hoodedreeper

It was that time of year where the car goes in for its MOT (annual inspection for those overseas). I did a mere 715 miles between Oct 2021-Oct 2022, this year I had covered 1736 miles. Certainly not the most exciting or interesting but it's great to be able to enjoy the car more. I made sure I stopped on the way to capture this odometer milestone. I installed a new Nismo cluster in December 2018 which starts the odometer from zero, hence the low miles. I even treated it to a full tank of fuel ready for the next couple of weekends of driving before it gets taken off the road for winter. The tyres were advised again for another year. I'll get those changed next year as they'll now be approaching 5 years and are now showing early signs of cracking inbetween the treads. Its a minefield when it comes to tyre recommendations. The only other thing that was picked up was a front tension rod. The bush on the passenger side is now cracking but not enough to cause any concern (yet) Looking at replacements, my options are Driftworks, Japspeed, Hardrace and Nismo. I would LOVE a full set of Nismo arms but looking at the price for a pair of these, I can only imagine a full set would be eye watering. Driftworks Front Tension Rods Japspeed Front Tension Rods Hardrace Tension Rods Nismo Front Tension Rods I'll probably go with the Driftworks ones, they also offer the other suspension arms too which will get replaced at some point. A couple of random photos

We've had a pretty good summer this year surprisingly lol Last year I only managed 700 miles/1120km use. This year I've done almost 1700 miles/2735km It doesnt sound alot but for pure weekend use thats quite abit for me (i wish it was more!)

Its been in the UK since 2016, I purchased it in 2018. I've never driven it on salt roads, I can't say how the previous owner used the car. Having the same layer of protection for the past 7 years will certainly wear out and start exposing the metal

One of the bigger jobs on the list was to underseal. I recently reached out on social media regarding brands and like most things, you ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different answers/recommendations. My friend John who runs JD Motorsport Engineering responded and invited me over to put the car on the ramp so we can have a good look. I travelled over this morning after the wheel alignment to have a chat. When I purchased the car in June 2018, the car went to H&S Performance for a large amount of work including undersealing. I understand garages can't spend hours upon hours prepping and treating so that they'll clean the surface and go over it with a Schutz gun. But looking at the underneath, I can't see any evidence of any underbody seal with the exception of the wheel arches. I did ask them to underseal those areas before fitting the Meister R coilovers, whether they mis-understood what I asked or just didn't do the underneath who knows. I've been using them for 15 years and I'm not start slagging them off. I was just shocked to see the current 'protection' so thin, you can litually pick it and it'll flake straight off. Anyway, onto the current state of the underneath.... You can see the area we started to pick at, it really is that thin John picked, tapped and scraped the areas that had surface corrosion. He said although there IS alot of surface rust, its a very solid and clean car (considering). Obviously until it's took back to bare metal I won't know if there's any potential repairs. The plan was to hire a ramp and do this myself, but John has offered to help but it'd be a full strip down of all the componants (except engine/front subframe). The price will depend how far I want to go with it, but if everything is being removed, it may aswell be refreshed at the same time. So that'll include: subframe, suspension arms and hubs powder coated polybushes anti roll bar & bushes camber arms SR Autosource zinc subframe hardware kit I can skip the subframe refresh and do that at a later date if I don't have the money in time. John also looked at the front struts. From a visual perspective they're good but we all know what lies underneath. He's suggested to tackle the underneath first before that gets too bad and then do the strut tops and front subframe refresh at the same time. So another expensive bill, but I guess thats part of owning cars like these. We have to do such jobs to keep them in tip top condition and road worthy. When it happens there will be plenty of photos

