My C32 Laurel Medalist V-Turbo hardtop

[broke]

Thanks guys! I must say thanks to Brock again too for helping out with all the grunt work on this and for supplying the rear tyres and fitting and balancing them all for me. Cheers cuz!

that does look really good. looks like a great wheels size for my laurel

I've been thinking about that C31 a lot lately.....

[dirtyleppa]

you and me to man

[broke]

My front strut top bearings are rooted, and I'm too much of a Jew to pay whatever ridiculous price people are asking for them now, so I bought a couple of 6302 bearings from Saeco for about 6 bucks each. Getting the old ones out isn't as simple as pressing them out in a vice though. You can see the strut top on the left has the old bearing still - this is held in by the metal sleeve that the bearing sits in being slightly longer than the bearing, and then sort of folded over the outer race to retain it.

I had to put the strut top on the lathe and carefully machine off the folded over bit. A 1" ferrule was exactly the same OD as the metal sleeve that the bearing is pressed into, so after machining the barbs out of the inside of it to the depth of the bearing I stuck it in the vice against the bottom of the strut up with a socket pressing against the top of the bearing and popped the suckers out. After press fitting the new bearings I staked them in with a centre punch for peace of mind.

Pic to prove I actually did some work:

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I haven't installed these yet, but Brocky got me some proper Cobra lowering springs for a C32, so when I fit those and the new balljoint I'll fit these too. Also tonight I fitted my new R30 rear shocks to the back of the car and WHOAH it definitely does not look lowered in the rear now! This is actually quite handy, as I'm not not experiencing the massive levels of guard rub gnawing away at my rear tyres any more. Hopefully it will settle slightly over the next few days, by which time I should have my own guard roller. The handling now is very nice indeed!

Unfortunately I'm having some highly annoying electrical issues - often after I shut the car off there's no charge in the battery to start it again. This has left me stranded a few times . The alternator is less than a year old and the alternator light has never come on the whole time. The battery is about 2 weeks old. If I jump start the car it will run fine, but the battery indicator light shows no charge. I have no idea if this is a battery issue or alternator issue or something else, but I've got a guy booked to look at it on Monday or Wednesday. Fingers crossed it's not expensive to fix!

[Bartman]

I've had this problem before.
Get a cheap nasty ammeter, and wire it into the fusable link. then unhook the battery, and pull the fuses one at a time. and reconnect the battery. When you find the fuse which is causing the earth leakage, you'll be able to isolate the problem.

[broke]

GAAH!

Small update, big headache. I took the car to the auto electrician and he diagnosed a rooted insulator, made a hori one up and fitted it. He also managed to get my wipers working properly (apparently 2 blown diodes in a control box somewhere) so now they work on all settings instead of just intermittent.

But now I'm getting the dreaded lack of charging again! I had a good alternator on my parts car, then I busted it trying to clean it

I also thought I might have a blown head gasket, as I have been getting some raher alarming loss of coolant lately.... Turns out it's the heater core. Weird, since I never had wet carpet or any coolant smell inside it. Of course, I scrapped a good one with the rest of the dashboard out of the parts car

Looks like I'm in for a few cold drives to work for a while.... Anyone got a C32 or R31 heater core?

[broke]

Well after a week of topping up coolant before every drive now I DO have a blown head gasket(s) to go with my leaking heater core.

Looks like I'm in for a few busy weekends.

TO DO:

-Head gaskets + clean out block oil and coolant passages, radiator, sump etc
-Heater core
-Roll rear guards
-Trim and refit stainless steel rear wheel arch trim
-Lower rear of car
-Fit proper lowering springs in front
-Fit new ball joint + strut tops with replaced bearings
-Make 2.5" exhaust
-Get alternator charging again!

[85_Z31]

Time for a 30ET John

[DJZ]

RB30ET? Now we're talking!

[broke]

If I was keeping it yeah, it'd be VG30E+T all day...... But nah, I need $ for the 1600 chrome bumper and JDM wheel fund.

[broke]

This rain totally sucks but I still did some stuff. Drained some coffee coloured stuff out of the sump, then did the radiator, which was surprising clean, only diluted green coolant came out. Looks like I have more coolant in the oil than oil in the coolant. Took the upper and lower intake manifolds off (found a couple of metal injector "U" clips under there, handy!). Removed radiator, upper timing cover, fan, belts etc.

Looks like one of my crappy Supercheap crimp lugs is busted on my alternator, so fingers crossed that's all I need to do there.

Will do the strut tops and front springs while I've got it up in the air too.

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Having Mexican gangsta thug airbags in the front saves on axle stands - you just have to be really quick undoing things while it's still in the air

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