money pit

Price drop $720

Price drop $720.

For sale is 4 brand new (never been on a rim) Bridgestone RE001 Potenza Adrenalin tyres. Size 225/45/R17 94W. Bought for a car I no longer own. The tyres are NOT; Rejects, seconds, damaged in any way either structurally or cosmetically and they do carry the usual new tyre warranty. Price $780.

Because the noise shuts up when the choke goes off (idle revs drop) then I reckon without doubt that the belt is not tight enough. Obviously this is without being able to see it in person. The only rule of thumb technique I've heard of is to twist the belt (on the longest run) through 90 degrees. You should be able to just get it to 90 without straining yourself, anymore than 90 and its not tight enough. If it still squeals after you've done this then just nip the tensioner bolt a turn or two until it stops screeching when you fire it up. Like Skylinekid says, unless you tighten it like a guitar string then its highly unlikely you'll do any damage to any bearings. The reason I asked about the "correct belt" wasn't to find out which brand you used but just to check that it is the correct one i.e. genuine nissan doesn't necessarily guarantee that its the right belt for that particular application. Theres literally hundreds of belts which have only very slight variations in them. After you've got this problem sorted then I reckon you'll realise that being able to hand check the tension of a fan belt is not bollocks. Agree though that its pretty piss poor if you've paid some-one to check it and they still can't get it right. Good luck.

If the spray on no-slip-stuff quietens the noise then its the belt thats the problem. Are you 100% sure that its the correct belt and that its correctly tensioned, these 2 things are the cause of 99% of belt screech. Any mechanic either professional or backyard should just be able to put their hand in there and say straight off whether or not the belt is tight enough. If it was bearing noise then it wouldn't get better with the spray plus bearings make a noise all of their own, harsh metalic whining type sound. The alternator can't make the belt spin faster, engine revs determine belt speed.

Mastadd, Dude I feel for you. The ER300's your trying to sell are a top shelf street tyre thats why they're expensive and with tyres you really do get what you pay for. The $135 price tag is cheap, almost as cheap as I get them at cost from the factory. If you had 225's for sale rather than 205's they would have sold ages ago and your thread wouldn't have been hijacked. I'm amazed that anyone compares Federal with Bridgestone as they are in general 2 completely different tyres. Federals are usually a hard compound tyre which last longer but with less grip + noisier. Bridgestone are generally softer, therefore grippier and quieter but don't last as long. Good luck with the sale, some-one must need a set.

People who haven't got a frigging clue about how to use a slip lane when either getting into or out of traffic. The one on the way out of Gawler when getting onto Main Nth Rd is a classic, speed limit in the slip lane is 100kph so its no wonder that knobs doing 70kph find it so hard to merge with the traffic. People who have those big white HOLDEN stickers across the windscreens of their commie. WTF is that all about? Just in case they forget?

Could not agree more. Some of my age group (wrong side of 45) are some of the most useless pricks that ever got behind the wheel and should be forced to re-sit their driving tests. I'd be willing to bet that a good percentage would would fail hopelessly, probably me included. My kids were far better equipped to take to the road than I was. However what they do on the roads when no-ones watching is another matter. All I'm really trying to say is that I wish the media and older drivers would lay off the teenagers of the day. Everyone f*cks up now and then, its just tragic that some pay the ultimate price for doing so. Thanks to Sled, Ruby and anyone else for the condolences, very generous of you but not really necessary. In all but one of the instances the accidents were just that, f*ck-ups. Good discussion.

I find it a bit difficult to follow your line of reasoning in relation to my question but: Everthing you say is quite true and I should know because I was on the road in 1977, also a bad year with 300+ deaths. The point is that the roads and cars are now much safer than they have been at any point in the recent past. When you add to this the increased volume of traffic it becomes clear that todays drivers are in general better educated and more experienced when they take to the road. Something else I know a bit about because I've just finished putting my second one through it all. My main point is that to a large extent the attention given to teenage fatal car accidents is media hype. It is not designed to be constructive, it is to sell newspapers and to get people to watch the Today Tonight or some such shit. If the fatalities happen to occur while driving a turbo or any high powered car then the event gets extra attention. What about the 2 teensagers killed just outside Two Wells while driving a poxy old van, not news worthy enough to hold our attention for more than a day and no ammunition to use against imports etc so the story quickly faded. My post was actually directed at those who for some reason think that everthing was better in the good 'ol days, they weren't. Just for good (bad) measure; 2 nephews, 2 close friends and several acquaintances (too many in fact), all killed on the road. I could write a follow up to your book.