For the past couple of years the car has had inner tie rod(s)/track rod end(s) advised on the MOT. With the limited annual miles the car does, I've been putting it off With the recent motivation for sorting out the odd jobs, this was on the list too. I ordered replacement parts from Conceptua Tuning, very fast delivery as always! The weather hasn't been great the past week or so, finding a break in the rain was difficult to judge but it finally happened. My friend Danny came over to help and brought along a tool to help with the job. It looks like they haven't been touched in a long time With the lock nut cracked off and wound down the inner tie rod next was the top nut on the track rod end. My impact gun made easy work and with a swift swing of a lump hammer, it released from the hub. I made sure to count the number of turns the track rod end had to help with re-aligning. The steering rack boot had a small pinch clip on the outer end and a wire type clip on the inner. With those removed and the boot slid off, it was time to remove the inner tie rod. This is where Danny's tool came in to help. On the end it has 3 round teeth on what looked like a bearing.This part goes over the knuckle and the tie rod shaft goes inside (giggidy!). As you turn the shaft the teeth grip onto the knuckle. I've probably explained this terribly sorry! Anyway, it worked really well and they were off in seconds I forgot to take a photo here. I ended up re-using the original locking washer, I just didn't like the look of the new ones. With the new inner tie rod knuckle screwed into the steering rack it's just a reversal of what was done before. The larger metal clip for the steering rack boot snapped on removal so we had to resort to cable (zip) ties. Not ideal, but the shaft size on the new inner tie rods are smaller so the outer clip wouldnt work anyway. The wheels looked straight so it was good enough for a short journey in the morning to have a proper wheel alignment. I was lucky enough to get the car booked in with one of the STS Tyre Pros branches in Norwich at short notice. I used to take my supercharged MX5 here for any alignment, they always do a great job I didn't realise how much rear camber it had, I'd prefer less camber but I'd need some camber arms to do so. Something to consider later on

I've been having starting issues for quite some time. I put it down to the limited use the car receives, sometimes it could be used once a week sometimes it could be once in two weeks. I would charge the battery and it would start fine. At one point I exchanged the battery under warranty and that was fine for awhile, until recently. On the way home from the Pistonheads show at Bicester I stopped for fuel. Upon returning to the car it wouldn't start. I checked the battery terminals and they were tight on the battery posts but I noticed the cables going into both terminals weren't as tight as I'd like. After a little wiggle the car started, so that must be the issue?! Once home I removed the cabling and cleaned up the copper core and refitted. It started fine so I left it. Fast forward a couple of days later when I wanted to use the car and it wouldn't start. I charged the battery up and it started, could it be a dodgy battery?! Then next time it wouldn't start, this was becoming more and more of an nuisance. I disconnected the subwoofer positive and it started?! Hooray! But my luck came to an end rather quickly. The battery terminals rely on a screw at the top of the terminal to hold the cables in place. I wanted a more secure solution so I sourced some terminals with an 8mm post. The new crimp on ring terminals were quite beefy and my crimping tool would'nt be good enough to do the job. So I called upon a couple of friends who would have the equipment to help. So I begun with disconnecting the battery, but when I moved the positive terminal to one side it moved more than it normally does. Next thing I know, I'm holding the positive cable but it's not attached to the car. Turns out its been joined in the past, but what wire is it? The alternator got disconnected and we checked continuity to the broken cable, nothing. The concerning thing was the broken cable was the same as the battery earth which is black with a yellow trace. But this was 100% connected to the battery positive. You can see the broken cable where the yellow heat shrink is on the end (this was capped at the end of the night) The broken cable goes into a loom covered in conduit which splits into a Y. One side goes to the Alternator and the other side goes towards the back of the car, where the Starter Motor is. The insulation on the alternator live was peeled back to reveal a white cable, this was traced back to the fuse box. So the broken cable must be the starter motor then. We had some spare red cable long enough to run a fresh live from the starter motor to the battery, bypassing the original loom for testing purposes. The car started first time with no hesitation. The new live cable was cable tied out of the way to get me home. Fast forward a week to my next day off and I decided to tackle the original wiring conduit to make things tidier. I began by removing the OEM conduit and insulation tape. The old starter motor live was then accessable and could be removed. Most would have left this in place mainly for ease, but lets not do things by halves. Over time insulation tape seems to get stickier. I removed the old tape and gave the conduit a wipe over with some brake cleaner I also removed the aftermarket earth kit and cleaned up the contact points with a wire brush drill attachment I used some insulation tape to keep the loom together, refitted the conduit and the wrapped it all in tesa tape. Once the battery was reconnected I then cable tied the loom to keep it nice and tidy I even covered the new Starter Motor cable in tesa tape so it wouldn't stand out too much A couple of hours well spent and my starting issue resolved Although google searching for an answer could have been quicker, there's some fun fault finding yourself and you learn along the way

My driver side window has been operating slow for a little while, it was make this weird squeely noise too. It then stopped working all together which became a huge inconvenience. I was lucky enough to win a replacement regulator and motor on eBay but life got in the way and I could never find the time to do the swap (aswell as a day dry enough) With the window stuck fully up, this restricted access to see most of it. I was preparing to remove the glass and strip most of the door panel to change it (hence the dry day). But after seeing the replacment on the floor infront of me, it was only 6 nuts/bolts With the door panel off (I cover this in the Youtube video) it's time to tackle the regulator Unplug the large grey connector Starting off with the 2x 10mm nuts either end of the regulator that holds the glass Next was a bar/bracket which looks to be the adjustment, going by the lines either side of the 10mm nuts The last step is to remove the 4x 10mm nuts holding the motor to the door panel Luckily the glass stayed up and the unit could be pulled through the bottom hole in the door panel. Fitting is the reversal. Make sure you start with the motor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuP6Z-rgrRQ

