Unpeeling the Orange

[MBS206]

5 minutes ago, sunsetR33 said:

If I were to (honestly) sell this car, with the current issues it has I'd lose a ton of money. Might as well invest into the car instead.

Sunken cost fallacy.

The real question is, would you rather a car on the road now, that's perfect, or do you like the idea of building a car into something that's yours?

If the latter, put money into it.

If the earlier, sell it, and buy another, and be very particular.

However, be aware, they're an old car, they'll all require significant maintenance at some point.

[MBS206]

6 minutes ago, sunsetR33 said:

Both of these are questionable as to when I'd get one as well. Currently I think buying an engine locally, of which there are some available with various mods and prices, would be cheaper. Can also sell my engine as a partout then afterwards.

Buying local could also land you in the same scenario you're in now. Someone else just offloading their crap.

Edited May 16 by MBS206

[r32-25t]

You’ve already cracked a factory block, why would another factory block be any different 

[r32-25t]

Like the people who blow 5 stock boxes at 3k a hit when they could have bought a fully built box for 12k in the first place 

[sunsetR33]

On 16/05/2025 at 11:39 AM, MBS206 said:

Sunken cost fallacy.

The real question is, would you rather a car on the road now, that's perfect, or do you like the idea of building a car into something that's yours?

If the latter, put money into it.

If the earlier, sell it, and buy another, and be very particular.

However, be aware, they're an old car, they'll all require significant maintenance at some point.

On 16/05/2025 at 11:41 AM, MBS206 said:

Buying local could also land you in the same scenario you're in now. Someone else just offloading their crap.

If I had "perfect R33 GTR" kinda money I would have bought one of the crazy expensive low mileage HJA cars, but I am sadly not that wealthy. I already picked this car out of various Skylines for sale locally, most of which were worse in some way. Only a few cars were actually better but also more expensive.
In terms of buying a motor locally, I at least have the option to inspect it myself and juding the seller as a person, and used or freshly rebuilt engines that some people sell are actually ok price-wise.
I knew the car was going to require work, but shit piled up real fast and I haven't even driven 1000km yet as the turbo started oiling like a bitch within a few weeks after I got the car.

 

On 16/05/2025 at 11:53 AM, r32-25t said:

You’ve already cracked a factory block, why would another factory block be any different 

On 16/05/2025 at 11:55 AM, r32-25t said:

Like the people who blow 5 stock boxes at 3k a hit when they could have bought a fully built box for 12k in the first place 

I assume it wasn't actually me who cracked it, though there is no way to know when that crack formed and if the previous owner even knew it was there.
Buying another 05U Block can be a gamble, yeah, but the cheapest PRP cast block is like twice or more money-wise, and billet is 3 or 3 times as much.
For now I am most likely just keeping the current engine, as a rebuild or engine swap isn't happening right now.
But I am seriously considering buying a second engine and selling mine in return. Might be a sweet deal at the end.

[sunsetR33]

Update 3:

Hi all
It's been a while.

Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again.
Things that I fixed or changed:

• Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary.
• Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can.
• Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there.
• The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should.
• Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not.
• My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there.
• Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future.
• Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off.
• Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings.
• Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed.
• Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel.
• Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active.
• Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now.
• Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty.
• Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.

 

Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs.

Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.

[joshuaho96]

The average previous owner for these cars were basically S-chassis owners in the US. Teenagers or teenager-adjacent. I often tell people that neglect is easier to fix than something that was actively "repaired" by previous owners.

[MBS206]

1 hour ago, joshuaho96 said:

The average previous owner for these cars were basically S-chassis owners in the US. Teenagers or teenager-adjacent. I often tell people that neglect is easier to fix than something that was actively "repaired" by previous owners.

The annoying part about neglect, is when you start to replace one thing, and find ten more broken things.

Ham fisted monkey repairs you normally only find out about when trying to do something unrelated! Ha ha

 

Neglect you can kind of anticipate the huge costs to fix it all. Ham fistedness is normally a shock the first time your work on a new old car, as everything "looked" good before.

[Kinkstaah]

The best part is when you own the car long enough that you look back and find your OWN ham fisted amateur shit!

[GTSBoy]

20 minutes ago, Kinkstaah said:

The best part is when you own the car long enough that you look back and find your OWN ham fisted amateur shit!

