89 Micra Zokusha police car - little stuff update

[Robinxr4i]

Once upon a time I owned a Sierra, which IMO was pretty cool...

...then I drove it hard into the back of a Nissan Note and ruined it...

...it was completely my fault, I was driving enthusiastically down a B-road, came round a blind corner to see a stationary queue of traffic. The rest as they say is history

With mojo for fixing the cat-C Sierra running low, I decided to break it and take a little break from the world of RWD and the temptation of skidding. So I bought an insurance friendly run around in the form of a K10 Micra, so I could free up funds and time to do more work on the Chevette.

So here it is in all it's glory...


Because the Sierra had been on a modified car policy with Adrian Flux they said the insurer wouldn't let me insure a standard car on the policy! I had planned to modify the Micra, but I was going to leave it standard for a while. But the policy said the car had to have at least three modification, so I said it had aftermarket wheels, steering wheel and had been lowered. They gave me 14 days to provide photographic proof of the modifications. So with this stupid deadline to work to I bolted on the XXRs off the Sierra, cut the spring and bought a steering wheel boss and bolted on the steering wheel out of the Sierra...




8.25x15" et0 wheels unsurprisingly didn't fit very well, out came the hammer, grinder, welder and some rangerbob arches I had laying around so this what happened...



So I ordered a dildo gear knob...


Then the day after I fitted the arches I was returning home from work in the lanes, I stopped for a Transit Connect and the Transit Connect didn't stop. Which mashed the wing and knackered the over fender...


...honestly this time it wasn't my fault!!!!! But given the fact it was in the lanes and there were no witnesses I agreed with the Connect driver to leave it. The last thing I need is it going knock for knock and getting bummed for another insurance claim.

So I've cable tied it back together to make it legal...


Hopefully I've sourced a wing off a guy on eBay and I've sent rangerbob an email about getting a replacement over fender sorted. So basically it's been an interesting two months.

Further plans involve Polo coilovers and some kind of exhaust silliness, once I've fixed the wing.

[ettorebugatti]

That is quite an visual statement, I quite like the battle scars.

Sorry to hear all the insurance trouble, would they have accepted a photoshop?

[pork]

This looks badass!,!

[hairnet]

don't paint arches wouldnt look right white

needs moar slam

[jrevillug]

I love the wheel/tyre/arch interface at the rear.

Needs moar lers though - the tyres should reach where the top of the arch is at the moment... But that's just silly.

[Siert]

Ah this is the broken Sierra you were talking about from the backseat of Kev's BMW. Nice Micra, interesting story with the insurance policy

[Robinxr4i]

Made a little bit of progress with the Micra, despite dragging my feet with projects in general.

Anyway the replacement wing and lights turned up.


Then after making excuses for a couple on months finally got around to repairing the damage.



Ta-Da!!!! Oh and I fibreglassed the back in the overfender so at least it's not several broken pieces flapping around.


Anyway with that done I had a bit of a mojo refill for working on the Micra. Well until I popped a tyre TBH this wasn't entirely unexpected the 185/55R15 tyres on the 8.25x15 wheels were interfering with all kinds of bit of bodywork. I knew I need to do something about it, but had ignored it until it had caused a problem.

So for a week the Micra looked like this.

And worst of all this!

Meh.

I researched various stupidly sized 15" tyres in an attempted to make the wheels fit, which was going to set me back around £200 fitted. Then markbognor tagged me in a FB post about a guy wanting to swap some 13" Wellers on an MX5 for some 15's. His wheels would give me more clearance and they also came with legal tyres, so we did a swap. So now the Micra looks like this.

[markbognor]

Excellentness.

[lukeevangelou]

Loving it robin!

[Robinxr4i]

Right I want proper low for the Mirca, MOAR lows than chopped spring and normal dampers could provide. I researched the normal route which involved adapting Polo stuff or paying huge sums for direct fit ones. I had originally intended to go with the Polo route and use the top mounts off the s13 coilovers I've got. Then I thought why not adapted the S13 coilovers, which were originally bought to adapt to the Sierra.

They are "cheap" Toyosport coilovers which I picked up for £60 because one of the dampers was completely shot!


