Shoota_77

You're fu(#ed then if a Skyline is your reliable back up plan! 🤣🤣

As with everything, opinions are very similar to arse holes. We all entitled to have one and and we're all seemingly obligated to deal with them too.

You will love it as long as you're aware of the downsides! My second Audi way back in 2010 was a Q5 3.0TDI and I loved that car! It was fast as hell and yet insanely good fuel consumption at the same time. The SQ5 version of the 3.0L TDI engine is a whole another level of fun! We still service heaps of them. There's one the same vintage as the one you're looking at sitting in the carpark as we speak!

Yeah fair point . It could be worse. You could buy a BMW and have a horrid f**king car from day one...

Who cares, looks good..... A bit like Taylor Swift, she would be a shit ride but damn she looks good!

Welcome! The old school HKS livery on your car looks amazing! She sits at a perfect ride height too! Make sure you start a build blog to document the work you do.

Can’t hurt to have them there! Everything helps.

@admS15 they’re an amazing car to drive but like all older Euro’s you need to be realistic that they can be expensive to repair. Sounds like the previous owner has copped most of the pain though! We don’t replace a lot of injectors on the, but all of the VAG V6 TDI’s need injector seals once you get up around the 150+ km mark. I’ve got an old 2013 Touareg V6 (a fill in car while I’m waiting for my new model Amarok to arrive in March) and it needs a set of injector seals in it (@ 180K). I just did a water pump too. Again, amazing build quality, performance and handling but it can cost you!

Yep, Audi/Volkswagen. We get some curly ones from time to time. Trust me, the VAG rabbit holes are a whole lot less deep than the Jaguar/Landrover holes we dive into. Goddam…….. #dontbuyone…..

Very neat and tidy, good job!

Ha ha, sounds very accurate! I'm trying to stay strong and not chase my tail too far down the deep hole it's dragging me into! That's not easy....

Awesome, glad you find it readable and not too boring! Yeah there are numerous things on my car that are far from perfect but in the grand scheme of things I’m proud of having a crack and learning along the way! I can always go back and tidy things up m not happy with later on. For the most part our cars end up a whole lot better than how we got them even if we did do all the work ourselves!

Cheers mate, I’m glad it’s not just waffle! I try to help people learn from MY mistakes, not their own! No I’ve never seen those guys on YouTube. Sounds like I better check them out though if they’re doing an engine bay! 100% that you over analyse the shit out of your own work when no one else gives two shits. They’re just impressed that you did it yourself! We’re our own worst critic but wouldn’t have it any other way!

Ok, so....... Because the whole paint and panel thing is a new batch of skills to learn it feels a little like one step forward, two back, one to the side and then another 2 steps forward... I decided I wasn't going to be happy with the finish of the seam sealer for the more visible parts of the engine bay so I stipped it back off only leaving filling the larger areas I wanted sealed off. at the end of the day, once it's all painted up to a lot higher level than what Nissan ever it had it, most of the worrying water ingress points in the engine bay are going to be pretty well sealed so I've erred on the side of aesthetics for the strut tops and the panel the guards sit on at the top. I've also convinced myself that the visible detriment of the seam sealer in the wheel arches is way less important than I was originally telling myself. Ie I slapped the seam sealer on under there with only mild concern for those aesthetics! Once it has a coat of high build primer, Raptor, colour and then clear I really don't think a few sanding scratches or wobbly patches of seam sealer are going to be of concern. Particularly when you consider most of it will be covered up by suspension components or covers anyway... I didn't take any photos of seam sealing the wheel arches but this is how I spread it out. Put it on a body filler board and applied it all with my finger. A messy shite of a job but easier to apply to all of the tight areas with your finger as opposed to directly out of the gun. That board was a whole lot messier than that by the time I'd finished... Initial stages of playing around with body filler to shape the tops of the strut towers and fill any spot welds. Again, I'm really only worrying about the more visible areas for the body filler. The strut tops are realistically going to be the most obvious part of the whole engine bay from a paint perspective so as long as they look good I'm happy! Don't fry me on my body work skills just yet (please!!). This is far from a finished product, just doing a little bit at a time learning the skills. I'm just using 80 grit sandpaper at the moment, the finished sanding will be 240 grit or higher so there are minimal sanding marks. One thing you find with body filler and the panels is that just because you want to just fill one little spot weld, the ripples in the panels don't necessarily play ball... When you go to sand it, if that spot weld is in a low spot it makes it really hard to sand it back with a sanding block. You either have to hand sand the small area or commit to filling the whole low spot. Hard to explain but if you zoom in on some of the pictures it may make sense. You can see the heavy sanded areas where I've gone through the epoxy primer around the filler area because the filler area is still lower than the area around it. This picture may help to understand it- You can see how the sandpaper is biting into the metal on the higher ridges presumably part of the production process of the strut tower. Things look a lot flatter to the eye until you start playing around with body filler and sanding is the long and boring point I'm trying to get across!! On that note sorry if my posts are long and boring.... A few more shots of the progress-

