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Old 24-08-2017, 11:55 PM   #1
Nastina
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Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: Canberra
Car: 2003 SP20
Posts: 11
Tina the Astina by Nastina - my 2003 SP20 Hatch

Hey there, Thought it might be time to start up a thread of my own.

My name's Rob, I'm from Canberra.

Anywho... I recently picked up this little Beastie with 217,000kms on it and a brand new battery for the princely sum of $1350 off Gumtree.



Has a few scrapes and minor dings aswell as some clearcoat peel.
Not bad for 14 years old but it's a little bit of a Ten Yard Car.
(looks great from Ten Yards away)

Had no rego when I got it but the lovely Girlie I bought it from put a day permit on and delivered it to my abode. Sweet!

So, next day I found out that I was unable to get a weeks permit put on as it had actually not been registered for over a year.
Turns out the "Girlie" had only been putting Weekly permits on it since it Failed a roadworthy and you can only have 4 weekly permits in a year.
The inspection report she had done earlier this year had an advisory for minor cracks in the lower control arm bushes, an advisory for rear brake pads and Failed for both rear tyres.
No biggy hey? Ha!

So for $150 I sourced a set of 5 BA Astina Alloys with ok tread (no 2 tyres are the same brand and one is even a bigger profile! haha) which kinda bugged me.



So I also got 2 cheap Nexans put on the 2 original rims with the worst tyres.
Bought some rear pads and fitted them myself (another problem but I got around it...) and put a day permit on to get another Rego Inspection.

Failed. The lower control arm bushes and 3 engine mounts were all Stuffed.
(rear, front and drivers side)

Drove it to Pedders and bought a pair of New control arms off the shelf for $104 each.
Then came the sourcing of engine mounts with some Very surprising results.

Mazda - $880 for the 3. seriously WTF?
Ford - $687. yeah ummm... No.
Repco - $335 but one of them was the wrong part?
Auto 1 - $264.10 = Winner!!! Had to wait til the next day for 2 of them but they had the front one on the shelf.

So back home and hit the concrete.
Front mount was easy as but the control arms were a bit fiddly.

I started with the drivers side and got it out easy enough but putting the new one in, it seems two of the bolt holes were a bit cross threaded.
Quite sure I didn't do it and it was giving me the sh!ts so I did the passengers side. Straight in, no worries. hmmmm...
Back to the drivers side and with a bit of grease on the bolts, Alot of patience and Many Expletives dropped on the ground I Finally got the bolts in Straight! phewww...
Hurting but happy again.

Next day, got the call and picked up the other 2 mounts. Sweet!
Back home and got into it, drivers side first but I couldn't separate the mount from the bracket.
The pin that slips into the center of the mount was totally jammed in and no amount of swearing, twisting, center punching or lube would free it up. grrrr.

Seeing as how the rubber basically fell out (it was that broken) I ended up attacking the center tube bit with the Angle grinder and Voila! it came free.

Bolted the new mount in, no worries.
So after all that and looking down at that rear sucker between the engine and the firewall I thought NO WAY,
rang the mechanic where I got the Roady done and he slotted me in to do it the next day, should only be about half an hour he said...

Got another permit for the next day and took it down to him.
An hour ($122.10) later after the Apprentice struggled with it, it was in and Roadworthy was Passed!!!

After removing 7 air fresheners from inside, (still smells like jelly beans 2 weeks later) I did a couple of service-ish things.

Spark plugs were well overdue by the looks but after chucking in some Bosch plugs, (I usually use NGK) idle smoothed out nicely.

Gear shifts were a little sticky when warmed up.
I only got about 1.9L of oil out of the gearbox but topped it up with Penrite and that smoothed out too.

Topped up the oil with some random stuff I had lying round and will do it properly with Filter soon.

Cleaned the AFM / MAF with CRC. better.

Removed the "Bong" from the intake and jammed a Squash Ball in the hole to block it. Fits Perfectly.
Also found someone had drilled the grill a little so I'll finish their work a little better.

And because I'm a Fool and they were cheap ($150 but had to buy some hub rings and slim wheel nuts)
I got these "icon" rims with tyres. 18x8 +45? I think (hard to read)



Looks good to me.


TL;DR?

Bought a car, made it mine and it's great!
hahaha!!!

Last edited by Nastina; 25-08-2017 at 02:20 PM.
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