I've been getting a sqeel from a drive belt now and again, but from what I could see they looked ok. I had some free time after a Cars & Coffee event last weekend (Bank Holiday) and made a start. Removing them was quite straight forward, I cover the steps required in a Youtube video (link at the end) Gates were the brand of choice. Been using them for years and very rarely have any issues. 4PK868 - Power Steering 4PK913 - Air Con 4PK890 - Alternator I know the tops of the belts don't make any contact with any other pulleys/tensioners but they still look as new There's no cracks or any signs of wear amongst the belt ribs either. Perhaps they just needed re-tensioning....who knows lol New belts now on and tensioned The only part I struggled with was the PAS tensioner bolt. For some reason Nissan made it waay too long and a normal length spanner is too big. Find yourself an old spanner and cut it in half to do this job, it'll save you alot of time faffing around trying to access the locking nut. While undoing it, it got about half way and it became even more of a struggle. I knew the thread was covered in dirt which didn't help, turns out the thread was damaged too I gave it a going over with a wire brush and ran an M8 die down it to clean the thread as much as possible. There's still evidence of some minor damage, but the nut goes through it no issues. I replaced the locking nut with a stainless one which changed the spanner size from 12mm to 13mm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=838zBLX2m50

Not much had happened since the last update, only a couple of Cars & Coffee meetings along with helping a couple of friends out with Prom runs. That time had soon passed and the Pistonheads 25th Anniversary was upon us. Our initial plan was to drop the kids off at the inlaws,travel down on the Friday and we'd only be a short (17 mile) drive to Bicester Heritage the following morning. That's until I mentioned Caffeine & Machine was 'kinda' close by... by that I mean an additonal 48 miles futher north. Mrs Reeper was happy enough to head there as we both enjoyed our first visit (which happened to be August last year in the recently purchased MX5 NC1) Upon arrival we were asked if we would like to park on the grass bank or to the left on the gravel amongst the trees, which is where I went (knowing it'd make some good photos as the sun set) As always the atmosphere is fantastic, very chilled with great food and a good variation of cars to look at. Sorry for the photo spam, this has been a venue I've wanted to take the car for awhile and couldnt resist taking loads of photos We arrived at Bicester just after 7am and were guided into position inside the hanger where the Reader's Ride display was. Visiting Bicester was another venue ticked off the list after seeing photos of a Sunday Scramble that Speedhunters had covered. The show was divided into areas with selected cars that the Pistonheads staff had to choose. During the awards it was mentioned that they had 1400 applicants and 200 were chosen. I never thought I would have gotten chosen,given the calibre of cars in the Readers Ride section. I did feel abit out of place and I wish I spent more time at the car incase anyone wanted to have a chat. A thank you to Rob aka RSD 25 for these photos One thing I had recently noticed with the car was the paint on the roof. I spotted a slightly duller patch above the driver side window. Looking at it closer you can see fine sanding marks as if there isn't enough paint applied. The car was resprayed by the previous owner in 2017. The car is currently stored outside in direct sun, so I'm gonna take a guess and say that has accelerated this. While cleaning the car at home in preperation for the show I noticed more of the roof had gone dull towards the centre. The lighting inside the hanger made it more obvious. While cleaning the bonnet at the show I noticed that had started to go too, great! It wouldn't bother me as much if this was the original paint, but it's not With the already expensive list of jobs waiting, this doesn't help. Having to constantly repair the daily Accord also isn't helping with my bank balance. But I guess the saying is 'Rome wasn't built in a day' Well thats true, but my money can only stretch so far which means it's going to take a considerable amount of time to sort. Anyone got the winning lottery numbers? please?

