Raja93

Wow that’s a lot of cars in those last couple years. Shame about the Gtr, they’re worth tonnes of money now compared to back in the day. C63 is one of my favourite German cars, that engine note is just [emoji7]. Sounds like a fantastic all rounder. Before I bought this car I was considering a Lexus ISF or an E90 (4 door) M3, so I get that all rounder appeal completely, the Lexus being the better due to rock solid reliability, but I went with my heart for once and so far loving it. I need to ceramic coat this one after the respray - good thing you reminded me, I need to buy some. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I only have positive things to say about Driftworks. They’re a very very well known company in the jap car world and their drift cars are world famous. The previous owner fitted a hicas lock out bar as well as lots of adjustable suspension and bushes from them on the rear end of my car. The suspension is absolutely solid and all works great so no complaints. I’ve also just bought new wheels and wheel nuts from them. They have a very helpful team as I spoke with them loads about my wheel offsets. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes please! That’d be great to know. Cheers. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cheers mate for the heads up - I remember reading about this before. I had a small order with them back in March and got away with it, so let’s pray to the car gods this happens again haha. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know mate haha [emoji1787]; If you looked in the car bible, this example would pretty much be the definition of a ‘whilst you’re in there job’. I can only assume the clutch was in ok condition then at the time and if funds were tight, then it’s an option. Yeah Ollie was like the rest of the owners and kept every single receipt, even small ones like touch up paint. Although he didn’t type out the service history in date order like the rest of the previous owners and like I’m doing, he did write down everything that was done on each receipt. Jimmer also wrote very clearly all the work he did on each invoice, and no mention of a new clutch. Did you used to have a clutch rattle noise at low rpm around 1300-1500rpm? If so, then that’s the same clutch. I’ve sent him a text anyway so let’s see what he says. Ah yes thanks for explaining that issue better. It’s funny cos I noticed it had the issue when I first got the car but I don’t notice it anymore. Will have to pay more attention when I’m next driving. How’s C63 ownership treating you? Have you swapped out the head studs? Heard they’re a common issue on those. How’s the overall experience of the car then compared to the Zed? Must be a rocket ship with that 6.3. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Andrew, Thanks for keeping an eye out and checking out for us newbies! Thankfully the previous owner after fitting his 98spec gearbox had flex issues I can assume, so he had fitted the 350z uprated fork and pivot at PowerZed, so hopefully this should cover me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sadly yesterday when out for a nice drive with the roof off down the seafront, the clutch slipped when flooring it off the lights and boy did it stink of clutch for a good couple miles! Went for a quick drive at night to confirm it definitely is the clutch as I thought maybe it was the combo of constant stop start driving plus a hard launch off the lights which caused it to slip as a one off. It started smelling slightly and clutch pedal feels slightly off. I'm not surprised really and pretty impressed to be honest as the clutch is a £185 Exedy (probably knock off) item off an ebay seller with a bad reputation, fitted back in 2009 I believe when the manual conversion was done, according to the service history. Its lasted around 35-40k miles. So I did what any other zed nutter would do and put a £1k order down with Concept Z for a Speciality Z/RPS street max clutch, flywheel, a new red nose badge and the CZP metal door actuators to cure my failed door locks. Hopefully should come in the next 7-10 working days they say.

