Sawadhika.....kap kap.....

Someone else is either going to Phi Phi Island or Krabbi.....

And I'm heading to Chon-bhuri.....

Yeah, where's that you may ask? Beats me and all I know it's an industrial area.....

Anyway, off to Siam.....

Bubbles in my surface skimmer and the best of all.....

As you can see, there are plenty of bubbles.....but this is not what I wanted to tell.....

Look further down for the interesting part......

The last photo has so many shrimps and what happened was this.....my skimmer was not floating after being sucked down and all these shrimps were sucked in too.....

So I was so surprised when I cleaned up the filter only to find so many shrimps and for those who knew how Eheim 2213 works, there shouldn't be shrimps that is bigger than the slots in the net that has been placed around the suction.....let alone cherry and in this case; a Yamato! Meaning they have been sucked from the skimmer side!

3 months is nearing and I am nowhere near done.....

Got the A31 for close to 3 months now.....not 3 months yet but close.....

It had been a great adventure, getting to know lots of people whom I never thought I'll be meeting.....all in the name of the same interests.....

It's either RB or A31, it pulls people together.....to put it short.....

Anyway. my cooling area of the engine is lacking a few things.....

For one.....the thermostat, believe it or not, this thing is hard to get and I'm talking about the NISMO or SARD unit.....

The second is the fan shroud as the previous unit was a RB20 unit, so I got to search another one.....

As I browse through the internet, the shroud is really needed to concentrate the air flow into the radiator and without it, the cooling is not effective.....

Found one.....YES! YES! YES!.....and I hope it fits.....

Plants and zombies.....

This is the latest past-time I'm hooked on for now.....besides my A31.....

My Bee shrimp just reappeared.....

Voila!

My Bee shrimp which I thought has long gone extinct in my tank has reappeared.....

I have given it up dead when I bought 10 from East Aqua in Ikano to complement the 3 I had....

But the next day, not only the 10 disappeared but the previous 3 I had were gone as well.....

However today, I manage to see one and I do hope this is not the last of them.....

And also some pictures of my Cherries and also the Clown Loach.....

Pity the Loach as it is now feeding on Shrimp pellets after all the snails were eaten up.....

Status quo.....

Car's running well without hiccups....Thank God.....

However the bonnet now sits higher than before due to the bigger radiator....

Not satisfied with the current situation and found out that the radiator bracket at the bottom is interfering with a hose bracket leading to the power steering pump.....

Will get the mechanic to sort it out soon and hopefully my bonnet closes like before as I don't like the look of a raised bonnet.....

Sorry no pictures today as I am just too lazy to snap.....

Moment of reckoning.....

Interesting day today.

Was in mechanic's place around 10.30am and the dismantling starts. Initial observations indicates that the engine look healthy and neat. However suspected that the timing belt was never changed as it is still an original unit. Good news is mileage of the engine at 67000 when I got the car seemed quite correct.

Proceed to removing all the belts and finally water pump. Seemed like the water pump is also a stock unit and is already showing signs of getting jammed. Pretty timely for a change. Then found out that the Paraut water pump I ordered does not fit as it is a BNR33 unit and have one mounting hole that does not fit into the block. This is an interesting thing as the GTR unit also fits into the RB20 for the R33 pump. For the R34, Paraut is wiser to fit in a slot instead of a hole to fit both BNR34 and ER34. This the mounting point which I have highlighted RED in the picture below.





















Prompt sourcing were done and water pump was to be in by around 5pm which was although acceptable but pretty late.

Had the mechanic had a look at the left wheel and all the noise and droning sounds points to one thing. Bearings. Mech made a call and a used S15 front knuckles were ordered and was fitted immediately. One problem solved. Pics below shows the existing S15 knuckle.

Had lunch and then tea and finally the water pump came but to our dismay, it was not a Paraut and the distributorship claimed it is a Paraut. Well, it was finally sorted out and my car has to stay overnight.

So got a replacement car to drive and found out the steering wheel is so light compared to mine. Was told that the R33 rack I had is inherently tighter compared to the A31 unit.

Well, met a few Skyline owners and they were cool guys who are easy to mingle with. Also eventually met up with A31 owners later in the evening they are indeed a chatty and a cool lot.

Like they said pictures said a thousand words and here you go! Opps, pictures are all above!

I have just booked myself these.....

I noticed that I have some of these currently on my ride too.....

This just goes to say the previous owner may not have changed the belts and was just using whatever the Jap owner left him.....

I'm assuming this as when I asked him what brand of belts he was using, he told me he didn't know.....