Back in 2020 I applied for a show called Players Classic held at the Goodwood Motor Circuit. I got accepted but my wife was heavily pregnant with our first child. The Covid pandemic started and all tickets were transfered to the following year. In 2021 car shows started to happen with restrictions, but we were expecting our second child so I had to get a refund. Fast forward to this year and I applied again on a whim knowing I probably wouldn't get chosen. To my surprise the R34 got accepted into the show's 'Parc Du Concours' area. I don't think the Work Emotions have had a good clean in a long time. So I took this opportunity to remove them from the car and clean the inner barrels thoroughly. The calipers hadn't been cleaned since I painted them Thats much better! Another little job I've been meaning to do was to repaint the wiper arms Next was to give the interior and exterior a good clean With the kids dropped off at the grandparents and the car loaded up it was time for the 4.5hr journy south west to Goodwood. We arrived at the show in good time and were parked up about half way amongst the other cars Having only been to Goodwood for the Festival of Speed a few years ago, it was a great experience visiting the Motor Circuit for the first time. I've read and seen some very good things about this show so expectations were high, and it didn't disappoint! Yes there were alot of stance builds but we all know its one of the biggest followings/trends, but there was also a great mix of other types including track ready, resto mod,drift and just clean and simple. (I would say the R34 falls into the last category) Many many photos and hours walking around it was time to head off to the hotel. Sat Nav took us through a twisty mountain road which felt like a budget touge. Was certainly looking forward to driving it the following morning! Sunday morning was here and we ventured off to the show. This time a silver Evo 8 followed us through the english touge (haha) which put a smile on our faces. The symphony of a screaming turbocharged 4 banger and an RB25DET was certainly enough to fuel you for a day full of awesomeness. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos or videos. The Sunday part of the show allows all of the cars parked in the Parc Du Concours area, to move across and park on the circuit. This did make for some nice photos Unfortunately we left at mid day, purley because my feet couldn't take any more walking and I knew the drive home wasn't going to be much fun with the M25. Another show I applied for and surprisingly got accepted for was the Pistonheads 25th Anniversary. This is on Saturday 12th August at Bicester Heritage Very nervous about this one! Being apart of a show and shine area parked amongst hundreds of other cars is one thing, but being a part of a limited number display for the Readers Rides display is a whole new level.

No updates on the car I'm afraid except it's been getting plenty of use. I got married a couple of weeks ago and of course we had to get some photos with the car

You may remember me making my own rear diffuser back in June 2020. The company who powder coated it, didn't do a great job and it was flaking after a year. It's been one of those jobs I've been meaning to do and I finally had a chance to sort it. It was most noticable along the edges and around the bolts/rivets I found someone new to sand blast, he had them for a couple of weeks before they were ready (he does it in his spare time). I didn't take any photos during this next process, but I did film it for the Youtube video which will be at the end of this post. I started by cleaning up the parts with a wire brush, wiping them down with white spirit before I started the painting stage. I gave the parts a coat of Kurust to help with any corrosion followed by Zinc Primer, black stone chip and then Hammerite Smooth Silver. There was an issue with the main body of the diffuser, the powder coat just wouldn't come off. The guy who blasted it said he tried various ways including increasing the pressure but didn't want to go any higher because he didn't want to distort the panel. He tried a carpet pad with 40 or 60 grit paper and it still wouldn't shift. I thought about getting it acid dipped but it'd already took more time than I had hoped to get to this stage. In the end I purchased another sheet of mild steel and re-made it. It didn't take long to get it cut out and drilled It then had a coat of stone chip and 3 coats of Smooth Silver To help prevent it going rusty and prolong its life I decided to add a bead of clear silicone around the edge of the fins and over the top of the rivets. I know its not a very neat thing to do, but I don't think many will be on their hands and knees to check the condition. While the diffuser was off I checked the condition of the boot floor and found alot of surface corrosion. I did my best to get the majority of it down to bare metal and treated with Kurust. I found my first hole With the wedding just weeks away I'll have to get this sorted at a later date I then did the same with the diffuser and gave it a coat of zinc primer followed by underseal. (I didn't have any stone chip at this stage) The exhaust heat shield got painted in VHT Black and refitted with stainless hardware. Sadly no photos of that. The hicas wiring wasn't secured very well, I honestly can't remember how it was prior to removing the diffuser. I found the grommet inside the boot and pulled the wiring through It always seem to rain on my days off so refitting was no different haha But I'm glad its all back together now, it looks complete now I'm very happy with the result, it'll be much easier to touch in any stone chips or sort any corrosion/damage in the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52d79-maH_Y

