Category: Driveline
Tuesday, 25 July 2006 | | Categories: Brakes, Driveline, Suspension
After recovering most of Saturday from a big night out with the boys on Friday, Roy said he'd be in at the workshop so I trundled in around lunch time to do some work on the car.
The intention was to put some of the rear end together and get the brake and fuel lines bolted back up. So, once I got there my first job was to find a fuel tank - after checking a few cuts out the back, I found one on a car up the back of the workshop in top condition - no hits. Next I dragged the brake and fuel lines out and gave them a quick wipe down with some prepsol. Once clean, slid them back under and after a bit of cursing, had them bolted into position with the newly coated bolts. Looked great.
Next was the rear end. I had brought some old bits of carpet from home a few weeks before so I layed out a few bits so I didn't scratch any of the new paint on the concrete floors. I man handled the sub-frame out from under the car, and layed it over the differential which I then...damn I didn't get the nuts coated for the diff. After a quick sandblast I bolted the diff up. This was followed by the arms. It was only now I noticed I didn't get all the bits I needed for the diff to bolt up - missing were some rubber gromets and spacers. So I moved onto the hubs and hub assemblies, where I sandblasted the bolts, layed on some anti-sieze paste and bolted hub, brake disc shield, handbrake bracket and hub assembly together.
Sorry about no pics, but that's about when Roy was closing up shop and I didn't get a chance to snap a few off.
Oh, and I received my Cusco OST Brace in the mail from JDM Concept. Cost $190 for this brace which extends my Cusco OS Rear Strut Brace down to a bracket on the floor, essentially triangulating the brace for better stiffness. Will post some pics once it's been painted the same as the other braces.
Bye for now.
Brendan
Friday, 21 July 2006 | | Categories: Brakes, Driveline
Here's a pic of the R33 GT-R hubs I cleaned up and painted last week. These will match up with the GT-R half-shafts and of course the 5-stud hubs I have for the front.
Also mentioned previously that I straightened and painted up the R33 GT-R rear brakes disc shields, so here's a pics, along with one of my new rear DBA4000 rotors sitting inside it. Fronts are on back-order from Victoria.
- DBA4000 4929 (Front of Disc)
- DBA4000 4929 (Back of Disc)
- DBA4000 4929 (Box)
Front DBA4000 Specifications:
- Model: DBA 4928S (S = Slotted)
- Diameter: 324mm
- Thickness: 30mm (Minimum 28mm)
Front DBA4000 Specifications:
- Model: DBA 4929S (S = Slotted)
- Diameter: 300mm
- Thickness: 22mm (Minimum 20mm)
This discs are specified to be used with the R32 GT-R V-spec, R33 GT-R and R34 GT-R Brembo brakes which I have. Back to the workshop tomorrow for (fingers crossed) some bolting things together.
Cheers
Brendan
Tuesday, 11 July 2006 | | Categories: Driveline, Suspension
Dropped into C-Red today to check on some parts I left drying over the weekend. All looked good. While there, Roy and I quickly changed over the driveshaft flange on the GT-R diff to one from an S13 diff to match up with the S13 drive shaft (funny that). We also fitted the nice shiny rear cover (and new gasket) and the results speak for themselves.
- GT-R Diff with S13 Rear Cover 1
- GT-R Diff with S13 Rear Cover 2
Also put back together (after painting) the braces I got in last week - being the Do-Luck 'Style' Ladder bar brace, which ties the chassis rails together around the front section of the gearbox, and the rear lower tie rod brace, which ties the lower tie rods together where they bolt up to the somewhat thin part of the rear subframe. Look good don't they.
- Do-Luck 'Style' Ladder bar brace (Front Chassis Brace)
- Rear Lower Tie Rod Brace
Over this period of pulling apart the rear end, I've slowly been gathering an assorted of nuts and bolts - all looking a little tardy, so I grabbed the box that I was collecting them in, chucked in all the other assorted nuts and bolts around the car, and dropped the box off to the Zinc Coaters. Have asked to be ready on Saturday so I can bolt the stuff together.
Cheers
Brendan
Monday, 10 July 2006 | | Categories: Driveline, Suspension
First of all, no I haven't been slacking off. I have been doing work on the car, but it's really restricted to Saturday's and sometimes a little of Sunday's...would make a good reason why it's taking so long to finish the car too.
Couple of weeks ago on Saturday (wife calls it Saturday morning creche), it was time to get the rear sub-assemblies off (otherwise known as Hub Carrier or Spindle I believe). This was a right pain in the a$$. After the half shafts being in them for over a decade, they were well and truly stuck fast. After plenty of Rost Off, belting with a hammer and one worse for wear half shaft, the shaft finally broke free of the sub-assembly. That was just one side...thankfully the drivers side came free with only 10 or so bashes with the hammer.
