Seebeebee's P1 N16

V-SpecII said:
Some great shots there bud!!
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Thanks! I was happy to get out there and get some shots, although I plan for a photo session that's a bit more special, once I'm fully happy with the state of the car (if ever that time comes!)

bushell said:
Car looks good man. Its a good feeling ticking a few to do boxes off haha
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It is, although I've found that as you work through the list of things to do, the list gets longer as you spot things that need fixing or come up with ideas. It's a self reinforcing loop!
 
I've spent the evening playing with a photo of my car's front, trying to decide what to do with my grille.

The initial idea from my first post in this thread about pulling out the slats and meshing it up has somewhat gone out the window. Partly because I didn't realise there was a strip of bumper hidden behind the chrome strip (I had only owned the car a matter of days at the time), and partly because I've just gone off the idea. Not off a modification all together though. I acquired a new set of grilles during one of my recent visits to a scrappy, and thus far I have come up with the following three options:

1 - Colour coding of the black slats (not a very good edit, but the best I could come up with to demonstrate the idea)
jbuGK5FXvXNab.jpg


2- Colour coding of the chrome strips
iSmf2gHzLhP8H.jpg


3- Removal of the chrome strips, cutting off the fixing clips on the plastic, smoothing over and painting black.
iCBq1dYiucFwr.jpg


Now, currently, I'm leaning towards option 1. Mainly because I'm liking the chrome/blue combo of the bodywork, lights etc, and the other 2 options involve removing the chrome accent on the grille. But is that going to be too much blue? I have seen it done to other cars and it's not as overbearing as you might think...

The jury's out. Opinions?
 
So, I did this today...

jDwjztzPuX4fv.jpg


And also did this...

jbr8nOQGrV2fgk.jpg

(Rounded nut)

As you can see, I've gone with option 1 on the grilles at the moment. I'm fairly happy with how they came out. Going to leave them on and see if they grow on me. It was a bit of a rush job, and they've yet to be lacquered. If I change my mind, I can swap straight back to standard, as these are an extra pair. Alternatively I could try one of the other ideas. Opinions?

Also the nut in the second picture has been doing my head in all afternoon. I was in the process of changing my belts and one of the first nuts I had to loosen rounded on me. My standard socket set wouldn't fit over the bolt protruding out of the nut, so I tried to use an adjustable spanner, but that wouldn't work. So I popped to my local parts place and got a 12mm spanner. Pretty soon, that was slipping too. Now it's all but completely mullered and I don't know the best way to go about getting it off. Any tips? I would have gone for a deeper socket, but I'm not sure I could fit one in the space opposite the nut (I know it looks like miles of room on the picture, but just out of shot there's something in the way.

In other news, I managed to finally get my oil and oil filter changed yesterday, as well as fixing my starter motor that had developed a problem with the solenoid not kicking in properly. Making progress. Slowly.
 
Have you got enough space for a pair of mulgrips or the scary thought of a chisel which if done with care can be a decent option for removing a rounded nut.
Have you got a straight on view of your colour coded grills? From this angle they look quite good
 
bnicholls92 said:
Have you got enough space for a pair of mulgrips or the scary thought of a chisel which if done with care can be a decent option for removing a rounded nut.
Have you got a straight on view of your colour coded grills? From this angle they look quite good
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Not sure about space for multigrips. Possibly but I don't have a pair to try it out. Might be able to borrow some. As for a chisel, how would that work? Just chisel the whole nut off?

And here's a front view...
jbpeS1ZnnFNrvZ.jpg
 
I like the grills, and with the chisel you would tap it at an angle break the lock between the thread and the nut, just make sure you have a spare nut because when you get the nut off it will be mashed
 
Thanks for the input, guys! I managed to get it fixed today after taking it to a friendly mechanic who loosened the nut and provided me with a new one for a couple of quid and a handshake. Saves me buying tools for the job I'm only going to use once and throw in the shed. Still not managed to actually get round to changing the belts yet though. Hopefully Sunday.
 
The starter motor that I thought I had fixed is playing up again. Seems to be more when the engine is warmed up, the solenoid doesn't want to kick in, and you just hear the motor spinning. Might have to look for a new one, unless anyone has any suggestions as to an easier fix? It'll suddenly decide to work again if you leave it alone for 10 minutes or so.

Also, this is a work in progress...

jb2JtFtOXd7jp1.jpg


*Updated with a slightly less crap photo*
 
pel said:
1999 called, wondering if you had seen their car xxx
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Well it was built a year after that, so at least it's correct to the period :P. It's just a bit of a low-cost experiment to see if the grille strips can be replicated with light. Under car neons next, yeah?
 
And now for something completely different...

I've had an intermittent problem with the starter motor since I owned the car, where the motor spins but doesn't turn the engine. It would generally do this after having been run and then stopped for a short time (ie, stopping off for fuel and trying to restart the engine after filling up). This wasn't always the case though, and would occasionally happen when first starting the car from cold. The problem would usually persist for 5 minutes or so until it decided of it's own accord to work again. As I'm sure you can imagine, this was a bit of a pain, especially at places like petrol stations where people are queuing behind for the pump.
The first thing I tried was to take off the motor and inspect it for any damage or obvious corrosion. I cleaned it up and used some WD40 to keep everything moving. That worked, for about a week. After that, the problem came back.
My thought after that was the solenoid was sticking, so I went to a local scrappy and got a replacement. Last week I swapped them over, and happily this solved this issue. Again, for about a week. Now it's back.
i'm at a loss as to what the cause of this is. Either lightning has struck in the same place twice and the new motor has developed exactly the same problem (ok, solenoid failures are perhaps more common than lightning, but you get my point), or the problem is down to the flywheel or some kind of power distribution issue. My next guess would be it's somehow down to an electrical problem? If it was the flywheel missing teeth, for example, I would expect the failure to be completely random, rather than showing a pattern.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what it might be, or if not, what best to do next?

I'm stuck.
 
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