'm planning on putting in some more wrench time tonight. of course, pictures will be abundant.

[Glyph]

Oops. My bad. For some reason that little, vital tidbit escaped me. Sorry to gert your hopes up.

[DeXteR]

so, last night i tried to work on the verts, but people wouldn't stop calling me. :roll: i did get a few things accomplished. i got the starter, alternator, power steering pump, and ac compressor disconnected from all wiring and lines. i removed the carbon canister thing and some sort of egr mechanism near the exhaust manifold. the only thing i need to do now to pull the engine is to unhook the electrical stuff for the transmission, loosen up the transmission frame and motor mounts and pull her out. i'll try to remember to remove the gear selector this time as well. not much for pictures as i only worked for a couple hours and didn't make a lot of noticeable progress (from a pictorial point of view anyway).

really starting to get her opened up...

just thought this was a cool shot:

...and the silvert patiently awaits the transplant...

[Eikon]

I think now would be a great time to paint the engine bay in the "silvert" before you drop the new engine in there...

I can't stand colored engine bays if they don't match the outside of the car... now if you plan to paint the finished product back to red.. fine.. But I'd at least go with a black paint in there for now.. just my $.02.

[DeXteR]

absolutely. i would like it clean before i paint it though. i just haven't had a chance to roll it out and use the degreaser. it's either been raining or dark, so i just haven't had the opportunity. once it gets cleaned up, we're just going to rattle-can it black for now. when it's time for REAL paint (when it goes back to chuki and gets kitted, the whole chassis is going to get stripped and painted.

hopefully tonight it won't rain and i'll have help. that way i can continue to pull the old ka and someone else can get started on cleaning the silvert. while i have the good ka out, i'm going to have to hit her with degreaser pretty heavy as well. it's got 220+ thousand miles on it. that's a lot of messy oil changes and road grime...

[94_240sx]

Looking good. I wish I could help you with cleaning.

[ishkabibble]

I wish I could help you with cleaning.

I wonder if there is a name for your condition.

[DeXteR]

Looking good. I wish I could help you with cleaning.

i wish you could help me with my cleaning too!!!

don't worry though, i've got a guy. he's probably just as concerned about automotive cleanliness as you are. i'm going to assign him to detail it.

I wonder if there is a name for your condition.

OCD comes to mind... but it's different when it's a car. it warrants a not-so-negative name... i can't think of anything creative at the moment.

well, time for another update.

made some good progress yesterday. started out by wheeling the silvert outside the shop to clean the engine bay. i wiped all the heavy, built-up grime off with rags and then hit it with engine degreaser. let it sit for a while and then wiped it down with wet rags. it made a huge improvement, however, just getting the built-up stuff off made most of the difference. anyways, it's pretty much rust free - bonus.

i didn't get a shot from before i started rubbing all the grime off, but just scroll up and observe some of the other pictures. this one is right after spraying it with degreaser:

wax on, wax off...

and this is how it turned out:

i'm happy with the results, but not satisfied. this is just after one blasting of the degreaser. i'll probably do it again tonight and this time use soapy water to clean up afterards. then after it dries, hit it one more time with soapy water. after that, it should be ready for some paint.

then it was back to pulling the engine on the old vert...

there were only a few things left to be done before the motor could be yanked. i started by trying to disconnect the sensors on the transmission but found out that some of them were inaccessible while the transmission and engine were still in the car, so i moved to the inside, and took out the gear selector. sounds easy, but man, there's a lot of junk in there! lots of wires and small screws. to make matters worse, i had to work around the remenants of the busted-out windshield. it made the removal a bit perilous. the wrong move would have meant a trip to ER... no blood, no foul.

so from there i had to cut some sort of exhaust recirculation pipe that was in the way of the steering output to the rack on the subframe. i'm not quite sure what it is for - it's not the egr valve as that was a different pipe that came off the back of the manifold and went around the back of the engine. this pipe i'm talking about snaked around the steering output and went into some valved thingy and then into a small plastic container and then to the carbon canister... it's some sort of emissions crap... whatever. i just cut it off. then i split the cat-back off and disconnected the heater core hoses and it was ready for pulling.

on the way out

almost got it...

victory!

finally!

from here, we just need to clean up the engine, split the trannies from the longblocks, swap a few parts and toss the good ka back into the silvert. i'm looking forward to it. i'm probably going to order a few parts this weekend for it and start talking to my teamate zach about paint.

