Nissan Skyline C210 ressurection

[braydon765]

Thought it would be a cool idea to start documenting my build with more people than just my friend circle.

About a year ago I bought this 1978 Nissan Skyline C210 from a guy in the South Island. Progress has been slow as I've had to juggle work family time and friend time while still trying to find time to work on it. But the majority of the rust has been cut out and welded, I've almost finished panel beating the car, ready to be primed up, engine bay is prepped, underside has been stripped and painted matt black, interior is next to prep. I'm planning on painting it the modern(ish) Nissan KR4 Sonic Silver, still a skyline colour, just not a colour that was available when this car dropped but true to the skyline spirit  

Originally I purchased an L20ET to put into it but made the decision recently that I'm instead going to go down the RB route and have purchased an RB25DE, the power figures from the factory setup of the L20ET just didn't quite cut it for me. I'm torn between going for ITB's on it as something unique or doing the tried and true +T. Thankfully the previous owner of the C210 already did alot of the work for the RB swap, RB Subframe with adjustable suspension, RB bell housing on the gearbox and steering rack out of an R33 so this RB should be a straight drop in for the engine anyway! (still gotta organize wiring and ECU)

[braydon765]

So I haven't posted in a while but a lot of work has been done in the meantime, I learned that a lot of the RB stuff that the previous owner had done, not only will it not work with this car but on top of that a lot  of damage had been done to the underside in the engine bay to fit that R33 subframe in that is taking me a while to fix. The thing is I don't fully understand why as I've done research and to get an RB onto the original L series subframe that I'm putting back in I just need custom engine mounts and sump, so the damage seems completely unnecessary but is what it is, just have to get it sorted now. As for work completed so far since I posted last:

• The rest of the rust holes have all been cut and welded
• I properly inspected the RB and it needs a rebuild, however this works for me as I'm doing a resto so am happy to be putting a rebuilt engine in
• I stripped everything from the underside, have replaced all the old rubber cracked bushes with Nolathane ones and put the underside on. However after doing some research I am somewhat regretting going Nolathane as I've seen talk online about Nolathane bushes disintegrating in classic cars from lack of use. Oh well i'm too deep now, spent the money and installed them, so here's hoping that won't happen to me and if it does I'll just have to cross that road when I get to it
• The interior cabin and boot rust has been dealt with and top coated with Por-15

Next Steps:

• Get the front windscreen removed so I can deal with any rust that may be hiding under the Window sealant and prep that area for paint as well
• Paint the engine bay
• Start putting things back into the interior and engine bay

Really excited to finally be getting into these next steps, as up until now, it's been just pulling the car apart, fixing rust etc. Whereas it finally feels like I'm making real progress on this car with starting to actually put stuff back in and put it back together. Hoping to have the car finished before November of this year 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[braydon765]

Another update and heaps of progress! Engine bay is rust proofed, seam sealed, painted and ready to start going back together permanently 🙌 Honestly feels like such a huge milestone has been hit with this and I am absolutely stoked with how the colour has come out, I definitely think I picked the right silver and the car is going to look absolutely sick in it. Also sorted out the underside of where the guards go and the underside of the guards themselves. For the basecoat and clearcoat I didn't want to cheap out and went with DeBeer, it's a high-quality paint system and I used to work at a distributor for it so feel free to call me a little biased 😉 Base and clear were bloody expensive, so anywhere you can't see is going the 2k matt black, everywhere you can see will be the silver. Still got a couple of major rust repairs to sort, found a weak spot in the chassis that's been rusting from the inside that needs to be cut out and welded, I'm going to get a proper engineering shop to do that one and the rusted out boot lip where the boot rubber goes on needs to be sorted but I'll need to get help with fixing that boot lip as it's a bit beyond my skill set! I've got baby number 2 dropping in 6 weeks and I really want to get this body painted before she arrives so for the next few weeks I'm going to be in the garage every night sanding and priming the door jams, put the doors and guards back on, get everything perfectly straight and paint the whole body up to where the tail lights sit since the boot lip needs doing. Then windows can go back in and I can slowly just start putting the car back together...

I've learned with this project that you don't realize how much progress you've really made on a car until you get to the point where you're starting to lay down topcoat like I am now and just think to yourself "holy s***, I really have done alot to get this car to this point." 

Every step gets me closer to the day I finally get to roll up to my local  caffeine and gasoline and I was actually thinking about this the other day, besides my friend circle and you guys, nobody actually knows about me doing this project in my garage, so I'm just gonna roll up one day and everybody there is going to be like "wtf" and just  steal the show 😎

[braydon765]

More progress. Gotta say having a deadline does a hell of a lot for motivation 😅 because I want to get the car as straight as possible (and am only allowed the booth for a single Saturday) the plan is to do a closed door respray, so getting all non-closed door parts out of the way, ergo door jams are now done 🥳 next up, the insides of the doors so they can be bolted back on

 

[braydon765]

Another huge update, Backs broken, tired asf. But it’s all one colour (primer) and 98% straight, just needs a tickle in places with fine filler, not long to go now before hitting the booth 😌 

[braydon765]

Welp, you win some you lose some. I was all barred up this long weekend to get this car painted, but the car had other plans. I spent all day Friday, 9am-11:30pm filling, sanding, filling sanding and then finally priming. By the time I got to priming I was absolutely exhausted and about ready to fall over and just go to sleep but I had my friend who's a painter coming at 9am on Saturday morning so had to get this ready to just sand with 500 grit in the morning. Now I can paint, I did the engine bay, door jams, primer etc. all myself. But I am not a trained professional, just a hobbyist. Being silver I'm not super confident that I'll get it right first go, especially on large panels like the roof and bonnet, so I'll leave the most important part to my friend who is a fully qualified painter with many years of experience.

Well the morning comes and my friend comes all the way from Tauranga to spray this car for me, he runs his hands all over the car starting with the roof, his first sentence... "This roof isn't straight."  Even though I block sanded the roof and was pretty happy with how it came out before priming, the roof STILL had waves in it! F***ing unbelievable, I spent hours of Friday on just the roof, turns out the wooden block sander I was using was not the ideal weapon of choice for the curved panel, even with guide coat... He also found waves in the door and the bonnet/guards still had a couple of dents as well. To be fair though, I had done all the panels that were off the car AFTER I thought I had finished the shell, so I was completely shattered by the time I had gotten on to them. I did get the rest of the car mint though according to him so thank god for that. 

So we spent all day Saturday just doing more and more prep work and there was no way we were going to get the car painted that day. It's now 95% there, I have to work on the guards as they both had door dings in the curve of the guard which tbh, has been an absolute b***h to get the original shape again, the door just needs a little bit more block sanding and then it'll be good and I'm still working on a couple of low spots on the roof.... This f***ing roof man, we've literally spent hours on it and it's still not quite there yet. I'd say the car is 95% ready for paint now, I was definitely too ambitious about getting the car painted this weekend and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't absolutely guttered that it didn't happen as my friend isn't available again until after my second child is here which then, I don't know when I'll be available to do it, but hey, that's life. I'd rather the car was done right rather than done quick, especially for what the car is, there are none of these on the road here, so that makes this something special. Plus I know that if we'd done this awesome paint job and then I could see waves in the paint I would be pretty disappointed, so I'd call it a blessing that he was so strict about having the car perfectly straight.