Shoota's R33 GT-R RB30/26

[Shoota_77]

Yeah it really was one of those major mental hurdles to get over.  Like everything the hardest bit is just starting!  Once you do it’s a really good feeling!  
 

Even just in primer it looks amazing even just for how uniform everything is compared to poorly applied, grubby, faded 26 year old paint!

[mr_rbman]

On 9/15/2022 at 9:53 PM, Shoota_77 said:

Thanks mate!  Hopefully my high quality, boutique spray “boof” inspires some quality painting! 😂

 

Bought all the paint (epoxy primer, primer filler/surfacer, QM1 base coat, 2K clear and all associated reducers, hardeners, etc today.  Fark that hurt a little…..  About $1000 all up and that is only enough to do about 50% of the car….  After buying everything (spray gun, sandpaper, masking tapes and plastics, the tarps for my spray booth, the paint, etc, etc, etc) it DEFINITELY would have been cheaper to pay someone else to do it but where’s the fun in that?  I’ll still have all of the gear to be able to tackle more painting jobs plus I’m looking forward to gaining some new skills during the painting process. But also dreading the fact that I could completely fark it at the same time!! 😂

Only time will tell I guess!

 

Oh another interesting fact I learnt today.  There are about 5 or 6 DIFFERENT shades of QM1.  Apparently it’s pretty common to have same paint code and multiple different versions.  Shouldn’t that mean it’s a different paint code…..  Bloody dumb if you ask me!  I went with the whitest, cleanest looking version which is straight white with a dash of black in it versus the others which have varying shades of yellow in them.

yep, found this out with KH2 when having my engine bay resprayed, 7 to be exact from memory

[r32-25t]

To get around that the paint shop usually asks for the fuel flap and matches it to that 

[Shoota_77]

1 hour ago, mr_rbman said:

yep, found this out with KH2 when having my engine bay resprayed, 7 to be exact from memory

 

24 minutes ago, r32-25t said:

To get around that the paint shop usually asks for the fuel flap and matches it to that 

I could have done that but I wanted the whitest version available so went with that.  Will most likely paint the whole car so everything will be matched then. Not fussed if the engine bay is a lot whiter than the body. 

If I decide to just do bumpers, side skirts, etc but not the rest of the body then I will paint match those parts to the body. 

[mr_rbman]

54 minutes ago, r32-25t said:

To get around that the paint shop usually asks for the fuel flap and matches it to that 

ye luckily they had the rest of the body to match

 

[Shoota_77]

The tie down panel I ordered arrived from America yesterday so got started prepping it for welding. 

Marked the spots where I need to drill holes in the new panel then buffed the primer off those areas before spraying those areas with weld through primer.

Didn't get to weld it, will have to wait till I get back from Tassie next week. 

Had an amazing day yesterday, as part of a Volkswagen incentive we went to Sydney Motorsport Park and got to thrash Golf R, T-Roc R and Tiguan R's around the track with pro driver trainers. Was a very fun day!  Hot laps with the drivers was amazing too. Cannot believe how they get grip at the speeds they're doing!  Drift Mode in the Golf Rs was a pisser in the wet!

[Shoota_77]

Back from Tassie. Managed to break my foot which was not ideal. Have been laid up for the last 4 or 5 days. 

Now Shepparton is in pretty bad flood.  Thankfully neither my house or work are in danger. 

 

Got the tie down point panel welded back on and ground down. Won't keep chasing the holes with weld, I'll just put a tiny skim of body filler in them. Will do the factory spot welds on the other side for uniformity. 

 

Won't get much done the next few weeks as I can only spend so long on my feet because of my busted hoof. 

Had a biiiiig order up of big and little parts while I've been laid up. Being injured is expensive....

 

[Shoota_77]

Haven't done much the last month with my busted foot plus 3 trips to Queensland this month taking up all my time.

Finally got around to getting a coat of epoxy on the new panel I welded in.

Also moved the hoist arms and painted the area that they were blocking when I did the first batch of painting. 

Sandblasted and expoxied the door hinges too while I was at it. 

Need to build up the motivation again as the last month has been a bit detrimental to it....

[Shoota_77]

Progress has been slow (because to be any other way after 10 years of dawdling would just upset people....).

I have an new found understanding of why Nissan are lazy as fu(% when it comes to applying seam sealer.  Because it's a cu^# of a job!  God I hate applying sealant.  It's just a shit of a job!  I use way too much and end up with it everywhere!  I resealed our shower once and I had silicone all over me and everything within 5 metres of the shower.  Resealed my caravan door, same deal, silicone on my face, my legs, everywhere.....  Not my forte...