Anyone who thinks that it was safer on the roads 15-20 years ago is wrong. In todays paper the death toll is listed from 1950 up until today. It peaked in 1974 with 382 deaths and has been on a downward trend ever since. This year its the lowest its ever been and if its a safe Xmas then it will easily be a record low, possibly under 100. Considering that there are more cars than ever on the roads this tends to make a mockery of all the talk about how dangerous it is out there. Cars are safer, licenses are harder to get, and driver training before issue of a license is intense compared to 10 years ago. So where does this leave the argument??

Reckon the copper should be charged under the "too stupid to be a cop" laws. What a dumb-ass moron, jumping in front of a car then try trying to grab hold of it as it attempts to drive off. What if it had of been a hardened crim behind the wheel who didn't give a shit if he ran some-one over. As for the falsifed/exaggerated statements; Cops should realise that every time they screw some-one over that they have just made another life long enemy who will will be far less likely to co-operate if and when its required. Most people will accept the punishment if its just but when things get all twisted out of shape then people tend to get resentful.

Absolutely, no doubt about it, happened to me about 5 months ago. They will crawl in, on, over and under the car. They'll use a torch to look into the dark recesses and may even ask you to drop your pants and bend over, they are very thorough. You can go into Regency for a blown light bulb and come out with a $3,000 list of repairs. Have been told that they are now checking turbo serial numbers but don't know if this is true or not.

Will be interested to see how you get on with the turbs. Was recently told that Regency had wised up to the swapping of similar looking turbos and that nothing but stock will get you through. Don't know how they can tell and it could all be a pile of steaming dog shyte so let us know how you get on.

Hi Gizzmo, My 2c's worth. Have just finished fitting a cheap ($400) I/C into a R32 Gtst, the I/C was advertised as fitting 32 & 33's. While as Nismoid mentioned it will do a satisfactory job in a car with light mods the biggest hurdle is getting it to fit without butchering the car. We never expected the I/C to just slide right in and this a list of stuff we had to do to get it in; 1. Make a top bracket for the cooler so we could mount it the reo bar. We could have used the home-made bracket and bolted the cooler to the central upright but as its fairly weighty we wanted support at both ends not just in the middle. 2. Drill 2 bolt holes in recessed sections of the reo bar. Bolts must have ground down heads so that they won't foul the front bumper and rub holes in it and also allows the bit of shiny plastic that sits in/on the centre of the f/b to be screwed back on. 2. Bend the bottom brackets to the correct shape so they were a neat/tight fit. 3. Cut a hole under the battery tray using a hole saw. If you haven't already got a hole-saw then it will cost roughly $70 for the saw and a mandrel and the saw will be stuffed by the time its cut the hole. 5. Cut the bracket off the main pipe (one that runs across the front of the motor). The bracket may have been of some use in a R33 but it serves no purpose in a 32. Now for the bits we really didn't like doing. 4. One of the pipes that runs directly off the cooler was too long. It didn't matter how much we twisted, turned, jiggled or wriggled it the bastard thing was TOO long. So we cut about 15-20mm out of the pipe. The problem with doing this is that now we had to seal it without the rims/lips on the end of the pipe to stop it from pulling/popping apart under load. So we bought a longer (150mm) piece of silicone hose, used emery paper to take the shiny finish off the pipe (dull don't slip as easy as shiny) and then used 4 decent hose clamps to hold it together. 5. Got the whole thing together and looking okay. Then we shut the bonnet, F*CK, the bonnet pushed the main pipe down about 10mm so that the fan blades were clipping the underside of the pipe. 6. Undid the drivers side pipes and pushed, pulled and twisted the pipes around until we got it so the bonnet doesn't push on it (just touches) but obviously the fan was still hitting. The bit we really, really didn't like. 7.The only quick around the fan blade problem is to trim enough off each blade so that it clears the main pipework. Luckily we have an old fan which we did a test run on then trimmed one of those blades and using that piece for a template we marked and trimmed the good fan. 8.Trimmed the front bumper. If the main pipe had been just a slightly different shape then these last few problems could have been avoided and if we do have any problems then we'll be off to an exhaust shop to get a specially bent pipe which is probably what we should have done in the first place. Not prepared to publicly name the type of I/C it is as it was cheap and it did eventually fit, sort of, but as you can tell it is not a straightforward procedure. I suspect that there is many SAU members who have far less hassles than we did but I also suspect that theres a lot who have had as many if not more. Different brands may well give a different result i.e. a better fit. We reckon you should do as much homework as possible before spending your money. If all of the above sounds like too much hassle then save up till you can pay some-one else to do it. More like my $20 worth.

Reckon this might be the answer(s). Have removed it from the reo bar but we're more concerned with fitting the fmic at the moment so the thingo hasn't been pulled apart even though dismantling it may not tell us anything. Am guessing that it did have a short sensor rod sticking up from the front bar but that this was snapped off long ago. Thanks for the help, will advise if we make any startling discovery which I doubt but you never know.

Not a horn. Horn is still fitted and working. Yes, the thingo is connected to the main electrical loom with 5-6 correctly coloured wires. This is the other thing that makes me think it must be a factory item. It does look like an aerial motor and the outlet on top of the bumper looks a bit like an aerial housing (with the aerial snapped off) but the tube that connects the two is curved so unless the aerial was very short and very flexible then I can't see how it would have worked. Plus theres no coaxial type cable running from it only electrical wires. Do 32's have an external ariel?? Ours doesn't, unless of course this is it . Nah not a flame thrower. The only thing burning in this car is $100 notes. Its a base model car and doesn't have spoiler that moves or any button in the dash. Ah, so thats whats wrong. I keep sitting on 78mph and wondering why the hell I can't go back to when petrol was 60c a litre. Plus I keep hearing this Scotty voice coming from the boot saying "she cannout take the lood Captin". Yes, I have got my movies mixed up. Thanks for the replies. Becasue no-ones too sure what it could be we've been thinking about pulling this gizmo apart and seeing what it is and what makes it tick but the only problem with that is, what if we need it and can't get the bugger back together. Will let you know how we get on.

So if we remove it then when we hit warp factor 2 the hyper drive will overload. N\Thanks for the reply but no alarm. This thing looks to be factory fitted with all the specially shaped brackets and a half dozen bolts holding it on and it would have taken a fair bit of effort to get it into position.

Started fitting a fmic on a r32 gtst today and after the reo bar came off we sat for a while wondering wtf is that thing. Its mounted on the rear of the bar on the passengers side and is the round gizmo with a tube running to an external outlet. Can't find any pictures or any description of it anywhere. We want to know if we can get rid of it or do we have to leave it because it does something critical??

Doubt that anyone is going to say don't change the belt because the consequences of a snapped belt can be horrific. The gasket goo on the pump probably means that the pump has been changed but doesn't really indicate anything about the belt other than its been taken off at some stage. Guess it really boils down to; How many km's you've done in the car and how comfortable you feel about it. You could just change the belt and leave the pump as it is especially if you don't mind doing the work yourself. If your going to pay to have it done then get the pump done as well. From memory the crank bolt is 24mm but I'm sure the tutorial can verify that.

If its true that Superspark are a Chinese product then the ebay ad is slightly misleading because they state BEWARE OF FAKES! 100% Australian Owned ! GENUINE ! Then they go on to talk about testing they did in Queensland which led me to believe that its acutally a made in Oz product. Also from what I read on a Yankee website http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=363793 they're being misled as well because one of their Traders was announcing that he would soon be importing a new Aussie product, Superspark Coilpacks. Suppose it could mean that the company is Aussie owned but the coilpacks are manufactured in China under licence. Guess it doesn't make much difference in the end, its the quality/longevity that counts.

Quite right because the factory fitted item has no height adjustment. Coilovers which are height adjustable are illegal. If the adjustment on the coilover allows for the car to be lowered to a height less than legal then the coilover is illegal. Not sure what the ruling is on coilovers which do not adjust to below the legal limit.

Why is that?? Not saying your wrong by any means but would like to know why you or anyone else thinks that turbo timers are a waste of time.

Can anyone tell me for certain, no dout about it, if a turbo timer is a defectable item or not under Sth Aust legislation. I suspect that it is but but would like to hear from some-one who knows for sure.

Not sure that I'd be using bolts from any hardware store, especially bolts that are under tension/strain. Bolts are rated by tensile strength and range from soft alloy crap to stainless steel and high tensile steel. Take your old ones to a proper bolt shop like "Universal Fasteners" and the bloke behind the counter should be able to take one look at them and tell you exactly what tensile they are.

Not sure about it being the water pump. If the pump was stuffed bad enough to be causing that kind of temp fluctuation then the bearing would be howling like a stuck pig. Rough check for thermostat is to drop it in a saucepan of water and bring it to the boil, the stat should open before the water boils. If you have a suitable thermometer you can check the exact operating temp of the stat. Note...thermometer must be one thats rated for cooking. Pull the radiator and have it checked by a specialist. If they think it can be fixed properly then stick with that one and not the China version. Nissan's OEM gear is HIGH quality.