My Cefiro #26: Offset check & grille swap.

My Cefiro #1: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-cefiro-1-carsales-ad.html 
My Cefiro #2: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-2-inspection-and-test-drive.html 
My Cefiro #3: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-3-buying-it-and-bringing-it.html 
My Cefiro #4: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-4-starting-modifications.html
My Cefiro #5: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-5-first-drive-and-photos.html

My Cefiro #6: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-6-exhaust.html

My Cefiro #7: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-7-wash-and-photos.html

My Cefiro #8: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-8-hills-run.html

My Cefiro #9: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-9-respray.html

My Cefiro #10: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-10-gathering-cobwebs-in.html

My Cefiro #11: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-11-bringing-it-back-to-life.html 

My Cefiro #12: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-12-on-road-again.html

My Cefiro #13: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-13-second-round-of.html

My Cefiro #14: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-14-boostworx.html

My Cefiro #15: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-15-daily-driving.html 

My Cefiro #16: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-16-bonnet-swap.html

My Cefiro #17: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-17-hahndorf-hills-run.html 

My Cefiro #18: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-18-respray-quote-and-drop-off.html

My Cefiro #19: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-19-painting-in-progress.html

My Cefiro #20: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-cefiro-20-respray-pickup.html

My Cefiro #21: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-cefiro-21-hills-run.html

My Cefiro #22: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-cefiro-22-suburbia.html

My Cefiro #23: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-cefiro-23-hahndorf-car-spotting.html

My Cefiro #24: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-cefiro-24-water-winding-roads.html

My Cefiro #25: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-cefiro-25-japanese-import-spares.html

With a couple of friends having a bit of time off work one sunny afternoon, we thought it would be a good opportunity to do a few bits and pieces on our cars, something that hadn't happened for quite some time.

Before I left home I had a bit of a look at how the current grille was attached, and took a couple of photos of the two.

  

I then headed over to Daniel's house and parked in the driveway.

Prach's Toyota JZX100 Chaser, which you'll probably recognise from previous posts.

After picking up a rolling R31 Skyline shell from crash repair shop owner Cameron, who used some parts for his FB wagon, Daniel pulled out its speedo cluster, as the one in his Pintara wasn't particularly accurate. The new one would prove to be spot on when we tested later that night.

Both mine and Daniel's cars have fairly minimal exhaust systems, so are quite loud, while Prach's Chaser has a couple of mufflers, and in comparison you can hardly tell it's running. Cue some gentle encouragement from us for some straight pipes while he had a look under the car.

I'd also brought my WRX radio control rally car for some fun. At only $15 from K-Mart, it was definitely a good buy, and goes quite fast and far for such a cheap plastic toy car. Still not great on dirt with only rear wheel drive though, so Daniel's very sick daughter Ella rescued it while Prach was 'driving'. i.e. crashing into things and getting stuck.

Like me, Ella has a long list of pretty critical medical problems. As you can see in the picture above, at the time she had a naso-gastric tube for medications and fluids. Due to a childhood stroke and related issues, she aspirates fluids into her lungs. 

You can read more about her serious health struggles in the pdf document linked below. And if you're feeling generous, a donation towards this project to help her would be very much appreciated: 

http://www.sayso.com.au/weddings/pics/TheMissEllaSkyeProject.pdf

Since I bought the Ceffy, I'd been asked a few times about the offset on my Buddy Club P1 rims, but I'd never actually gotten around to removing them to find out. And since I was thinking about getting some meshies, I figured it would help to at least know what the specs were on my current wheels. So while we had some tools out, Daniel jacked the rear of the car up, and started loosening the wheel nuts. My arms are much less suited to that kind of grunt work, so I helpfully took photos and played with the radio control car instead.

I'd brought along my little GoPro HD camera, and set it to take photos every two seconds while we were working on the car. It made for a cool little time-lapse clip of the process.

With the rear wheel off, we had a look inside for the stamp with the wheel specs; 17x9, with an offset of +27.

Then it was on to the front.

The R33 brake upgrade earns its keep in the hills, the coilover is losing some fluid though.

The fronts turned to to be 17x8, +22.

With the wheel specs noted, we moved on to replacing the grille. After Prach spent a couple of minutes fiddling with a few screws and clips, the old grille came out quite easily.

It kind of looked like a hillbilly with no front teeth when I closed the bonnet to see what it looked like without anything there.

The new one was pretty easy to snap in place, and a few minutes later the Ceffy had a markedly altered front-end appearance.

Coming up in Post #27; another visit to Japanese Import Spares on the way through to a Ceffy + Pintara hills run.