Loquat15's S12 Aka Battlestar Galactica

[Loquat15]

So... the story behind the car...

About maybe 2 years ago, the guy i work with bought this 1988 200sx SE v6 for about 900 bucks.  The paint was crappy but the car ran fine and you cant forget that it has a little over 200k miles...  He had it for about a month until he drove over to the Nissan dealership to buy new subframe bushings.  While he was there, he wanted to show his buddy who's a technician there the sweet s12.  The buddy said "You gotta trade me your s12 for my 93 Civic!"  

So they traded.  The civic was a steal!  But it's a Honda and fwd and gutless in comparison, but hey! He already had an old Datsun 510 that's street prepaired.

Time goes on, the rear interior of the 200sx gets gutted, the springs get cut, the differential gets welded, the car sits for a year, during which time someone throws a que ball at the windshield and of course cracks the hell out of it.

The guy has to get rid of the car, tries to sell it, nobody wanted it... he asked my co-worker if he wanted to buy it back... Nope, already has too many cars.  Said he would try and find a taker... sure enough here I am...

I got the car for FREE!  Within a week I replaced the windshield, found some hoopty wiring *shrugs*, and decided to go for a really cheap paint job.

So here's some pics of my paint job... it's a work in progress, i JUST layed down the third coat.... I rolled it on... bitches :-D

Oh, before i forget, i fixed some rust through holes in the rear hatch under the spoiler and removed/filled the antenna hole.


The scuffing... (spoiler is off and in my shop)


The paint

[Draconis]

Nice ass job... Makes me wish I had just gotten my car resprayed black... It was so pretty coming out of the shop all with a fresh coat of paint.

[sideways_s12]

good looking ride who would of thought that roll on paint would work so good my buddy did that to his s13 andit came out nice

[Loquat15]

yeah.... cant wait to wet sand it and polish it off :-)

ugh! haha

[Arro]

Hot damn!  WOW you really brought back her baller status.

Pretty soon, time to get yourself an LSD and go to the track!

[200sxkitcar]

probably doesn't need an LSD

Time goes on, the rear interior of the 200sx gets gutted, the springs get cut, the differential gets welded,  

A buff and we'll see!  What type of paint did you use?

[Loquat15]

Pretty soon, time to get yourself an LSD and go to the track!

Welded Dif or LSD... hrmmmmm..... the person who welded the dif did a VERY nice/professional job (or so i've been told)... the weakest link in the rear is now the cv joints and the ring & pinion  

A buff and we'll see!  What type of paint did you use?

Rustoleum in a can... i bought too much!!!  half a galon would have been fine, used mineral spirits to thin it out...

going to wet sand today and maybe buff it a bit :-)

[Arro]

You have a pretty impressive stable of cars man... What's your automotive history?

[Loquat15]

Starting from first car to last car...

In highschool:
1989 Honda Civic Hatchback (dad lent it to me)

Graduated Highschool:
1985 Porsche 944 (naturally aspirated, i got raped on the deal, naturally with a first car)

Joined the army as a wheeled vehicle mechanic, bought these cars:
1991 Honda Civic Hatchback (had it for a month and sold it, never drove it haha)
1981 Pontiac Turbo TransAm (peice of crap, v8, turbo runs off 1 bank, turbo seized, sold it before I was deployed to iraq)

After Iraq:
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo
1986 Toyota Corolla Sr5 (converted it to gt-s, 4age + lsd + rear discs)
sold the 1985 Porsche 944

Got a job as a mechanic:
1986 Honda XL600r (dual sport motorcycle)
1992 Toyota Corolla DX (customer brought it in with horrible rod knock, gave it to me for free, will be going to my girlfriend)
1988 Nissan 200sx SEv6 (picked it up for free from a friend's friend)

Current owned cars are in my sig

[David B]

lovin your interior

looks almost like mine

[sideways_s12]

that interior pic looks exactly like my black car

[David B]

that interior pic looks exactly like my black car

at least you have seats i bet!!

[Loquat15]

Been a while since I last updated this thing... so...

I finally installed some new rear subframe bushings and the bushing for the differential.  They're the hard plastic ones. Ack, cant remember the name... MMR?  

The old bushings were shot except for the diff, but figured i may as well replace it while I'm there.

I bought some new springs from Canuck Motorsports since they appear to have the only aftermarket springs that fit stock applications.  Found them on Ebay and got em for a grand total of $206.  Car now sits at a slope, rear end is higher than the front, but it's all good :-)

The rear dif is making some horrible whining noises.  It sounds like the pinion depth is off or the bearings are shot.  Will be heading out to the junkyard looking for a z31 lsd dif.  If none can be found, i'll just grab an open.

I also repaired a busted power steering line.  It split on a 90 degree bend god only knows how long ago.  I replaced the other line... I got mixed up when looking at the lines, got the wrong one.  I couldn't find the suction line (guess that's what it's called).  I had some fuel line stocked in my shop to cover the split.  I just hope it stays together.

I ran some hose to the rear tires to spray them with fluid from the washer reservoir.  Unfortunately i couldn't figure out the rear sprayer and since it didn't seem to be working anyways, i just ran it off the one for the front windshield sprayers.  I had to unplug the wipers... I'm going to go to the junkyard and find a tank & washer pump so I wont have to screw around with the stock system.

It's fun stuff, soapy water... dont need it for the welded dif, but it helps save tire life for when I want to have a little fun.


