There are various upgrade camshafts available for the Nissan SR20 engine, and they usually come in a few different sizes.

The smallest ones are a direct bolt in without any other changes, the next size up requires upgraded valve springs, and the largest ones often require other valve train upgrades.

These were the middle size (usually sold as “step 2″ or “stage 2″), so they required upgrading the valve springs.

Usually the cylinder head needs to come off the engine to change valve springs because the valves will fall into the cylinders when you remove the retainers, but if you pressurise the cylinder with compressed air to hold the valves closed it can be done with the head on - making it a much smaller job!

To do this, the first step it to make a tool to pressurise the cylinders, which is usually done my modifying a compression tester like this:

The actual valve spring swapping is slow and fiddly, and requires a lot of care to make sure nothing gets dropped in the engine!
It’s also a good idea to make sure there’s enough space to keep all the removed parts in their original order.

There are shims, rocker arms, and cam caps that are specific to their original locations.

Once all the valve springs have been changed, the rockers and shims replaced, it’s time to install the new cams and bolt everything back together

After many hours of grinding, wire brushing, sanding, and flaking the old paint off, the boat now has most of its new paint job done!

Compare this to how it was originally:

Now to get all the lights, wiring, controls, carpet, windows, and engine in!

The alternator in this Jaguar XJ6 had released its magic smoke after the battery had been inadvertently connected backwards. (note the green (positive!!) wire in the picture below)

The car still ran, but the alternator was drawing power even while the car was turned off, and obviously wasn’t charging the battery.

After removing the alternator and pulling it apart it was obvious that the diodes had been cooked, and the wires inside the plastic board holding the electrics together had partly melted their way to freedom!

A quick trip to a local auto electrician proved very successful, as they happened to have exactly the same alternator sitting around - which turns out to have come from a Land Rover!

$50 for the alternator and the Jag was back up and running

This car was making a nasty knocking noise from the engine, which sounded like it could be pretty serious.

After checking out the top end and having a good listen around I found that the noise was coming from the power steering pump!

That’s a lot easier to replace than the engine

Another job to do on the same car was replacing the fuel pump.

The pump is inside the fuel tank, and is accessed through a cover under the carpet in the boot.

Once the cover is removed, there’s another plate that unbolts from the top of the fuel tank and has a cradle to hold the pump and fuel level sender.

The owner had purchased a larger fuel pump which was already installed on a standard cradle, but the fuel level sender had been damaged in transit.

I just needed to desolder the cable on both and swap the good one onto the new pump cradle.

Because the new pump has its fuel pickup a bit higher in the tank I adjusted the fuel level sender to read empty a bit earlier.

The front roof bars have been added:

A removable clear roof panel will clip onto these bars, keeping the rain out, but easily converting to an open front deck.

I moved one of the original front frame bars to a vertical postion and added a brace to the side. This forms a good mounting spot for the steering wheel.

There will be a removable cover over the front of this to hide and protect the hydraulic steering hoses and switch wiring which will be going in.