[DeXteR]

we got a lot done on friday. bill started cleaning the engine bay again. bill can detail with the best of them in my opinion. i hate detailing. i like the look when it's finished, but i just don't have the patience for the work.

michelle finally came out and helped. so i put her on detail and bill went to work on his mir3vo. i told michelle to use soap and water to clean the engine bay. then after that, i had her hit it with some brake parts cleaner and a rag. after that was done, michelle and zach started covering everything that wasn't getting painted. then it was ready for paint. i didn't get a single picture of michelle helping... sorry... so here's a picture of zach doing his thing:

i also didn't get a picture of the engine bay after it's third cleaning... oh well. here's what it looks like right now:

one more coat and it'll be great. i really like the look of the flat black in there. it's just rustoleum - nothing special. when we decide to get a "real" paintjob, we'll strip everything down and do it right. for now, a rattle-canned flat black engine bay does the trick.

so while that was going on, i was busy trying to get the steering rack and power steering stuff disconnected from the white vert.

we also set the "good" motor over by the "bad" motor to free up some space in the shop.

we ended the night debating on what this thing is:

it's a solid block of steel - that's it. no threads for something to get bolted to it, no lines for vaccum or fluid, no nothing. just a block of steel. the only explanation that made any sense was the one curt had: it's a dampener for some 3rd harmonics. 3rd harmonics... :roll: figures.

tonight i'm hoping to get the steering rack fully removed from the white vert and get it cleaned up and stuffed in the silvert. also want to hit the silvert engine bay with one more coat of paint. i also need to clean up the underside of the silvia hood and spray it a couple times as well.

[Eikon]

wow.. nice progress!

I'm not sure what the block of metal is.. I don't recall seeing it on any 240 i've worked on. I wonder if it was there for a spacer... to keep the engine from hitting the firewall or crimping any of the hoses, etc...???

Bet you can't wait to get that car back on the road!!!

[otto_3478s]

Im 99.9% sure that black block of metal is a dampener for the A/C system. I just pulled the A/C on my vert and that was supporting one of the lines.

[DeXteR]

i didn't get a whole lot accompolished last night. things were just moving slow. i wanted to get another coat of paint on the engine bay, but no one was there to help push the car out (need one person to steer each wheel). since i was working by myself and michelle was out for the evening, i didn't get to this. so i figured i'd tackle the steering rack.

took me a while, but i got it out. and it was covered in grime. so i took it outside, hit it with degreaser a couple times, then washed it down with some soap and water. now it just needs a quick coat of paint and it will be ready for installation in the silvert.



i'm not sure i explained this, but the dust boots on the silvert's rack were both blown out and the passenger side tie rod was bent pretty bad. so i decided to just swap the one in from the white one.

sadly, that's my only picture from last night... things were moving along slowly as they were so i didn't feel like stopping to take pictures along the way.

with the rack out of the way in the white vert, i decide to remove the motor mounts. my left hand ended up not liking that. i had to use my "wrench extender" (jack handle) to increase the torque to get them to break loose. well, when the driver side bolt let loose, i smashed the fingernail on my left ring finger against the frame rail. man, i haven't done that in a while and it hurt! it hurt for about 3 minutes before i could even use a wrench again. lesson learned - keep your hand open when breaking bolts/nuts.

on the passenger side, i was more careful and got it off without incident. except that the wires are clipped into a bracket on the top side. so i decided to unbolt that and of course forgot the lesson i just learned about keeping my hand open... when this one let loose, i smashed my left pinky against one of those nissan screw clamps for the fuel lines. turns out, they're a little shart on the edges. i have a 1/4" split from the cuticle.

i haven't smashed my hands up this bad in a long time. i decided to call it a night after that.

[Eikon]

Air tools FTW!!! I haven't busted my hands up too much for a while now!

LOL... last set of motor mounts we tried to get out were a nightmare... the bottom bolts were stripped and rusted on... so we had to take a sawzall to the mounts... then drill out the plates underneath.. what a nightmare!

Hey.. I've got a favor to ask you... Can you measure the placement of the passenger side tie rod for me.. I replaced my tie rod end, but spaced out and didn't measure it properly... So I think I'm out of alignment because of it. Maybe you could measure it from the base of the boot cover to the start of the bolt that's up against the tie rod end?

[DeXteR]

i didn't feel like running the compressor again. i used it for the tires and tie rod ends and then put it away - forgetting about the motor mounts.

the thing is, my pole building is wired off the house breaker box. i have 110 going to the box in the house. my shop is on a 20 amp breaker! so if i want to use the air compressor, i need to make sure the stereo is off, the halogens are off and the ceiling lights are off. the other night when we were working on the cars, we blew the breaker twice because we had too much going on.

in the near future i'm going to get 220 to the house and run it into a new box because the one i have is jam-packed - i've even got a few double-switch breakers. then i'll run 110 out to the shop with the old box from the house. that should give me enough juice to run a welder, big compressor, parts washers, a lift and whatever else i want.

