MrBurns

Inspired by this thread, I finally got around to doing this to my R33. I'd never done anything like this before so am a total noob when it comes to all of this, but luckily it all turned out ok. Almost everything went smoothly except for feeding the new speaker wiring through the door plug sockets. I don't know how you blokes managed to pop those things out as not only could I barely even see them (even after removing ecu etc) but I sure as hell couldn't get my fingers to them let alone some tools to get them out. As a workaround I just drilled some new holes through the sheet metal and fed the wiring through the existing rubber boot on the door. I painted some anti-rust paint over the new hole I drilled and put some of these rubber grommets in there just in case, so it should be ok. Went through pretty much an entire box of Dynamat Extreme Bulk Pack as I put it on both front doors (outer and inner panels) as well as the quarter panels under the rear windows (outer and inner panels also). Totally f'd up my spine dicking about in the back seat doing the later. Overall, the whole dynamatting experience was definitely doable by anyone as its not rocket science, but geez it aint fun especially during an Adelaide summer. While I was at it I replaced all of those little bastard plastic door clips as they were all stuffed causing my panels to rattle. I made some new speaker baffles out of MDF and totally smothered them in multiple layers of epoxy resin (dyed black) to prevent the mdf from getting water damaged. I noticed that on days when it rained, the area behind the speakers gets a surprisingly large amount of rain splashing down in there (must drip down from the window glass). So I found these speaker shield things, trimmed and resined them onto the baffles as well to provide an umbrella, similar to what u guys did. To help lock the bolts that hold the speakers in place I used these screws (had to cut them down a bit) & tee nuts, by resining the tee nuts into the baffles. The screws are now nice & tight when screwed in. For the gasket between the baffle and door panel I used some leftover cam cover gasket silicone I had from when I replaced my cam cover gasket recently. It worked perfectly. For the gasket between the speakers and the baffle I used some of this double-sided speaker foam. Making these baffles took the most time but was worth it as they're way more solid than the stock crappy plastic things that were there before. While my door panels were off I also fixed my rattly windows by tightening the guide thingy's at the top of the door panels only to discover that the rubber on the guide rails had fallen to bits, so had to get up in there through the speaker hole and superglue this rubber back together again. Sprayed some silicone spray on the rubber as well which makes it nice n smooth for the glass to glide over. My windows are now nice and quiet & smooth like new. Overall the noise level has become subtly yet noticibly quieter with the dynamat installed and ALL of the incredibly annoying rattles are now gone, so was definitely worth it. Sounds like a new car again - nice n quiet. Haven't cranked my stereo yet as my new amp still needs sorting, but I'm guessing the resonance that previously plagued my door panels will be reduced if not gone now too. Some pics: New resined baffles with my new Alpine SPR-60C Type R Speakers. Shows the water umbrella thing I've resined to the baffle to help protect againt water splashing onto the speakers. Can see the silicone and foam gaskets Some dynamat on the outer layer of the rear quarter panels. Can see where the tee nuts are moulded into the baffle - these are the odd looking lumps on the inside ring of the baffle. Even though they appear to stick out, they're just small enough not to collide with the speaker frame.

I had a go at this today and it pretty much took me all day (still haven't finished) as all my hoses and clamps were all seized up and stuck on. Took forever to undo them all - my back and hammys are now totally f*****d! Anyway, I got completely stuck on that bolt 10 on the intake side cam cover (the one under the throttle body) and couldn't undo the throttle body bolts at all to get the throttle body off - they were too dam tight. To make things worse I dont have an angled screwdriver (my tools suck). After thinking (swearing) for a few hours I figured out if you sticky tape a small 8mm socket onto an allen key, you have *just* enough room (had to unclip some of the wires in the way) to get it under the throttle body and make a few turns on bolt 10 to get it loosened just enough. Then I unbolted the throttle body sensor to give me enough room to get a long skinny screwdriver down the side of the throttle body and was just able to unscrew bolt 10. So, if anyone else is unable to get their throttle body off as well, or perhaps just dont want to take it off to avoid breaking its gasket, or are just too tight arse like me to buy some descent tools, then mayb give this allen key trick a go.

Yep. Yeah, i think so. I can't remember what I did with mine but that would make sense and that's how it is in the pic above. And yes, if you put these metal tracks in the wrong spot it will likely make the mirror either not fold enough or fold too far like you're seeing.

