R32 Gts-T Track Build

[samos69]

Since I'm swapping over to a non-hicas subframe I need to remove the balljoints that the hicas arms normally attach to. A bit of google-fu seemed to think that a large clamp and some sockets might do the trick.

First remove the circlip on the back

Then have a go at it, using a large pipe as a lever only resulted in the clamps arm trying to bend.

So I thought I'd set it up in my vice instead to get more leverage on it! I didn't have a before photo of this but as I was busy tightening up the vice using a long steel pole on the vice handle there was a loud crack and everything fell to the ground :confused:

The remnants of my vice, though cheap he served me for over 10 years...

Also this punch gave his life extracting the previous bushing casings...

A bit more google suggests that the ball joint can become "fused" and require over 11 tons of pressure to be removed so if anyone in Wellington has access to a press - HELP!

If I had a bigger garage it would almost be worth acquiring one...

That's all I got done today, still got the other side to go and both lower arms need the fire / chisel treatment or I may just get them pressed out to save time.

[samos69]

As for the skyline, got the balljoints (and a couple of bushes) pressed out for the princely sum of $76 + GST. Highly recommend this if you are removing bushes as it's so little money for a big time saving.

BUT - I left the hubs on my garage floor near the door which is south facing and has a small strip along the top that is open... turns out Wellington air is a bit salty and there's surface rust inside all the bush casings

(apologies if the photo quality is a bit crap, the mrs dropped the slr and it's gone away for a new casing so I'm on a little cheapy point and shoot)

Still a bit of fine wet and dry will clean it up just means a bit more work. I thought while I'm here I'll do a bit of rust prevention so out came the POR15.

Just need to clean up the casings and then grease and press the bushes in using my new 150mm vice, hopefully this one doesnt break

Once that's all done it'll be subframe assembly time with these bits I have collected

That's toe arms, traction arms, rear camber arms and front castor.

[34GeeTeeTee]

Loving the detail in this thread! Was trippy to see your green paint and black bonnet as my neighbour just randomly did his the same colour

[samos69]

Ok weeks are pretty full at the moment but I managed to knock out a bit of work on the car tonight.

Touched up a couple of spots on the hubs and then began on the non hicas subframe I acquired a while back. This is purely for rust prevention so a quick scrub, dry and then on with the POR15. If it were a restoration I'd sandblast it and spray the POR15 on for a better finish. Still came up alright I reckon.

Then I've sold my factory front pipe to another member so the exhaust had to come off.

Mmmm Tanabe Super Medallion 3.5 inches, fark all mufflers

What is replacing the factory pipe you might ask? 3.5 inches of Trust goodness. It's bigger than the factory pipe is even with it's heat shields on!

I can't find my only dyno plot but the car tapered off up high with the RB25 turbo on so I reckon it was down to factory dump / front pipe restrictiveness. I also need to get some flanges and make a bigger decat pipe just to ensure it's not a flow restriction either... or cut and extend the exhaust...

That's all tonight.. this weekend is full of stereo installs and storage shed building to try and regain some room in the garage as I can't really move about at the minute... hopefully I might get some bushes into the hubs as well.

[samos69]

Loving the detail in this thread! Was trippy to see your green paint and black bonnet as my neighbour just randomly did his the same colour

Thanks! It's a dump of about 2 years elapsed time I've been rather slow I'm a few pages away from up to date, the car arrived back this weekend with it's cage so I'm pumped to get stuff done on it!

[samos69]

So I've been MIA from the forums for a bit.... shedloads of house stuff to get done, rooms to be painted, etc and then BAM! instant loss of all free time, but she's worth it

So the poor skyline has sat completely untouched, I even had the hubs on the bench ready for the new bushes which are sitting alongside waiting for installation...

Hopefully in the next few weeks I might get some time, but in the tradition of not doing things by halves I've resigned from my crappy govt job and start a new one in 2 weeks time which will no doubt leave me even less free time!

So with the life story over onto car related stuff. I decided to buy myself a "new job" present, the last piece in the rear end / subframe puzzle - a nismo 2 way (trademe vendor photo as I'm at work and the diff is on the floor of my garage).