So the next things on my list are...

set steering wheel on straight
replace the drivers seat
buy and install electric radiator fan(s)
junkyard washer pump/reservoir to spray rear tires

Oh, and maybe a Bee*R rev limiter (ignition cut).  It's neat... not very useful other than shooting flames and having the ability to reduce the rev limit below stock... oh, cant forget the ability to adjust how long the ignition cuts for :-)

I'll probably lag on the drivers seat, but that's ok.  The car is done

[Leegamer]

Nice progress.  I wasn't on here yet when this thread was originally posted, but damn...a free SE.  Awesome.

[Loquat15]

So after reading this post http://www.club-s12.org/forums/index.php?s...ost&p=20365 I decided that I may as well look for one at the junkyard while lookin for a 300zx turbo dif.  Did not find the diff... but... I found this

The dual electric fan assembly came off a 1986 Nissan Maxima, the two fans on the left and middle are the stock 200sx clutch fan and condenser fan.



As I was pulling the old fans off I realized I could have just left the condenser fan and used it instead, but it was actually warped a bit so I decided to press on.

Another user on this board "henge" posted this one which would have been better, it's from a 1988 Nissan Maxima.



I had to modify the fan shroud a bit and also cut off the original Maxima mounts.  The metal rods you see connecting to the fan motors are welded to the fan shroud.  It's very sturdy and it wont be an issue if you find yourself with an 86 fan assembly.  Just cut the "arms" and don't worry about it.



It will fit in quite well.  In my situation I had to drill some holes in the sides of the fan shroud so that I could put in some screws to hold it on to the radiator.  The radiator already has some holes in the sides which appear to be for screws.  It's holding very tight and I know I wont have any issues with it.

On the 1986 Nissan Maxima, the radiator fan assembly has a little bracket on the bottom.  You don't need to cut it off and you can, in fact, use it.





After installing the fan assembly to the radiator, there's now a gap in the top area.  I will fill it with some weather stripping and see if that works with the heat.  Probably not, but I've got some lying around.  Will see what happens.





Now you might have noticed that the new fans are two different sizes.  The one with the larger motor on it has two speed settings and the other only has one.  The larger motor has 3 wires on it, the black one is ground and the other two are positive.  The smaller motor has only two wires, ground and positive.  It's quite easy to set up.  I highly recommend that you run the fans off a relay under the hood, and don't be afraid to use fuses!!!  Fuses are our friends :-)  

You're going to probably want a switch in the cab, if you do, I suggest you run the ground wire inside.  So that means positive is hooked basically strait up to the battery and the ground is switched on and off.  So what will happen now is if your ground wire gets chewed up somehow, you won't start an electrical fire, but you'd basically have a loose ground wire.

I only have the smaller fan hooked up at the moment since I was short of a relay.  But it kept the car from over heating and now i don't hear the WOOOSH sound of the clutch fan.

Oh, to trim the fan shroud, I suggest using a skill saw, but a hacksaw will work.

[Loquat15]

I'm starting to wonder how much this car will end up being sold for... hrm...  Whatever the amount, i'll be sure to get my money's worth out of it.

[Loquat15]

AHHH!!!  I bought a dif from Ju_S12_Turbo, installed it tonight... its nearly 2am... im about to go to sleep just wanted to blerb real quick.

Okay, so if you take a differential out of an automatic s12, you're going to have to replace the yoke on the automatic dif with the manual dif.  The reason being is they are different.  One has a bolt pattern that's rectangular, the manual has a square pattern.

You can change them out fairly easily if you have power tools and a torque indicator.  Depending on what you have, it might have a dial on it or it might have two rods, one you pull on and the other is the indicator.

First, on the dif you're going to swap in, use a torque indicator to see how much torque it takes to rotate the pinion.  It took about 4 inch-pounds for mine.  Roughly 9-10 initial torque but 4 constant.  

Now, use a punch and make a mark on the nut and pinion for reference.  Then use an impact gun and take the nut off.  You're now going to have to beat off the yoke (gay i know) or use a puller.

Do the same with your old diff, now put the correct yoke on the diff you're going to use.  You're gunna have to beat it on a bit, be careful not to hit on the bolt holes or the pinion shaft.

Once you feel that it's down all the way, zip the nut on till you know it's not free spinning on.  Check where your marks are.  Go ahead and test to see what kinda torque it's taking to turn the pinion.  If it's too easy, you're probably too loose.  I was lucky, I had my marks line up and it was pretty close..  I just had to rotate it an additional 15-20 degrees.

You do not want to over torque this!  I have not taken one of these differentials apart, but there usually is a crush ring inside that keeps pressure on the bearings.  too much torque = too much bearing preload = way shortened bearing life.

(I think i'm going to post this in a DIY)

But anyways, i think I want LSD now... welded makes your car slow, open makes your car faster than welded except it's lame for getting sideways, and of course a helical style LSD would be best for grip driving... clutch would be okay for drifting, viscious would be ok..... but dont wanna deal with that chit on this car.

anyways, goodnight.

[Loquat15]

here you go, left is manual tranny and right is automatic tranny



And this is right after I got the yoke i needed off...



Oh yah... and i've had these MMR mounts installed for quite some time...

[IggyEGuana]

u sure those are the same diff?

[Redneck]

I can somewhat in shock your diff is messed up. Rare for the r200's unless they were really abused or neglected or both. Good job on the electric fan install.