Just for a bit of a change of scene, I ended up sorting out some computer networking problems for a photo lab.

For some reason a bunch of computers had lots their connection to a shared drive on a server. There was a mixture of Macs and PCs, and they all seemed to be set up a little bit differently, but in the end I was able to get them all working again.

This car had been making a clunk sound on acceleration for a while, and the owner had bought a set of upgraded Nismo engine mounts.

Installing them involves unbolting the old mounts, lifting the engine up to get them out, then slotting the new ones in place before lowering the engine back down and tightening everything back up.

It’s a pretty simple process but the access is very tight, and it’s not usually possible to lift the engine up quite enough to get the mounts out (or in) easily.

This is the easy one:

While removing the left side mount, the source of the clunk became obvious!

This mount is under tension when the car is accelerating, and over time it has been pulled apart, allowing the engine to move around excessively.

The new mounts will make it a lot quieter and more solid!

This 180SX exhaust system had been poorly modified in the past, with some bad welds that were now leaking, as well as a mount that wasn’t reinforced - causing the pipe to crack where it was welded on.

I removed the old exhaust mount, cleaned up the rusty pipe, and welded up the cracks.

I then welded an extra metal plate over the damaged area, and replaced the mount with a stronger one attached in two places on the new reinforcing plate.

The leaking welds at each end were cleaned and re-welded, and then the whole section given a coat of paint to protect it.

You can see the reinforcing plate and mount in this photo. The big ugly weld was already there

It is often possible to use aftermarket adjustable camber tops on factory suspension with minor modifications.

In this case, to fit them on S15 Silvia (200SX) struts, it was necessary to make a longer spacer between the strut and the camber top to give it enough clearance to prevent anything rubbing.

The tubular nut also needed to be machined down a bit to maintain enough thread depth to keep its original strength.

After that, they bolt straight on and give the standard suspension adjustable camber - as well as lowering the ride height by about 10mm.

This car had recently suffered a major increase in fuel consumption according to its owner.

The usual complaint of “only getting 300k’s to a tank” is often caused by a failed or failing oxygen sensor (O2 sensor) which monitors the exhaust gases to allow the engine computer (ECU) to control the amount of fuel to give the engine.

O2 sensors often last less than 100000km, and are not particularly expensive or difficult to replace.

I did a quick test on this one to see if it was working at all, by connected an oscilloscope to the sensor output and monitoring the signal while running the engine.

As can be seen in the photo, the signal is waving up and down, which shows that the ECU is controlling the fuel mixture based on the sensor signal.

So the sensor is working, but it is possible that the sensor’s output is not accurate, or even that the connection was faulty and inspecting it has made it work again.

I’ll keep an eye on this car and do some more tests if the fuel economy doesn’t improve.

This one was pretty quick, just swapping a noisy and leaky power steering pump for a good one.

It was making some pretty bad noises, easily mistaken for serious engine trouble!

Swapping the power steering pump is fairly straight forward, apart from the ridiculously tight banjo bolt holding the pressure hose on.

It’s also a good idea to flush out the old fluid and refill the system with fresh stuff.

This car had the usual blown turbo gasket problem, and the owner figured it was a good time to upgrade the turbo to a newer T28 ball bearing one from a Japanese spec S15 Silvia.

The leaking gaskets are usually caused by the exhaust hitting the ground, or not being properly supported when the factory exhaust is swapped for an aftermaket one.

In this case there was a broken stud in the head, causing the manifold gasket to leak, as well as the normal leak between the manifold and turbo.

Removing the stud involved drilling a hole into the part still stuck in the engine, then using an extractor tool to unscrew it. A new stud was then installed.

Upon inspection, the new T28 turbo proved to have substantial damage, having obviously been in a crashed car. The compressor housing had been broken and pushed back into the blades, damaging them beyond repair.

Fortunately the original T25G turbo checked out fine, so it was reinstalled - after removing a broken bolt from the turbine housing!