Bargain Basement Motoring

[NewcastleFalcon]

Pleased I remembered to put the handbrake on Paul or that would have been the result!

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

The BB Micra makes an appearance in Scrapyard tales today. Just visiting of course.....

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

There are a number of advantages keeping the Micra road legal, even though its secondary transport now.

One I can use it for the carthorse role...tip visiting, cement/sand/aggregate/timber and various other lugging tasks, shoving the bike in without dismantling anything, or bothering too much about the uphostery.

Another is as the reserve ready and available should it be called on loan it out for a bit of temporary transport while attending to maintenance/repair on other cars in the maintenance fleet.

Also l enjoy full no claims discount on it, as well as the Leaf, so its nice not to let that slip.

Running about in the Leaf, with no exhaust, no oil and filter changes, and currently free fuel, does make you think twice though about whether to spend £120 on a new exhaust for the MICRA and shove it through the MOT again, and Tax it again. I think I probably will, but I do quite like the temporary botch job I did with a straight tailpipe when the rear silencer expired, sounds much better

Here's the Micra enjoying itself in splendid isolation....yes its useful for apres dog-walk duties with wet or muddy Labradors too!

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Widen your horizons
You can with a Nissan

Especially if you only paid £100 for it

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Spent 98p on the BB Micra yesterday. Got a couple of M10x1.25X60 bolts from the agricultural engineers. The "proper" Nissan bolts for the front downpipe to catalytic converter are ridiculously bespoke and unnecessary and round about £5 each.

bb micra enters stage top right

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

The BB Micra has a full new exhaust £120.....yes £20 more than the entire car but its been a good servant and done over 12,000 miles in it. Being the BB Micra I did it myself but it has to be one of the most ridiculous jobs to do yourself even with ramps. Why did i bother? Well I guess I saved myself £50 maybe more Was it worth it...frankly no.

Here's one of the little irritations. Had to grind off the end of the "hanger projection" on the front downpipe because it was too long to poke through a fixed rubber mount , given the geometry of the convoluted pipe and the subframe and other random components in the way.

lets call it a nipple

REgards Neil

[bobins]

Thankfully, I've only ever had to do tailpipes at home, but if I ever have to contemplate a full exhaust replacement, I know how I'm going to do it.........

Easy access - own work

[NewcastleFalcon]

Proper Bargain basement motoring tends to involve the odd scrapyard visit. Lets face it, the BB motorist doesn't walk into a Nissan Service Centre and say my airbag light is on can you fix it?

So I am happy to report my bit of scrapyard recycling reported on the Scrapyards and Scrapyard Purchases has resolved the Airbag light on the BB Micra K12.

Treated myself to another visit to the scrapyard this morning. Following my nearly getting locked in with a large Alsation last visit, I decided against an afternoon visit.

I knew there were a series of Micra K12's in a row, so I went in search of a match of a few airbag (SRS) system components. It was useful research because each version of the car has a different level of equipment. Mine is the very basic Drivers and Passenger Air Bags, Driver and Passengers Pre-Tensioners in the seat belts, and a crash zone sensor at the front. Most other models have side-air bags in the front seats, and others curtain airbags.

So I found a match, and took away an Airbag (SRS) ECU, side satellite sensors left and right (my car has the wiring loom for these but not the sensors themselves) and two termnals for the side airbag wiring loom (which is present in my Micra but not terminated correctly-the car has no side airbags)

I only had a £20 so needed a bit of trim for the BB Corsa so got that thrown in too for £20 all told. Went away quite happy with that.

Regards Neil

and my little diagram which helped sort it out

original artwork-used condition NF

[NewcastleFalcon]

MOT time for Bargain Basement Micra. Two little jobs

Coil Spring nearside front broken
Ball joint nearside front.

Its bargain basement so doing them myself. Well a couple of things make those bread and butter jobs a bit more pain-in-the-neck-ey.

Of course there is our old friend rust. Do a coil spring, and you have to do a drop link because you can never dismantle and reinstate.....they are already my personal 101. So you have to grind them off. Bolts and nuts which start out at 18mm by the time the rusty outer edge crumbles off you are down to hammering a 16mm socket to stand any chance of loosening them. Minor miracle that for the coil spring they eventually came out.

