Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

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Fred
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

A couple of detail shots of the RB30E:

Sump side view, from belowish: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 4166115333
Front pulley VL style, huge, 3 step: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 0888333313
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by ToxicGumbo »

Fred wrote:I hope this post, and all prior, have lived up to your expectations of road trip by Fred :-)
I'm told by my wife that I respond to too many comments with silence, the above being a good example. Well planned trip and nicely executed! Somehow these adventures always seem to work out despite pretty epic complications thrown in.

I'm very eager to see how this car evolves over the next couple years. It definitely needs a documented path to FreeEMS so we can get more of these gems on the road and going suck, squeeze, bang, blow the right way.


-Jeff
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

Ha! Spoiler: I had to tip you off to that one :-D

Yes, glad the lifters freed up and pumped up and it started running OK. Hasn't missed a beat since. Still has whatever oil it came with in it, too. I need to give it a change with a flush and throw a bottle of nulon lifter cleaner in with the new oil to ensure it's never an issue again.

This one is near the bottom of the FreeEMSing list, sadly! If/when I get some funds, if I'm not forced to sell it due to hard times, then the first upgrade is likely to be either front brakes or LSD in the back. Second/third upgrade is likely to be something to control torque to the front wheels.

I already have an RB25DET within a stone's throw of here to FreeEMS on :-) It'll get FreeEMSed before it gets manualised and before it gets an engine upgrade to RB30DET. Who knows when that'll be. It's quite nice to just drive as is, though, so I'm not too worried about it. Keeps me out of trouble with the infinite grip and mediocre power to weight ratio and sounds great :-)
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

Today was "show the Stagea a little love" day.

So I...

Took the wife to work in it.
Noticed a clunk in the rear when going into acceleration from trailing throttle, diff bushings or some such, probably.
Took it to the WOF man, but got turned away, wasn't available "come back at 12".
Came home and checked the cam belt, 109kkm on it, but looks OK to ignore for a while more. https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7445402624
Noticed that there is NO fan on the radiator/water pump, will have to put an electric one in at some point. https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 1496205312
Noticed a steel dildo in the engine bay, guessing plastic one melted post extractor install: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9075598337
Took the strut nuts off and removed white paint from them and a bracket, reinstalled. https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 3006140416
Pulled the air filter out and removed many bugs from it, beat some dust out of it.
Cleaned the lower air filter box with a hand vacuum and old tooth brush to loosen the crap.
Reinstalled used filter minus dust and bugs.
Took it to the WOF man, but got turned away, too busy "Picked the wrong day, 9am tomorrow".
Went to Ripco and grabbed the cheapest Indonesian oil filter available at 11.50nzd (looked OK)
Came home again and positioned the car
Stuck my head underneath and found 2 pot brakes on the front, not bad, but they are warped.
Poured in the flush liquid, fired it up and ran it at 2500 for a while, then 1800 for a while, 15mins all up.
Positioned drain tray and removed plug with magnet on a stick, no mess.
Washed down exterior of oil filter and surrounds.
Washed dip stick to perfection, and cleaned the tube, too.
Washed the oil filler cap thoroughly.
Wiped the oil filler hole out till bright alloy.
Pushed < 500ml of fresh 15w40 through it to push out the last of the flush/oil solution.
Pulled off the filter and sprayed the oil filter housing thread and passages clean.
Lubed up the new filter with some fresh HPR10.
Installed the new filter and tried to bring it up 1 turn, but ended up just "FT".
Sprayed a few drops from the filter off of the top of the front diff housing.
Came inside for lunch, cleaned hands, ate, and returned to the Nissan.
Brakecleaned the drain hole/washer surface.
Screwed in and torqued up the drain bung/bolt.
Poured in 300ml of Nulon lifter cleaner solution (good stuff from Oz).
Poured in 4.5l of HPR10 10w50 grade 3 hydrocracked mineral oil (decent, but not true synth like it says on the bottle). https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 2152041472
Checked the dip stick, screwed in the filler cap, fired it up! Rattle rattle, smooth. Nice.
Took it for a little test drive up the local hill/mountain, revved it hard, with no guilt.
Came back, found some bottles, emptied the engine oil mixture and the Volvo diff sludge/oil into the bottles.
Emptied the filter into one of the bottles.
Washed the drain tray to perfection for next time.
Put everything away where it belongs.
Put it back in the safe little street where it lives, only to be picked up tomorrow morning for a WOF.