While I was at it, I removed the rear arms for cleanup and paint. Now although these won't be fitted to the final product, I thought I'd make sure they were at least worthy of being bolted up temporarily.
You may recall me doing the diff and half-shafts from an R33 GT-R a few weeks ago, well as planned, I found an S13 Rear Diff Cover which didn't have too many munted fins and prepped and painted it. I started out with just a coat of VHT Cast Aluminium paint, but thought why not a coat of clear to make it easier to clean (same theory as brakes - smooth surface, easier to clean). So on went 3 coats of clear and the results were great. So great I also hit the gearbox housing and the new Trust Sump with the same treatment.
- S13 Diff Housing 1
- S13 Diff Housing 2
- Nissan Differential Gasket
- Trust Sump - painted Cast Aluminium and Clear
Last week I finally took delivery of my new Nismo Power Brace, rear lower tension-rod brace and Do-Luck 'Style' Ladder Bar brace (goes under the gearbox and ties the chassis rails together). The Power Brace will stay its standard Nismo silver, but the other two braces were a mix of blue and polished alloy. These have now been painted Satin Black as per the rest of the under body parts.
- S13 Nismo Power Brace
- Do-Luck 'Style' Ladder Bar Brace (crap photo)
With all these bits painted and ready to go, it's almost time to bolt some of this stuff onto the car! Doh, just remembered I need to get all the bolts zinc coated first...
Cheers
Brendan
Thursday, 22 June 2006 | | Categories: Brakes, Engine, Driveline, Paint
A couple of weeks ago I had to remove a diff for the project from a subframe. This item was from an R33 Skyline GT-R and is a Viscous LSD. Unfortunately it was at the back of the workshop under another two fully loaded subframes. It took a good 30 minutes just to move the one I wanted into a clear area and another hour to remove the differential and half-shafts from the subframe...ugh! I hurt myself in a number of ways while doing this. The reason for going the GT-R diff route rather than a mechanical is that this will be daily and 'grip' driving fun car, not an all out 'drifter', and secondly, I'm running short of funds to purchase a $1500 diff - there's other more important stuff to still get yet.
Once I got the diff and half-shafts home, it was time for a quick de-rust of the diff housing before a rust inhibitor primer and a few coats of the satin black. Looks good too. The rear cover will be replaced with a prepped and painted S13 Silvia one, and the front yoke will be changed to suit the driveshaft. As for the half-shafts, there wasn't so much rust as there was baked-on grease covering the boots. I had a quick go with the prepsol and discovered that with a bit of elbow grease, removal of the nasty grease coating resulted in a new looking boot. Took about 45mins for each half-shaft but the result was worth it, a quick mask and paint and the half shafts were done. At the same time as doing these, I also cleaned and painted up the drive shaft. It's looking pretty schmick, but for the life of my I can't find any photos.
- GT-R Differential Top
- GT-R Differential Bottom
- GT-R Half Shafts
- GT-R Half Shafts Boot closeup
Now another list on the prep list were the Brembos. These are items I kept from the R32 Skyline GT-R that I wrote off a couple of years ago now. They were in top condition and once I decided on colour scheme, it was time for a quick clean and mask followed by 3 coats of the Silver base coat (using VHT Caliper - Cast Aluminium paint). I've now masked up for the new logos to be painted in Red and finally I'll run another 3 coats of the new VHT Clear Gloss Caliper Paint to make it nice and easy to clean the brakes after the hard yards.
- Brembos Prepped and Ready for Paint
- Front Brembo - VHT Cast Aluminium base coat
- Rear Brembo - VHT Cast Aluminium base coat
- All Brembo - hanging in the cupboard
- Front Brembo - Logo Mask
- Rear Brembo - Logo Mask
I couldn't help myself and wait another day to paint the red logo, so have done up a quick and dirty mockup in Photoshop.
Onto another item now. I originally had a China Trust 'Copy' Sump installed on my engine, but after just sitting there for quite a few months, there's evidence of oil leaking. As such, I decided to purchase a genuine Trust/GReddy Oil Pan/Sump. Paid $510 for this from Tanghy on SilviaWA new (thanks Andrew).
- Trust Sump (Top)
- Trust Sump (Bottom)
- Trust Sump (Parts)
Will post up a shot of the Brembo's once finished (like you knew I would anyway).
Cheers
Brendan
Tuesday, 6 June 2006 | | Categories: Exterior, Driveline, Paint
Nothing much to report really, I went in and finished up the underside on Saturday and completed up to the front of the chassis rails (removed front bar to do this). I've now got the all the Brembo's off the Pig now, so will be cleaning and painting them sometime this week. At the moment the plan is to go silver with red Brembo logos - still not sure if these will be painted on or stickered on with a clear over coat.
Next on the prep list is the driveshaft, differential (GT-R) and half-shafts (also GT-R). These are still at the workshop for the time being because if I bring too many parts home the wife gets a little miffed which is quite understandable.
