Sunday, May 10, 2015

S15 200sx: repairing another sunroof drain leak and ABS bracket

sometimes I wonder if i deliberately buy cars with lots of problems so i can spend all my free time fixing them.

for example, the abs pump was not sitting in its bracket correctly, and the brake lines were too fixed in position to put it in the proper place. plus the bracket was bent out of shape.



anyway, since it seemed to be working in the current position, just not well secured, i made a new bracket out of aluminium bar and bent it around to resecure the abs pump. cost - about $4.50 - I used leftover aluminium bar from the fire extinguisher bracket and some spares nuts & boilts lying about, but bought a couple of rubber bungs from the store to act as antivibration mounts.


so i awoke today to the sound of pelting rain, thought i'd check that i fixed my sunroof leak from before. and while the front of the headliner was nice and dry, it was sopping wet in the right rear corner - so i figured i'd go hunting for another sunroof drain leak.

unbolted the driver and rear driver side seatbelt top bracket, pulled down the plastic trim and yep... this hose shouldn't be hanging clear.


but the good news, this time the plastic nozzle/nipple hadn't broken off the sunroof drain. Reconnected the sunroof drain pipe, picked up a hose clamp for good luck and resecured everything.


cost to fix... a small hose clamp and 20 minutes.

so in a few days (we're predicted a solid week of rain) i'll feel up the headlining again, and hope like mad there' no more leaks. i've already fixed up 2 of the 4 drains, i know the front passenger side drain is connected, the only one i haven't visualised is the passenger rear side drain. 

wonder what's left to break on the car... oh hang on - I do know. the other day i drove it to work and back, and noticed a fair bit of condensation in the driver's headlight. funny enough, the passenger headlight (which has definitely been opened and resealed) has no condensation, but the mint condition driver's headlight does. *sigh*