Some b@stard had a bidding war with me and I may have paid slightly too much, due to the fact that there hasn't been a 2 way on TM for ages so I wanted this one pretty badly. This week there's been 2 more listed :boohoo: but who cares, I have now have my diff :jack:

All that remains is to have new balljoints fitted to the lca's and I can swap in the new subframe / adjustable arms, etc and reassemble it all.

[samos69]

Right so this parenthood lark is far more time consuming than I anticipated.... that coupled with work being mental up to the xmas break and the skyline hasn't even been looked at let alone worked on

So to cheer myself up the daily driver got an upgrade, new wheels / tyres and a nudge bar. It's also been tinted since this photo.

I got a small window recently and dropped my old subframe... yuck. Surface rust everywhere and oh look, a leaking bush and a split bush.... good thing I've already got the lock collars and my non-hicas subframe is in better condition.

Unfortunately a leaking balljoint has previously given the passengers side a good coating of grease

And I should do something about this bodgy fix I did years ago...

Going to need some new swaybar links...luckily they were already part of the plan

Edited September 25, 2012 by samos69

[samos69]

What I got done today...

The axles were in need of a clean up so after a buzz with the wire wheel on my drill they got some treatment from good old CT18 degreaser.

Pre degrease

Bit of a pain, the passenger side end cap keeps popping out and oozing grease everywhere, notice how it's got a bulge compared to the drivers side... weird.

Got rid of my hose clamp solution and used a few metal cable ties, two pairs of pliers and I got it pretty tight - the special tool for these is stupidly expensive!

Trimmed

Masked up for a bit of my favourite, POR15!

Had too much paint out of the tin and you aren't supposed to transfer it back so grabbed my GTR swaybar and gave it a tickle up while the brush was wet..

[samos69]

Now if you recall way back I had pressed out the bushes in my rear hubs ready for the swanky orange driftworks items I had ordered in. Well my tardiness in getting the bushes installed meant that the fresh metal exposed from removing the old bushes corroded somewhat...

So onto the wet and dry and soon enough all was smooth again..

On to the bush installation. This would be easier with a second set of hands or a press but you can manage with just a vice and a few swear words..

Grease up the bush and the hole it's destined for....

Put some wood or thick cardboard in your vice to protect the bush, line it up and.....

I had to carefully coax out the lip of the bush on the other side with a small screwdriver..

Repeat the grease process with the centre tube and then have a beer.

Actually, don't have a beer, repeat the process until you have this:

Test fit a toe arm... looks good (centre tube not quite even in the pic but this was remedied with a set of multis..)

And that was all I got time for.... things are looking hopeful for another session on the car tomorrow, all in all a good Friday!

[samos69]

Right got a bit of time today so decided to tackle my bucket seat. The old mounting system was a bodge job and not that stable...

Handily this had just turned up in the post

And I had got these a while back..

My trusty seat - unfortunately while in storage at the olds it was the defacto bed for the cat, and one of the plastic harness protectors has gone missing... no doubt impossible to replace so I'll have to make something, I'm not keen to change seats as this one is very light and is a bit wider than some which fits my arse just right.

Tried to mock it up and it was a damn tight squeeze...

Bit of dremel action to elongate the holes..

And still no dice! On closer inspection I have a mis-matched pair of brackets. The right hand side one is too short when trying to use the correct holes...

So my options are to either buy some 3mm steel and make a replacement, or order a set of brackets from NZKW for $45.... Given the amount of work still to be done on the car my time is better spent on other stuff. I'll probably place an order tomorrow...

Not a lot done but it's all progress

[samos69]

Sooo not a lot of progress which has been frustrating.

Borrowed a little 6 ton press off my boss.. I've never used one of these so this should be interesting.

Removed the circlip

An old AF socket as a drift

And pop, well that was easy

Full of confidence I move onto the bushes... bugger.

