Cheap is expensive!

Spent some time 'window shopping' or as the French call it, 'window licking' (which I much prefer) on line. Starting out with that old favourite, ebay and gradually filtering my way up the scale to bespoke manufacturers.
One thing that immediately grabbed me is just how many cheap Chinese parts are available and how tempting it must be when on a limited budget to go down this route. It's funny, but after a few years of owning a reasonably high performance car, the amount of stories that filter back on blown turbo's and cracked manifolds add up.
It's difficult and tempting for the layman not to be lured in with the promise of great performance and power for pocket money prices. Although with turbo's in mind it is easy to have a copy housing, it's what lurks beneath that counts and a domestic $1000+ Garrett isn't remotely the same as a copy pretending to be one. I can only assume at these sort of prices the compressor wheel is made from Fairy Dust.
Anyway, from one extreme to another. I found this most excellent film on You tube which if nothing else is good for a laugh, in it they test a Holset turbo to destruction and then copy turbos. The commentary is amusing, if probably a little misleading and there is a part where they ask 'what if this turbo was on a school bus?' A real laugh out loud moment!
As many would say, the best way to counter fakes is simple, manufacturers, reduce your prices! But then if you can't afford it then maybe you shouldn't be playing the game (Pretty much like all hobbies, drinking, drug taking, gambling).

Anyway here is the video

R33 GTST washer bottle relocation

The washer bottle on the Skyline R33 GTST is of a reasonable size, in fact some might say, huge! For me it is annoyingly in the way and takes up space, even with a stainless cover and lid it still looks as attractive as Jeremy Clarkson after a late night and early morning.

Casting around for options on changing the washer bottle I looked at various items, ranging from cheap, nasty plastic replacements, overpriced fabricated tin cans and washer 'bags' which looked like they belonged in a hospital! Even if I did plumb (plumb, good choice of words for a washer bottle!) for any of these options they all only had one outlet, so the rear washer would become non-functional. No big deal, but I do like everything to work as it should (even if it is a rare event I use the washers!).

Keeping the original washer bottle still seemed the cheapest and best option. The only place it could go would be that cavern of space, the boot. I did give passing consideration to perhaps stuffing it behind the rear panel in the boot, but discarded that as it would be a pain to fill. I looked at the left side where the wheel brace fitting is, removing the three bolts that hold it in, although the right side seemed strangely more appealing to me. I could sit the bottle on top of the carpet.. not exactly a thing of beauty even if it is tucked away in the boot and I would loose valuable space. However there is a reasonable amount of space still behind the flimsy side panel trim, fitting the water bottle here would mean that the pumps would be out of sight, the filler still accessible and the boot carpet would tuck underneath it without issue.

To mount the bottle securely (as the fixing points would be floating in thin air) I made a paper template out of newspaper, cut some MDF to fit the boot space around the spare wheel cover, extending over the void. Drilled the mounting points and bolted it firmly into position. I then cut a hole in the flimsy side panel with a pair of scissors and dropped the whole lot into place.

Washer Bottle secured into place

You will notice from the picture some water marks on the side panel. I live in a ghastly country where it rains, a lot!

Naturally I have not actually plumbed it all in yet and am currently working on the wiring. To get the water back to the front screen I will simply use the rear washer pipe and plumb in a new rear washer pipe. That is the theory anyway! Currently at the time of writing I have managed to bring the electrics into the cars cabin and will have the tedious task of hiding them away to get them to the boot space.

Quick visit to the real world

Took myself off to car rehab a bit and did me a bit of home maintenance (it had to happen sooner or later). Where there was chaos, now there is a functional kitchen. Naturally this has it's own rewards, although it can rather put a crimp on ones time to do things, anything in fact, to the car.

One of the difficulties encountered having a kitchen fitted is that when delivered it needed to be stored somewhere. The garage may not have been my preferred but was the logical choice, so a hasty purchase was made of a car cover and my beloved car was shipped off to my girl friends mothers house. Wonderfully I was asked the question just why did I need a car cover and wasn't this an unnecessary expense. As it turned out we experienced various storms and some shocking weather all the time the car was away. 

The garage itself was admittedly for me, untidy. However after the kitchen fitter had machine sawn and made various woody bits for the kitchen. It resembled the Sahara on a windy day, there was dust everywhere, nothing was spared from, at the very least, a fine covering that you could get very Ying and Yang with, creating soothing wave patterns of great complex designs in.

Anyhoo, this bout of domesticity has now been firmly placed in the past. All my collected car junk has been recycled and tinkering resumed. 

It's all in the numbers

Late (as usual) and just time to quickly dust off the old girl before heading out to a local Japanese car meet in town, looking forward to standing around hands in pockets, grunting and struggling to digest a Mc Donald's, rashly purchased because I thought I was starving, but after a bite finding I was less enthusiastic..

I'm rambling am I not?

So yes! Ms Skyline had sprung a leak of the petrol kind and the fuel hose clip had decided to jolly well and truly 'let go'. Never fear, these problems are sent to try the average Skyline owner, not defeat them! After a bit of racing around the garage (I wish I would look in the last place first), the offending hose was replaced with some new (tighter fitting) braided hose and I could now continue with my planned dust off of her lady ship. However something struck me as odd, most odd, like there was something missing from my life.. Wah! The number plate, complete with carbon fibre surround was absent, missing, gone..

My thoughts immediately returned to the summers evening, when as I was howling up a rather fast stretch of road, there was the bang and clatter of something bouncing along the underside of the car. At the time as I appeared to still possess four wheels and much power, I assumed it was a wayward screwdriver that had made its bid for freedom from the engine under tray. Now I feel more confident that this was Ms Skylines rejection of being known by a number and her bid to be a free woman, girl, car, thing (ahem, probably taking the analogy too far now).

So that evening I hunted out my smaller sized plate once more, securing it in place with some handy sticky tape.

What to do? Did I really want to spend yet another day making a surround from out of carbon Fibre? Hell no, not really! But it certainly needs something on the front to make a feature out of the number plate. Especially as I wanted to keep it 100% legal. So I cast around, looking overseas and at home. Eventually I came across some old unwanted stock for a USA sized plate holder for of all things.. A PT Cruiser.

Whilst not perfect to fit out of the packet as the bracket plate was shaped for the nose of a Cruiser, I thought it had some potential. So after setting about the plastic with a hack saw blade I soon had the thing fitting in the recess well enough. So that I could use the bracket properly I made up a mount (from an old number plate ironically) screwing it firmly to the car, then attached the new bracket and finally the number plate.

Oh my I do sincerely hope that this is the last adventure in number plate making I do! It should be as this one is securely bolted together and I think the bumper would fall off before the plate!

Made from the highest quality plastic! 

Header Tank Lid

Compared to some mods this is possibly hardly worth a mention! But as it's me I am going to drone on with the details anyway.
Originally I painted my yellow header tank bottle lid with some Plasti Dip coating. This is a cool spray 'paint' that sprays fine coats of coloured rubber over your work piece. Takes ages to build a decent layer up though and the temptation is to blast it thickly on. I was never blown away with the finish, as it lifted around the raised lettering on the cap, the handy thing about plasi dip spray, is that it (like latex) just peels off.

I then sprayed a plastic finish on the cap, I admit to probably doing this in a hurry. The finish didn't adhere very well and in fact came off the top face completely. So basically I had made the cap look a million times worse.

I was under the hood messing about with the plumbing of the turbo pipes and on my millionth break from contorting myself into stupid positions thought. Ah here's a good break, will finish that cap off.

So without much thought and a rummage around in my paints I managed to spray it in primer and then satin black. I then thought it would be cool to hydro-graphic dip the thing and mucked about at that, following up with a coat of clear coat for protection.

The glorious weather continued and I so didn't have anything better to do, in fact I dozed off to sleep at one point!

yellow (with a hint of primer, had to pick off the fluff)

Looks grey? Well I swear it was satin black!

Top view, you can see where a moments indecision on my dipping technique caused a mild confusion in the finished product. It will do me though! 

The carbon effect wrapped itself all the way around filling the grooves. 

So if nothing else, this is a clear demonstration that not everything has to be a hard grind and that on occasion modding can be entertaining (in a silly way).

Interior Change

Well after assuring everyone, including my nearest and dearest that I was done, finished, had enough and would just maintain Ms Skyline. I went and sourced a GT-R interior, I know your all thinking why mimic what is probably in comparison to mine, a lesser car (I know I was), although it does have a decent front pair of seats, even if they are of what feels an older style in comparison to the later Spec 2 GTS 25t offerings.

The seller was located in Tamworth near Birmingham which made for an entertaining mornings run. He also had a GTS 25t, at some point it must have been a well looked after car, although was starting to show signs of wear it's past glories fading rapidly into the scrap man's sweet embrace. He had brought the car for drifting, removing the interior for a set of buckets, (which needing to fund he took out the interior) much better I have them I say and so a zippy hour and a bit later I was bombing back home with my prize filling every inch of my boot space.

Obviously not as a factory fit to a GTS 25t this must be this interiors third outing in a different Skyline! However the seats and door cards were in excellent condition for age only requiring a good clean up and some TLC.

Having had to fit various parts on and off the car for sometime now. I think I have become a bit of an expert in interior trim. The front seats are held in by four bolts, so removal was simple, what did suprise me is that the standard GTS 25t front seats are somewhat heavier that the GT-R replacements, another bonus I guess.
The rear seats put up their usual fight, although I find that to remove the rear lower bench (after removing its two securing bolts) if you squat in the middle, resting against the back seat, one almighty tug is enough to release it (and near launch you into the boot). With the back rest, again remove the two securing bolts and push the back rest up to free it from its hooks.
It's been very warm in the UK lately and apparently we are in the midst of a heatwave.. This isn't as nice as it sounds, although by no means would I actively complain and welcome back the rain. However when removing and fitting the rear seats it did get a tad 'hot' with the Sun blasting through the rear window and I darn near cooked!
Next off were the door cards in the back, these do require the front seatbelt lower and upper bolts undoing to free them, there is also a small screw in the seatbelt recess that needs to come out. Otherwise these are simplicity to remove. The front door cards were their usual pain in the butt to remove, mainly because I always forget how the plastic trims around the handles comes away (for information it is pull towards the back of the car to release).

Interior Fitted

Then it was a simple case of bolting in the new interior. Reversal of removal.. I love that expression, but in this case it is reasonably accurate. To bring the door cards in the front up to scratch I fitted the pull handle and plastics from my old door cards. The previous, previous owner had done a not too good a job of painting the interior plastic surrounds, they had to go!

 

LED Side Light Bulbs and DRL's

Wah! It has been a busy time for the girl and myself. Car shows piling on top of car shows it's all I can do to keep up. Met loads of people, did some work, upset some Welsh princess and generally had a good car time. Even if some bit's of that 'car time' were less than enjoyable!

One of those less enjoyable moments happened when changing the side light bulb. I have been working on the headlights, changing them over to High Intensity Discharge on dipped beam. The dark tint being removed for a much lighter shade of film protection and lastly to change the sidelights for something with a little more 'oomf' (technical term).

Replacement LED's

So, I had already replaced the sidelights for a much better LED (shown on right of picture) but now I have explored the LED world (as it were) I thought I would try something different again.

The side lights are somewhat awkward to get at generally, although the opposite side to the fuse box isn't so bad and I thought I would just pop a bulb in to see how it looked. Well after fiddling about trying to get the bulb in, it fell out of its holder and into the lens! Oh my... I tried fishing with wire, sticky tape on a stick, you name it. But it soon became apparent that the only way I would get the darn thing out would be to remove the headlight unit. This in itself is not too bad apart from one really stupid bolt located on the inner wing, what were Nissan thinking of and did they do this deliberately just to spite me??
Anyway after much 'MUCH' battling, the headlight gave in and off she popped. The irony is that as I removed it the bulb dropped straight out, bounced off my foot and under the car. I swear it giggled at me.

With the headlight removed I was impressed at how much space it offered me. Seemed a shame to just put it back together as was, so (not being too bright) I thought a set of Daylight Running Lights would do the trick and these were wired in and hidden away behind the headlight.

DRL's fitted

As for my pesky side lights. I used a little electrical tape to secure them to their holders and fitted them in. Naturally the drivers side is a complete pain to do, as you have to remove the expansion tank, move the water bottle and the fuse box to get 'proper access.

So a five minute job, took at least six hours. We do it for love, I swear (and sweat).