Spannerhead Dot Com

My white T3 neo wedge LED bulbs finally came in.

Pretty subtle in the pic, but it makes a difference in a low-light situation.

So, tried to resolve a couple of issues this evening:

1. The steering wheel controls (horn buttons, cruise) are inop.
2. The airflow mode is stuck in bi-level. Mode buttons on HVAC panel don’t do anything.

All the fuses are good. Decided to swap over Megumi’s steering wheel, clock spring and blend door servo to see if that would make a difference.

Megumi in the process of disassembly:

Parts to swap over:

Blend door servo:

Blend door servo in place (just above the accelerator pedal):

And…airflow modes work now! Nice to hear that little motor whirring when I press the HVAC mode buttons.

Nori’s steering wheel cruise buttons were missing their print:

Megumi’s have it. Interestingly, Nori has a crotch vent where Megumi does not (the opening in the latter’s trim panel is blanked). I guess it’s either a feature delete between ’94 and ’95, or a Canada-specific thing:

So the steering wheel looks nicer, but unfortunately the horn buttons still don’t work. Will check cruise during the commute tomorrow. The investigation continues…

Swapped over Megumi’s intake manifold this afternoon. Here’s before:

And after:

A bit of a mismatch from a cleanliness standpoint—which I hate—but one thing at a time.

Here’s a comparison of the manifolds underneath:

That was before I had swapped over the fuel rails & injectors. Megumi’s manifold is obviously much cleaner, and all the lines are silicone. Nori ran fine, but I had a standing codes 16 and 41 (EGR and VRIS 1). Swapping over the manifold meant that Megumi’s known-good solenoids would go on, and I would have a chance to inspect the EGR solenoids and lines more easily. Sure enough—I had installed the assembly upside-down and a couple of the lines were mis-routed. Got everything reinstalled, and no check engine light. Calibrated the TPS also.

I also swapped over Megumi’s known-good thermostat. Nori runs warmer than I’d like—a bit to the right of vertical; whereas Megumi always ran a bit to the left—so I thought perhaps the previous owner had installed a higher-temp thermostat, but….no luck. The car’s temperature stabilized at exactly the same location.

Thorough coolant flush and new radiator next.

In other news, here’s the interior/console in daylight:

And a few driveway snaps:

So for my stereo install this time around, I ordered an adapter kit so I could make a plug-and-play harness. No hacking up the dash harness.

Verified the locations of all the pins, matched everything up in the Haynes manual.

Lineman’s splices & heat-shrink tubing FTW.

All taped up and ready to go.

And…it worked great, first time. I swapped over my ’98 626 HVAC panel also using the same process I developed on Megumi, and I wired in a manual antenna control switch so I can override the stereo command if I feel like it.

I got T3 LEDs for the dash switches, but they sent me blue ones for some reason, so I need to return them and get white. Once I do that, the dash will be basically done for a good while.

I swapped over Megumi’s re-bushing’d passenger window brackets (already swapped over the whole driver side window before the tint job) and the Millennia door stay I adapted. Nice to have two doors that stay open now, and two windows that roll smoothly up and down and stop exactly where they’re supposed to.

I’m no audiophile, but I think Nori’s rear speakers had seen better days:

Aftermarket Kenwoods, completely trashed.

Megumi’s Infinity Reference 5x7s in:

Reinstalled the speaker covers after the photo was taken.

We have sound from all 4 speakers now! Just need the headunit swap and the audio system will be complete—for now.

Also swapped over charcoal canisters:

I’m sure you can guess which is which.

Got the parking brake hooked up. I ran the lines when I swapped the rear subframe + suspension, but it wasn’t mission-critical to getting the car back on the road, so I hadn’t actually connected the handle until now.

Naturally, the swivel bracket that connects the handle cable to the two individual brake cables was completely rusted and seized:

I cut the cables during the suspension swap to be able to remove the old ones.

Swapped over Megumi’s non-seized assembly, and POR-15’d the rusty parts for good measure:

Lubed everything up, and it works a treat.

I also swapped over Megumi’s bronze shifter bushings. That was a fight. They did not want to come out, and there was much hammering, clamping and some reaming.

I swapped over Megumi’s shift rod, since one of the joints of Kurumi’s (arrow below) was totally seized:

Finally got everything in, and there is NO slop in the shifter whatsoever. Tight as a drum.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I de-DRL’d the car by pulling the DRL relay in the fuse block under the hood. DRLs were mandated in Canada, so my Canadian-market car had them activated by default. I prefer to have control over whether or not the headlights are illuminated, though.

…and clean.

Forgot to add this one to my list above, but I just did it, so it’s alright.

Cleaned up Nori’s cowl cover, and swapped over Megumi’s wiper arms & blades.

Before:

Faded plastic, rusty wiper hinges, set too low anyway.

Pulled off the cowl trim, and discovered the metal windshield “holder” bracket was rusty and gross:

Fortunately Megumi’s was perfectly fine, so I swapped that over, and gave everything a good Simple Green-ing:

Liberal use of 303 on the plastics, and everything cleaned up quite nicely:

It’s nice to have a few spare trim screw covers as well, even though I’ve discovered how to remove them without breaking them (right angle pick). Onward!

Parking deck, Chattanooga Airport.

A month ago, after the subframe bolt snap incident, I was so discouraged, and legitimately thought about giving up on this car. I was so disillusioned, I was looking at cheap beaters, and considering just having this one hauled off to the junkyard.

I’m glad I persisted. He runs beautifully. I broke into a big ol’ grin last night while upshifting at 5K rpm on some back roads yesterday evening. Such a little jewel of an engine and chassis.