So I'm new to NICO and thought it was about time to get an account here seeing as all the other smaller sites that I'm on seem to be dying recently. A bit of background info, I currently own 2 1993 Nissan 240SXs, one Coupe and one Vert. The coupe has been stripped to a shell and has a built KA-T waiting for it as well as a list of body, interior, and driveline mods. But that car isn't the point of this post. The other car is a white 1993 Vert that I bought back in October of 2011.

The story behind the car is that the seller bought it in Texas for his son before the family moved to ohio a few years ago. So, Junior it appears, has been in and out of the correctional system recently and about October, the father gave up waiting for his son to straighten out and the car ended up on ebay. I drove to Ohio after bidding on the car and took it for a test drive. Besides a killer shake in the 55-65mph range, the car seemed to be in pretty good knick for a car of its age. It was stunning to look at it when I got it and I immediately fell in love with the car.



I drove the car home from Ohio, and it drove fine except for the aforementioned shaking issue, a cranky security system, and no radio. When I got it home, I decided to take it in for an alignment, wheel balance, and tire inspection as the seller said the shaking was due to a damaged tire. Well the Alignment shop found a lot more than bad tires. Mainly they found this.....



After cleaning out my pants, I decided to take the car off the road and repair the damage correctly, definition of correctly here being "Better than the previous idiot". I started by buying a used JDM from shell from Nick at Elite|JDM in Philly PA and stripping the front of the car. I then began cutting out spot welds and prepping the front shell and car to allow me to marry the two together and replace all of the damaged parts, essentially the entire rad core, the pass front fender well, and part of the pass side frame. During the tear down I found these other jewels of automotive kludging....





Instead of a thorough explanation I'll be lazy and just post pics of the tear down and repair...











I expect only a few more weeks of night time work on the car and I should have the frame back together, with everything ready for a state inspection and an alignment. In the mean time I have also done some general interior cleaning and have also replaced the damaged factory seats with a set of lightly used JDM dark blue cloth ones that I picked up at Elite|JDM. If there seems to be any interest here I will keep updating these repairs. Hope you guys enjoy this and I should be on the road soon.

Howdy and welcome.

Welcome and it looks like a great start that you have there. Would love to see the continued progress.

Well there should be more progress on the car tomorrow night. Tonight was a wash since my father was still recovering from getting part of the 'Vert removed from his eye....grinding mishap...

In the mean time, here are some pics of my other cars.
1993 240SX Coupe



2004 Mustang Mach 1

So car work starts up again tonight. Until then I will put up some photos of the non-frame related repairs.

The steering wheel had a creepy, soft/fuzzy cover on the rim, which promptly went in the back of the car and then into the trash. Problem is the Texas sun had dome a number on the wheel so I got a slightly better cover until I get some replacement wheel. Go ahead and flame, even I hate wheel covers.

During my trip to Elite|JDM, I got a deal on some lightly used seats for the car and a matching glove box door. When I got home I removed the stock seats, shampoo'd the carpets to get as many stains out of them as I could, the re-assembled it all.

Replacement Seats


Stripped and Shampoo'd Interior


Since then I've repaired a rear view mirror that came unglued from the windshield, and just tonight replaced the trunk struts (though they may not be strong enough )

It's ashame it had rust/frame damage. However it looks like its turning out well. I see PA plates in the pic. Do you mind me asking what part of the state you live in?I'm still in search of my vert and wouldn't mind networking with other local owners.

Little town called Selinsgrove currently, though I work in Harrisburg. May be moving to Jacobus soon.

Btw as of tonight the front shell is fitted up. Welding starts tomorrow.

Yeah I Definately know where selinsgrove is. I am looking at a white vert in Harrisburg FS on Saturday. I live 30 mins from there.

Good luck with the White 'Vert, it may have been the one I saw driving in Paxtang yesterday... Give it a good once-over, let my story be a lesson that you really really gotta look at a car before buying.

Thanks man. I believe you did see it. The owner is a female Hispanic woman from what i gather. The stereo and speakers were stolen outta it. . She wants way too much. I need to talk down.http://harrisburg.craigslist.org/cto/2927585545.html

Minor update... Finally got the clip cleaned up and completely fitted. Welding begins Monday. As soon as this nose gets welded on Ill order my decals and hopefully get on the road before summer comes.

So I was a tard-kart and left the gas bottle cracked on the welder last week......no gas=no welding. Go me.

Anyway checked final fitment AGAIN and then got bored and started bolting s*** on the car to check fit. I fixed the bashed in hood latch, checked fit of the headlight frames, and ended up putting on the new NGK plug wires and closing up the dizzy cover. I'm OCD for the stock dress up parts. If anyone has the stock wire looms they want to part with hit me up.

So hopefully welding starts tomorrow. It should hopefully be on the road by mid May. Who knows?

PROGRESS!!!! I have 6 spot welds to fill and two seams to stitch. Then it's time to put the panels back on, reassemble the motor, and test drive it!

Frame, fender well, etc are all welded and solid. Putting the motor back together next week so I can move the car out of the garage, wash the bay, apply seam sealer, and paint the welds.

I also found my spare set of wire stand offs. I disassembled them, cleaned the plastic, sand blasted and clear coated the metal parts and installed them with one of my refurbished oil caps. Now I need to decide what to do with this valve cover. I have a spare that I can strip, then either polish, paint, or powder coat. Not sure what though. Open to suggestions.

clean and powdercoat the valve cover man.

