Tuesday 23 July 2013

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!





 

2 comments:

  1. Hey Karl,

    Nice job. I especially like the chrome door handle, looks pretty good I think. I may have to do that for my car too. Makes it look more expensive...

    As for the door cards, hard to tell it's off a GT-R, I though the cloth was patterned like the seats, in a blue motif (I don't know as my car is a series 3 with the red themed interior)?

    But it does look great! Nice job!

    Aki

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  2. Hi Aki, Yes the interior is a blue themed older V spec type. The centres of the seats and door cards are difficult to describe as have a harder wearing cover with holes in over the blue material. The photo (from my phone) does not do it justice, as the Sun was very bright and depending on the angle, the centres look 'grey'. The seats certainly hold me in place when flying around corners though!

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