Every time I pull my 3x gauges out of the console and see the crack-addict way that I did the wiring, and I just can't bring myself to tear it all apart and "make it nice", because it is currently working. In fact, the last time I was in there I probably made it worse.

[MBS206]

2 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

The best part is when you own the car long enough that you look back and find your OWN ham fisted amateur shit!

I'm normally copping my own abuse from neglecting my daily drivers. "Those suspension bushes will last a bit more", "Don't worry about the oil leak, just keep topping it up".

The project cars I'm always doing things slowly on them as I'm wanting them to be done better, and neater, and nicer.

Luckily I don't have to deal with 18 year old Matt's "Learning to wire" stuff in the project cars. And there's only one piece of wiring I'm displeased about in the Landcruiser, and it's about to be cut out...

However, the box loads of parts that have been going through this place lately for the Landcruiser...
Brake pads
Brake Rotors
Full handbrake overhaul
Wheel Bearings
Seals
Swivel hubs
Steering Boxes
Half the suspension joints
Shocks
Air bags (Ones to go in the rear springs for towing)
Water pump
Timing kit
Lower timing case
Harmonic Balancer
Radiator
Lots of other little seals and shits
Gas struts for the bonnet
New power window switches

And god knows what else I've forgotten... Ha ha ha

I have my fingers crossed the pinion seals don't start leaking on the diffs, that the transfer case doesn't leak, and the gearbox input shaft doesn't leak, nor the rear main seal. As they're about the only seals I haven't replaced in the driveline!
I'm seriously eyeing off buying new caliper rebuild kits front and rear brake calipers...
I'll probably recheck all the valve clearances soon too, and hopefully, it should be all good and sweet to haul some long distance trips again!

[Duncan]

9 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

The best part is when you own the car long enough that you look back and find your OWN ham fisted amateur shit!

That's my life. Past-Duncan has a lot to answer for

[sunsetR33]

On 25/07/2025 at 2:05 AM, MBS206 said:

The annoying part about neglect, is when you start to replace one thing, and find ten more broken things.

Ham fisted monkey repairs you normally only find out about when trying to do something unrelated! Ha ha

 

Neglect you can kind of anticipate the huge costs to fix it all. Ham fistedness is normally a shock the first time your work on a new old car, as everything "looked" good before.

Regardless of neglect or incompetence, fixing either is tedious and annoying. Most of the neglect on my car is definitely rust. I hope I can at least pass inspections later on and they won't fail the car due to slightly corroded hardlines. I was generous with rust converter and wax and it looks ok, most lines in the rear are hard to see properly anyways. 

Definitely will test them though to make sure they don't rupture under pressure, in that case the car isn't going anywhere this year.

[sunsetR33]

On 25/07/2025 at 2:54 AM, GTSBoy said:

Every time I pull my 3x gauges out of the console and see the crack-addict way that I did the wiring, and I just can't bring myself to tear it all apart and "make it nice", because it is currently working. In fact, the last time I was in there I probably made it worse.

Not going to pretend I didn't do a bit of junky work this time around, but mostly due to the fact that some things I am not willing to spend days fixing right now, like wiring. I try to do most things properly the first time around.

[sunsetR33]

On 25/07/2025 at 4:58 AM, MBS206 said:

I'm normally copping my own abuse from neglecting my daily drivers. "Those suspension bushes will last a bit more", "Don't worry about the oil leak, just keep topping it up".

The project cars I'm always doing things slowly on them as I'm wanting them to be done better, and neater, and nicer.

Luckily I don't have to deal with 18 year old Matt's "Learning to wire" stuff in the project cars. And there's only one piece of wiring I'm displeased about in the Landcruiser, and it's about to be cut out...

However, the box loads of parts that have been going through this place lately for the Landcruiser...
Brake pads
Brake Rotors
Full handbrake overhaul
Wheel Bearings
Seals
Swivel hubs
Steering Boxes
Half the suspension joints
Shocks
Air bags (Ones to go in the rear springs for towing)
Water pump
Timing kit
Lower timing case
Harmonic Balancer
Radiator
Lots of other little seals and shits
Gas struts for the bonnet
New power window switches

And god knows what else I've forgotten... Ha ha ha

I have my fingers crossed the pinion seals don't start leaking on the diffs, that the transfer case doesn't leak, and the gearbox input shaft doesn't leak, nor the rear main seal. As they're about the only seals I haven't replaced in the driveline!
I'm seriously eyeing off buying new caliper rebuild kits front and rear brake calipers...
I'll probably recheck all the valve clearances soon too, and hopefully, it should be all good and sweet to haul some long distance trips again!

