Category: my carina (Page 2 of 3)

My Carina: Right inner fender more rust found

My Carina: Progress on the rear inner fender!

February 5, 2013 / banpei / 6 Comments

Finally I can post up some progress made on fixing the inner fenders: on the left rear inner fender all rust has been solved and it just needs a little skim with the angle grinder before it can receive its new coating.

But during the fixup the welder kind of set the rear seat belt on fire, so I’m in need of a new one.
If you, by chance, have a 73370-14030-01 lying around I would be very happy to release you from it. ;)

And yes: I’m in need of some replacement springs. Once it has been fixed up that’s my next priority!

On the other side it doesn’t look this good yet: Continue reading

Merry Christmas and a rustfree New Year!

December 23, 2012 / banpei / 10 Comments

Yes, that is no typo:

Merry Christmas and a rustfree New Year!

My automotive year ended quite badly. What turned out to be a very tiny hole in the rear inner fender on both sides proved to be a true nightmare: the tinworm struck again, ate its way through and instead of a white Christmas I’m actually seeing quite reddish now…
Lucky enough this is the only rust on the whole floorpan of the Carina as it has been creeping from inside out and not the other way around. So to prevent my Carina from becoming a rustoseum I’m having this fixed shortly after New Year and let’s hope it is a rustfree year for everyone! :)

My Carina: JDM tail-lights, mud guards and Soarer center caps

My Carina: the JDM look has started!

April 21, 2012 / banpei / 3 Comments

Two weeks ago I finally started to do something about the enormous pileup of JDM parts in the shed, so I mounted the JDM tail lights, Carina mudguards and Soarer centercaps!

Then I took off to properly wash the car and do a small photoshoot in the neighborhood:

Even though all lightbulbs inside the tail lights survived travelling half the world on a ship there was one problem with these new tail lights: they lack both the illumination and fog lights. That means that they don’t light up when I turn on the lights of the Carina.

Lucky enough I can directly mount in the insides of the EU tail lights which I still haven’t done so far. For the photoshoot I faked the illumination by putting my camera bag on the brake pedal. ;) Continue reading

New goodies: kouki Carina AA60 tail lights!

February 25, 2012 / banpei / 21 Comments

After missing out a couple of auctions on Carina AA60 tail lights, I decided I really had to get them the next time and contacted Ewan from Hayatonka. He understood the pain and difficulties, and did his best for me. After nearing the scary deadline the price rose quickly, but we managed to win the auction after all!

After being on a boat for four weeks the tail lights finally have arrived at my doorstep:

A pair of zenki Carina AA60 tail lights, mid console and some other small stuff included in the auction. The lights basically look like they are brand new, so that was a very luck win!

The difference between the Carina AA60 and AA63 tail lights is that the AA63 ones are smoked. This means the AA63 ones look a bit blackish, while the AA60 are just normal ones. I can live without that I guess. ;)

Here you can compare how different they look from the zenki ones:

My Carina: Carina GT-R Cluster pin layout

March 22, 2011 / banpei / 2 Comments

This Carina GT-R AA63 Cluster has already been lying in my shed for two years now.

Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: opened up
Why? Well, there are three modifications I need to make:
1. Speedo cable on the wrong side, so I need to modify the cable-bracket to be mounted on the other side
2. An additional hole for the odometer reset button on the dash
3. Rewire the connector to match the AA63 pin layout

1 and 2 are not really problematic, but can only be solved when I’m mounting the new cluster. 3 is a bit more difficult since these clusters are not documented outside Japan. So I started following all wiring paths and documented where they went and what their use should be.
This is the table of changes (I found so far) to make:

AA63 Cluster pin layout
As you can see it is far from complete: there are still seven questionmarks. So, next time I’ll try to figure these out as well.

In case you are wondering where the numbers are located on the clusters:

AA63 Cluster layout

Carina LHD Cluster layout

Carina RHD Cluster layout

I did find a CD with all Japanese workshop manuals for the A40 and A60 series at Auctions Yahoo, but a steep buy-me-now price of 48 euro (68 US dollar) refrained me from buying it. I’ve trieed to contact the seller by email and asked if they can sell it directly to me, but no answer so far… So if anyone has the AA63 cluster pin layout, please contact me! :)

My Carina: 86068 and diamonds grille!

January 17, 2011 / banpei / 1 Comment

A few small updates on my Carina, I mounted a diamonds grille:

My carina: diamonds grille!
Earlier this week I finally mounted the diamonds-grille I bought from Rob (NZ) some months ago. I was only able to make pictures today. My Carina DX is suddenly upgraded to a ST! :D
The white stripe on it is also a bit discolored, so I need to redo that soon, but nothing a rattlecan can’t fix. ;)

I also passed the 86k some days ago and today I managed to make this nice hachi-fanboy-mileage:

My carina: 86068 kilometers!
86068! I wanted to make a picture of my favorite combination 86063 (AE86 + AA63), but at that moment I was driving on the highway with 100km/h to my dad’s house, so that would have been a bit diffcult…