Boot (where I keep my gold)

Far from enjoying a bit of open road pleasure the other evening, I found myself home alone with my plans of entertainment dashed! So instead of driving, I thought I would invest a little effort in tidying up the boot! 

One thing that had been annoying me, was having relocated the washer to the boot, the smelly screen clean who's sent would entwine and creep through the cab, was not a sent conducive to joyous motoring generally getting up my nose. 

Naturally this is mostly my fault having fitted a aluminum cap (badly) to the water bottle, which in turn was filled with some glow in the dark green fluid from the local motor factors. The main problem would I think, have been the rear screen washer pipe, which now is connected to nothing and venting into the car.

So out it all came, pipes flushed and water cleaned. I think I may invest in a correct fitting plastic cap again (I probably still have the old one somewhere). Still in the short term a bit of food wrap cling film, a rubber band and my metal cap shoved on top will do!

So having sorted the washer I thought it a good idea to sort the actual boot carpet as well. This had a huge stain on it that no matter how many attempts (thinking about it this would be two) I had, it just would not shift. It is strange but having seen a fair few boot spaces now, how often this carpet is in a poor condition! I suppose Skyline owners transport a lot of fluids!  

I did look for internal carpets in the usual places (Ebay/breakers etc) although everything available was probably worse that what I already had. Never ceases to amaze me what a breaker considers a good clean part. So I simply brought a roll of car carpet from Ebay for £10 (actually £9.95).

Cutting to size was pretty easy and I simply used masking tape on top of the new carpet to draw the template from the old. Because I thought the fit could be a little better than the original Nissan, I enlarged the  cut out area by around 12 mm all round. 

Hardest part was simply cutting out with a good pair of scissors. The results speak for themselves, this was a cheap and effective tidy up to the boot area. Additionally I still have enough carpet left over to do another two cars! 

Painting (as an art form) motor cars..

Just this past weekend I attended a car show (of sorts) at historic Beaulieu House and motor museum's simply Japanese event (more of which later). During the day I had several people look at the car all thoughtful and come up to me saying 'you do that blog' which was the first surprise, the second being that they then would tell me off for not having kept it up to date with the end of the respray!

Okay, so I'm busted for being a bit.. tardy. But you all knew that anyway.

Sooo, I suppose it's like picture time, better that than my mumbling muses on the subject.

Steve @ Skylinespares4uessex Popped up in my Facebook feed with a set of original Nismo Skirts, bumper and spats for a R33. Naturally they were reasonably expensive although the price seemed (what I thought) fair, so I snapped them up!

They actually look quite nice on the donor car, however the paint was awful! One side had been repaired and sprayed in the damp. So the paint was 'bubbly'. There was also stone protect film at the ends of the skirts and spats which had been painted over. 

This was all crammed into a VW Golf where my glamorous assistant then spent the next two hours preventing it from sliding around and clobbering our heads! 

This is what it's all about, the 'NISMO' sticker. Mmm, lovely... I then proceeded to blast them off with a jet washer as I cleaned the thousand years of muck off! 

My sanding station, a bench in the back garden. It could be said that this is therapeutic, but anyone saying this would be wrong. It all starts off well enough but then after a few hours it starts to dawn on you how big an area it is! Of course there is the added delight of finding all the cracks and old repairs that have to be done again as well.

Initial test fit, just bolted straight on.. I knew this would be good! 

As Ms Skyline is getting more 'mature' you would expect her butt to get big! 

I had been laboring under the impression that the body kit was that of a 400R, although this confused me, as as far as I was aware this didn't exist! A good friend James in Australia who also blogs on http://www.inxilegtr.com/

came up with the goods.  

Turns out Nissan made a NISMO R33 GTST

Although not convinced about the Supra looking rear spoiler, I was delighted to see that a tiny bit of Skyline folk art would live on! 

 And onto the meat.

I would have loved to have got busy sanding, for about five minutes and then walked away. Never to sand again! That ghastly hole for the terrible Nissan branding was soon to go!  

Getting ready for underseal, near the front bonnet hinges was the dreaded rust beginning to form! 

Rust in the wing... Arrgh!

Gooey underseal time, inside the wings.

All the inner wings

In fact under seal everywhere! (Which is a good thing). 

Sanded down and cleaned up ready for paint (my favorite picture) 

Boot Lock now deleted and a view of the new titanium rear box.

Base coat

I kinda liked the satin finish! 

On with the lacquer

The hard part has to be polishing! 

A nice shot of Marco at Fully Loaded Cars 

So was it worth all the effort? You bet it was! Although I have found the usual amount of resentment, fear and loathing to be evident from my peers. I have also had a lot of very positive feedback, this was 'my' vision after all.

 Roll of honor

Sarah who made it fun, drove me around, helped and generally did a 1001 things (all with a smile).
RT Autobodies for the supply of the rear 400R spoiler blade
Fully Loaded Cars long may they continue to build dreams! 0208 4930440
Skyline Spares Essex - Steve
Project Modified for all modified cars

And all the countless people who have since just randomly stopped me and said 'I like it... What is it?'