Productive day. Started with replacing the cat

Despite getting a new middle silencer it was still awfully loud (but less forumla 1-sounding and more moped-sounding), which turned out to be mainly as a result of this

Lesson learned: don't reverse into things but swapping the cat was much easier than I expected. Garage quoted £270, I got it done for £46.97. Success.

Decided to do a basic service as well, but when taking the airbox off I noticed that the inside had a bunch of that oil/condensation/mayonnaise crap in it. Washed out the airbox & breather hose.

4 hours in and I decided to finally get around to cleaning that MAP sensor, as the car likes to idle at 1500rpm when moving (even with no throttle/clutch depressed) and drops down to 1k when stationary. I've always thought this would be the result of an oil-caked MAP sensor. Spent 20 minutes trying to take the 2 screws off with an allen key because some idiot at VAG decided to put torx screws in a spot that is completely inaccessible with a screwdriver. Gave the sensor a liberal bath in carb cleaner and refitted it. This did absolutely nothing whatsoever, and the problem persists.

Finished up with an engine flush, new oil & filter.

Car sounds great. Not perfect, as there's still a slight leak at the exhaust manifold (I noticed that 2 of the studs have snapped, only 1 of which was my fault), which I may get around to eventually. Running great, exhaust is quiet again and it seems more responsive now. Only negative is a slight vibration that can be felt at 60-70mph, but I just consider this a built-in massage function for motorway driving.

Edited 10 March, 201610 yr by Vio

Glad you swapped the down pipe/cat your self saving you money, Bet that feels good doing all the work your self, Plus it will boost your confidence more working on your own car than paying a garage getting ripped off etc. I never thought vio would really use a spanner. Keep up the good work.

ps you need valver bumpers front and back , it would make a difference. lol

Edited 10 March, 201610 yr by madnemo

Honestly it was great, in every aspect... apart from me finding out the hard way how quickly an exhaust manifold heats up

I still see the 6n as just a stop gap, but I'm liking the OEM+ thing though. If my Nissan doesn't pass MOT (should be up for it fairly soon) and I end up stuck with the 6n for a while longer, and some bumpers/alloys/electric windows pop up for cheap I aint gonna say no

Edited 11 March, 201610 yr by Vio

Your warming...

Thats it Vio, come to the darkside

My latest investment is getting me a garage where I can work on my cars indoors (as opposed to out on the street), and I have 24hr access as well so decided to spend from 8pm to 6am cleaning it up and working on the 6n. And making regular trips to the 24-hr mcdonalds. I am sure this is quite unhealthy but am very happy to make it a regular thing when I don't have work.

Valver bumper

Whilst painting it I decided to try and remove the bump strips, as I thought it made a massive difference on Volksfan's and was inspired to try the same. Only problem is I was struggling to get the sticky stuff off and was a bit stuck for options at 2 AM. I decided to buy a toffee wheel which will come next week and just deal with it for a few days. So at the moment the car has bump strips on only one side, and the side without em has about 50% of the sticky stuff still on it. Because 6n.

Also decided to tidy up some of the rust on the nearside sill and rear arch (which had previously been hand-painted over, not by me). Please note that this was my first time using body filler and my abiliy to judge the sizes of peas and golf balls has room for improvement. It's about as smooth as my driving, but at least the rust is gone

Old and new bumpers

I've decided that if I end up getting the 16v front bumper I'll make sure I get one that's already white, because I really do not like painting bumpers

looking good vio.

It's coming together

Good work. Keep it up

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Having a decent place to work on a car is half the battle I think. Nice work :)

Toffee wheel arrived, and I took it to my garage at 11pm in the hopes of finishing off the bump strips, expecting to only be there for an hour or so and to just need said toffee wheel.

By 3am, and after much body filler and paint, I had finished one side of the car.

I ended up going over the rear arch with filler again as well (because no one told me that toffee wheels and recently-applied body filler do not mix), and I'm a lot happier with the results. If you look really close you can still tell it's been patched up, but I'm getting the hang of it and it's a *lot* smoother than it was before.

Nearside didn't go as well. The toffee wheel does get the sticky stuff off but it leaves a yellowish residue on the car. I tried various things to remove it - polishing, a degreaser, wet sanding with 2500 grit, then 1200 grit, at which point I was taking clearcoat off and decided just to paint over the whole thing. But I was out of primer and had only half a can of candy white left - enough for 3 coats but I think it'll still be noticable in natural light. I'll tackle this side again when I work on the arch a little later anyway.

5am result. I expected bump strips to take a couple hours one afternoon. Hell of a lot of effort for such a small mod, but it does make a difference.

Also weather calls for one of my usual "I can't bay park for shit" photo shoots.

you like this little 6n don't you vio? :D

Glad your feeling the 6n love vio .

Looking good Vio!

16v front bumper, G60 steels and a set of coilies would have this looking spot on I think!

you like this little 6n don't you vio? :D

It's reverse stockholm syndrome

Looking good Vio!

16v front bumper, G60 steels and a set of coilies would have this looking spot on I think!

Bumper sounds good, but I'm already planning to paint the door handles white - if I get G60 steels as well then I'll have an exact replica of Volksfan's 6n gonna pick up a set of 16v alloys this weekend though

Blatantly in love with your 6n now haha

Good work though and paint looks pretty good for a home job

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That looks pretty good, nice in white to.

Parked like a delivery driver

lmao pizza delivery. it's very WHITE.

Swapped the badly-refurbed 13" steels for some 14" 16v alloys they're in need of a good clean, but I'll see to that later. Massive improvement, especially with handling/cornering. The difference 1 inch makes! (thats what she said)

Also bought a bunch of other goodies, all passed cat inspection, will install tomorrow...

6n2 rears and door harnesses?

looks good on 14's but needs a drop!

Yep another long night at the garage and I now have electric windows!

 

 

That was a hell of a job. The mechanisms were the easy bit - the hard part was figuring out what the hell I was supposed to do with the tangled mess of wires that came in the box. After about 4 hours I had figured most of it out though and got the motor working (albeit in reverse cause I put the connectors on the wrong way), but I was worried that I'd have to get the centre console panel with the mirror switch because there didn't seem to be cables for it with the loom I got. It was only after I had put the door fully back together and was about to start on the other side when I realised that I had just put the passenger loom in the drivers door. *sigh* and out it came again...

 

But by about 7am I had it all up and running (bar one fuse which my alternative solution to may or may not set the car on fire). I'm pretty proud of that - no training and electrical experienced limited to installing a start button, but in one night I managed a full electric window conversion. Hurrah!

 

 

And then the 6n2 rears went on. Much easier/quicker to do once I found a guide for it, and a nice OEM+ touch IMO.

 

 

And then of course it was off to maccies drive through

 

Just a couple things left to do today - fix my drivers side lock, get a fuse for the windows, and give the whole thing a wash

Well this is certainly looking a lot better than when you got it. Nice to see a comparison pic between the 8V and 16V bumpers as well. By the way, where'd you get the toffee wheel from?

2 hours ago, Midori said:

Well this is certainly looking a lot better than when you got it. Nice to see a comparison pic between the 8V and 16V bumpers as well. By the way, where'd you get the toffee wheel from?

 

Thanks got the cheapest toffee wheel I could find on ebay, and I regret it