With the S13 and Micra both being Nissans of a similar time period the style of mounting is very similar, so from my initial investigations they should fit with a little bit of adaption. First thing to do was change the springs from the rock solid 7kg/mm and 8kg/mm for some thing more suited to the Micras weight. A friend of mine had some mk1 Golf and Corsa B coilover spring which were surplus, and he needed some springs for his drifty Omega. So we did a swap. Job, jobbed as they say...


Next job was to deal with the blown damper, the original damper inserts were wet type ones and after a little research couldn't find a wet or dry replacement listed. The internals of the original had been run dry for so long it wasn't serviceable. So having a large warehouse of car parts at my disposal (one of the few perks of working for a motorfactors) I opened and measured lots of different dampers until I found a few suitable possibilities. The best fit I could find were mid-90's Toyota Hiace front dampers, they had the right length, diameter, fittings and a relatively stiff damping feel. They would need the bottom bush and the top shroud removing to work. Damper vs. damper body...

I plan to use two of the Hiace dampers and two of the original S13 dampers which seem to be in good condition.

Hiace top fitting vs. K10 Mirca top fitting


The dampers for a pair are £40, so aren't going to break the bank. So on top of the £60 I paid for the coilovers originally, they will stand me at £100 which providing I don't need too many other bits is cheaper than Polo ones, plus I'll have preload adjustable coilovers on my Micra which should give mega lows without the dampers bottoming out.

So this is what I've assembled so far using the original dampers for the fronts...


If it all works and works well I may look into getting Gaz or someone similar to make some proper inserts.

Anyway opinions please

[Robinxr4i]

MOT time is never pleasant, but even less so when the weather has been curse word and you know that the welding you've been putting off needs to be done, if you want it to pass! Anyway both sills needed repairing and there was a hole in the rear floor where the chassis leg joined the floor. Armed with my poxy 90 amp Clarke second hand £40 mig welder, I unleashed my weak skillzor.

Under neither the rear seat...

Grind...

Cut...

Weld...

Looks about right...

Bit better again...

Blew loads of holes and yes it looks curse word, but it's in there!


Drivers side rear sill after I'd removed the tin worm...

The inner sill...

Blowing more holes...

The inner skin...

Outer sill...


Then time got short and I didn't get any photos of the passenger side, but it was much the same. Then I hammered on a load of underseal, to hide my sins! Then presented it to the MOT tester

You can see my liberal use of underseal lol!

Anyway it passed! YAY! Advisories on an oil leak (which was the oil pressure switch, I've now fixed it), D/S front brake binding and 'surface rust'. All stuff that can be worked on anyway.

I also did the cambelt...


Oh and also made a bit of progress with the coilovers...

[HARDCORE]

Strong work Hombre & *thumbsup* for MoT winning!

[craig1010cc]

good work sir

[darrenh]

black bonnet for initial D look ?

[jrevillug]

[Robinxr4i]

With the MOT out of the way and the weather improving I want to do some silly stuff to the Mirca to give it a Garuchan/Racecar feel. Something along the lines of this (but with takeyari and other pointless tat)....


So the bumpers are going in the bin, took them off to check it would work before I start making brackets and mount for indicators, foglight, number plate etc. So it'll look a little bit like this...








So I've temporarily reattached the bumper as it doesn't look quite right without the other stuff I've got planned.

So other than ditching the bumpers I'm planning on using a free rear spoiler I got given as a front air dam. I made a template of the spoiler then cut it down until it fitted the car...



Spoiler...

...and with template laid over the top...


Hopefully I just need to cut the spoiler down to match the template and then work out a way of attaching it to the car (pretty sure I've work this out too no tiger seal either!)

Obviously this all this boso inspired stuff going on I also want to fit the obligatory faux oil cooler. To keep the budget as low as possible I've robbed a S13 diff oil cooler off a car a friend was breaking, he couldn't believe I actually wanted it HAHAHA! I've cut one of the mounts off as it was huge and unnecessary. So this will be hanging out the front with suitably large rubber hoses...


With the aforementioned takeyari I reckon it'll be a fun little car that'll keep me entertained on the road, get me to the Gathering and work as a daily. Hopefully cheap enough to run this and still get on with the Chevette

[Dan P]

love what you have planned!

[pork]

That'll look great! Love the spoiler/splitter!

May be stealing this

[pork]

That'll look great! Love the spoiler/splitter!

May be stealing this

[pork]

That'll look great! Love the spoiler/splitter!

May be stealing this