Colza Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Discussion Thread Well, its finally here. And what a freaking mission that was. Supposed to be delivered on the 5th of Jan while I was on Christmas break, and it finally turns up on the 18th. I still havent seen the car in person yet, but I just received a video from the guy who is looking after it for me. Seems like a good time to start a build thread I took a huge gamble buying it sight unseen, I have done it before with cars and it NEVER ends well. Slow learner I guess. My first thoughts are that this car is going to be a HUGE project. It has large amounts of rust, fixing the body up is going to take some serious work. Engine is in unknown condition, and it doesnt turn over in its current state. It has no keys, no plates, and the brakes dont work. On the plus side, it rolls and it is mostly complete. A missing tail light which I knew about, 1 piece of missing trim, and a few trim pieces that are seriously rusted, but otherwise pretty much intact. I now have to decide whether to go ahead with the project or not. I would love to own the car, but at the same time I have to be sensible about whether I am really in a position to take on a project of this magnitude. I will be going up to check it out in person this weekend, I will do my best to keep this thread updated as I go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colza Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 Went up to see my car this weekend. Jeesus what a heap of shit Took a few photos, took some shit apart. Was a pretty good weekend really! Somehow failed to take any photos of the outside of the car, will try and do better next time. The engine appears to be seized solid. I might have a go at forcing it over next weekend, but I would be highly surprised if it will ever run again. If I do manage to get through all the body work and make a road worth car out of it, an engine transplant will probably be on the cards. An SR20 is the current line of thought for something that is made by Nissan, 4 cylinder, injected and of a sensible capacity. A V6 would probably fit, but I think an I4 is more in keeping with the original design of the car. Maybe a supercharger to help it lug the 1300kg body around This is where she will be living for the forseeable future. With her garage buddy to keep her company Oooh, artsy. Sorry officer, I didnt realise the rego was out. Remains of the right hand rear trim. Remains of the left hand rear trim. Its stainless steel, so most of it has held up pretty well. These corner bits however had a solid mass of pine needles in behind them. I think pine needles are slightly acidic so its been quietly munching its way through from the inside. Inside after the seats came out, and all the fucking gross mouldy rotten carpet and sound deadening was scraped out. The sound deadening on the passenger side had been reduced to soil. Note the bolt on transmision tunnel, pretty sweet The floor is sort of ok. This is the worst panel, that ones definitely going to have to come out. Also, spot the cracks around the front seat bolt. Thats not from corosion, just fatigue from having the seat support in the middle of a big flat plate. The drivers side one has broken off completely. All that seperates the diff from the rear seats, is a taped on plastic sheet and a layer of carboard. Boot looks a mess. Went to town with the wire wheel to see what it was like underneath. Fog of rust dust. And what do you know, its actually not that bad. The bottom of the tire well has a few holes, will probably just replace the whole thing, but despite removing several kilograms of rust scale, the rest of the boot floor is probably going to be ok. Mmmm, smells like 30 year old petrol. Amazingly it was still flamable! Also surprising, the inside of the tank isnt rusty at all, looks brand new in there This is all that remains of the clips which are meant to hold the stainless trim in place. The purpose of the trim is to keep water out of the fender seam. Only partialy successful it seems. Actually the section covered by the big shiny trim is not too bad underneath, but at the end just before the C pillar, the trim stops and is replaced by a push in rubber strip. The strip is long since gone and thats where the worst of the rust is. Unofficial access to one of the bolts that holds the fender on. Amazingly most of these bolts undid quite nicely once they had a bit of CRC on them. There are philips head screws in a few places though, and all of them had to be drilled out. Eventually managed to get the fuel cap open. The lock barrel was siezed solid, it took half a can of CRC and about an hour of jimmying and bashing before we managed to get it off. It did survive the experience relatively unscathed though. Yup, thats had water sitting under it. Had to drill all those screws out, the heads had just turned to mush. Fuel filler thingee. And off comes Mr Fender. Along with several more kilograms of rust scale, soil, and general filth. Front side of fender. Back side of fender. Some heavy surface rust, but generally pretty solid. Should come up ok with a sand blast and a few small patches. The bit I was most worried about, and the reason we spent half a day getting that fender off. Amazingly its pretty good under there (considering how bad it looked from the outside anyway). The inner wheel arch is all solid, the panel into the boot is solid. That front corner is going to be the major repair, but at least its all more or less flat panels and simple shapes. Plenty of wheel arch height there. I think it should lay frame nicely I neglected to take any photos of the parcel tray (though you can kind of see it in the photo further up showing the diff), thats the bit that will cause me the most trouble I think. The parcel tray panel comes out in the middle of that sandwiched seam in the photo above, and its all pretty much gone. I think next weekend will probably involve unstitching the whole panel and seeing what wonderful surprises await me underneath... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colza Posted February 8, 2011 Author Share Posted February 8, 2011 Sorry for the slow updates, the weekend before last I did quite a bit of work on the car, took a few photos, and then lost them all. Which was a bit silly really. That weekend mostly involved removing all the trim from the rear of the car, the bumper, towbar, lights etc. The next step was cutting out the few bits of solid steel which remained amongst all the disintegrating shit. The tyre well was unspotted and removed so I have some good access to work at the back, its also fucked so it was going to need to come out at some point anyway. Fast forward to this weekend, and I got to start putting some real metal back in Passenger side boot floor gets replaced. The panel steel on this thing is super thick, about 1.3mm where its not corroded, in hindsight I probably didnt need to take all of that section out, it might have cleaned up ok. Either way, its definitely good now Also gave me a nice easy spot to remember how to use a welder, its been a while! Beginning to build up the bottom panel that makes up the back end. On top of this one goes the inner panel at the rear of the boot, and then the outer panel sits on top of that. Awful photo of the carboard template for the drivers side. If you can work out whats what in that photo you are doing well. My high-tech sheet metal folding equipment Still, as long as theres nothing too tricky, it works pretty well. Drivers side panel in place. And starting to add the bottom edge of the inner panel back in. I was hoping to get that whole inner panel finished on Saturday, but it was so bloody hot I gave up before I got to the end. Thats pretty much where I am up to so far, Sunday was spent fixing my shitbox Mercedes daily driver in the vague hope that someone might buy it. As it happens they DID buy it, so at least I dont have to spend my time worrying about which part of it is going to fall off next. No longer my problem Its time for a bit of a break from the Skyline now, decided to take next weekend off. Next update should be in about a fortnight! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colza Posted April 10, 2011 Author Share Posted April 10, 2011 Ha, 'next update in a fortnight' my ass. Anyway, managed to get up to the car this weekend and get a couple of hours work in. Spend half a day trying to get a decent sandblasting set up going. The poor compressor is running 100% duty and only managed 2.5bar, but it was enough to get some work done. I will look at buying a second compressor to take up next time. Had a crack at cleaning up one of the rear inner guards. Very happy with how it went. Didnt take a 'before' shot, but heres a repost of a pic from further up int the thread just for comparison. Blasted. Scrubbed down with Phosphoric acid to treat any remaining rust. The line where I stopped is where the panel becomes so thin and full of holes it isnt worth trying to save it. Very poorly masked. And then a quick blast with some Durepox. While I was out on the drive making an ungodly sandy mess, the Civic in the garage received some love too. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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