@Roffy92, I don't know much about the controller as mine has never failed so sorry, but i cant help u much on that one. Although, sounds like the L/R switch isn't contacting properly when you flick, making it think its always on L. Perhaps get at those electronics and take a look at it to see if there's anything wonky looking with it. @Ph@t-G, this happened to me a few years back and it was caused by the little metal tracks inside the mirror's gear mechanism not contacting properly: These two copper tracks (pointed to by the arrow) complete the circuit to the mirrors motor. One of them controls the folding in and the other the folding out. They attach onto these little knobbly bits (shown right at the arrow head above) on that light blue plastic thingy, but on mine one of them was'n't attached to its knobbly bit properly preventing it from completing the circuit with the motor when the mirror was folded in. So, I opened the mirror up and super-glued it back onto its knobbly bit which fixed it and has been ok for ~7 years now.

My wipers were bouncing about everywhere so thought I'd get some new ones. Tried some refills from Supercheap and they were crap. So took them back and got some of the Bosch wipers mentioned here (got from here in Adelaide as Supercheap didn't have them anymore). And yeah, they're brilliant - literally cant even hear them move. They only make them for GTR's in R33, but these fit my GTS fine.

Hey, Had my R33 serviced by nissan the other day and they mentioned the seal in its righthand rear driveshaft has a leak. Is this bad if I leave it too long? If so, anyone know where I can get this fixed in Adelaide? I rang a drive shaft specialist in edwardstown and they reckon only nissan can fix it. Cheers

For sale: R33 Left-hand Passenger side electric mirror in white. Other than a few minor scratches, glass and mirror assembly in good condition. I bought this purely to get the mirror glass out of it to replace the broken glass on my side mirror. However, it didn't fit as it seems to be a slightly different model/type to the stock mirror on my R33 GTS ('95 Series 1), so I'm not sure which R33 model it comes from. It also has a heater/demister on the back of the mirror glass, which has an additional 2 pin connector. $30 ono (+$15 postage, or pickup in Belair SA).

Hey, I bought a replacement passenger side mirror from a wrecker for my Series 1 R33 GTS and when it arrived, I found it was slightly different to my existing mirrors. This mirror was a slightly different look & shape and contained a defogger/demister behind the glass, which required a separate 2 wire connector. Anyone know which model skylines have these? If I can find out what model its from, I'll resell it again if anyones interested... Cheers

Just adding to all of this, a few years ago my driver side mirror stopped folding in & out. So, I pulled it all apart and found that the little motor was dead. I spent days scouring the net trying to find a replacement motor as I didn't want to pay $100+ for a whole new mirror when only the motor was the problem. Eventually I gave up on finding one and thought I'd tackle trying to fix the dead motor. Seeing as it was already dead I figured even if I stuffed up I couldn't make it any more dead. To do this I: Removed the motor from the disassembled mirror (held on by a small screw). Pried off the metal surround/casing from the motor (there's no trick to this, just gotta hack at it with a screwdriver or razor blade to slide it off the motor). This gives you access to the guts of the motor, where I could see that the coils of copper wire were all frayed, preventing them from magnetising the motor and making it spin. Completely unwound and removed the two frayed coils of wire. Went and bought some new 2mm copper winding wire (at the time from dick smith for about $4, but I can't find it on his site anymore. But, there's some here also). Using this wire, I then rebuilt the two coils in the motor by tightly winding it around and around the points where the old coils were until they resembled roughly the same size of the old coils. From memory, I think I soldered or mayb glued the ends of the wires to something to prevent the coils from coming undone. Put the motors metal surround/casing back on and tested it to ensure it spins. Put the motor back in the mirror assembly and put it all back together. Not only did this fix the mirrors motor but it actually made it more powerful as the mirror now folds in/out slightly faster than the passenger side mirror. My mirror was now good as new all for a few $'s on some wire and a bit of time to fix it. It's been about 5 years since I did this and its still going strong.

