I’m making steady progress, or at least I feel like I am. Unfortunately the progress is not very interesting.
The Moog ball joints are installed. I tried using the Harbor Freight ball joint press, but that was a complete failure. So I decided to take the control arms to a local machine shop to have the old joints pressed out and the new ones pressed in. At the end, the total cost was $60 ($40 for the ball joints, and $20 for the labor). This is still half the price of buying new control arms with the ball joints already in them.
While I have the bumper cover off, I decided to tackle some rust on the upper and lower bumper supports. Right now, they are in my backyard waiting to dry. As with everything, I found some more rust behind the supports and below the radiator support. Luckily, it’s only surface rust, so I’m going to take a wire brush and sandpaper to it then shoot it with some primer and paint.
My horn is now finally fixed as well! It ended up just being the horn itself, so it was a easy fix.
After I get the new sway bar end links (I snapped one when doing the ball joints), an alignment and emissions and inspections testing are next on my list.
Chris' 2000 Sentra SE, Restoration Project
Yesterday the weather people were calling for nice weather, so I decided to tackle installing the new wheel bearings and tie rod ends. The day before was a wash out (literally), so I got up early on Saturday to attempt to finish at a reasonable time.
I started around 8:00 AM, and was done cleaning up by 1:00 PM. It wasn’t bad considering two of those hours were spent waiting for the machine shop to press the old bearings out and the new ones in. The only thing that went wrong is that one of the tie rod end nuts will not thread back on. Somehow the nut was damaged, so I’ll order one (along with a few other parts) from Nissan on Monday.
As I expected, the Harbor Freight tie rod separator did more harm then good. Luckily I only had to use it on the old tie rod ends, which I was replacing anyway. If you are considering using one of these, make sure you prepare for the worst, or look for an alternative.
I also discovered a few things during the instllation that I want to address:
- Ball Joints are torn. I am going to look into Moog ones, instead of buying new control arms.
- I want to clean up and paint the knuckles. They have some surface rust and generally look like crap.
Chris' 2000 Sentra SE, Restoration Project
Today I had planned to lengthen the wires on the B14 wiring harness that I had to cut short and possible start to label them. After a late night, I woke up late and never made it out to get a new pair of wire strippers. Today wasn’t totally useless though.
I started to plan out my wheel bearing replacement project. I know at least one of my front wheel bearings needs to be replaced. My plan is going to be to replace both of the bearings as well as the hubs. It will cost a bit more money to do it this way, but it will give me peace of mind and if the hubs end up being in good condition I can sell them. Ordering those parts might be on hold for another few weeks since I spent more then I had planned on the turbo stuff last week.
Chris' 2000 Sentra SE, Restoration Project
I meant to post a link to my Gallery yesterday, but I forgot. Here is the link. There you can see pictures of my Sentra and Xterra. There are many pictures of previous modifications on done to the Sentra. If you browse around you’ll find many more Nissan related pictures.
Parts continue to arrive on a daily basis for both my turbo and restoration projects on the Sentra. My bedroom is starting to look like either a Sentra chop shop or a junkyard! I’m hpoing to have the JWT ECU, 1996 SE-R wiring harness, GT28RS turbo, and my GTi-R O2 housing some time next week. This weekend, I am going to play around with the ‘98 Intake manifold. I want to see what is what, label everything and then disassemble everything.
I’ll try to take some pictures this weekend.
Chris' 2000 Sentra SE, Restoration Project, Turbo Project