Project "Pidge" 92 240 with 2wd rb25det neo & cd009

[kowalatea]

This is a story of how I became broke 

It all started with a text. " is this this what you've been looking for? One just got dropped of here at the scrap yard!" 

Meet "Pidge" my 92 240sx coupe junk yard save. 

The backstory on the car is apparently it was some kids project back in the early 2000 that they had lost interest in after blowing the stock ka24de (you'll see the window in the side of block later on ) and had just left it in their mothers backyard when they left and moved off to college. Well I guess the mother was cleaning her property to get it ready to sell and had dropped it off at the scrap yard a few towns over where I have a friend that works. So instead of letting the scrap yard buy and crush it, he paid her cash for the car so it wouldn't be scrapped and texted me knowing damn good and well he'd be able to make a buck or two off of me. 

The car its self wasnt in the worst condition it sat as high as most trucks out here in east texas and aside from the silvia front end conversion,  and backyard straight pipe exhaust job the car was stock. Which for me was the perfect starting platform.

That gave me the a fresh start. Minus the headlights no wiring was hacked up everything was there I could of very easily just pulled the blown ka put a fresh motor in and it would have been back on the road.well that and had a key made. 

The car had some minor body damage that was apparent upon inspection. The sun roof leaked and the trunks spoiler was almost broken off so the interior was going to need replacing and with the amount of humidity we get out here the under carriage was going to need inspection.

Then it was on I towed the car back home and parked her out in my front yard for about 6 months while I tried to find the between two jobs and a family to get all of my parents belongings out of my garage and my garage clean enough to get the car up in the garage 

Then on December 23rd 2018 it got real the car was finally pushed up into the garage and tare down and a thorough  Inspection began.

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by kowalatea

[kowalatea]

With the car finally in the garage it was time to really dig in and asses the situation.  So I started in on her being as she sat for so many years you can see several squirrels had raised their family's in her, the entire intake tube all the way back to the throttle body was full of acorns. It was frighteningly comical pulling her apart. Almost like a bad cartoon. 

One disconnecting most everything from the top side up she went on to jack stands where she would spend almost to the day,One year, as I pieced together and refurbished her undercarriage and suspension components. 

But before the chassis and suspension work, the dead motor needed to go. So with a little help and alot of enginuity (hehehe see what I did there ) out came the motor and transmission 

On a side note do you know what kind of a poor choice it is to try and pull an engine on the dirt by yourself.... a rather large one. 

[PranK]

This is awesome!

Super ambitious project, I love it. Save a car from the wreckers.

How rad are squirrels?! SO cool. 

[Steve85]

I am loving this write up. Hoping to hear more from you and your enginuity. ?

Also everyone here is broke, so no judgement...

[Steve85]

6 hours ago, kowalatea said:

poor choice

Also... just FYI. If you came here hoping that we would be the type to guide you into good life decisions... ummm... well here is some that I can offer; invest in Apple in the 90s and Google in the 00s oh and GTRs in the 2010. (Steve's life advice right here...) ?

This entire forum is a whole bunch of enablers.... So we like to see when people fit in straight away!!! You are going to fit in GREAT!

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

acorn injection, not bad.. I wonder how knock resistant it is.

[GTSBoy]

I've seen what happens when squirrels put in too many acorns. They get backfires.

[kowalatea]

With the engine finally out we were able to finally find the damage. Cylinder 2 had decided it needed a room with a view, and threw a rod through the drive side of the block 

With all hope of fixing and selling the engine to help offset the price of the build it was time to start stripping her down to her bare bones and assessing what was going to be viable to keep refresh and reuse and what was to be written off as a total loss. 

Decided to start with the suspension tare down because I knew right off the batt most all the suspension was going to be trashed and replaced with adjustable components. 

Here we have a before of the front suspension, a sad sad stock front end. Can any one else not get over how big the factory springs are on these cars?  

And here we have a sad before photo of the rear end. Fun fact when I went to pull the rotor off the rear passenger side the whole disc separated from the hat. I had a good laugh and pretended to be xena for about 10 minutes 

[kowalatea]

 

1 hour ago, Steve85 said:

This entire forum is a whole bunch of enablers.... So we like to see when people fit in straight away!!! You are going to fit in GREAT!