Tonneau arrived. Packed in a fairly tard-kart manner but the tonneau is in pretty good knick. It needs some cleaning and there is a spot that needs re-stitching but all in all I'm happy. I'll use this as a visual template for the upholstery companies to try and make a new version.

Good news everyone! I got the b**** on all 4 wheels and putted it around the block this evening. Of course it soon started running like s***, stalled a bunch of times and is now a crap shoot if it starts at all.

Progress??

Its something at least.

Yep. I'm taking it as progress. All the electronics work, top goes up and down fine, and the replacement 1/4 window switches haven't snapped yet so as soon as I figure out the cause of the crappy idle (I'm thinking unmetered air leaking in or bad MAFS) I'll be golden and on the road again.

It's Alive!! Alive I tell you!!! Was all a bad engine ground. Monday it gets an alignment and inspection. Then after owning 240s for 4 years, I finally get to drive one!!!

So the car goes in tomorrow for an alignment, A/C recharge, and state inspection. The car seems to drive pretty well now, but I will replace the oil soon just to be safe. The header is nice but pumps WAY too much heat into the engine bay so I've had to wrap it since I need the car for a trip this weekend....

Anyway here are the pics since last photo update.

Front attached and primered.


Front painted white


Hood and headlight mounted before test drive


After test drive


As it sits now Lifted to fit nose

So the car is now on the road. Since my last post, the car has had the A/C fixed, the alignment done, passed a state inspection, had the header wrapped after some heat issues, fabricated a heat shield after the header wrap didn't stop the heat, and finally got some new tires to help kill the shakes.

All in all the car runs pretty well. It has some minor starting issues and sometimes stalls if I hit the brakes too hard. Otherwise it's a fun little car and having a convertible makes even my s*** commute bearable. She still shakes so I think it may have a bent rim.

The car at the store for header wrap:

Custom heat shield I plan on painting a spare VC soon:

You did all that, and I still see junk plastic that I threw the hell out but I mean, no contest from my car....

beautiful car man.

mechanicalmoron wrote:You did all that, and I still see junk plastic that I threw the hell out but I mean, no contest from my car....

beautiful car man.

I tried to keep the engine bay as close to stock as possible but some things had to change (header and intake) mainly because the GF bought me parts. Lol

Lord Umoja wrote:

mechanicalmoron wrote:You did all that, and I still see junk plastic that I threw the hell out but I mean, no contest from my car....

beautiful car man.

I tried to keep the engine bay as close to stock as possible but some things had to change (header and intake) mainly because the GF bought me parts. Lol

hmm.... but the clutch fan isn't even a look issue.... it seems to do nothing, but it's very loud, at least for me. It makes first sound like you're driving a turboprop. So glad I ditched it, even if it had a kinda cool classic vibe.

And time/heat distorted plastic isn't a good look.

I kept the stock clutch fan because this is a DD and I just wanted it on the road. My coupe will be ditching most of the stock plastic and clutch fan and going with a set of electrics.

Lord Umoja wrote:I kept the stock clutch fan because this is a DD and I just wanted it on the road. My coupe will be ditching most of the stock plastic and clutch fan and going with a set of electrics.

Though I'm sure nissan would disagree, with a stock motor you don't need the clutch fan or it's shroud, at all. I have NEVER been able to get my temp to rise above the "operating" level, with or without the clutch fan (other than a short scare with a new thermostat, not sure what that was but not fan related). And it's really nice to have it out of the way so that you can actually work under the hood without 20 minutes of detatching plastic crap.

mechanicalmoron wrote:

Lord Umoja wrote:I kept the stock clutch fan because this is a DD and I just wanted it on the road. My coupe will be ditching most of the stock plastic and clutch fan and going with a set of electrics.

Though I'm sure nissan would disagree, with a stock motor you don't need the clutch fan or it's shroud, at all. I have NEVER been able to get my temp to rise above the "operating" level, with or without the clutch fan (other than a short scare with a new thermostat, not sure what that was but not fan related). And it's really nice to have it out of the way so that you can actually work under the hood without 20 minutes of detatching plastic crap.

Go sit in traffic and tell me you don't need a fan. The fan is designed to pull in air when the motor has reached a certain temp, and the temp usually hits that point after you've been sitting still long enough. E-fans use the temp sensor for that and clutch fans have the heat coupler to sense ambient temp rise. I've watched Nissan motor temps rise while sitting in traffic after the fan failed in some way. Once you're moving, it's a moot point as there will be airflow regardless.

Hijacker wrote: Go sit in traffic and tell me you don't need a fan. The fan is designed to pull in air when the motor has reached a certain temp, and the temp usually hits that point after you've been sitting still long enough. E-fans use the temp sensor for that and clutch fans have the heat coupler to sense ambient temp rise. I've watched Nissan motor temps rise while sitting in traffic after the fan failed in some way. Once you're moving, it's a moot point as there will be airflow regardless.

For real. My friend bought a hatchback a while ago, the previous owner removed the fan shroud to be mad JDM TytE. That sucker overheated daily in traffic. It was hilarious

It depends on the car/weather/fan.

I've removed my shroud and clutch fan. But usually don't drive it in really hot weather and monitor temp with MDM100. Sitting it will get up to 215 or so then the fan will kick on and cool it down to 200 or so.

I also plan on putting altima fans in soon though. With one fan to the stock switch and another to a manual switch.