The other thing yes its one of those arrangements where to replace the ball joint at the hub carrier you have to replace the whole lower arm. Those bolt heads and nuts were even worse. One came out after a lot of persuasion with a breaker bar and the old faithful sawn off scaffolding bar extension. The other one.....nut end has the antirollbar in the way preventing a socket being used and your average ring spanner is just not up to the job, and the angles are not right for getting grips onto the nut.

Haven't resolved it yet, its not going to be that easy to grind off. Basically all that can get anwhere near is the dremel with the dentists flexible extension, and getting the right angles to avoid slicing the subframe is tricky, and as yet not successful.

Simon did mention in his blog the collection of water in a pool at the top of the suspension strut in the Leaf. I also noticed this in the BB Micra. Creates quite a big problem if you want to replace a coil spring. The rust weld between the top of the strut and the nut is beyond the capabilities of a 6mm allen key inserted into the top of the strut in order to loosen the top nut. The force required to break the initial rust seal will cause the 6mm allen to either break or spin in its rusted hole.

Managed to overcome this just by hammering in a 7mm straight allen bit which proved just tight enough to start the loosening process.

Normally, with no pressure, reasonably sunny days to go at it, I would find the challenges sort of enjoyable and satisfying when they are overcome. In some ways it makes you appreciate what the guys in the small garages repairing older cars come across every day. The parts fo my little escapade are going to be around £80 to £120 depending on whether I get a new shock absorber ( yes the "strut" bit) or just do the coil spring. But the hassle of doing the job I could do without. My local garage would probably have charged less than £100 in Labour, would have faced the same problems as me but would have had it up a height, and had the know how and the gear not to waste the vast amount of time I have spent wrestling with the rusty bits with inadequate gear.

Not finished yet, still bargain basement motoring, two jobs and it gets its ticket for another year.

Got to say I enjoy using the car for good old fashioned pleasure motoring, rather than all this tinkering business.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Pictures of the BB Motoring Day

Morning....went OK decided just to get a new shock absorber (strut), got some nuts and washers from the local Agricultural Engineer, and got the old ratchet strap spring compressors out. Coil spring and strut done and dusted ready to put back on.



Afternoon.....Getting the one remaining bolt out of the lower arm. Started maybe 2.30 ish job complete 6.30 ish.

Predictable nightmare.

So here is the lower arm and the bolt carefully removed

PITA lower arm rear mounting BB Micra

No I didnt enjoy it!

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Appropriate title for this photo?

frustration part 2

Even I am not mad enough to go out in the monsoon and finish the 2 MOT jobs on the BB Micra, so it was tool tidy and clean up time, and gather together the new parts so everything is at hand when the rain stops.

This is a 15mm socket hammered onto a rusty 16mm bolt head the only way of extracting it from the lower arm.

I might as well have welded it on. Its still not off and I have abandoned it for now. The chances of any Nissan parts department carrying a replacment bolt off the shelf I assess at nil, and furthur delay I am not looking for. One way or another its coming off.

Heat I hear you cry, I expect that will be the only answer, but with only the regular gas cooker in my arsenal its not going to happen. I may seek the necessary heat elsewhere.

Only other way grind a slot in the socket and break it. That to be fair could be my next step. I have spent quite enough time of tappy-tappy whacky-whacky with a hammer and a screwdriver and it hasn't budged.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

How about putting the bolt back in through the new bush, doing it up and then twisty twisty with the breaker bar and scaffold pole?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thats a decent suggestion Mick, particularly if it works. Wonder if it doesnt whether the MOT man will pass it with a 15mm socket still in situ

I am quite fortunate that the local agricultural engineer has a vast stock of bolts and may just be able to match one up in the morning, fixed me up with the one I had to destroy to get off.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

It is almost certain to work, as you will be undoing the motion which wedged it on when you took it off. If necessary get the scaffold bar end onto a jack and jack it against the weight of the car.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Hopefully that will do it Mick, I will look for a replacement bolt though, not that I plan to make a habit out of changing front lower arms, but there is something not very satisfying about a chewed up bolt head having to be re-used.

The car is 15 Years old now and I speculate as to whether that was an original lower arm. I wouldnt be surprised if that bolt has been in place for 15 years . The MOT tester was bang on right though the ball joint at the hub was well and truly gone.

Regards Neil