Friday, July 3, 2015

cadet prep 3

Finally, the last day of preparation before hoisting both engines from their chassis.


This is the view of the segmented driveshaft in the s13. I disconnected the bolts between the front and rear sections, and the bearing support to the chassis and removed the front segment.








As you can see above, the front section is supported by the bearing to the car. This is the opposite of the s14a, where the rear section is supposed by the bearing to the car. This will become very important later.




As per daily standard, bust knuckles and bleed. Make sure to smudge greasy dirt in it.



Every nut and stud sheared when removing the exhaust. Luckily, they all did.




When the nuts started sticking and the studs started shearing I was worried that I wouldn't be able to remove the OEM tubes, but thankfully all the fasteners were equally corroded and weak.





With the exhaust and driveshaft removed, I returned under the hood to finish.

I disconnected everything electrical starting with the battery and fuse box.


















All of the OEM clips and tie downs were still in use so this took a bit more time than on the sr20 previously, but wasn't too bad.

I then disconnected the engine ground on the intake side.




I took a few shots of the electrical and vacuum routing as needed.











I then started to disconnect the upper engine harness starting with the CAS.



I followed the wires back to the throttle body area, disconnecting all the plugs along the way.




This moved into the fuel injector area between the intake plenum and the head.






Continuing on to the idle air controls, following the main harness back to the firewall.











First broken clip.







I don't believe this is the second broken clip, but actually the second half of the first broken clip.


Continue to disconnect grounds and wires with as much care as can be mustered in order to save as many OEM clips as possible. It's like saving kittens. 




It should be a reminder that many of the plugs in this region of the upper engine harness have clips. These can be difficult to remove but it is easier than any alternative.









At this point apply lessons learned from the sr20 and simply disconnect the spark plug sub-harness from the main harness. This avoids having to remove the spark plug cover and all of the individual plugs and also having to locate the sub-harness later in a garage and house full of moving boxes. 

I realize this also assumes that if one did go the longer route of disconnecting all of the plugs under the spark plug cover, they should stop at the main harness and leave the sub-harness attached to the chassis. I wasn't having a good day previously on the sr20.





Disconnect the brake booster.



With everything disconnected on the engine and transmission side, it was time to finish off both cars on the inside. The shifters needed to be removed from both cars.



Unscrew the shifter knob.


Unclip the trim surround.



Unbolt the outer rubber seal between the chassis and the shifter.


Pull off the inner rubber seal between the shifter and the transmission.


Remove the pair of metal c-clips, only one of which needs to be compressed to extract. This can be difficult, but is easier with a small screw driver or tool which can fit in the side notch of the transmission and be used to pry the clip upward.







Note the order of removal, the one without the eyelits is the upper ring, the first to be removed, and subsequently the only needing compression to release.


The lower ring, which has the eyelits for a c-clip compression removal tool, slips out loosely without the need of any sort of tool at all other than possibly to guide it. Completely nonsensical. 



Shift the transmission into neutral and pull out the shifter.




I grabbed my trusty tools and headed over to the other car and repeated the entire shifter removal process.




















For some reason I forgot to re-attach the spark plug cover from the ill-conceived plan of removing the spark plug harness on the sr20. I completed the poor decision and bolted down the cover having removed the harness from the engine and the chassis and put it inside the car with the other disassembled parts. At least I didn't leave the spark plug cover hardware in the fender crease for more than a day and was able to keep track of those much easier than a rogue sub-harness by re-attaching them where they belonged.




Another amazing day in London.


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