So this is my project rewind.

 

The OLD mission

 

To restore a 94 UK manual TT back to bone stock. However the car will be run as an OEM+ to include larger wheels and a double din radio with OEM part ready to be refitted for the right occasion.

 

The NEW mission

 

To build my dream OEM+ 300zx

 

History

 

The car was registered in May 94 and given as a company car to a banker.

 

In May 96 the banker bought the car outright and covered a total of 94073 miles. Throughout these years the car was serviced at a local Nissan dealer.

 

In December 2001 a registered forum user bought the car. At this point the owner, Mark, had intended to keep the car and started to customise it. These modifications include the flip paint job, 5 way adjustable shocks, Mania 18inch wheels, custom exhaust, larger brakes, poly bushes to the dif and rear subframe, helix clutch, cone air filter, deleted headlight washer, ICE and a top hard pipe kit. Mark covered a further 15883 bringing the total to 109956.

Marks For Sale post

 

The car

 

Overall the condition of the car seemed good. The body work had a few issues including rust in the engine bay near both suspension mounts, paint bubbling on the spoiler and a cracked off side mirror surround. However the biggest issue with the car was the colour! The finish was very VERY good and to stand next to the car made it much more agreeable than any photo achieved, in fact I actually quite like it. The problem though is matching the colour: after talking to a few paint shops their verdicts were touch up work is impossible (thankfully there is 1/2ltr of the original paint which I'm hoping will cover the new spoiler and mirror). Eventually it will need a full re-spray.

The interior is in good shape for its age, a few scuff marks in the leather and it's looking very dry, a hole in the centre radio surround where I imagine an alarm light went and the alcantara is looking very flat.

 

 

So I hope you enjoy the following updates as I try to bring my car back to the 90s.

 

Cheers,

Chris.

Edited September 29, 20186 yr by Chris300

So after buying the car and bringing it home I thought it would be wise to get the car looked at and sort a few obvious jobs out. With the car only covering 16k mile in 16 years, having been parked up for some time and maintained without documentation I contacted Jimmer at PowerZed and booked a date to leave the car with him.

 

The list included a full service, replace all belts pulleys and tensioner, fix the air con, sort out some rust around the suspension mounts, find and fix oil leak and give the car a health check.

 

After arriving at Jims, having a good look round his workshop, a nice warm cup of tea and a walk around my 300 Jim plugged the car into his lap top. Straight away he noticed that an o2 sensor wasn't working. This was going to be the start of the problems...

Edited December 16, 20177 yr by Chris300

The first tricky job Jim had to sort out was the oil leak. The oil leak was from the passenger side turbo and looked lightly to be the oil feed as the top of the turbo was wet and the rear engine seal was also leaking.

 

The top picture is an image from a borescope.The union is visible and very wet with oil.The rocker cover gasket was dry so Jim knew it was not coming down from any higher

 

 

 

 

 

 

So after many MANY hours removing the gear box and turbo Jim was finally able to fix all oil leaks (near side turbo oil feed and engine rear mail seal).

This was by far the most time consuming job, however this didn't turn out to be the most frustrating job...

Edited December 24, 20177 yr by Chris300

The most frustrating job Jim had to deal with was fixing the air conditioning.

 

Mark had said that the air conditioning conderser had suffered a nick and was leaking. A used condenser was supplied with the car when I brought it.

 

Jim had advised that the condenser can be a pain to replace and that I should consider fixing the old condenser. Not convinced that I wanted things "patched up" on my car I asked Jim to replace the old unit with the used unit, Jim dutifully oblige.

After pulling everything out and replacing the broken conderser Jim arranged for the air con system to be regased. You've guessed it, the used unit was like a "colander". Unfortunately a new condenser wasn't available so Jim had to order one through CZP.

The nice new shiney unit arrived and Jim set about fitting it, called the AC guy back to charge it up and... Nope, still not holding pressure.

Jim then went to look for other issues. He had to take out the air con dash unit and it appeared that somebody had been in there before.The tape had all been peeled off from the evaporator valve and wasn't original. He checked for any ingress of material from the dryer cannister and swap the whole unit.

Let's call the AC guy up again... Bingo, it's fixed! 3deg coming out the vents, I thought Jim was hiding Olaf in the back seats when he showed me how cold the car got! ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 20195 yr by Chris300

Thanks Nick.

Other than the seller telling me it had a nic in the conderser and that the aircon wasn't working I wouldn't know where to start with diagnosing. I don't know if there's a way to test it before the AC guy tries to charge it.

 

Here's a pic of it all fitted and looking good...

Edited December 24, 20177 yr by Chris300

Another job that really pleased me, once it sorted, was the rust in the engine bay around the suspension mount area. I enjoy cleaning the engine bay just as much as the exterior and interior. Rust really deflates my enthusiasm to clean an area and that's no different in the engine bay.

 

I contacted a few body shops local to me before trying Jim as I wasn't sure this was his thing. Each body shop really didn't fill me with any confidence when they were looking at the job so I broach the subject with Jim. After sending him some pictures he explained that it was likely the rust on the near side was likely to need the wing removed to address the problem properly, something the other body shops hadn't mentioned. So if I had gone elsewhere it's likely the problem would have returned witching a few years :angry:

 

Jim sourced the job out to MXD Auto Welding who did a great job.