So I’ve pretty much made up my mind on the next phase of the plan for this beast, which are as follows; - Carry out a full respray - Replace front and rear windscreen seals - Replace windscreen a pillar and roof mouldings - Fit the red coloured Z badge to front of car and red badge to steering wheel. I reckon this goes well against the blue and also with the red ‘300zx’ font on the 99 spec rear centre section lights - Replace the rubber seal that goes along the A pillar and targa opening - Replace targa panel outer rubber seal as both passenger and drivers side targa leak during heavy rain, where the targa meets the door window. Can’t be having this in a daily driver so needs to be sorted - Order new metal door actuators as my doors haven’t been locking for the last month. Symptoms are pretty much on point for when actuators are gone so should sort this. Need to take door cards off and check quick before ordering though. - Take sills back to bare metal, repair rust I’m getting a quote from a well known Jap car tuning firm who do proper undersealing. They strip everything from the underside and do a proper job, as per below pictures. This combined with me giving the chassis a clean after winter annually, should keep my underside in great condition. I also won’t drive it when they salt the roads. Just got to wait for an update from work hopefully this week on the madness that’s going on at the moment, before pressing the button on all the above. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah luckily my regular garage respect the car so jack it properly. Although their bread and butter is modern cars, they specialise in classics anything from Jag E Types, Aston DB5’s so you know they’ll treat it well. Summer only driving makes a world of difference to daily driving. Ollie drove it as a daily for one year then used it only as a weekend car. As well as using Jimmer who’s about an hour from him, he used quite a few local garages for minor jobs probably for convenience like I do, and they’re probably the ones who buggered the sills. Don’t worry though mate, after I get the bodywork and undersealing done, it’ll be mint once again! Ollie spent an absolute fortune on it mechanically, which probs left him low on funds to do work to the body. He covered the sills in dinitrol though and went over with touch up paint, which helped stop it rusting worse I reckon. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is absolutely ridiculous haha. Shame as although bright yellow isn’t my colour, the car looks in good condition. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh I see - thanks for the advice; I’ll do this over the next week or so, see what the state is and take it from there. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just took some pictures of the sills finally. I took it to the bodyshop today and he has opened up to trade, but he’s low on staff. He’s quoted me more than I thought but I think it’s worth it. The bonus is he definitely doesn’t think the sills need cutting out - he will grind all sills back to bare metal, repair properly and sort in house so that’s a saving. Overall taking into account not having to buy replacements, it’s about £1k more than I thought [emoji857]. I guess I was over reacting with the sills so that’s a bonus I don’t have to buy replacements. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking great! Wheels really do make a car don’t they - makes you so paranoid about kerbing after you refurb them though haha. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh Darren was right about the 14 years Richard, as the first UK owner (guy before Darren) soon after importing the car had it fully resprayed. Problem is the lacquer they used was absolute crap as its started peeling in loads of areas. The paint under is actually pretty decent as after i've fully detailed it, it's come up lovely. All these lacquer peel areas were going to get sorted with the original plan of respray to front end, rear bumper and drivers door. I'm hoping the bodyshop's now back open since the govt advice (or lack of!) on Sunday night; I'll pop down tomorrow and ask them to re-quote to do a full respray. The sills are another issue; I'll put photos up soon so you can all see. Both my previous cars with metallic paint; 1 black and 1 silver got pretty much perfect paint matches so I'm confident with my bodyshop, but I do get completely what all you guys mean. They must do that paint analysis you mentioned Rich, to get that great match. I was going to repair the sills rust myself with the rust busters kit that Jimmer recommended to Akita, on one of the big threads here, and finish with the can of supposedly colour matched paint the previous owner gave me, but now thinking 'whilst i'm there' (famous words) painting the body, I might as well replace the outer sills with the oem ones from ZCentre. Since the car is technically a daily driver for me (only do 5k-6k miles a year), I was going to get the chassis properly cleaned and fully rustproofed with Dinitrol by a professional, by the end of summer. I would do it myself and have done in the past but that was in my old house which had a big double garage. In our new house, we only got a single garage in the back garden with no way to get a car in, and there's no chance i'm splattering underseal over my lovely driveway! It makes sense then before I get it undersealed, and just before I get the paintwork done, to get the sills replaced, rather than me do a temporary repair only for the rust to start poking through in a couple years, then having to repaint the area again etc. This is what I meant by if I go for a full respray, I start adding on tonnes of work haha, but think it needs to be done and done properly from the beginning to make sure this car lasts for the long term...

