I wanted to turn my attention to the engine bay. Since painting the rocker cover it’s made the rest of it look horrible and wasn’t upto the same standard.
I began by removing what I could to help make degreasing and cleaning easier. Starting with the driver side, the coolant expansion tank and harcoal canister were removed along with the fuse box and fuel lines unbolted to be moved out of the way.
I started off with some Gunk Ultra degreaser and various brush sizes. Unlike the ‘normal’ Gunk, this doesn’t require hosing it off. Instead you only need a damp cloth, making it safer for this type of job.
After a couple of passes it’s starting to clean up really well
While the expansion tank was off I gave it a good clean along with tidying up the wiring in that area, tucking it up further under the wing/fender.
The bracket holding the fuel lines together was prepped and painted to help neaten it up. The hardware was replaced with stainless equivalents
With the charcoal canister now removed I was left with the solenoid and sensor. The big ugly bracket was obviously removed, the solenoid hose looped and the sensor relocated with a new bracket.
Luckily no EML has appeared!
Moving onto the passenger side, the airbox and windscreen washer bottle were removed where I found a little surprise behind the airbox and ducting
It seems the ABS models have the washer bottle just behind the airbox, right next to the exhaust manifold. It’s quite a tall bottle and just looks out of place, so I decided to relocate it to the boot.
To the left is a plastic storage pocket which seemed like a good place to put it, but the bottle would need to be changed. We happen to sell a universal bottle kit at work, but these can be found online too.
Looks like a perfect fit!
The original plug is tucked infront of the suspension strut next to the ABS pump bracket. I used some insulated crimp terminals to extend the wiring, but only the positive wire. The negative wire for the washer pump would be earthed to the chassis in the boot.
Along with the single live wire I also fed the washer tubing through the fire wall. The original washer tubing had a straight join connector that went to the OEM bottle, I disconnected it here and connected the new tubing to the washer jets.
Underneath the carpet was some round black plastic tubing, but with nothing in it. This was perfect to feed the wire and tubing through along the car, it would then come out by the seat belt trim. With the lower seat belt bolt removed (14mm) and the rubber door seal peeled off a few inches, the trim piece can be pulled away enough to feed these through the gap.
The gap is between the inner panel and fuel tank, you’ll need to remove the metal cover to gain better access.
I drilled two holes into the plastic pocket. The left hole (front of the pocket) is for the washer tubing, the other (left side of the pocket) is for the wiring.
I cleaned up the other side with the degreaser, painted a few brackets and reassembled. Here’s a side by side comparison from the day of purchase to now
A productive day with some great results. The washer bottle relocation was a good choice, obviously there’s a slight lack of ‘power’ with the washer jets but it works and that’s all that matters.
The corrosion in the engine bay will get sorted at a later date. Matching the engine bay colour is proving to be more difficult than I first thought. It’s a blow over of the body colour, but I can’t replicate it with an aerosol the colour is too dark even straight out of the aerosol can. I had a local paint shop scan it, a close match was a Daihatsu colour, but it wasn’t blue enough. Again, this will get sorted later on when the weather hopefully improves/warms up
The Youtube video can be found here:
