Meet my Wheels

I am currently riding on 18" Cruize Sakura Alloy Wheels
2 x 8.5 x 18 ET 32 (Fronts)
2 x 9.5 x 18 ET 35 (Rears)

Lovely wheels on a black car. I won't mention anything about the mistake the seller made sending me silver wheels and then blaming me for ordering wrong ones... Am hardly going to say silver when I wanted gold am I! I dunno.... Where's the service eh?

Bonnet release catch

I don't know what it is about Skyline's but the pressed metal parts are so badly made, or at least badly protected. On mine the bonnet release catch was (well currently is) a ugly shade of rust brown. I guess this is down to the non existent grill design at the front, meaning that any road crap automatically covers the bonnet release.

So rather than muck about I got hold of another bonnet release mechanism (which was still cruddy). Firstly giving it a bath to remove most of the muck and then setting to work with the good old wet and dry sand paper.

A fair bit of rubbing later and was a nice shiny lump.. At this point I had to decide if to send to chroming or paint. After a bit of umm'ing and arr'ing I decided that paint would be the way to go. I think that the cmponent would be just too much of a pain to completely strip, requiring drilling out of big rivets etc. Also the idea is not to notice such delights as bonnet catches, not highlight them. Besides, would probably be a swine to keep clean.

A small detail perhaps but now like new.

I used Gloss Black Plasticoat paint rather than conventional car body paint as it goes on quite thick and covers up a multitude of sins. Additionally it looks like it will be very hard wearing, although time will answer that statement.
I did consider getting 'artistic' and giving a light blast of glitter paint, but again this isn't supposed to be the highlight of the engine bay!
Probably would have been better in a satin coat, although the gloss black was all I had to plan (pending work starting on the main inlet). I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Coming soon... Fitting of bonnet catch!

Wing Badges! A'hem, I mean Emblems

All Skylines have GT badges/emblems on their wings/fenders. As with everything Skyline they do follow a certain pattern up to a point and then go off at a tangent!
Lets unravel so emblems and see where we end up.

Starting with the 'original' C110, C210 GTR styles, these come in red or black and have the shape of GTR with what looks like a typically 70's font set (everything was cheesey in the 70's? I was).

Old school originals

Next up are two examples of R33 GTR emblems, they are notable being a smaller size. The difference in colours signifies that blue is non turbo and red is turbo. These badges come from a 370z, Infinity G37 which are USA branding.

Next is a R34 GT Emblems, both in red and silver. Notice that the red is a lot paler than those shown above.



R34 GTR Emblem



R34 GTS Emblem

Now we get interesting. Proper GT badges for proper Skylines. Well my Skyline at least! We have the red and white, which in the UK at least is pretty much the standard. These do not wear well and getting good ones is difficult.

For sure R33 GTST Emblem

Here we have the normally aspirated Blue and White badge.

R33 normally aspirated (non turbo model)

But the rule that blue means normally aspirated goes wrong with this emblem, again in blue and white but for a R34 GTR.

R34 GTR

Here's an odd one, genuine Nissan but in green and white. I'm assuming that this is made for non Japan markets, and is probably for a Silvia.



R33/Silvia model



Here's my badge, I actually brought this in Malaysia of all places. It is not (I believe) an official Nissan product and probably made as a JDM item.

R33/34 JDM aftermarket emblem

So basically they are all correct to some degree, although it is easy to get confused by the sheer array of badges available! Even asking the question on an owners forum will bring back many different answers (probably wrong) or no answer at all.

GT-R Logos actually sold!

Well if I didn't have the money in my hot and sweaty hands, I would not have believed it. The GT-R Carbon End Cap covers actually sold for £41.00 UK pounds.
Whereby most would not think that this is in any way remarkable, it is the first time my hobby/obsession has returned a profit to me. Perhaps this is a red letter day!
Will immediatley put a deposit down on a villa in the South of France, that or buy a brothel...

What's in a name?

Way back when the world was young and I first got Ms Skyline. She had a sorry looking name badge tattooed to her rear end. It had to go and painstakingly was picked off.. Even then there was a slight blemish and outline of where the sticker had been, but this was fixed when I had the whole boot lid and back bumper resprayed.

So no name then and long may it continue.
Well not that long....
This was until whilst visiting Tim Nichols at the Moff Shop Skyline breakers. I was actually there to hunt down a bonnet catch (will get to that later in the next week). Tim had just dragged another dead Skyline in for him to mercilessly strip and profit from. Another example dead and gone forever.. Before we cast stones at Tim for seeing a business opportunity, I myself noticed a rather nice looking GTST badge on the back of the soon to be 'despatched' car, shoved ten pounds into his hands and made off with my new acquisition!

after some slight boredom of picking off the old sticky from the back and even more patience of making a new sticky pad to replace all I had peeled. Ms Skyline once again sports the name of which she is so proud.

Yes she is looking at you with her eye!

 I so hate sticking anything onto the body. I am one of those people who after getting it right first time, then start to wonder if possibly it isn't 100% straight... I must stop listening to the voices, although details, details!

You be the judge.. Does that look right to you?

Close up of Ms Skylines Right Cheek

Only this time it is a metal badge, outlined in chrome with black enamel lettering (the photo taken at night does no justice!).
So from a dead car, a small piece (very small in this case) will live on. The bonus being that Ms Skyline is just a little bit more different and exclusive to all the 'other' Ms Skyline wannabes!

Garden Front Bumper

Recently I made a trip to Essex to meet up with a fellow petrol head. He was planning a change to his car and fitting a Top Secret style spoiler to his GTST. Naturally in my never ending quest for parts I grabbed his bumper to add to the pile of bits I secrete around my house, loft, garden, garage and shed...

Wonder if it will take root

I was particularly please to see that not only does it have the complete indicator and fog light assembly but it also has a rather wonderful Nissan 'M' style spoiler. People would give their right arm for these! However I couldn't sell it, as it will possibly make a rather fabulous alternative to the aggressive front splitter I currently have bolted on and means I can drive with even more abandon!

Found a neat little application

Amazingly it's possible to now post from an Android mobile phone! Whatever next? Well will be very handy for blogging on the run. Must try and find things to blog about!