Would have done more work on the car over the weekend, but had to get the bathroom and laundry ready for the tiler starting today. This job was a real paint in the arm. I had already removed the tiles, but that left the adhesive still intact. So out with the bolster and hammer on the walls (hit my hand several times), and them my trusty Ozito jack hammer on the floor. All up I was going at it for 10hrs straight over the weekend.
Oh, and I've decided to not much around with the clutch and have an OS Giken STR Twin-plate on order.
The New OS Giken STR series can handle up to 600hp, yet retains drivability very close to standard with 30% lighter pedal effort than most multi-plate clutches. By using special new plate and diaphragm designs, OS Giken has achieved ample power handling with just 715kg clamping pressure. This makes the STR series perfect for everyday driving applications, along with most race and drift applications.
The clutches come complete with lightweight chrome-moly flywheel, ruby red-anodised billet aluminium clutch cover and the required bearing/carrier set or pull-push converter kit where required.
On blog matters, I've managed to secure the use of www.sillbeer.com as a domain and am just awaiting the owner to redirect the DNS records to my server before I move the blog over to it. Stay tuned.
Enough for now, more next week.
Cheers
Brendan
Tuesday, 9 May 2006 | | Categories: Engine, Exterior, Driveline, Paint
Yeah, I know, lame title, but it's hard to keep coming up with new witty titles all the time 
Well after the unfortunate failure of the SD (memory) card in my camera on Saturday, I got another on Monday and scooted out to C-Red to get some replacement pics. It really feels like I'm getting somewhere now, with attention turning to the underside/chassis. Enjoy these pics:
- Front View
- Front View (driver side)
- Front Quarter 1 (driver side)
- Front Quarter 2 (driver side)
- Side View 1 (driver side)
- Side View 2 (driver side)
- Rear View
- Rear View (passenger side)
- Rear Quarter (passenger side)
- Rear Quarter (driver side)
Next up is the arrival of my B&M; Inline Oil Thermostat (in the plastic bag), which I purchased from 'spandex' (who now has a website of his own as well - www.midnightmods.com.au) on the NissanSilvia.com forums (highly recommend the great service you'll get). This will make up along with the oil filter sandwich plates and the remote oil filter mount, the main part of my oil cooler setup. Still to get will be the oil cooler core which will probably be a top quality Serco unit from Go Gear in Mt Hawthorn. Once it's all mounted, I'll get the Earls lines made up to suit again with the Black connectors rather than the standard blue and red ones.
Another item to arrive recently through C-Red was this B&M; Short Shifter for the S13 gearbox. This will reduce the throw required on gear changes, making way for quicker times on the track when needed. This will mount up on the gearbox which has been resprayed, but may be powder coated instead now.
- B&M; Short Shifter for S13 (top)
- B&M; Short Shifter for S13 (bottom)
And finally, I received my new URAS S13 Chassis Rail from Japan. I ordered this through 'BT-Revolution' on the NissanSilvia.com forums and again I recommend this trader as I was taken care of very well. Now, why do I need a chassis rail, well if you've ever peeked under the S13, you notice that the passenger side chassis rail doesn't run all the way to the rear before supporting the rear sub-frame. Well this item bolts up and completes the missing rail, increasing chassis rigidity. For the rest of the chassis, I already have the Cusco strut tower bars, Zenith A-Pillar braces and the Zenith rear boot brace, I'm still looking into tying parts of the gearbox tunnel together along with a front castor rod chassis brace of some sort (either small brace or Nismo Power Brace).
Well hope you enjoyed this Mega May update, should be accelerating the amount being done to the car now that it's back in my possession (so to speak).
Cheers
Brendan
(aka. Grandpa [SWA], Sillbeer [NS] or VSPEC32 [SAU])
Monday, 19 December 2005 | | Categories: Driveline, Paint
This post won't win the award for the most exciting, but it's progress nonetheless. A couple of weeks ago I decided to start prepping a gearbox ready to be bolted up to the engine. Not wanting to have an ugly oily mess I thought it best to clean one up and paint it. Josh from C-Red said the easiest way to sort it would be to clean up just the housings, then build up a gearbox (thereby also checking components for wear etc).
So I set up degreasing, then acid dipping. Unfortunately the acid dipping didn't quite have the affect I wanted (ie. cleaning up to new condition) as can be seen in the first photo below. The next best thing was to jump on the sandblasting box and give the housings a good once over. The results are clearly seen in the second photo below. Finally once both were pressure washed and air blown dry from sand etc, a couple of coats of VHT engine paint in aluminium colour was applied.
Here's the results of my efforts:
- Gearbox housings after acid wash
- Bell housing sandblasted
- Finally painted
I know you don't see the gearbox, but being the slightly anal bastard I am, I know it's there - so it best be clean and look like new. Dally would be proud.
Cheers
Brendan