Yeah I thought long and hard about it before removing. Funny as RichardS has just said, I thought a black stripe would be ok if I was to put one back on - don’t think I will though. I’m toying with the idea of doing a full respray rather than doing 50% of the car that I previously planned. Kind of thinking do it right once from the start and not have to go back to do paint work later on. Not sure though as over and above the extra paint cost, you start incurring massive costs to replace all the windscreen trims etc. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The only other thing that springs to mind in the rear end is the fuel pump. Not sure exact location on these cars as I’m still familiarising myself but assume it’s more centrally located or nearside rather than the offside. You mention it’s when restarted, so I guess if the pump is getting temperamental, it might add up. Also I guess it could make sense for the pump to make a noise, when you lift off the accelerator and start braking, fuel load drops, starts groaning due to whatever issue it has. Bit of a random thought I know but it is a bit of a random issue! [emoji2375] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

After the 99 spec headlights were fitted, the driving lights/side lights were still the original halogens, which obviously looked a bit off. I liked the look of RichardS’s car driving light bulbs so picked his brains on what type he had and bought them to fit. Looks much better suited now. After I fitted the silver wheels, the amount of silver coloured bits; exhaust, wheels, headlights were all nice but the silver pin stripe made the silver theme a bit too overpowering and deterred from the lovely blue paintwork. Today I got out my wife’s hair dryer and got to work on removing the pin stripes. I was expecting it to be messy and painful, but in the end all I had to do was pass the hair dryer over a section say 5-6 times, and it was soft enough to peel right off - happy days. The pin stripe was hiding some crap workmanship though when the car was resprayed when it first came to the uk around 2007. On the drivers side, it was hiding some lacquer peel and also the finish was rough, when it should be smooth. In the pictures it looks like rust bubbling under the surface but it’s actually just the crap workmanship. They obviously struggled to get the differentiation between the smooth body paintwork and the lower body stone chip effect finish. Not all bad news though as this is only the case on the drivers side. I had planned to get repainted anyway the whole front end, rear end and the drivers door, so this will be resolved then anyway. The passenger side door which wasn’t down to get repainted, is by chance in a perfect state after the pin stripe removal, so that’s a right result! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hahah - the things we do for our cars [emoji23] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Richard, I must have explained that badly. In my instance it was the diff but I was referring to possibly try and get your mechanic to use this diagnostics listening device over the rear right area of the car, whilst the cars on a lift and driving in first gear, as when the noise does crop up, the mechanic will be able to hear it. The benefit is that this device amplifies the noise in so much detail, compared to the vague noise you hear whilst sitting in the car and driving - it’s similar to a doctors stethoscope. It might give you a better steer as to what the issue is. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Richard, I don’t know what your current situation is in regards to health and if you’ve got a local garage open that you’re happy to go to in the current situation, but when my diff was on its way out from my buckled wheels, I had my suspicions it was the diff but we confirmed it by putting the car onto the mechanics lift and driving it in 1st gear. The mechanic had this listening device with a mic and proper headphones, which massively amplified every little noise when he was under the car. This made it super easy to trace the source of the noise - might be worth a try. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh I see, thanks for letting me know. Will definitely look into it when I’m back full time at work [emoji1417] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry completely forgot to upload pic of car, so you can see what I mean about the pin stripe removal. Not sure yet though. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hello mate, I couldn’t upload the photos via private message so have uploaded them here instead. Let me know [emoji1417]. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cheers mate and yeah silver suits the blue a lot better actually. Might get rid of the silver/grey pinstripe now as with the silver headlights, wheels and exhaust, think it might be bit full on - see pic below. Oh the nexens were on the veilside wheels and had about 50% tread left - I’m not one for wasting so thought might as well put them on until they’re worn, then replace with Michelin PS4’s. Since I drive it everyday and drive hard whenever I get a clear stretch and empty lights, they’ll probably be worn out soon enough. Get what you mean though and looking forward to better traction, as at the moment the wheels spin slightly off the lights. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You sir have impeccable timing! I’ve been meaning to put them onto eBay for the last couple of days. I’ve cleaned them up as nice as I can today so I’ll private message you with them pictures and a rough stab at a price. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk