Thanks Ben, Ill grab a can of that during the week - its going to be a busy one between work, learning at home and gathering/sorting bits for this build.
Had a pretty big one on it today.
I got the instrument cluster back lighting sorted with some LEDs from Jaycar. Apparently you cant/its really hard to find incandescent globes for cluster back lights etc. wasnt overly happy with this but went with it anyway. I forgot to grab a pic of the final product - heres one when I test fitted two LEDs to see if it was going to work - LEDs on the left, old globes on the right:
Got some hot spots as you can see at 4000rpm and at 0rpm area. I played around with roughing up the dome curve section of the LED - it didnt really work. Some white paint (industrial texta) on the same area toned them down nicely so I went ahead and did the rest of them. Im quite happy with the results even though theyre not a warm white, theyre a little on the cool white side for me but its better than no back lights!
I pulled the dodgy HID kit that the RS came with. So bad - super blue! In the process of doing this I had a freak out moment after I put the old skool and power hungry halogen lights back in. I tested them out and EVERYTHING died as soon as I flicked the lights on. Now, for testing purposes, I had the RS jerry-rigged to power up the dash lights. The battery I have that fits the small terminal clamps had very poor charge left, so I ran the jumper cables from our Pajero to the RS - I made sure the starter and alternator ends of the positive cables were isolated so there werent any fireworks.
I went through all the fuses including the one fusible link (why did they keep one of these?? Is it a throw back tribute to the MY and L series?), all checked out good. Racking my brains I wiggled the jumper cable clamps, no change. I also pulled the LHS lights wiring as the factory plug was removed to fit the HID kit using some spade connectors on loose wires, so I was guessing the wiring of the light. While there I moved the negative cable from a bracket that holds the fuse panel to the body mount for the earth strap. Bingo, everything worked and the RHS light worked as it should. I cross referenced the lights wiring and both now work. I reckon the instant load of the lights created a high resistance point at the negative clamp. Moving the clamp location did the trick.
Homage to Barbs:
I decided to pull the ECU to check it out while I was in the drivers area too. This is what I found, RSs ECU on the right, a spare RS ECU on the left:
The RSs ECU has some dodgy looking twin wire setup hanging out one corner, nothing on the other end other than a pair of cleanly clipped wires cut on the same angle as each other. A good mate of mine threw a couple of these pics on facestalk and got a quick reply saying that its got an aftermarket VOS chip and that the wire (which one end has snapped off at the ECUs motherboard) was for a switch for a high boost setting. Not knowing what the VOS entails, I wont be using it until I understand it better.
Earlier in the day with all the engine play time, I stumbled/found this issue on cylinder 2 of the original engine that came in the RS, it barely ran!
That would explain the smoke screen this thing produced when the engine was under load! Cylinder 1 had ZERO big end bearing left (main issue!), so much so that the piston slapped the head and there wasnt any knocking noises at the crank, just upper cylinder noise like a really bad lifter from an EA82 was in there. Sort of like this, but with no power and a massive plume of blue smoke:
https://m.youtube.co...h?v=mEExLcobeHs
A good day/night on the RS. I now know that all my lights except one side indicator are working. Ill grab a replacement at some point. Im having fun finding screws and things that I removed/packed up almost five years ago now. Im glad a mate let me strip out a GX that he got for the engine last year. I kind of wish I went harder with more screws now!
Cheers
Bennie