Can you measure the placement of the passenger side tie rod for me... Maybe you could measure it from the base of the boot cover to the start of the bolt that's up against the tie rod end?

no problem... give me a call sometime this evening while i'm in the shop and i'll get the measurement for you. i don't know that my front alignment was perfect though. it'll be enough to keep you from flying off the road if you let go of the wheel at least.

[ishkabibble]

that should give me enough juice to run a welder, big compressor, parts washers, a lift and whatever else i want.

Sigh... the benefits of living in Canada.

[DeXteR]

more progess, but not much to say.

i finished cleaning up the steering rack parts. now i just need to spend some time removing the cotter pins that i sheered off when i couldn't pull them out. after that, we can install it. i've decided to skip painting it.

we also got the automatic transmission seperated from the ka. took off the ac and alternators and the ac bracket. then we dropped the oil pan and removed the bolts for the flexplate.

then she came off nice and easy.



look, a 6-bolt! no crankwalk!sorry, ^ it's a DSM thing.

seth, i did not get a measurement yet as my tape measure is no where to be found. i'll track it down and get that measurement to you sometime soon.

[Eikon]

no worries.. I got busy last night on other stuff anyhow.. Thanks though!

[krash]

^why is that guy always cleaning something? haha

nice job man i cant wait to see the final product! ur a lucky man with 2 verts in your garage hehe. keep it coming its like watching a TV show

[DeXteR]

i'm definitely going to forward this to him!

because he's obsessed with clean. you should see his mir3vo project. it's a 95 mitsubishi mirage (1.5 fwd auto) that we're fully converting to an evo 3 (2.0-t awd 5-spd). within 24 hours of pulling the engine and transmission, he had the engine bay spotless.

detailing is his specialty. he likes doing it and he's good. he knows the backside of a wrench too. i'll make sure i get a few more pictures of him doing other things from now on.

no update. i'm coming down with a cold. i'm hoping to feel well enough to get out to the shop tonight though.

seth, i have a note for myself to grab my tape measure and get that measurement for you.

[krash]

haha, nice i would love to see pics of the mirage. does he have a thread on a mits forum or something? yea i guess im like you, i like the result of so much cleaning, i just dont have the patience to do it.

[DeXteR]

here's the only mir3vo project log available to the general public:http://mievo.net/talk/showthread.php?t=1959

the one on my club website is up-to-date, but is in a "members only" section. locally, he wants to keep the project under wraps. we've been catching a lot of flack from another local car club. so our projects have been somewhat top-secret so when we're done we can roll on the rival club and show them what we're capapble of.

but that hasn't been updated in a long time... i should tell him to update. so here's the photobucket album with the mir3vo: http://s88.photobucket.com/alb...irage/

seth: 6 1/2" to the nut. if i recall, i had an alignment done after i got my new wheels and tires, so that should be right.

now, on to the silvert...

got a few things done last night. i started out by stripping the block down some more and removing some more grease/grime/debris. the motor mounts and accessory brackets have been removed and lightly cleaned. the block needs more cleaning and then i'll hit it with a wire wheel and then paint it.

here's a picture i took of myself:

the block minus brackets and stuff:

we took the oil pan off the other night to gain easier access to the bolts for the flex-plate. here's a shot of the engine guts:

not bad for 212,xxx miles.

here's all the brakets, accessories, and other stuff that's been removed:

looks like the silvert is eager to see this engine:

fady and bandit made an appearance. last time they were here, fady broke one of the oil pan bolts in the timing chain cover. so we spent some time drilling it out and trying to extract it... eh... we tried. we'll see how it turned out later.

so enough of the deconstruction... i don't think i mentioned this, but in the process of removing the steering rack from the white vert, i got hung up on the cotter-pins at the ball joints. i couldn't get them out so i just ran the castle nut off. so then i was stuck with cotter pin material stuffed in the hole on the ball joints. well i finally got a hold of some decent drill bits and was able to remove the rest of the cotter pins.

after that was accomplished i just had to put the rack into the silvert. i finally got to reinstall something! i decided to not bother painting it as i'll probably just replace it in a later stage in the project.

here's the first real progess in my opinion:

more work to be done tonight... should be in the shop pretty late. i'm hoping to get the pilot bushing replaced (zach has one for me), the clutch and flywheel swapped over, remove some of the emissions garbage, get some paint on the longblock and maybe even bolt up the transmission. i'm thinking about adding the typical bolt-on's so the engine won't be dropped in until i decide to make the purchase and the parts show up... i think a header would be a nice addition...