Hachi's 180SX...... A car with some DI history

[lady89]

Jesus are you trying to give me a heart attack! It was down Cork before alright but it's a legit 180sx.

hahahah i was thinking for a while should i even ask haha that car just looks so familiar to a 200 that was around the place (even the colour swap) so had to ask ha

[Hachi]

So a bit more to the story, as I unfurl the pictures from the last year. Some of the more keen observers may notice that there were no side indicators on the wings in the first pictures.



They didn't come with the car but I was given a myriad of different side indicators "that may fit", That was not going to cut the mustard for me and so onto the bay I went looking for some OEM type x indicators. I don't know if it was just a timing thing but there were none for sale at the time. I kept on searching for a week or so and eventually came across a pair shipped from Japan for €50, score!



It may not seem like a major thing, but they really does add so much to the car (aside from making it road legal). Fitting them was fairly plug and play once I had fished out the wiring from in behind the fender.



All going to plan I should have a more major update this weekend.

[LarZ]

Details matter! And the amber lenses are soooo much nicer than clear.

Found a pic from May 25th 2015 when I looked at it with the intention of buying


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[Hachi]

Awesome, thanks for the pic. It's brilliant to get more history on the car.

Totally agree with you about the amber lenses. Personally I don't like clear ones.

[lady89]

think it actually does make a difference, looks very good

[Ptank]

Looks good, breaks up the black nicely. I've clear ones on the aide of my s14 and wouldn't be a huge fan of them


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[LarZ]

same car? http://www.driftireland.com/forum/sh...X-kitted-180sx

[Hachi]

same car? http://www.driftireland.com/forum/sh...X-kitted-180sx

That's her alright in a previous life. Nice find that! Cheers

I have links to previous threads for this car. I'll stick them up later.

[Hachi]

Finally some time to update this after a crazy week in work. To follow up from my previous post, here are links to a couple of the previous threads put up by MarkSull who owned this car a few years ago. It was a very cool looking car before it was broken!

http://www.driftireland.com/forum/sh...my-kouki-180sx

http://www.driftireland.com/forum/sh...pics-of-my-180

http://www.driftireland.com/forum/sh...my-kouki-180sx

Okay, bringing things back to modern day as part of my prep to NCT the 180 I need to adjust the height a bit, that ended in me having to remove the coilovers as collars didn’t want to rotate… Looking at them it’s not really a surprise why!






After much work we managed to get the collars free, but not without a fight.




With the collars loose and the springs off I took a moment to assess the condition of the shocks. It came as no surprise that there was no natural rebound of the piston when compress which I take as a sign that shocks are well spent and past their due. That was back in late October 2017, with this in mind I started considering another set of coilovers, but didn’t want to go the second hand route as I may as well be replacing one bad part with another and I was conscious that Black Friday would be soon and that DriftWorks normally do 20% off the price of coilovers in their sales. I kept an eye on the DW website over the Black Friday week and as luck would have it there was 20% off all HSD coilovers. I went ahead and ordered a set of HSD Dualtech Coilovers that way there would be no worries about the coilovers failing the test.

About the same time I sent the 180 to a guy I know/mechanic to put on a standard exhaust for the test also as I was too busy in work at the time and don’t have a garage or lift to work on…………….6 months later I got the car back (~3 weeks ago). The HSD’s had long arrived at this stage and I was eager to fit them. Thankfully there was a day of very nice weather so I took the opportunity to fit the coilovers.

Sunshine, Shocks, and one very dirty S-Chassis.




New coilovers, a rare luxury!




The effort required to lift a car without a lift ☹. That jack has been one of my best purchases ever!




Of course this did not go without issue. When removing the wheels, one of the internal drive wheelnuts started to split, I had normal wheelnuts bought to replace these as I had forseen this happening.




After some beating with a punch and screw driver, we managed to get the nut free……. Should be usable again with a little JB Weld :lol:




Finally with the nuts loosened, I was able to jack the car up and get the wheels off.




Next step, Off with the old coilovers which have definitely seen better days. Really and truly these should be red, but after some time on Irish roads, lack of care, and someone painting the car with plastidip, they are now a multitude of crusty colours.






Had some help while removing the front shocks from my new apprentice.




So nice and new!




So I didn’t want any seized collars, So I stripped down all of the new HSD’s and coated the thread sections and surfaces in contact with copper grease.




Having a quick look around the arch, all looks pretty good except for this brake shielding which had been trimmed in the past but was interfering with the brake caliper, So I bent these back towards where they should be.




It probably won’t make any difference to anything, but it would have bugged me just leaving it like that. Anyway, with that done it was on to putting in the first coilover.




All went smoothly here, though some zip ties were required to mount the ABS sensor wiring. Pretty sure this isn’t operational but thought it was best to keep it in place for the moment. At this point, repeat for the other side and move to the back.

Out with the old and in with the new…




Maybe a little overzealous with the copper grease, but I don’t want end up with seized coilovers.




With the coilovers all in, I moved on to my next job tidying up in behind the front bumper. There was still a lot of plastidip over spray on hard to reach parts. I also want to tidy up the wiring and brackets behind the bumper.

One example of the remaining plastidip




And after some elbow grease, Not perfect, but looks much better.




Around this point I was running out of time for the day so I dropped the car ack down onto its wheels and parked it up until my next free day to work on it.




Plenty more to come soon, just take so long to write these damn posts

[LarZ]

This is how you update a build thread! Love the details. Can't wait to see this restored to its former glory!