One thing that kept sticking out like a sore thumb were the chipped intercooler pipes visible through the grille. "Taking the bumper off and painting the pipes won't take me long"...a phrase I said to myself numerous times, how wrong was I. The rubber couplers put up a fight but they pipes were finally removed. Unfortunately I forgot to take some photos along the way, but it's all shown in the Youtube video at the bottom of the post. The pipes were badly chipped/corroded so I took them right back to bare alloy with a wire wheel brush ready for painting. The bumper brackets underneath the headlights had corroded badly and were in desperate need of a repaint too. A minor set back but a job I thought wouldn't take too long. There were stripped back to bare metal too, followed by Hammerite Kurust and then Hammerite Smooth Black Thats when I noticed the holes in the engine bay had chipped and corroded. I couldn't leave it like it so I got stuck in sanding that down ready for rust treatment The opposite side was quite bad too so I did that at the same time The area was keyed,cleaned and masked up ready for primer and paint I wish I had known about this sooner, I would have taken it to have the paint scanned for a colour match aerosol. Unfortunately all I had was gloss white, so the shade is waaaay off, but at least its treated and sorted. The turrets will need sorting at some point so I'll get the engine bay re-painted at the same time. The side areas underneath the headlights also had light corrosion so they received the same treatment I ran out of daylight, impatience got the better of me and rather than waiting a week for my next day off I carried on into the night under an LED work light. There's something about freshly painted parts and new hardware that gives you a great feeling of achievement no matter how big or small the job is/was. I wish I had taken the front reinforcement bar off to treat and paint but I wanted it back together so I could drive it. When the bumper is next off I'll do it then Here's the Youtube video with more details https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJKvthyFoNI

Apologies for the thread bump, another year has passed since the last post, hopefully 2023 will have more updates. As always, the daily driver gets more attention and the R34 gets neglected. The Colt CZT was sold last August and I purchased an MX5 NC1 Sport. From October 2021 > October 2022 I had only driven the Skyline 1000 miles I'm due to get married in April and have been holding out spending any money on mods for the MX5 till after the big day. Rather than doing that I promised myself I'd drive the Skyline more and sort out a couple of minor things on it. I usually wait until March/April to put it back on the road, but the UK weather had been dry and the roads reasonably salt free. So with that, I decided to tax the car, give it a clean and blow off the cob webs (litually). I remember driving the car last year and hearing a whistle/whine on acceleration aswell as a struggle to build boost. I did a smoke test and there were no leaks. I also did a vacuum pressure test on the actuator and it held pressure no problems. I removed the intake hose to check the play to find it does have about 1mm in-out play, the same amount the last time I checked (April 2020) Not ideal! With the car back together I took it for a test drive and it all seemed fine. The Greddy Profec OLED boost controller was set to my low boost setting (7-8psi) and it built up boost with no issues. The whistle/whine noise had disappeared too, strange. I also blanked the blow off valve to see if that eliminated any issues, but it drove the same. I made a video for my Youtube which goes into more detail of getting to the turbo etc including some in-car footage of me driving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JQzwBkaaBk I purchased a used turbo with the intention to send it away to be rebuilt, easier said than done. I contacted the first 1.5 pages of a Google search and not a single company can do a standard rebuild on this turbo, only a Hybrid rebuild. Not wanting to constantly buy used turbos to get by, I started to crunch the numbers on what was required to go the hybrid route. The kick in the teeth was having everything previously purchased but it all got sold to pay off debt The cambelt is due this summer as it'll be 5 years since it was last done. The clutch will also need replacing because I don't have any history or evidence of what it currently has. I don't want to go through all of this effort and it slips on the dyno. I've spoke to a local tuner (J's Garage, whos very very familiar with RBs) and he's advised on what needs doing. Hybrid Turbo rated to 450hp (AutoExtreme) Fitting Kit braided lines, genuine gasket set (AutoExtreme) Xtreme Heavy Duty Clutch & Lightened Flywheel GTR Injectors Link G4X IAT sensor J's Garage Trigger Kit Boost solenoid Injector flow test & fitting Fitting and Mapping Tie rods/track rod ends/wheel alightment needed too With a geniune cambelt kit/waterpump the total for the whole lot comes to around £6800 GBP / $8k USD / $12k AUD Which means the MX5 will be up for sale in the coming months to help pay for it.

It was very fun to drive even on its first track day. The reason for selling was to gain any more power would cost a considerable amount of money (80hp aint much on track). SR20DE could have been on the cards but i'd need another daily haha Turret repair prices vary alot on condition and whats hiding underneath, it also depends who you go to. It can be from £1500 ($2860 AUD) to £4500 ($8580 AUD) A friend has a converted R34 GT which had rust bubbling when he first bought it 5 years ago. Didnt do anything and left it, now its undrivable and he's now at the higher end of the price bracket