Tuesday 5 May 2015

The hardship (sometimes)




As promised here now all the updates from the last couple of weeks.

You might have read my last post which basically told you most of it already :D My S14 is fully road legal now!!


The last few weeks before NCT were some hardship I have to say.
Besides going to work 8hrs a day, trying to have a private life and meet friends (which never really worked, i’m so sorry!!), working on your career, visiting evening courses to educate yourself (including learning how to speak Japanese), taking care of my babies (dogs and boyfriend), i've also tried to get my S14 road worthy as fast as possible.

Im pretty sure there is people out there who have a far busier life and even kids/family and all that, but i must say it stressed me out big time and i basically had no time for anything else.
Now do i complain about it or wish it would have been any other way? HELL NO!

Besides all that (and being broke from buying more car parts), i’m pretty happy about all that. Well...now i am happy because now it is finally all worth it.
Everyday after work i find myself nearly running out of the office, to get my car and drive her home. With a big fat smile on my face. :)
All worth it.
 But what caused all the hardship that i actually somehow enjoyed?
 The car. A passion. A Hobby. Its my kind of mediation.
If you are a true car enthusiast you just live for it.
Sound weird doesn't it?

But what really caused me stress most of the time were unforeseen circumstances.
A hose that suddenly broke. A part that gave up. Something else i might messed up on my one. Lack of patience or time which caused me to hurry and make an unnecessary mistake.
It can be pretty frustrating at times and makes you seriously wonder: why do I do this again?

The worst part of it all was, to discover a nasty crack in the thermostat housing 4 days before NCT. Not only does this not work (car overheating) but it also leaked constantly which prevented me to somehow quick fix it (at least for NCT!)
In the end a worn hose clip caused me most of the trouble on the way to the NCT Centre (during the night), and I awkwardly had to stop 4 times on the way (within 20km) to put the intercooler hose back in place...who would have thought of a worn hose clip that suddenly gets loose!?
Anyway....
Also seat rails. I REALLY DONT LIKE SEAT RAILS.
I thought this would be all easy and straight forward...but once again...it is not haha.
They cost me so much time and nerves (not only me, i’m Sorry Denis and Timmy haha!), but in the end,  of course it worked.

But thats the thing... it always works in the end. Or at least in my case. I always try very hard to get it all don and sometimes maybe a bit too hard. And sleep? What is that? When i actually went for my NCT, i haven't slept 48 hours around that time because i was preparing the car, went to work, prepared the car, went to NCT (3AM!!) and back to work.
 But I also would like to simply say:
 First of all APOLOGIES to all my friends who didn't see me for a while...i simply had no time left.
 And THANK YOU for those people who helped me on short notice or helped me with certain tasks that i couldn't finish on my own.

All in All....i learned once again so much about my car. By now there is nothing that i would not do on my own.

Now i wrote way more about myself than about the car haha.

So to summarize:

-all lights/wiring issues sorted
-boot lock finally working again
-new very rare headlights finally fitted after i was hiding them for so long
- interior almost finished the way i wanted it too (carpet, new Sparco seats+harness)
-awesome dukes of hazzard-horn fitted (yep....thats right)
-discovered a problem with the subframe (more soon)
-fixed and fully upgraded my water cooling system (new waterpump,thermostat, thermostat housing, GKTech fan, belts etc)
-new bumper will be fitted soon as well (stay tuned for that one)
-new intercooler brackets (to hold them up)
-full new exhaust system

Pics tomorrow!