I've got a DAB+ (Digital) Radio for my carpc and the stock power antenna is useless for it - works fine stationary but fades out when moving. I've read that windscreen mounted antennas dont work too well for DAB, nor do magnetic, nor glass mounted ones. So, I've ordered a small roof top DAB antenna(L-band compatible, so should be ok for oz) from the UK. Apparently these antennas are the best way to go for good DAB reception and they're designed to go on the roof. The tricky part is that I've gotta do the scary job of putting a hole in my skylines roof. But, how hard could it be right? My plan is to: Remove the inside ceiling/panels on the underside of the roof. Measure and mark out where to drill the hole. Will go somewhere near the rear of the roof and not above the dome light nor any other stuff like wires. Centrepunch the point where to drill, making sure not to buckle the surrounding sheet metal. Drill with a small diameter bit. Drill with a slightly larger diameter bit and so on until the hole reaches needed diameter. Fix the antenna in the hole. Depending on flexiblity of roof's sheet metal, mayb insert small metal plate between locking nut on underside of antenna and sheet metal of roof to help prevent antenna from bending the sheet metal if its pulled on. Seal around base of antenna with some sort of silicon sealent to prevent moisture from getting in. Wire it up. Reinstall inside ceiling/panels on underside of roof. Anyone tried anything like this before and can see potential dramas with it? Any tips/advice? Cheers

Thanks for the tips guys, they've put me back on track... i hope. Yeah, I figured I was over-thinking it. I've decided to just go the simple hex-bolt option, going through flat washers on the top of the MDF, locked with Nyloc Nuts on the underside of the MDF: I used the Nyloc nuts instead of just using spring washers due to this site advising against spring washers (whether its rubbish or not, i dont know but seemed pretty logical). I figured that over time the speaker vibration might cause the spring washer to spin loose. Anyway, i've put a few of them on and there's no chance of it spinning loose (the nyloc nuts make it very tight) and the bolt heads dont stick up as much as I thought they might, so it shouldnt leave any bumps in the carpet. I'll put a sheet of sponge between the MDF and the metal parcel shelf to help prevent them from vibrating against each other. Hopefully this info can help out other rookies stuck on the same problem.

Hey guys, I've got limited/no knowledge of nuts n bolts so, was wondering if anyone knows what these bolts might be called and where I can find them (see pic below)? I've been to bunnings, mitre 10, etc... but none of them have them (or at least I couldn't find them after searching forever). I've searched google for days n days, but still cant find anything even close to these. If I knew what they were called it might help i suppose cos then i'd know what to ask/search for. I'm intending on using a few of them to secure my rear parcel shelf (which i'm re-building using MDF), to the car body. Before you ask, the reason I cant using normal bolts is they'll be covered with black carpeting so I then wouldn't have access to the bolt heads to allow me to tighten them and also, the bolt heads would stick up into the carpetting leaving little lumps everywhere that the bolts are. I've thought about using the pronged tee nuts instead, but all of the ones i've found allow the bolt to go all the way thru the top of the nut which could allow the bolt to go all the way thru the nut and thru the carpet sitting on top it. If anyone knows what these are called, where I can get them or perhaps can think of a better way of solving my problem (i'm sure i'm missing something stupidly obvious ), that'd be great cos i'm stumped here. Cheers

Everything got installed today and my first impressions are... well, mainly relief but also total exstatic'ness!! Its done what i wanted + more. I got king springs, koni struts, koni shocks, noltec upper control arms (camber adjustable), whiteline caster adjust kit and koni bump stops. This was all installed by Traction Tyres in Rowville (VIC), whom (so far) seem to have done an awesome job (cheers for the tip blind_elk). The bump steering has almost gone, but not entirely. Definitely 80-90% improvement over what it was before. I've got pretty old tyres and, as u guys noted, they're fat, so they're probably causing the small amount that remains. The main thing i wanted was that it stayed on a straight line regardless of the road and thats what it's now doing, so this alone was worth the dollars. As a bonus its been lowered too, so it looks more flat & square - very happy with this as i've always wanted it lower It drives a hell of a lot firmer (even on the softess setting), as u can feel the bumps much more but importantly it still feels in control (especially around corners) as the car keeps hugging the road - its like its glued to it. This is something its never had before. Previously, when i hit big bumps the car felt like it was bouncing off the road which scared the living crap out of me sometimes. Overall, I definitely recommend doing this to stop the tramlining & bump steering and it also looks f_n awesome once lowered. I should have done this years ago

I tried this about a year ago and although it temporarily improved things a bit, it didn't get rid of the tramlining entirely and it only lasted for a few months. Unfortunately my suspension is just nackered.

Finally got around to doing this as its getting worse. Went to Traction Tyres, where he took it for a spin and said "your car feels terrible" In about 5 minutes he pointed out what was wrong and what needed replacing. Awesome service. Its booked in to get new adjustable koni shockers, caster rods and adjustable camber kit. Ahh yeah, and they're gonna lower it too. Will hopefully now handle like a skyline. Cant wait