Tuesday, July 30, 2013

New wheels mounted :)

So, after I have (again :) ) received new parts from Miguel at neweraparts.com I have decided to go to the garage and have the wheels mounted to the car.




This had 2 different goals:
  1. To see the clearance of the fixed parts under the car to the ground
  2. To see if the wheels fit and if something is rubbing
  3. And to see how much space I have between the wheel and the wheel arch
The conclusion at the moment is that i have to do something with my catalyst because it doesn't have enough (legal) clearance to the ground. I'm talking about approx. 0.5cm. Probably I will try and take the lower heat shild (if I saw it right) away. And the second conclusion is that there is (speaking from the optical point of view) too much clearance between the rear wheels and the wheel arches, but again, if I try and minimize this, I will have even more clearance issues.

Now for the wheels on the car :)







Even though the car looks to have a lot's of clearance to the ground, it is slightly under the Austrian regulations. The thing is it has that all parts which are fixed to the body have to have a ground clearance of minimum 11cm. It's not clear yet if the catalist counts, but at the moment the catalist is at 10cm ground clearance. So now there are several solutions:
  1. Catalyst doesn't count as a part which is fixed to the body - in this case the car has to go lower by approx. 1 cm
  2. Catalyst does count - in this case I will probably take the heat shield off it
  3. There is a new regulation which changed the min. ground clearance from 11cm to either 8cm or 9cm - I have to clear this with the homologation office. In this case the car needs lowering and probably I will take off the CAT heat shield :)
In any case, these are probably my final modifications for at least two weeks since I have won a business trip to S. Korea and will not be able to do anything from there! After that I have two weeks of vacation and hope to get the car homologated during this period of time!

Cheers,
RoB

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Time for new parts...again :)

This time the delivery was of a bigger nature.
Finally I have received my new rims from cougar-raceparts.com. Those are the first such rims in Austria. I' proud to be in the possession of the real Volk TE37 SL black edition rims with the dimensions 18x9.5/ET22.







 

 

Unfortunately during the process of mounting the new wheels the guy managed to get some chips into two of the rims. I was not present during the process but I will take them back and ask them what they can do about it and what steps we should take next. After all, the rims were really expensive and the chips are visible from the outside. Unfortunately I haven't managed to find out yet, how a damage like this can happen but this is definitely not a good publicity for this company.
What do You think people? How can this be repaired and the most important question is is this spray painted or coated and what color code is this??



Also I have received the new radiator from Trust, sent by Miguel from Newera parts. Very nice peace of engineering as well :)




Cheers,
RoB

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Workshop preparation

After looking for two months and finding a decent garage on a second property of my neighbor, one month before the car arrived, he tells me that he can't give me the garage for several reasons and he's offering me a smaller garage for the same price directly across my home.
Due to the reason that I usually keep my word and don't like people who don't and don't usually deal with such, I decided not to go for this one and to look for something different and bigger for less money.
Another reason was, that the garage he offered me only had two neon lights installed and no electrical plug. Also, after parking the car in it, I wouldn't have any space left for storage, working or anything else than getting in and out of the car. No thanks neighbor, not this time.

In the meantime, I decided to make my own custom working desks which will suit my height and usage. They are made of 40x40x2 profiled steel and made to be durable and withhold a lots of stress. Haven't decided yet what to use for the upper plate but I guess it's going to be a bonded wood plate made of 3 layers and covered with a stainless steel plate (if the budged allows me). The end dimensions will be 150cm x 80cm x (100-110cm adjustable height). Maybe someday I will add some drawers to it, but I'm not sure about this


I also bought some storage shelves which were little rusty, but I decided to give them a sandblasting treatment and to spray them grey. Done it now, will never do it again. The time used for this was approx. 4 days and the costs were within tolerances, but in future i will buy a new, cheap shelf and that's it! Definitely too much effort for this.





Also, I thought that since the car has Öhlins C-Ring suspension that it would be a good idea to build a ramp for all 4 tires in order to be able to lift it up correctly and to put the jack stands underneath. The initial plan was to have a high stands to be able to work underneath the car since i wasn't planning on getting a lifting ramp. Fortunately for me, the workshop I have found has an inspection pit so i guess with this and jack stands, i should be covered. Unfortunately, I have no pictures at the moment.

Speaking of jack stands, I also thought, since I finally wanted to learn welding correctly because I have some plans for the car and will need to do it more often, so I decided to make my own stands. Pictures following after I finish them!