You have no idea how many goddamn boxes I received these past three months haha

Most have been put to use by now though, luckily

Edited July 29 by sunsetR33
typo

[sunsetR33]

Update 4:

 

Hi all, good news.

Engine is running and all the gaskets and seals seem to be working as intended. No leaks so far, even the JB Weld seems to hold.

I flushed out the old coolant a few times and put in fresh coolant, not Nissan stuff, I decided to try the Ravenol Protect FL22, they claim it works for a wide variety of JDM cars and the opinions on it by some people were pretty good. And it has the nice poison green color! And man am I glad I bought a coolant system tester earlier this year, vacuum filling works wonders on this engine. I can definitely recommend this to anyone still doing it the old school way. All you need is compressed air supply.

Will have to do a small test drive as soon as I can, I removed the gauge cluster again as the tacho needle was still bouncing around a bit but it was much better than before already. 

I also found some cracks on all 4 tires inner and outer sidewalls. Apparently these tires should 't be parked on for extended periods or be kept under 0 degrees during storage, which I did not know. Clearly the previous owner didn't look into those details either, he probably bought them just cause they are cool semi-slicks. I'm just wondering how tf I am supposed to reach 30-80 degree tire temperatures on the public road consistenly, these tires were never going to work for my use case. I'll probably order Continental SportContact7 ones as these are the best allround summer tire available right now and I don't think I'll need anything crazier for now.

Do let me know if you have experience with various tires and which ones you recommend.

[MBS206]

1 hour ago, sunsetR33 said:

Update 4:

 

Hi all, good news.

Engine is running and all the gaskets and seals seem to be working as intended. No leaks so far, even the JB Weld seems to hold.

I flushed out the old coolant a few times and put in fresh coolant, not Nissan stuff, I decided to try the Ravenol Protect FL22, they claim it works for a wide variety of JDM cars and the opinions on it by some people were pretty good. And it has the nice poison green color! And man am I glad I bought a coolant system tester earlier this year, vacuum filling works wonders on this engine. I can definitely recommend this to anyone still doing it the old school way. All you need is compressed air supply.

Will have to do a small test drive as soon as I can, I removed the gauge cluster again as the tacho needle was still bouncing around a bit but it was much better than before already. 

I also found some cracks on all 4 tires inner and outer sidewalls. Apparently these tires should 't be parked on for extended periods or be kept under 0 degrees during storage, which I did not know. Clearly the previous owner didn't look into those details either, he probably bought them just cause they are cool semi-slicks. I'm just wondering how tf I am supposed to reach 30-80 degree tire temperatures on the public road consistenly, these tires were never going to work for my use case. I'll probably order Continental SportContact7 ones as these are the best allround summer tire available right now and I don't think I'll need anything crazier for now.

Do let me know if you have experience with various tires and which ones you recommend.

I know in Australia you'll definitely get above 30c. Parked in the shade in Summer you'll be above that. 😛

But in cooler climates, you might get that warm driving on the highway for a bit, but you'd never get to full heat temp. I'll try and find some of my historical tyre temps between Aus summer and winter (be aware immin the warmer area of Aus too.)

[Duncan]

Semi slicks are horrible for road use, just use a high performance road tyre unless you really need the maximum grip. Noisy, unpredictable (amazing, until they are not), expensive due to very high wear and not good in cold and particular wet.

And yes, it is a thing to store cars on stands instead of tyres if you know they are going to be parked up long term.....but who ever realises that a short park is going to stretch into years before it is out again!

[GTSBoy]

I refer you to this thread on PF, by someone who knows what he's doing.

Paints a good picture of the humble AD09.

[Kinkstaah]

Continental have consistently beaten the absolute shit out of every other performance tyre in Wet/Damp/Cold conditions and give up a little bit of time (half a second at most) in the dry.

Almost like it's engineered for German conditions or something. I'd def give those a try.