 

Before

 

 

 

After

 

 

Can you guess what it is yet? :dots:

 

Rear wing?

 

Rear wing! :clap:

 

Today I had a bit of time and took the opportunity to change the badly damaged and drilled boot lining over the arches. The original set had several deep scuffs in them but the real issue was where the previous owner had drilled holes to fit a shelf for 6x9s and holes to easily access the adjustable suspension. I removed the shelf some time ago but I’ve attached the picture to keep the progress together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it’s starting to come together but I’m still on the look out for even better. ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 20195 yr by Chris300
Photos were missing

I managed to spend a few hours on the car today.

 

Firstly I fitted my wonderful handbrake and gearstick gators from Si at Hide ‘N’ Seat. My gearstick gator was in really poor shape. The handbreak wasn’t too bad but thought it best they both match. The quality of the leather is so nice, the stitching faultless and all the holes were in the right place to make fitting a piece of cake. The only problem now is that the nob and handle really look like they need replacing but I’ll try and hold tight until I get a full interior booked in.

 

 

 

 

 

My second job wasn’t as fun.

 

Some time ago I brought some used rear lights (“89 spec lights are NLA and I think the “89 suite my paint colour better that “99) to replace my damaged ones. I’d been looking for a good set for a while and finally found a set with no chips, splits and serious scratches. They did however still have 20 years of poor cleaning which had left behind a lot of light scratches. I spent the afternoon cleaning of all that crap used to bound the lights in place, what a ball ache! I’ll not be using that stuff to refit as I’m sure I’ll want to take them out again one day.

 

Anyway, with the backs all clean it was time to drop them off to Paul at Miracle Detail to polish out all those light scratches and hopefully get them shinning like new. I’ve got some picture I took today and I’ll post up the finished results as soon as they’re in.

 

My broken light have chips taken out of them, heavy scratching, splitting around the rear reflectors and shadowing from some naff stickers that had been fitted long ago.

 

 

 

 

And here’s a picture of the new lights before being sent to Paul, hopefully you can see the swirls in the lense covers. (Not very interesting pics as I’m sure you all know what tiered light look like but hopefully they’ll show the difference when I put the after pics in)

 

 

Nothing too exciting but another essential replacement. Hopefully get the wheels refurbished and tyres fitted before Goodwood Breafast club on Sunday 7th October.

 

Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3

 

So this is a bit of a sideways step while I ponder, plan and save for a new interior from Hide’n’Seat in a few years.

 

I brought a full interior from Martin. The interior is filthy, it looked like it had been sitting in a barn for 10 years, but the leather and bolsters were in good shape and with a good clean should be more presentable that my current interior.

 

There are a few compromises I’ve had to make, it was my plan to move the leather to my fully loaded frames however the drivers seat has a manual lumbar support lever which will leave an unsightly hole when moved across so it’s going to have to stay on the current frames. Also the drivers door card has a hole by the window switches where a start button was fitted. I’m hoping to take the old Alcantara of my existing door card and fit the new Alcantara to it if I can’t find a spare door card soon.

 

Anyway here’s a few before and after pictures of the front seat.

 

Tools

 

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

Before

 

 

 

 

After

 

 

 

Looking good

:thumbup:

 

It was minging I have to say, but I reckon with a good clean it will look a bit special

Why not leave the button there it does hide an unsightly hole and no one will know it does nothing

To be honest I’m ok with it, now I can just send my bits to Si when I’m/he’s ready.

So all the interior cleaned up really well. It’s taken a good 8 hours and a lot of micro fibre cloths but I’m really please with the results. Here’s a few pictures of the Alcantara before and after a scrub.

 

 

 

 

 

And here are a few pictures of the interior change.

 

 

 

 

 

I am going to move the leather to my original seats but that will be a winter project.

Edited October 4, 20186 yr by Chris300

That looks brilliant mate

Well done

That looks brilliant mate

Well done

 

Seconded.....:thumbup:

Thanks guys. It really goes well with the colour and has made the cab feel more spacious. :thumbup:

 

Now tomorrow’s jobs are to fit the refurbed wheel, rear lights and give her a good clean.

What a transformation [emoji106] Steering away from UK rewind though?

What a transformation [emoji106] Steering away from UK rewind though?

 

Yes mate. It was my plan to restore to factory fresh but it’s would have always be a high mileage restoration. I think the last 12 months have shown me that there are low mileage mint standard cars out there that would be a better investment than restoring my car. So with that in mind I thought sod it lets build a fun car.

Refurbished wheels with new tyre fitted (I finally have round tyres on the car!!!) and so are the refurbed rear lights.

 

 

 

Also what do you guys think of the clear side repeaters over the orange? I had thought clear as there’s no other colour but the wheels and stripe but I think I’m leaning towards the orange.

 

Orange.

Orange.

 

I agree....

 

…..Normally, I'd pick clear - but the OEM orange rear lights really suit the car. So you need orange side repeaters to match..:cool: