Engine Bay Detailing and Parts Replacement

Well as most of you know I DO like to keep my car clean.  And this means not just the exterior and interior, but also places that are not as obvious, such as the wheel wheels, inside body panels, etc. But I realized that lately, I had been neglecting one very obvious area: the engine bay.

So, the morning of the Izu Skyline drive, I took about an hour and used some Simple Green and some elbow grease to clean the engine bay (also, I figured that Dino would probably take a photo of the engine bay… I was right!!)

Using some plastic sheets, I protected the sensitive parts from water, and then proceeded to spray down the engine bay.  Once dry, I then sprayed on some CD2 protectant that I have had forever (I think I bought it back in 2007?!!), and was sitting in my collection of detailing tools.

 Freshly sprayed, it looked like this:

You can see the plastic bag protecting the Okada Plasma wiring, as well as the not yet dry CD2 spray

So if you look closely, there are a couple things that bothered me.
1) The fusebox cover: I had a vendor lay wet carbon over the original fusebox cover. And it came out terrible.  You can see in the photo above, it looks ok from a distance... but not up close (so we borrowed Thomas' for the Speedhunters photo)
2) The plastic clips on the steel brake lines, along the firewall.  Actually Midori Seibi's Uchinaga-san (the son, R33 owner as well) had pointed that out during my visit to Midori Seibi back in January.

3) The radiator stay. Mine is rusted and has dirt built-up. One is visible, the other is hidden under the air intake snorkel.

So I had to get replacements for this. And hence my trip to Nissan Shinagawa the other day, to pick up a few parts:

1) New fuse box cover
2) White Plastic clips (3)
3) Radiator stay
4) and small clips (2)

The two clips, I will use in a future blog entry.
Otherwise, as fitted these new parts did help to freshen up the engine bay (apologies I took these photos with my iPhone at night...):

Old (borrowed from Thomas again) and new Fuse Box Covers

Hmm. That new one looks weird.
 I wonder if I can get the old one chromed or something...

Comparing the plastic clips that hold the brake lines in place!

The old ones had turned yellow (and 2 of 3 had cracked) due to the heat of the engine!

And here it is installed - I have one more thing I want to do so will have a better picture when I do that mod, but until then, this photo will have to do.