juliarosario Posted January 12, 2018 Author Share Posted January 12, 2018 (edited) SO, now the main issues at hand, morally stopping me from driving, were: THE DAMN COOLING SYSTEM figuring out why my block is getting hot, my radiator ice cold, maybe air bound?? figuring out where and how to route the heater hoses, could not for the life of me find a diagram online wiring the cooling fans wiring the ignition (still using about seven thousand alligator clips) maybe adding in like gauges, seatbelts, dash, turn signals and lights back in?? However, My birthday comes, I'm twenty one now.. I'm at the shop. It's approximately daytime, sunny, not too cold. Dirty D is giving me the look, you know. I'm thinking, I can justify this as a birthday present to myself, if I maybe just take my car out for a short ride in the next parking lot over. Okay, I'm in. It was so surreal. Eight months of hard work and I'm sitting in the driver's seat, finally filled with the intention of actually driving my car. SO, I crank it. It turns over immediately. I'm nervous and I'm thinking deep down shit what if I drive this car and I hate it. So, I pop it into reverse and start lifting my foot off the clutch and the car dies. DIES. So i'm like okay. Let's try again. Same thing happens. And I'm like, my foot is two centimeters off the clutch how is this thing stalling?? I finally get it right. I learned pretty quickly that my clutch is SUPER low. I'm talking like I tickle my foot up an inch and the clutch is already let out. Whatever. Does not stop me, I'll get used to it for the next five minutes. I turn the car around and I'm waiting to pull out of my parking lot, right into the next. My heart is beating so fast, thank god the steering wheel is suede because you know my hands were getting all sweaty. TMI, okay okay. SO.. I pull into the next parking lot, and this parking lot is massive. Long straight aways, wide corners, probably for all the big rigs coming in and out for the industrial businesses. I took the first two laps around the lot pretty maturely. I knew the cooling system wasn't really set up in my car so I didn't want to push it. But on that third lap, I laid into that car. I took advantage of every amateur straight away, every turn. Then I delicately placed Dirty D back into the garage. I noticed That car is amazing, the most fun car I have ever driven I love it The clutch is very low, needs to be bled or adjusted? The tires were spinning in second gear? Maybe bc they're from 2005? maybe some dry rot okay they need replacing yes. The brakes could use some work The car did not break up at all, it drove like a dream (yes I have dreamt about it before) I loved it The cooling system definitely needed to be figured out. The radiator ice cold, block hot. I loved it Edited January 12, 2018 by juliarosario Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliarosario Posted January 12, 2018 Author Share Posted January 12, 2018 After my inspiring drive, I actually didn't work on the car for about a week. First it was birthday celebration stuff, and then it was Christmas, then New Years, all very time consuming! But don't fret, Dirty D and I did meet up again yes. So, the task of the day was to figure out the cooling system. We jacked the front end of the car up. It was my understanding that we did that so that all the coolant could flow more easily into the back of the block? Still learning about all this stuff! Also the radiator sits higher then the engine so at one point we were pouring coolant into the engine directly. As we were pouring coolant into the engine we figured out which heater hose went where and so forth. We also realized that it was indeed air bound. After about twenty minutes we had the engine and radiator filled with coolant, and all of the heater hoses figured out. We started the engine and let it run for a bit to see if the coolant was circulating. It took a minute but we started to feel the top hose circulating, it was a little warmer. However, the bottom hose stayed ice cold. We had the OBD1 scanner hooked up so we were monitoring the temperature from there. We also had the spill free coolant funnel hooked up with some coolant in there. We watched the temperature raise, 170, 175, 180... 190, high 190's!! And the coolant in the funnel is not going down, the bottom hose is still ice cold. Suddenly we start to see some bubbles in the funnel and some of the coolant starts sucking down the funnel very slowly. The bottom hose got a little warmer, but not by much. Meanwhile we're noticing the coolant is filled with rust. After running the car again, we notice the same thing. The group consensus is that the thermostat is probably rusted tightly shut, or mostly shut. We also decide we should replace the thermostat and flush the system due to all the rust in the coolant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliarosario Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 Alright, so I was at the shop and I am itching to change the thermostat. I ended up buying a 300zx thermostat, reading on the forums that they were interchangeable for my RB. Let me start off by saying the bolts for the thermostat housing are in the MOST INCONVENIENT, ANNOYINGLY IRRITABLE SPOT. So. First, I got the car on the lift and drained the radiator fluid through the drain at the bottom. Let me just say that fluid was horrid. It