Why thank you good sir. I didnt necessarily look to fit in but its continously a good feeling knowing one does 

[kowalatea]

58 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

acorn injection, not bad.. I wonder how knock resistant it is.

The answer is it's not....... at all. Not in the slightest lol 

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Lol nice crank case vent, no need for those fancy sump vents or drug money PRP head drains.

Well done!

Also, last minute advice abort while you can. Trust me, I've bought a dirt cheap Nissan shitbox and no joke have spent 10x that value. I keep saying meth or shards seem like a cheaper hobby.

[Steve85]

37 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Lol nice crank case vent, no need for those fancy sump vents or drug money PRP head drains.

Well done!

Also, last minute advice abort while you can. Trust me, I've bought a dirt cheap Nissan shitbox and no joke have spent 10x that value. I keep saying meth or shards seem like a cheaper hobby.

TOOOOO LATE!!!! 

chants: One of Us!, One of Us!, One of Us!

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

1 hour ago, Steve85 said:

TOOOOO LATE!!!! 

chants: One of Us!, One of Us!, One of Us!

Poor guy, kiss his social life and bank account goodbye lol.

[kowalatea]

5 hours ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Also, last minute advice abort while you can. Trust me, I've bought a dirt cheap Nissan shitbox and no joke have spent 10x that value. I keep saying meth or shards seem like a cheaper hobby.

Mama didnt raise no quitter!!!!,

she raised an addict!!

I dont quit doing things I just take breaks. 

 

[kowalatea]

 Continuing with disassembly and inspection the rear end was the first to be dropped, and i cheated i unbolted the struts the rear subframe and just dropped the whole bisnitch as one full assembly. 

But that didnt really work in my favor because I still had to pull the diff out to get the assembly off the jack so i could drag it out from under the car. 

I dont know what I was thinking Jack's dont want to roll over a damn zip tie let alone around on crushed concrete and dirt. 

Here's the haggard stock set up and as you can see it had see better days so I stripped everything off down to just the bare subframe and got after it.

And after about a week of aircraft remover and wire wheeling the subframe, a frash coat of primer was ready to be shot. which in hindsite I should have waited until I knew what I was doing regarding rear the subframe bushings before shooting. but oh well 

After deciding on what to do about the bushings it was now time to get the old ones out. I cut as much as I could but finally broke down and just let em burn 

I had decided to go with the energy suspension urethane squeakers 

[kowalatea]

With the squeakers being chosen and the suspension arms being slowly purchased it was time to start prepping the underside for the reinstallation and well in order to do that properly the fuel tank had to come out. So I pop open the trunk to the fuel pump and guess what I find ..... a lake where the spare tire should be. this is what it looked like after pulling the drain plugs. Once addressing that issue I loved onto the task at hand and pulled the fuel pump. And at that point things got more expensive because I found this a fresh low milage fuel pump ..... and knowing when a sending unit looks this bad the amount of time and effort that's needed to get the tank clean is going to be astronomical so the deliberation began. Do I find a stock replacement or do I go fuel cell( I'm going with a cell) 

Now that the tank is out and the whole underside is barren it's time to dawn the mask and goggles and get up under there with the wire wheel and start knocking off the caked up oil road grime and old undercoating. 

and after about a month of this I finally got the back end to a spot where I could start to reapply a new layer of primer(used a rust preventer) and then some fresh undercoating. 

[PLYNX]

Cant really see a problem with that fuel pump assembly ! 

There's at least another hundred thousand miles in it yet !

[kowalatea]

30 minutes ago, PLYNX said:

Cant really see a problem with that fuel pump assembly ! 

There's at least another hundred thousand miles in it yet !

RIGHT!!! You see all that added filtration the iron crystals are providing not to mention the cheese burger that says how much fuel is in the tank 

Edited June 10, 2020 by kowalatea

[PLYNX]

What ? American cars run on cheese burgers now ?

Oh the wonders of modern technology !  

[Steve85]

3 hours ago, kowalatea said:

. a lake where the spare tire should be. 

Why should you be different to the rest of us? ?

But seriously this is a great write up, you are doing some real solid work and really seem to know what you're doing (more than me anyways). Hoping you find a few good surprises somewhere along the track (even if it's just a panel that doesn't need bog). ?