Yeah all sorts of shithouse! Very nice welds, good job!

Yeah i agree, have seen plenty leak but admittely a while ago. They've got the proper baffled one on the wastegate pipe so not sure why they wouldn't use baffled version for both...?

Frighteningly so!

Progress has been slow (because to be any other way after 10 years of dawdling would just upset people....). I have an new found understanding of why Nissan are lazy as fu(% when it comes to applying seam sealer. Because it's a cu^# of a job! God I hate applying sealant. It's just a shit of a job! I use way too much and end up with it everywhere! I resealed our shower once and I had silicone all over me and everything within 5 metres of the shower. Resealed my caravan door, same deal, silicone on my face, my legs, everywhere..... Not my forte... Anyway, the extra effort of masking definitely makes life a little easier and less messy. Seems like such a waste of time to spend 4 hours masking fiddly little shit and bends, apply the sealant and rip it straight off again... Didn't worry about masking for the non visible areas. I'm anal but nowhere near anal enough for that to seem worthwhile! Still needs some gentle sanding down but should look relatively neater once painted over. Certainly a lot neater than the disgraceful effort from the factory, that's for sure! Once the sealant is done I'm still determined to skim fill the spot weld holes on the towers and any of the visible areas just to give it that extra smooth look. Hopefully pays off in the end....

They give you zero instructions either so you just have to work it out for yourself. The tube is about as thick as a Coke can so try as I might, I could not TIG it without blowing holes in it. Straight in the bin and made my own.

By the way, I found the PRP turbo drain to be useless. The material is way to thin to weld. I made my own out of 19mm stainless and associated fittings. Check my build to see what I did if you wanted ideas.

Nice! Some sexy bits there!

Ooooo damn, that's a tricky place to fix.... The section that the K-Frame is bolted to is a VERY structurally integral part of the car. It's a massive job to strip all of that apart to get to that panel. Dozens of spot weld to drill out to remove all of the panels. The other thing to consider is if there is that much rust there, most likely there is a lot of rust elsewhere too..... If/when you get a quote, IT WILL NOT be the final amount as once they start drilling out spot welds more and more nastyness will be revelled. Prepare yourself for that. Good luck, I hope you can bring her back from the brink.

You're showing your age! Surely one photo is enough to justify a $125K spend? People are paying $250K for one photo (ie NFT's) so $125K is a bargain! All jokes aside, I agree 100% if you're selling something worth $25K let alone $125K you put in a whole lot more effort than that....

As a general rule I don't rate TE's but in a 19 and that particular version they look sexy AF! Good luck selling them!

Haven't done much the last month with my busted foot plus 3 trips to Queensland this month taking up all my time. Finally got around to getting a coat of epoxy on the new panel I welded in. Also moved the hoist arms and painted the area that they were blocking when I did the first batch of painting. Sandblasted and expoxied the door hinges too while I was at it. Need to build up the motivation again as the last month has been a bit detrimental to it....