Anyway, the extra effort of masking definitely makes life a little easier and less messy.  Seems like such a waste of time to spend 4 hours masking fiddly little shit and bends, apply the sealant and rip it straight off again...

 

Didn't worry about masking for the non visible areas.  I'm anal but nowhere near anal enough for that to seem worthwhile!

 

Still needs some gentle sanding down but should look relatively neater once painted over.  Certainly a lot neater than the disgraceful effort from the factory, that's for sure!

Once the sealant is done I'm still determined to skim fill the spot weld holes on the towers and any of the visible areas just to give it that extra smooth look.  Hopefully pays off in the end....

[Shoota_77]

Ok, so.......  Because the whole paint and panel thing is a new batch of skills to learn it feels a little like one step forward, two back, one to the side and then another 2 steps forward...

I decided I wasn't going to be happy with the finish of the seam sealer for the more visible parts of the engine bay so I stipped it back off only leaving filling the larger areas I wanted sealed off.  at the end of the day, once it's all painted up to a lot higher level than what Nissan ever it had it, most of the worrying water ingress points in the engine bay are going to be pretty well sealed so I've erred on the side of aesthetics for the strut tops and the panel the guards sit on at the top.  I've also convinced myself that the visible detriment of the seam sealer in the wheel arches is way less important than I was originally telling myself.  Ie I slapped the seam sealer on under there with only mild concern for those aesthetics!  Once it has a coat of high build primer, Raptor, colour and then clear I really don't think a few sanding scratches or wobbly patches of seam sealer are going to be of concern.  Particularly when you consider most of it will be covered up by suspension components or covers anyway...

I didn't take any photos of seam sealing the wheel arches but this is how I spread it out.  Put it on a body filler board and applied it all with my finger.  A messy shite of a job but easier to apply to all of the tight areas with your finger as opposed to directly out of the gun.

That board was a whole lot messier than that by the time I'd finished...

Initial stages of playing around with body filler to shape the tops of the strut towers and fill any spot welds.  Again, I'm really only worrying about the more visible areas for the body filler.  The strut tops are realistically going to be the most obvious part of the whole engine bay from a paint perspective so as long as they look good I'm happy!  Don't fry me on my body work skills just yet (please!!).  This is far from a finished product, just doing a little bit at a time learning the skills.  I'm just using 80 grit sandpaper at the moment, the finished sanding will be 240 grit or higher so there are minimal sanding marks.  One thing you find with body filler and the panels is that just because you want to just fill one little spot weld, the ripples in the panels don't necessarily play ball...  When you go to sand it, if that spot weld is in a low spot it makes it really hard to sand it back with a sanding block.  You either have to hand sand the small area or commit to filling the whole low spot.  Hard to explain but if you zoom in on some of the pictures it may make sense.  You can see the heavy sanded areas where I've gone through the epoxy primer around the filler area because the filler area is still lower than the area around it.

This picture may help to understand it-

You can see how the sandpaper is biting into the metal on the higher ridges presumably part of the production process of the strut tower.  Things look a lot flatter to the eye until you start playing around with body filler and sanding is the long and boring point I'm trying to get across!!

On that note sorry if my posts are long and boring....

A few more shots of the progress-

[soviet_merlin]

6 hours ago, Shoota_77 said:

On that note sorry if my posts are long and boring....

Not boring, so thanks for sharing it all!

Do you know the Nightride guys on youtube? They seem to constantly require body filler work on their cars. Also very much working as non-professionals. The latest is the engine bay of their S13 and getting it right seems to involve endless repetitions of applying and sanding off and starting again. And never quite being happy with it.

I'm wondering whether this is going to be a bit like home renovations. You are going to forever be aware of every little imperfection in that engine bay and every little spot where you stuffed up. Anyone else who looks at it is not going to notice. Especially once it has all the engine bits in it again.

[robbo_rb180]

8 hours ago, Shoota_77 said:

On that note sorry if my posts are long and boring....

Keep them long, you put in good detail of how you thought about doing things and the process of doing it.

1 hour ago, soviet_merlin said:

I'm wondering whether this is going to be a bit like home renovations. You are going to forever be aware of every little imperfection in that engine bay and every little spot where you stuffed up. Anyone else who looks at it is not going to notice. Especially once it has all the engine bits in it again.

I am always looking at things I've stuffed up. It use to upset me a heap but now I think of it as a lesson as we are all learning as we go on our cars especially bodywork/paint and fabrication.

[Shoota_77]

5 hours ago, soviet_merlin said:

Not boring, so thanks for sharing it all!