After receiving of the garage key, I decided to make some improvements and adjustments.  I went out and bought one neon light and installed it to see how it will work and if it's giving me enough light for working on the car. For me the outcome was pretty satisfying and so i will buy another three for the new electrical installation.

 
Wolfgang, my new landlord also decided to strip down all the cables and installation since it is a very old one and give it a new touch! For this reason I have made a plan how I want my lightning system to be and also where I want to have my electrical plugs and switches positioned. I hope he will accept it and do the installation my way :)

Also, LiZ was very kind to get into the inspection pit and get it cleaned a little bit. The walls were full with fuel and some other fluids. It was stinky and disgusting to go into the pit. Now it looks a little bit cleaner, but I guess my high-pressure-cleaner will take care of this! Also we have removed the stairs from the pits and taken it with us in order to get them cleaned properly and maybe get the rust removed and resprayed again. After the removal we have finally found out that "the device" which was hiding underneath was a oil tank for which saves the removed engine oil. It seems to be empty, so we will get it out asap and give it a cleaning and see if it can be used or not.




As it can be seen from the pictures, the floor is pretty disgusting at the moment. Even with a really good and hard broom it was impossible to get it cleaned. I think the next step will include the usage of a shovel or some kind of a scraper.

And finally, I have managed to remove all the stuff from the LiZs grandfather loft and put it into it's new home. A lot of stuff, I can tell You this!



A lots of stuff are even missing on those pictures!

Cheers!
RoB

Friday, July 19, 2013

Finally found a perfect space for the GT-R

Hi all!

I just got back home from the appointment with my new landlord.
He has bought a new place which he wants to rebuild into several garages!

Few months back he has showed me the future garages from the outside and told me that there is one particular garage with a built in groove available and that there is a second garage which is right next to this one which is also available.

Today, finally after a few weeks, he has received the key to his new property and I went to see what he's offering.

I have to say that I'm fascinated with it.
It is located 10 minutes from my home, it's in a place where You don't really have to take care of how loud You are and it's just accross a railway station.
The price is very good, it has oil heating (not the best efficiency, but anyway), current (incl. high-voltage current) and water. Toilets are rigth accros in the railway station waiting hall.

Now for the pictures.

The look from the main entrance (left garage):


The look from the right garage onto the main current distributor and the storage room:


The look at the front (entry) gates:


Storage room:


My new compressor :)


Storage room behint the door:



Yes, it needs some love, but the new landlord will take care of it starting from next week. I hope also to get some windows and not allways use lights!

Cheers!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

New parts arrived yesterday :)

Thanks to Miguel at Newera parts for the fast delivery and a very good support.

Yesterday I received the SARD breather tank and a "new" used drivers indicator light housing since mine was a little damaged! Me likey :)

I will quote "xxfr" from the GTR forum in order to describe what a breather tank does:

"The highest point in the RB26 water system is higher than the radiator cap location for the GTR's. Seeing that the radiator cap is normally the self-breathing location for the water systems, it fails on the GTR's. Nissan provided a bleeding point for this reason on the highest water circulation point just by the front engine lift location.

During hard driving the water system tends to create air bubbles which expand vigorously. This removes the water through the radiator cap into the reserve tank and continues to push the water out of the system. Without water the system cannot cool efficiently and engine temperature rises.

This breather tank raises the self-breathing point to higher than the engine's high water circulation point. It eliminates the need for bleeding the engine as it self-bleeds. It also continually removes any air collected in the system while driving hard.

The breather tank is very useful if you do track days."


Sunday, July 14, 2013

Cleaning of some other parts

It started by taking off the right sideskirt and the front spat. Because those were really dirty I wanted to give those a really nice wash. In the near future, I will do so for every body kit. I just need to take them off the car first.

These shot were taken in order to have a clear picture where to apply the new double sided glue after the cleaning.




I also unmounted the armrest, the middle part of the center console, the control unit for the lights and wiper, above the steering wheel and the plastics underneath the steering wheel and some other small parts. Some of them I've put in the dish washer together with the Ganador mirrors and some of them I have washed by hand with some standard cleaning liquid, warm water and toothbrush. You wouldn't believe how much dirt I've managed to remove. Yaiks, disgusting!

Pictures prior to cleaning to remember where the sealing was:






Vent after the cleaning and applying of the window sealant tape:




The center console had a crack in it so I thought it might be a good idea to apply some super glue and some plastic molding to it. The result is not the best and out of interest I will try to melt the visible part of this console together to cover the crack (following...)!



After cleaning:


I didn't take pictures of everything I've cleaned but I will try to for the next post.