smelled like nothing I have ever smelled before. It was this light brown liquid sparkled with flakes of rust and again, it smelled horrible. After it all had all drained out I put the bolt back in the radiator and lowered the car to the ground. Next, I disconnected the top radiator hose and the bottom hose. At one point some of the fluid left in the bottom hose leaked out onto my hand and I honest to god thought my skin might start crawling off. Anyways, with the hoses out of the way I only had to deal with the placement of the thermostat housing bolts. There were three of them. It took me about 20 minutes to get all three bolts off. There was a lot of swivel ratcheting going on, some difficult flashlight placement and so much excitement when the last bolt finally came off!! I nudged on the housing until it finally cracked off. More of that brown water leaked on my hand it was a nice time. Look at that!! So much rust and what a horrible rtb job. Kind of gross but also kind of cool to see that all this was in my engine and now has the opportunity to get cleaned out! And look at where the housing bolts up to, so gross right!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliarosario Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 So I scraped all that gross gunk off the engine and threw the old thermostat as far away from me as I could. I cleaned the housing itself and got it all ready to be bolted up again, when ready! Look how clean it I got it, pictured with the new thermostat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliarosario Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 It was getting late and I realized I wanted to flush out my system so I waited until the next day to push my car outside and stick a hose in it! I put the house in the top of the engine where the upper radiator hose connects to and let the water run through the engine for about 45 minutes. I then put the hose where the bottom radiator hose connects to on the engine, turned up the water, and let it run through backwards for a while! After lunch I pushed the car back inside and decided it was time to piece everything back together. I made a gasket out of gasket paper matching up to my housing, fit the thermostat to the inside of the engine and got to work. It was kind of a hassle to keep the thermostat and the housing in just the right spot and then to get the bolts in just enough, only because the bolts were in such a tricky spot to get to! FINALLY, I get the housing fit on real nice, I cranked that beech on right. I jack the car up, only in the front, fill the radiator, start filling the block and SHIT, I'm seeing a leak. I'm so confused, I'm like damn is the gasket wrong, is something hanging out, do I really have to unscrew everything all over again?! The answer is yes to some of those questions. Turns out that when you "crank that beech" and over torque your bolts, your aluminum housing might crack! I cracked the housing right at one of the ears, not completely off but a nice thicCCCk crack. Just enough to have to unbolt everything, spill all the nice new radiator fluid on the ground, have a one or two casual mental breakdowns, weld the housing back to a normal state, bring the housing enough to let the bolts sit flush again, go back to the car, cut open ur hand maneuvering to get to these three bolts, praying to all the gods that the thermostat will line up with the gasket just right, and BAM, we are bolted up. SO, AGAIN, I start filling up the block with radiator fluid. Im waiting and waiting, knowing some fluid is gonna leak out this housing one way or another and... to my delightful surprise and long awaiting relief, NOTHING COMES OUT. I put back on the upper radiator hose, fill that as well and well, that killed a couple hours! But I was soooooo so happy to know the job was done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliarosario Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 Oh there is still, SOOO much to tell you guys. But let's make this long story shorter and sum this up. Cooling system now working fantastic, car is running cool, fluid is flowing just as it should. We wired the ignition. No more alligator clips!! For the most part! Finally made a decision about what gauges to order, and they are beautiful! Got the tach and the boost gauge so far. Ordering little by little bc you know the whole broke college student thing. Took my car out in public for basically the first time. Got some gas and also many eyeballs looking at my baby! Still have yet to do my first burnout! Just started wiring the cooling fans, yes I know procrastination is a thing Found out why the clutch is so low, fixing that this weekend! Here are some nice pictures to fill you in!! IMG_9162.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boosted300 Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 On 1/11/2018 at 11:19 PM, juliarosario said: The alternator was not charging because I didn't screw the wires down all the way. Happens to the best of us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bacon_Z Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 Thanks for all the great info. Can you give an update on your RB Swap project? It has been a while and I see on Instagram that you've done a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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