Do you know the Nightride guys on youtube? They seem to constantly require body filler work on their cars. Also very much working as non-professionals. The latest is the engine bay of their S13 and getting it right seems to involve endless repetitions of applying and sanding off and starting again. And never quite being happy with it.

I'm wondering whether this is going to be a bit like home renovations. You are going to forever be aware of every little imperfection in that engine bay and every little spot where you stuffed up. Anyone else who looks at it is not going to notice. Especially once it has all the engine bits in it again.

Cheers mate, I’m glad it’s not just waffle!  I try to help people learn from MY mistakes, not their own!

No I’ve never seen those guys on YouTube. Sounds like I better check them out though if they’re doing an engine bay!

100% that you over analyse the shit out of your own work when no one else gives two shits.  They’re just impressed that you did it yourself!  We’re our own worst critic but wouldn’t have it any other way!

[Shoota_77]

4 hours ago, robbo_rb180 said:

Keep them long, you put in good detail of how you thought about doing things and the process of doing it.

I am always looking at things I've stuffed up. It use to upset me a heap but now I think of it as a lesson as we are all learning as we go on our cars especially bodywork/paint and fabrication.

Awesome, glad you find it readable and not too boring!

Yeah there are numerous things on my car that are far from perfect but in the grand scheme of things I’m proud of having a crack and learning along the way!  I can always go back and tidy things up m not happy with later on. For the most part our cars end up a whole lot better than how we got them even if we did do all the work ourselves!

[admS15]

On 03/01/2023 at 9:25 AM, Shoota_77 said:

One thing you find with body filler and the panels is that just because you want to just fill one little spot weld, the ripples in the panels don't necessarily play ball...  When you go to sand it, if that spot weld is in a low spot it makes it really hard to sand it back with a sanding block.  You either have to hand sand the small area or commit to filling the whole low spot.  

 

I remember having a conversation about this phenomenon with a mate of mine who is a spray painter. He had a name for it, "chasing your tail" I believe it was. He reckons after lots of experience you kind of learn where to put it in advance to reduce chasing it.

[Shoota_77]

29 minutes ago, admS15 said:

I remember having a conversation about this phenomenon with a mate of mine who is a spray painter. He had a name for it, "chasing your tail" I believe it was. He reckons after lots of experience you kind of learn where to put it in advance to reduce chasing it.

Ha ha, sounds very accurate! I'm trying to stay strong and not chase my tail too far down the deep hole it's dragging me into!  That's not easy....

[admS15]

On 03/01/2023 at 10:53 PM, Shoota_77 said:

Ha ha, sounds very accurate! I'm trying to stay strong and not chase my tail too far down the deep hole it's dragging me into!  That's not easy....

If my memory serves me correctly, don't you work or used to work for Audi? If so you'd be used to going down deep rabbit holes wouldn't you?

[Shoota_77]

2 hours ago, admS15 said:

If my memory serves me correctly, don't you work or used to work for Audi? If so you'd be used to going down deep rabbit holes wouldn't you?

Yep, Audi/Volkswagen. We get some curly ones from time to time.  Trust me, the VAG rabbit holes are a whole lot less deep than the Jaguar/Landrover holes we dive into.  Goddam……..  #dontbuyone…..

[admS15]

Ok then. I've been looking at a 2014 SQ5 3.0TTDI. It's got 150k km on it, current owner has been taken to the cleaners for 10k in repairs over the last 12 months. Has had all the intake and everything in the valley removed to replace all the gaskets as there was coolant weeping, had intake cleaned as well.  New EGR valve, water pump, thermostat, rad hoses, alternator and drive belt. Has had 3 new injectors, so will potentially need 3 more sooner or later. What do you reckon, yay or nay?

I've had an 06 Q7 3.o TDI for around 5 years now, has been a good thing overall and other than swirl flap related issues has been pretty damn good. I'm ok with a vcds and can mostly diagnose and repair most things.

So what are your thoughts on the SQ5?

[Shoota_77]

@admS15 they’re an amazing car to drive but like all older Euro’s you need to be realistic that they can be expensive to repair. Sounds like the previous owner has copped most of the pain though!  We don’t replace a lot of injectors on the, but all of the VAG V6 TDI’s need injector seals once you get up around the 150+ km mark. I’ve got an old 2013 Touareg V6 (a fill in car while I’m waiting for my new model Amarok to arrive in March) and it needs a set of injector seals in it (@ 180K).  I just did a water pump too.  Again, amazing build quality, performance and handling but it can cost you!