TheRealNips

Anyone interested?

Once again I want to organise a meet and drive! The route would be Folkestone in Kent to the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. The route takes in some A roads and B roads. The route is 72 miles and should take around 2.5 hours with a short stop at Dungeness. Ashdown Forest is very nice and great for a picnic, walks and photos. We will meet at the Harbour Arm car park in folkestone at 10:00 with the aim to get away by 10:30. We will follow the coast line west to Dungeness Nuclear Power station. Then turn inland at Rye and cut across the Kent/Sussex weald to the Ashdown Forest. Let me know if you are able to come! Folkestone CT20 1QH to Four Counties Car Park.pdf

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday!

So no one made it to this one, but my father and I in my car and my fathers friend in his TVR had a good day! Started out at Cheddar for a cup of coffee, then drove through the gorge. There are concrete blocks in the car parks now to stop donuts, but nothing on the road to stop enjoyment. The route was great and only got stuck at one junction in a queue. Seaton was packed, so we tried Beer, but that was packed too, so in the end we went to The Sun Inn just outside Dorchester for lunch. Only managed to get two photos of the trip as I was driving! Ill plan one for June soon!

Looking like a lovely day for it, hopefully see some people today?

View Advert AVS Model5 Twinspoke | 18x9J 35 | 18" Rims | Goodyear 245/40R18 Tyres | Runflat AVS Model5 Twinspoke 18" 18x9J 35 These came on a Nissan 300zx I bought a few years ago. The previous owner had them painted three separate colours to help him decide which he would prefer on the car. When I took ownership, I never painted them as I used stock wheels on the car. Two wheels are in silver (bottom left + bottom right), Bronze/Gold (top right) and Bronze/Gold with black on inside of the wheels (top left). They are in good condition, however one centre cap is missing. The tyres are Goodyear 245/40R18 runflat tyres with lots of tread left. Collection only from Eastbourne Advertiser TheRealNips Date 27/05/21 Price £500.00 Category Parts - For Sale

@Stephen on here was selling one I believe

Detective Andrew for the win!

Yes, I was just trying to show tyres in those sizes are available.

225/50R16 = https://www.camskill.co.uk/m62b0s302p0/Car_Tyres_-_MPV_Tyres_-_People_Carrier_Tyres_-_16_inch_R16_inch_-_225_50_16_225_50R16 245/45R16 = https://www.camskill.co.uk/m62b0s345p0/Car_Tyres_-_MPV_Tyres_-_People_Carrier_Tyres_-_16_inch_R16_inch_-_245_45_16_245_45R16 https://www.camskill.co.uk/m62b0s3988p0/Car_Tyres_-_MPV_Tyres_-_People_Carrier_Tyres_-_16_inch_R16_inch_-_245_45_16_245_45R16_OE_Porsche 245 are harder to find and more expensive and only the Porsche boxter uses that size now. Having said that, Toyo are a good soft compound make and £91 isn't bad for a tyre. Mine are still going after 5 years and 6000 miles, plenty left on them too!

Over the weekend, after my shift, The engineers at work put my car up in the air to have a look underneath, we were all impressed with how it looked. I then took it home to give it a clean and a first layer of polish. I tried to get some of the scratches and marks out left by the car cover which worked to a certain extent, but will need more work and/or a professional. 1) Up we go! 2) Boot floor and fuel tank 3) Rear subframe 4) Under engine, looking back 5) Rear seats 6) Front of car, still needs a bit more cleaning 7) Dust.....noooooo! 8 ) Installed my usb cable for charging phone. It extends and retracts into air vents 9) The seats are not too bad, one 1" cut on the passenger seat just out of shot 10) I love all the japanese stickers everywhere! 11) After first polish 12) There are a couple of marks on the bumper from a touch up pen 13) Fuel flap is a struggle to open, having to gently slip my debit card iin to open it at the moment. Not sure how to fix that yet! 14) I like the original deal sticker on the bumper 15) This will need replacing before it soaks up too much water and starts rotting the bootlid 16) Difficult to tell, but some of those marks are from the car cover, not sun glare 17) More marks 18) Faint black marks from car cover, hard to see in picture, but can see in real All in all, I love it. A bit of work here and there and this will come up nice! Drove my wifes Audi TT to work yesterday and stalled it as not used to using a clutch anymore!

I was down there on Saturday. I took the day off work so that my friend and I could go for a visit. I had applied for club tickets and individual tickets, but were both refused due to the organisers limiting numbers because of social distancing. I got a phone call at 09:30 on Saturday morning saying that due to low turn out numbers, was I still interested in showing my car. If so, get down there asap which I agreed to. The reason it was half full I suspect was due to them denying a lot of applications to show cars and then not anticipating the drop-out rate on the day. Having said all that, had a good look around the cars and even got 11 photos and 6 nice comments about mine!