The "mouth" of the arm is too shallow to get the bush in underneath the press. As the press is just the right height I put it under a floor joist to brace it and set this up thinking it wouldn't take much pressure to get the bush out (yes I know this isn't the conventional way to do things!)

Which promptly bent the arm... $#%^&^

Off to pick-a-part and a new arm was acquired for $19 in much better condition than mine so I won't replace the balljoint for now. But I'm still stuck with trying to remove the bushes to replace them with poly..

So I migged a nut on some threaded rod and built this

And as it wasn't high tensile rod...stripped it.

So that's me stuck, I am thinking of getting some steel and making a modified seat for the press, or I'm back to burning the bushes out and cutting the casing out after (like I did with the hub bushes earlier).

The only good news, these turned up at Repco for me

All new bushes and links for the GTR swaybar. Nolathane don't make a specific bush for the GTR swaybar (25mm) so I had to spend an hour looking at all the bush measurements on their website to find some with suitable dimensions.

Should get a crack at things over the long weekend so more progress!

[samos69]

Right so slow progress due to a broken / bruised rib Only light duties for about 3-4 weeks...

That said I ordered in some proper brackets from nzkw and they fit pretty good, even though they looked used..

Brand new my #$@%

But it all lines up ok - I need to get some m8*15 as my 20mm ones are a bit long.

Now since this is taking forever and I'm in jeopardy of losing interest I decided to leave the lower arm bush replacement for a winter task.

Dulux overhaul for now it is... cleaned up ready for some por15

And done

[samos69]

I also bought a new tool... check this out!

Rivnuts.... my new favourite thing. I'll be using this instead of the usual self tappers everytime I want to mount something in the engine bay or boot such as my surge tank, etc..

The tool itself is just like a riveter but has different inserts to do different size rivnuts (or nutserts as the yanks call them). I'll be using the M4 or M5 a lot I'd say...

Also picked up some skid rims, trying to sell off all my 16s and these came up for an ok price so they will be on drift / burnout comp duties if I decide to do some events other than grip.

That's all for now, hopefully the courier brings some goodies soon and I will progress some more

(I had hoped to lift in the subframe last week but that is off the cards for a bit now..dammit).

[samos69]

Now that I had cleaned up the boot jam and por15'd the small amount of surface rust I wanted to get some painting practise. The car is never going to be a show car but I at least want it tidy, and I intend to restore a classic of some sort down the road so this is perfect for practising on (I've never used a spray gun in anger - plenty of rattle cans though).

Bought a cheap 3 pack from Supercheap ages back to get the hang of things, and I have about 1.5 litres of the original paint (over 6 years old!) hanging around but there was a nice thick skin inside the paint tin I had to get rid of first..

Thought I'd use the small gun for such a small job.

Primed up with rattle can primer a while back after the por15 was set.

Then gave some colour a go. Mixed at 20% thinners it came out with a pretty good gloss, no runs that I can see.

Overall pretty happy for a first attempt with the gun, it'll be way brighter than the rest of the old paint when I unmask but it'll be hidden when the boot is shut.

Next step - mounting the new subframe, hubs, arms, diff, etc. Just waiting on some diff oil for the nismo LSD..

[samos69]

Ok so finally managed to get a bit done!

Bolted up the subframe with the locking collars

Got all my china-spec arms out and set them to approximately factory length except toe (replacing a hicas lock bar so no arm to compare to)

Then hit a problem. I bought all my arms new except the camber arms I got second hand cheaply about 9 months ago. The guy said they had only been fitted up then not used. I guess I found out why they were only fitted then sold..

Notice the gap...

On one arm the weld is too close to the bolt hole I inspected the arm and decided that with the extra material bracing it that a little tickle from the grinder wouldn't hurt.

Result:

Took a bit of head scratching to remember how the handbrake goes back together as it's been so long since I took it apart! Finally back together with the mock-up disc and caliper in position.

My postman delivered me some stuff from the good old USA seeing as how I couldn't find a local source from some steel open end 45mm+ lugnuts.

Threw on the 25mm spacers I'm gonna run on the rear and put on one of the 9" wheels (yes it's the wrong one, it was closest!) Then jacked it up to check clearance.

I'm happy :jack: Just a little bit of guard work required.

And that was all I had time for, should get the other side done tomorrow night, mount the diff, swaybar, shocks and drop it back on it's wheels.

[samos69]

Have a look at the rose joints and make sure they are single piece joints not just sypherical bearings with thread welded to them like some of the chinese crap ive seen.

Yeah had a look and they all seem ok' date=' blurry photo...

[img']http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/samos69/Skyline%20Project/DSC04973.jpg[/img]

Only had an hour tonight so bolted up the other side and ran into an issue, it seems there are two lengths of bolt for the suspension arms and some are a bit short as there is no thread showing once done up tight...

I'll have to scrounge the bolt box, if not off to pick-a-part or maybe the local fasteners place will have something suitable.

Also had this turn up today... so can put some oil in the LSD and mount it this week.

Soon it'll be back on it wheels for the first time in about 9 months!

[samos69]

Ok so instead of working on my skyline I've had to troubleshoot a bastard altezza (turns out no1 injector was toast when warm) source a new injector, get it cleaned then refit. Aaannddd then the head unit in my ute took a dump which was awesome, $500 down the toilet for a new one :splat:

I then unwrapped the nsmo diff I had bought some time ago that was in my damp-a$$ garage I had thought because the backing plate was on and it was in shrinkwrap on a pallet it would be ok...

Fecking rust!

Asked around and a bit of google lead me to believe it wasn't too big of a deal so cleaned it up and then sealed the back on with high temp RTV, will fill it tomorrow if I get a chance.

Put together the passenger side handbrake, no pics as it looks like the drivers side

Sourced some new (to me) rear discs to replace the rust buckets I had been using for mockup.

Fitted

Then went to work fitting the swaybar, the bushes I got aren't for a skyline but they did match up measurement-wise.

Was a right #$%# to fit, had to bend the brackets out a bit and then the mounting holes didn't match up so enlarged them slightly with the dremel.

Result:

Starting putting together the universal swaybar link kit, it's a jigsaw!

Luckily I had one of the old links to use as a guide for setting up the length

Loosely fitted the drivers side until I get the passenger side started as well.

And that's all I got done before having to attend to dad-duties. Hopefully it will be on it's wheels before the end of easter, maybe even fire it up to turn the motor over.

Edited September 25, 2012 by samos69

[samos69]

Hot off the courier at work... a pair of 2015 expiry 2nd hand camlock harnesses. Price was too good to pass up despite the colour

[samos69]

Ok so got a shady hour to work on the car tonight and made up this one man brake bleeder:

Spare brake cylinder cap, meet nitto air fitting

A bit of gasket goo to ensure a good seal (did this last night so it had gone off tonight)

And onto the master cylinder.

Note - only run 5psi into the master cylinder! I had 10psi which I thought would be low enough and it blew the cap off and coated me in brake fluid :homer:

Bit of tubing and bam! back brakes bleed with no yelling at the mrs

Got the battery on charge so will turn it over tomorrow to give it a run and see if the brakes are functioning.

Also had this turn up, won't be fitting it for a while but it was cheap.. apparently a Nismo unit but can't find any markings. Bit of surface rust but nothing that worries me.

Weighs 5kg...

[samos69]

Right so thanks to a mental work schedule and a 1 year old birthday party time has been limited... plus I'm a slacker..

That said the interior is now completely out and the car is off at Frost Motorsport for it's cage. I can now start selling off the interior bits as I know I won't be needing them again!

I've got a few progress photos at home I'll upload later, but for now this turned up on the courier at work:

To replace my mis-matched hodge podge of steel and alloy piping I got one of the piping kits of trademe. Seems to be fairly good quality and much lighter than my current (rusty) setup. I've got some flextech joiners floating about for it as well.

Since the garage is empty I'll be taking the time to make some more storage / shelving and possibly strip down the smokey rb20det I've got sitting here to see what it needs.. I've also got a spare gearbox with a blown 3rd gear, and a spare gearset sitting here so maybe I'll look into that as well..