There goes today! But at least it's got good blood in its veins now!

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

Went back for the WOF this morning, failed on three things:

1) Right hand steering rack boot ripped (with a little moisture inside when I got it off, too!)
2) Rear brake pads too low (fair call, though they had another few thousand km in them IMO)
3) Front park light bulbs blown

Went direct to my supplier and got dodgy cheap pads and generic boot for a grand total of 31.75 nzd inc GST. Found a bulb in a millenia light fitting :-D

Did the boot first:

Front brake sizing at ‏280x25mm rotors and sliding two pot calipers: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9902146561
Greased the rack end thoroughly as I had to wipe the old stuff off to get rid of moisture and a tiny bit of surface corrosion outside the used area: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5816150016

Then did the rear pads (DB1144):

Only the best pads... https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 0871537664
Rear brake sizing at 266x15mm rotors and single pot sliding calipers: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 0425967616
While I was in there I flushed out the rear lines, nothing bad came out, all is well there: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 4235002883

Image




68.77l from not quite dead empty (surging under hard acceleration) to almost dead full: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 4717898752

Could it be 70 litres? It's certainly 69. I will check the catalogue... EDIT: Nope, could not find it in there, unless it's written in Japanese words. One internet site said 68 litres, but I know that's wrong :-D

Then I used it to maneuver the caravan to a place I couldn't push it by hand:

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7325248512
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 1549044737

Inlined:

Image

Image




Remarkable how similar it is to the 240 wagon in proportions! For comparison, here's both:

Image


Image
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

It's been quite wet lately, and I've gotten a good feel for this thing now, so I can tell you, that in the wet at least, it is much like a FWD car, it'll understeer on the throttle if you push it hard enough, and then as you lift it quickly snaps into line. I suspect that'd change with a tight LSD in the back. I think what's happening is the inside rear is spinning and the fronts are spinning, with the outside rear NOT spinning. With an LSD in the back, that situation would reverse. Both rears would spin, and the inside front would spin, producing glorious oversteer until the three untamed wheels regained traction. Or so I think. We'll see! When I took it for the WOF the WOF man was spinning each wheel to check bearings and he was spinning more than he bargained for a lot of the time :-) I'm told there's a purge valve somewhere that releases the hydraulic pressure and allows independent front/rear axle speed, but I'm yet to have a look for it.
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

Also, two people independently told me that "this car isn't your type" :-D The one IRL said it was too normal, refined, civilised, tidy, clean, modern, conservative (all paraphrased). Not sure what the one on the other side of the world was thinking, but I'd like to know! :-D

Yesterday I was giving it a bit of a push through some curvy residential streets and noticed that it brought out the hooligan in me :-D I just love the sound of the RB singing! May as well be a skyline, I treat it the same way.
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

The mighty Stagea left the driveway tonight with a different pilot behind the wheel! It's away for a few days on tow car duties for someone who's moving house :-) I felt the need to give them some instructions, but refrained from stating the obvious re latching up trailers and the like.

Image





But before he took off with it, I used it to move 8 wheels/tyres and 2 tyres to my storage, and it swallowed them all whole, with room to spare:

Image
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Re: Fred's 1998 C34 Nissan Stagea 25X Four Wagon

Post by Fred »

Tomorrow night I'll have been without this car for a week! A mate borrowed it. Hardly heard a word from him. I'm assuming all is well :-D

Thinking about RBs again while looking at blacktop oil drainage and came across this half-dead kiwi page:

http://homepages.vodafone.co.nz/~lakewo ... 3_head.htm

Saved a copy on falcon in case it gets more dead.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
The ever growing list of FreeEMS success stories!
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