1994 Nissan Skyline R33 GTST

Great thread. Is this an example of mission creep? Lovely car.

If you only knew what those lights hid, and how I had to remove them!!!!!! the repairs are on going and updates shall be posted later on this evening (if the rain cuts me a break)

to furthermore update the build? is that what it is now? it was never meant to be, anyway, with the engine out and tarted up it would be a shame to throw it back in a rusty no good looking engine bay, I have given the engine bay a wire wheel back on any rusy/shady looking parts on paint and scuffed up the rest, applied a couple coats of Hammerite Krust and then a in a number of light coats added some raptor liner, i have been doing it in managable sections due to the recent wet weather so first off I got the near side sorted and then moved onto the front clip, therer was a large amount of rust situated under the drivers side head light, i cut the rot out for now but it will be replaced before the engine goes back in, again it is just finding the time between the weather and other jobs, its not a massive priority job so it can wait till the 11'th hour if it must, for now its all cut out and painted so it won't get any worse























Still need to do the drivers side of the engine bay, wanna remove the clutch and brake master cylinders before i commit, as you can see, there are many small areas effected by corrosion.








I had been noticing the boot was getting quite damp recently and the windows were becoming more and more prone to fogging up, after pulling the boot carpets it was quickly apparent that both the rear lights were a part of the problem, there had been a very very shoddy repair carried out. The top middle mounting bolt hole in the body had corroded away due to the run off from the boot, this is from what i can gather a common problem, the previuos attempt to fix it consisted of some fiberglass and a buct tonne of mastic to seal the light in, however, the very effected area they were trying to seal up didn't have enough sealant applied to it so it just turned it into a natural waterfall inside the boot everytime it rained.

Last night I cleaned out the inside of the boot, applied a couple coats of Hammerite Krust and raptor liner, then, as I'm old (34) i lined the whole boot with sound deadening, I wan't comfort these days. Once the clouds broke this morning I set to work in sorting out the rear waterfall feature, now the mastic they had previously used was good stuff, i had to use a 2 foot pry bar just to lever the light out of the body work, when it did break loose it took some of the bodywork with it as you can see below.







so armed with my angle grinder and some cardboard I made some Carboard aided designs and started to cut up the back end, I would like to mention (again) that I am not a professional welder (which is obvious) so please don't hate on any welds or repairs I make. I cut out one section, welded it in, cut out the next section etc etc. in all fairness, for my level of skill I was more than impressed with how it actually turned out.

















A quick masking up.





A slap of some etch primer and raptor liner and I can call that job done.








I had a stroke of genious upon fitting the lamp back in to position, apply some mastic, fit the lamp into position and see the level of impression in the mastic, now I thought i applied it generously enough but quite clearly that wasn't the case, good job I checked.



So much MUCH more was applied and after fitting there was a good helping of mastic being squished between the lamp and the bodywork on the inside so i knew the seal would be pucker. If the weather is kind enough I will try to get the other side sorted out tomorrow.

As i have a stand alone ECU with new engine loom and digital dash display I pulled the loom out from the engine bay to the original ECU, it also tied into some of the body loom for the headlights and indicators and dash lights, after a couple glasses of wine and tracing out wires I got some snips and just went for it.




Hopefully the only wires i will need to put back are the wires to the right of the black and white plug, the Blue plug and associated wires can go by by.





Few days back I got all the rear driftworks adjusable arms fitted, I got the lower contol arms on back order so will be waiting a while for those.





I got one side of the front fitted, just waiting to finish the other side of the engine bay before I fit them, just easier taking it all appart once rather than twice. heres what all the front looks like, everything in the suspension department will be nice and fresh, plus being tighter  than before I can exit a corner  where I'm pointing the wheels at rather than exiting a corner like a plate of jelly all over the place. Nice looking kit this driftworks stuff and well priced too.





So with a good few days work and the boot coming returning baxck to something like it I went to chuck the spare wheel back in, then, I noticed something that would drastically alter the way in which I delt with a flat tyre, the spare was a 4x100, not 5x114.... W**kers.




Lets see what the weather does tomorrow, I'll keep updates comign as they happen.

Peace

Oooooof! Engine p0rn!

Nicely done.

AL.

***UPDATE***

The engine is finally back in...





