As I mentioned in last week’s post, my ignition switch fix turned out to be a temporary one. After removing the switch and ensuring the case was pushed together completely, the issue returned after a couple of weeks and the car refused to crank at all. I picked up a new switch from a local auto parts store last Friday and swapped it in. I was pleased to find that the USDM ignition switch was a direct replacement for the JDM unit, the only difference being that the wiring harness is longer on the USDM switch. I was able to tuck the extra wiring into the steering column cover without any issues.

Last Saturday, I hosted my third annual COB BBQ. I’ve been trying to host an S chassis BBQ at my house each summer for the last few years to pay homage to the BBQs that Broadfield used to host at his house back in the day. I made a lot of great friends at those events, and it even indirectly had a hand in getting the attention of Modified Mag for my eventual feature alongside Toby’s immaculate S13 coupe. I am at the stage of life that Toby was when he was hosting these events, and since I don’t make it out to car meets anymore it’s a great way to hang out with some like-minded folks. I like to say hosting this event keeps me young.

At the BBQ, I got to chat with my friend Allen and his girlfriend Shayna. Shayna worked at a body shop for a few years and recently did the paint work on Allen’s new S13 build. We looked at my 180SX in more detail and determined that a large portion of the car was repainted at some point. We could see tape lines on the rear quarter panels and a little bit of overspray on the underside of the quarters. This makes a lot of sense, as I noticed some areas of the car (namely the hood hinges and the core support) have a fair amount of wear and oxidization, but the paint was still really shiny. I also felt that there was a lot more orange peel present compared to my 240SX (which was original paint.) It looks like some items have not been repainted, including the rear hatch, roof, rear bumper, and aero – but everything else was resprayed at some point. The paint still has plenty of scratches and dings, so I am assuming it was done quite some time ago.

There’s no evidence of bondo work or a crash, so who knows. The car is so clean underneath and overall that I can’t be too bothered by it. It was good to have answers and a little bit better understanding of the car’s history. Ideally, I would respray the car and put this to rest once and for all – but we’ll see what happens. In the mean time, I am going to continue moving forward with modifying the car and getting it set up the way I want. That will be a decision for another time.

There were a number of cool S13s and S14s present at the BBQ, which is always a great sight to see – but the people are the best part. I am very grateful to call these folks my friends and enjoy meeting new ones each year. I am looking forward to doing it again next summer! Thank you to everyone that came to hang out.

After attending two car events in the last month, my motivation is at an all-time high. This new found spark just happens to coincide with Alicia going on a girls trip for a few nights this weekend, which doesn’t leave me with a lot of free time during the day as I will be parenting solo. However, once the girls go to bed, my schedule is wide open. I decided that this weekend would be a good time to tackle the first real modification to my 180SX – the manual transmission swap.

After doing some more research on the project over the course of the week, I found that there were still a few parts I needed to complete the swap. With any luck, I have everything ordered and on the way as of today. I’ll dive into those details in my next post.

The first order of business for the swap was to complete the refreshing task I started a couple months ago for my clutch and brake pedal assemblies. I had an issue with the large plastic bushings that go into the pedal arms (x4 46525-N8200) being too small, thus not allowing for the large bolts (x2 46560-50A01) that hold them to the pedal brackets to pass through them without excessive force and binding/damage. A few people on IG had the same issue, and recommended sanding down the bolts slightly to allow them to fit correctly into the bushings. I ended up using some sandpaper, a scuff pad, my power drill, and a bench vise to shave the bolts down just enough to get them to fit properly. A few minutes with the power drill on each and reassembly was a snap.

I pieced together my own rebuild kits for the clutch and brake pedals as I found a few issues with the kids available stateside- primarily the cost. However, the kits are also fairly US-spec centered, including the spring that’s included (which will not work on the RHD clutch pedal.) It was easier to pick and choose the pieces I needed – especially since I was using a NISMO reinforced clutch pedal bracket. I also replaced the pads for the clutch and brake pedals (x2 46531-v5000), as well as the plastic accelerator pedal (18016-89900).

With the pedals ready to go, I was out of excuses. It was time to tear into this car. I started with the scariest part- drilling into the firewall. As I did with my S13 coupe a few years back, I used a 1.5″ hole saw bit to cut the large hole for the clutch master cylinder. The key difference this time around is that the car was completely assembled – which I thought would make things a lot more challenging, but turned out not to be a big deal. After cutting the large hole, I drilled the two smaller holes for the clutch pedal bracket studs to pass through. Fortunately, this procedure is extremely simple on an S13 as the stamps are in place from the factory, even on an automatic transmission car. My Milwaukee drill was compact enough to fit under the dash without any issues, and I had this part of the swap done in about ten minutes.

Next, I dropped the steering column down out of the way to replace the automatic brake pedal assembly with a manual one. I know you can cut the brake pedal down, but I prefer to have the correct piece in place. Once the automatic brake pedal was removed, I noted that the bracket and spring were in much better condition than the replacement I had sourced. The brake pedal brackets are identical, so I swapped everything over to the factory bracket and reinstalled it.

One thing to note – in order for me to be able to install the clutch pedal assembly, I had to remove the plastic air ducting that runs above the steering column to have room to wiggle it into place. With the clutch pedal in, I was able to install the new clutch master cylinder and clutch line I had sourced from a 180SX in Japan.

With a little over two hours into the project, I went to bed last night feeling a great sense of accomplishment. One of the biggest hurdles of the project is now complete. Tonight, my plan is to begin removing the automatic transmission and gear selector. We’ll see how everything goes, but hopefully I don’t hit any major snags.

My hope is to complete the manual swap and drive the car to ensure everything is working properly before I have to put it away for the winter. We may still have some decent weather in October here in Michigan, so it would be great to have this done and get used to driving the car with a manual transmission before it goes into storage. It will take a bit of luck, but I think it should be possible!

Thanks as always for stopping by. It feels great to finally be making substantial changes to this car and my motivation is high. Here’s to continuing the trend! Have a great weekend.