Thanks, I will do tomorrow, just about to go to bed!

I enjoyed that. Excellent prose!

This is the start of a blog of my new purchase of a Nissan 300zx. I recently sold my two cars; a 1991 twin turbo manual in red and a black manual NA (Almost sold) to raise the funds for my new purchase. A few reasons convinced me that this was the right thing to do; 1) I realised I hardly ever drove both cars and when going to meetups, I always picked my red TT, 2) The wife was getting upset I was using her Audi TT for trips to the tip and other messy/dirty jobs and suggested owning one 300zx and one more practical car would be better, 3) Although I enjoy spannering with cars and learning new skills, I was finding that sometimes I just wanted to get in and drive. Not spanner for 2 hours just to drive. 4) The list of improvements/jobs/plans for both cars was longer than my.....arm lets say! 5) By selling both mediocre cars I might be able to find something/import something in good condition. A stable base to concentrate all my energy and funds onto. Enter (stage left) my best friend.... After a joking conversation with him a few weeks ago along the lines of "If you ever sell your zed, let me know" thinking full well that he wouldn't, he came back to me and said, you can have it for (insert low price here). Jaw dropped. I didn't really expect that, so the challenge was on to sell both my cars! On Thursday 20th May 2021 I took ownership of my new car: A 1989 Nissan 300zx Twin Turbo automatic in red with 44630 miles on the clock. My friend had imported this car himself from Japan to the UK in 2016, MoT'd it, got it registered and then put it in dry storage where it hadn't moved since. First job of the day was making space to remove car from where it was stored, then check fluids and other checks to make sure it could/would start. We connected the original japanese battery expecting it to be flat, however the dash lit up and it started instantly on the first try, we were both surprised! We left it running to let it gently circulate fluids and warm up after its hibernation. We checked everything and it all still worked including the AC (I have never owned a car with working AC) even the tyres had 25psi in them still. It was then off to the MoT via a petrol station for a drink of BP's finest. I was genuinely worried about the MoT because if it failed, I couldn't tax the car and I don't have anywhere off road to keep the car while waiting for work to be done and the re-test, but my fears were unfounded. Not only was it a pass, but a "green pass" (If you use the "vehicle smart" app you will understand: no advisories), The tester said he was surprised by the condition of the underneath. He said it was cleaner than most new cars he MoT's and was completely factory underneath. A pristine example was a phrase he used! I must admit, I have not managed to have a look under the car yet due to weather and work. It was then off home to celebrate by taxing the car! The next day I used the car to go to work, it drove fantastic. It was smooth and comfortable, no rattles or bangs. The auto box was smooth with no jerky gear changes, the steering light when it should be and "heavy" when it needed to be, it was a joy to drive and a world apart from the usual 100000k+ cars I am used to driving (My old Audi 80 coupe was on 365k!). I took it very easy of course as although its not yet at its 60k service, it has been sitting around for years and I'm worried about the timing belt. It is booked in with Jimmer in June for service and timing belt kit. There are one or two other little problems that need sorting: 1) It was in KMs, however my friend gave me his set of UK clocks he had in his garage, so now it's in MPH and delimited (I believe) 2) The original rear spoiler has a chip/crack so that will start soaking up water and needs replacing asap with the fibreglass copy to stop the boot lid from rotting through 3) My friend had a car cover on it for some of its time in storage and the cover seems to have rubbed the paint in certain areas. I am hoping a good polish will solve this, but it might need something/someone more professional to look at it 4) One of the alloys paint was touched up on a kerb mark with the wrong colour paint 5) A couple of the interior panels, the A pillar trims and one of the door cards, have little bubbles, so they will need replacing 6) It is on the japanese tyres it came with which are in good condition for their ages, but they are 205's. They need changing really for 225 atleast So I have a few things to do, but nothing scary. Enough of the text I can hear you saying, where are the damn pictures!? So here are some (bad) pictures! 1) Just before starting her 2) Battery connected 3) Interior (a bit muddy) 4) Outside warming up 5) Another frontal shot 6) Rear view 7) Another rear view ? Post-MoT exterior wash (it started raining just as I finished!) So there we have it! Plans for this car? Well I did have plans; new suspension, new wheels, spoiler, more power etc. But I feel that this is a bit of a snapshot, I feel that it needs to be kept stock, as OEM as possible for as long as possible. I will be looking for a secure, dry place to store it as I only have outside on the road at the moment as my drive is very steep. I will finish the jobs listed above and use it for shows, meetups, drives and the odd trip to work. I will refrain from using it in the winter, but this is not a static display, I will be using it. Cars like this were designed to be driven, it's in their souls and I can't deny her that. After we have all spent a year locked up, I like to think that is how some cars feel locked away in a dark garage, only to see the sun once in a while....