It didn't come witout it's own challenges, the ARP flywheel bolts turned out to be a tad to long for the lightened Nismo flywheel, nothing a vice, angle grinder and a thread file couldn't sort out 









The next challenge was to get the engine from the shed, down past my landlords house, up and through the gate and across the gravel carpark. getting from the shed to the gate wasn't so hard, just involed a lot of brute force, lever bars and strategically manovering the engine crane in a way to not fall down draines etc, everything was slightly up hill and banked so it wasn't quite so straight forward as just pushing it. Getting it up and through the gate, well, I had to get creative, I was all by myself and didn't want to wait untill my landlord came home as I just wanted to get it in, so break out the tow strap and have a quick prayer just incase there is someone listening and send it.


















With the engine in I soon realised there was a few more issues to overcome, one being the power steering pump resivour doesn't fit anymore, this isn't too much of an issue, i was going to replace the lines to and from it as they're cracking and slightly weeping from the joines where the pipe has gone hard and brittle, I will make my own lines and relocate it behind the passenger headlamp.






The next issue is the intake manifiold clashing with the windscreen washer bottle, I am probably going to have to try to cut this one up and see if I can make it water tight again or go down the route of chucking a pump into a small container/tank of some sorts, I'll figure that out later, unless any of you guys have an idea?







A few other things I have gotten done are, insalled my seat and rails 






Got my haltech dash all wired in and got the turn signals, handbrake and main beam indications working on it.





Fitted the Vibratech gearbox mount to acompany the same engine mounts.




I had to chop out a lot of dodgy wiring and add my own in, added relays and fuses to what i needed as there was none before, not quite sure how it didnt set on fire.

I will keep the post's comming as I go

I decided that i needed to put it up in the air to make my life easier to redo all the exhaust down pipe and also I knew there was a small patch of welding needing doing on the drivers side front mounting area of the rear subframe.





I had fully prepped for this and went and got a fresh bottle of gas and a 1/4 sheet of steel.









After gving it a little wire wheel off to get rid of all the underseal some more holes appeared, this was to be expected.





Then I got my body panel hammer out and started tapping around to see what was good and what was bad, it didn't go well.








Now I'm no expert welder but i think the last person who did the welding "repairs" to this area was either blind or at very least partially sighted, they're shocking, theres gaps in the welds and burn holes all over the place, I'm going to have to drop the subframe and fuel tank to do this.


As painful as it was to knock holes into it I was fully prepared for it as I knew it had to be done, I don't do half arsed jobs, I like to do thing correctly and to the best of my ability. I noticed an area of concern up the front on the drivers side so I gave that a little tappity tap too, one more hole to add to the list.





I then revisted the the rear and peared under the side skirt and it was clear that the sill had a small area needing attention too, what happened after this was just mayhem, utter carnage would probaly best describe it, so what happened was my hammer just kept chasing corroded steel and making holes, people with a weak stomach should look away now.


Front of the drivers side sill.




Rear of the drivers side sill. this was acutally disconnected/unwelded from the floor pan and it wasn't known until I started hitting it




Rear drivers side arch.




And again




And again




I then moved onto the other side, same story.










At this point I decided it would be a goot idea I stopped hitting it before I drank myself to death, it is very clear that I bought a lemon, there are some small bubbles of rust on the passenger arch so I knew this would be the same. Not to worry, I got straight on the interweb and ordered new sills, given the rediculous prices and rarety of new steel quarter panels I opted to go down the route of fiberglass over fenders, these are GTR type so they are 25mm wider, whilst I was there I ordered some new front wings as I HATE the current ones it has, the mould they used to make them was clearly in an accident as none of the body lines match up and they are like my chinese freind, Ug Lee... Hopefully the sills will turn up middle of the week and the panels some time soon after, I'm off to singapore for a month in a coulpe of weeks so I'm hoping I can get the majority of the work done before then, more annoyingly the whole car will need a respray, the paint from the last spray job is peeling off around most of the masking tape lines. Ughhhh I have my work cut out.

People, take it from me don't buy a 25+ year old nissan, I have 2 of them so I have welded up a fair bit over the years. This was adverstised as "RUST FREE", or just that you can't see the rust as weve done a wibblepoo job of repairing it and covering it up.

didnt have the audacity to like that last update. thoroughly depressing

That's shocking but not at all surprising, these Nissans do like to rust.
Good luck with the repairs, sounds like you've got the right idea.

Oof. That's all escalated rather quickly. Lucky car has found a good home though, and you'll get it sorted. Lovely machine, and fine standard of work so far!