Irony?

Just spent an entertaining couple of hours putting the pipework back in. It's cold, it's wet, I'm dressed like a Dunlop tire man... And the irony? All the pipework is going to be junked at the end of the week!
Ho-Ho-Ho

We are due snow as well!

Looks good though!

RB26 ornament plate

Well it took a whole five days after ordering for the ornament plate to arrive. Pretty good considering there is a weekend included in that time scale and the part was shipped from Virginia USA (know where I want to go on holiday now).

Nissan of Chesapeake you are the men!

They have everything one could ask for to feed that Skyline addiction.

http://www.nissanofchesapeake.com/parts/department/parts_department?dpt=3

Cheap part = Cheap joke!

Just halfway through its three-month lunar mission, China's Jade Rabbit has experienced a "mechanical control abnormality." Experts now fear the lunar rover may be permanently lost.

No data on it's 0 to 60 times

Now.. What did I tell you about cheap Chinese parts?

AN10 fittings

All the way from Australia I managed to get some AN10 breather pipe fittings for the rocker covers.
They are sized to be a tight fit and have been told that a rubber mallet is the way to go (for banging in purposes!).
The pair were reassuringly expensive but are machined items of a high quality.

Note that it's important to get the right size for your particular make of engine (duh!) As an RB25 takes a smaller diameter to that of an RB26.

Will post my success (or otherwise) after I get the covers back from paint.

Available in -10 and -12 AN sizes

Made from Aluminium, and replace the standard rocker cover breathers so you can use a -10 AN fitting like Speedflow/Earls/PFE etc

These are very easy to fit, and once fitted will provide a tight seal and not leak any oil at all.

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/hcr32_interloper/m.html?item=261381734651&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Wrapping is addictive

Well I started with the slam panel and now it's spreading. Whilst outside this morning in an unsual weather window, when the Sun actually popped out to say hi briefly. I thought I would take the opportunity to clean the object of my desire/frustration (delete as appropriate). Did not take me long to get under the bonnet and start to fiddle!
Was looking in the area where the water bottle used to be, thinking how bare it was (compared to the rest of the junk in the engine bay) and thought 'I feel a wrap coming on'.
It isn't as though I don't have miles of the stuff to play with! So a bit of trimming, snipping and hairdrying later ...

Improvisation!

Wonder how I fill the relocated washer bottle? An old milk bottle makes the perfect funnel!

Parts here, there, deliver, get worked on, deliver....

A couple of bits of work in progress to report.

In keeping with the planned major changes in the works, I decided that I wanted to lose the rather beautiful chromed look under the bonnet and go with something a little more 'retro' feeling more in keeping with my advanced years.

Going with a top mount set up, the original rocker covers for the RB25 look wrong to me with the recesses for the cross over J pipe now a redundant feature. So looking at alternatives I considered RB20 type covers and those of the RB26. The RB20's proved too hard to find, which was a shame as I preferred them over the more glamorous alternate 26's. Additionally fitting the RB26 can be problematic, with modifications being required to the front cover for the 25's engines Variable Valve Timing (VVT).

So if you want to have a go at this, ensure that you get both rocker covers and the coil pack cover (duh). Plus the front cover and it's back plate, it would be possible to modify the 25's cover think, although not the simple choice (why make it harder).
Top TIP! Be warned that the front pulley covers were made out of plastic on late model cars, if your plan is to powder coat it will need to be aluminium! If you don't plan on powder coating then plastic would be easier to mod at home.

To modify the front cover, basically you need to make a hole... Although strictly speaking not a hard task, anything can be made difficult! I wanted to keep the 'OEM' type bulge though, so opted to speak to someone who knows how to bend metal and weld aluminium.

RB26 in fetching HKS 'purplesque' flip paint

You can see from the pictures that the finished job looks pretty OEM and am really pleased with the end result.

Somewhat modified front cover

The plan is to go with a crinkle paint finish (just like a Nismo engine) and the parts are currently at Maldon Shot Blasting & Powder Coating in Essex UK being worked on.

Side view

The NISSAN Twin Cam 'ornament' (logo) was showing some small signs of age. Seemed a shame to put this back onto the finished covers, so I hunted for a new one. It wasn't all that hard to find for a part that has been out of production for some time and took about a minute! Well I cheated a bit and know a supplier in the USA that seems to have a whole store room of parts gathering dust. (Top Secret TIP!) So a mail message to Nissan of Chesapeake and a brand new part is winging its way to me. They are brilliant really and you can source various parts there for a fraction of second hand costs.

Effectively with what some people in the UK are charging for a tired out (usually rubbish) scrap part, you can have brand spanking new at the same price. Makes sense to me!

Lastly a peek at my nice new turbo. Auto Extreme have advertised that they can do polished turbo's now. Although I do have to add this was originally at my insistence! Rough castings are not for me.

Garrett GTX 3076R polished turbo housing

So a bit of an eclectic posting, there is plenty more going on at the moment, everything feels rushed which is me holding stuff up as my 'education' into a top mount set up slowly increases.