My major project!

[Nik da Greek]

Absolutely incredible, mate. You should be very proud of yourself, awesome job!

[FEED Addict]

Looks stunning, well worth all the hard work!:Thumbs-up

[karl_tate]

yeh try and lower a bit more.

if you dont mind me asking how much do you think it has cost you in total because i know at the start you were trying to build it on a budget??

[leeroy_25]

To be fair I am not sure if I should answer that question! Put it this way.. I have just about managed to keep i my rough ball park budget so far! I have been keeping tabs on it too make sure I didn\'t go too mad! Finding the parts at the prices I was hoping to get them for has taking me the time and also cost me it in that using copy parts on the bumpers and skirts.. etc.. resulted in a lot of time to get them fitting right. But it did save me financially and seeing as I am in no rush I am not complaining! Yes it was a bit of a headache sometimes but I guess that was to be expected! The area where I have undoubtidly saved the most is doing it the work myself! I dread to imagine how much a bodyshop would charge! Well I could put a fairly good guess on it!
Feel free to have a guess! I might tell you if you get close!

Lee

[karl_tate]

i can see what you mean and also i can imagine that it has taught you a thing or two and that it feels soo much better knowing that you have done it all your self.

like you say, if you had took it to a bodyshop even with the original parts with near perfect alignment it would of cost a pretty penny.

with your panels i would recon it would of cost, to get it to your standard around £3000+ which including buying the parts gets pretty scary.

[leeroy_25]

I would have guessed somewhere around £2500 for a bodyshop to do the work. And then yeah you have the parts to go on that! I expect I have probably spent less than you imagine.. In some ways I hope I have!

Lee

[Initial-D]

Nice job you\'ve done with the FD! I can appreciate the hours and money thats gone into it, the first look at the finished article makes you realise it was all worth it in the end eh!

[leeroy_25]

Thanks Initial! Is that your car in your avatar thing? Have you got a project page or pictures of it on here? Looks interesting!

[leeroy_25]

Ben I just spotted the blogpsot!! Awesome! I will have a proper read later.. But looks amazing .. And a very nice kit I must say!!

Lee

[leeroy_25]

Hi Guy\'s,
This weekend proved very slow on progress. The last few bits come down to some interior and electrics which generally I hate in cars! I had previously rewired the stereo plugs due to the previous owner doing a bit of cut and shut job on them! So that was all dandy. My aim was to get all the interior back in.. which ideally involved fitting the radio first as I need to make some kind of cage to hold it. Then put all the other bits in and figure out how the ECU mounted. I had not checked any of the other electrics previously so anything could happen!
It turned out mostly ok but fitting the radio has been a it of a nightmare. I started looking at the cage requirements. I had and old Nissan style cage on the double DIN unit I was fitting so began cutting it and bending it till I had fabricated a new bracket to hook into the mazda hole! Next I plugged it all in.. then went to put the aerial plug in and noticed that the car has two female plugs?(big and small) the radio I have which is also japanese has two female plugs too! What the hell!? I had got a band expander for it which fits the larger of the two aerial sockets but still means I somehow need to get a male-male adapter? I have never seen one before? Anyway I decided to pop out to (hu hum) Halfords to see if I could find something.. But as expected no joy? Also why are there two aerial sockets? Does it matter which I use? Anyway I have made up a male-male adapter for now from two regular adaptors but I don\'t know if it works because the next thing I found was the power adapter plug I have to fit the radio has a completely different wire layout to the plugs coming from the car! So I thought get out the circuit tester and see what\'s what on the car and change the adapter around.. No! there was no power from anything!
So My questions regarding the radio are..
1.Can someone please explain to me about the radio aerial. do I need a special adaptor for it? have I got some rog wiring?
2. Can someone please post a pic or link for the radio circuit diagram?
I need to know what is what on the speaker plug and the power plug!
3. Where is the fuse located for the radio? Hopefully that will solve the \'no power\' issue!
So that was a bummer! Guess the radio wasn\'t going in just yet.
Good News after a few minutes of playing with the ECU I figured out how that fitted into the footwell! So one more piece back in! and the foot well trim fitted!
At the mo it looks something like this:


So then I decided to fit the rest of the dash. fairly straight forward. Next it was time to test it all.. Oh My God.. It all works! Lights, heater, squirters.. The lot! So that was very pleasing.. I had actually achieved something in my day!
Now for the bit I had been dreading. The car alram has blackjax activated and I need to disarm that to drive it for MOT. as it happens I don\'t no the code and it appears the previous keeper changed it from standard! I think I must have guessed by accident before as I have had the alarm go off and then pressed the buttons in the car and got it off.. But that didn\'t seem to work when I tried to enter the program stage. So I am really in the pooh and need some serious help. Does anyone know how you can reset the alarm features without knowing the valet code? Is this possible? I am guessing if it\'s possible it wil require and alram engineer to plug in his pc?
I have a clifford concept 500. The factory 4 digit valet code is on the back of the manual.. but it is defiantely not that. Before I had used an online concept 400 manual which has a factory set code of 2. Which is what I had been trying to use before. and some sort of combination of 2\'s and blanks had obviously disabled it but I don\'t know what for sure!
Please let me know if anyone can help. Otherwise my lovely car won\'t be going anywhere!

Lee

[Nik da Greek]

Hhmmm. Just dug out my Concept 650 manual, and that\'s got a four-figure code on the back of the manual, too. I remember that my earlier-generation Clifford just had a default preset of 2, like you say, so it looks like the more modern ones might well have individual codes or a batch code, a bit like padlocks come in batches with the same key as it were. Not much help to you right now, but I\'m sure that there must be a way for an alarm fitting wallah to get into the system and override it. Maybe worth trying Huets in Worthing, not too far from Bognor if you can get there from work or something. They were very helpful with advice when I took a random alarm problem there before, they seem to know what they\'re doing. May even be able to help with your spurious radio wiring questions!

Looking good as always, dude, for what it\'s worth, small comfort if you can\'t drive it, I guess. Loving the old-school steering wheel, my mums got one just like that in her MGB. Actually, that\'s probably not the right thing to say, is it :Giggle!

[S3TH]

I don\'t think any typical alarm fitter can sort anything out without the valet code, I had a similar problem a couple of months ago.... There are 2 people currently in the UK who developed the directed alarms, they have software no one else has.... I can email you one of their numbers, he can completely reprogram it too, in case you think someone else has access to a spare fob....

As for the radio, by the sounds of it I\'m pretty certain you haven\'t connected your ground... the stock Jap looms don\'t have a grounding wire in the loom... but stock standards in head units do... You need to take the black wire of your radio loom ("cut & shut" if you like...) & ground it somewhere in the car...

Apologies if that\'s not the issue, let us know if that doesn\'t work & we\'ll think of more things around it... Good work so far Lee :Thumbs-up.

[maz13b]

Very impresive mate.
well done.

Maz

[leeroy_25]

S3th. I will definately love a contact for an alarm guru! leeroy_25@hotmail.com if you please! Also I have conected the ground. When I say no power I mean no power coming from the actual loom when the radio is not on!
SO I am guessing or rather hoping it\'s just the fuse is blown? but I need to know where the fuse is to check it!?
Anyone know about the aerial socket issue? Is the car normally a female socket? and what are the two different socket sizes for?

Thank you
Lee

[S3TH]

Ah you can get adapters to some effect from halfords, have a look if they have something workable.... there\'s a fuse on the loom itself (or so there should be)... otherwise checkout the footwell, I can\'t remember of the top of my head....