KGC10 Skyline 2000GT Build

[Babalouie]

If anyone hasn't got their hands on a copy of the March Super Street, the full article is on their website now: http://www.superstreetonline.com/features/sstp_1203_1971_nissan_skyline_2000gt_kcg10/viewall.html

[Babalouie]

My good friend Mark at HoonTV has released another video on the Hako :)

 

[Babalouie]

Just in case anyone had thought that I'd forgotten about this car.. :) I haven't been doing much work on it lately, but it is getting driven a lot, so don't worry I haven't forgotten about it :D

 

One recent little project I had was to replace the rather patinated old Omori oil pressure gauge. Sure, it still worked fine, but was looking a little beaten up, and having had the Omori water temp gauge (that came with the car) fail on me, I thought I'd do an upgrade.

 

Being an Omori, it's a mechanical gauge, which means that there is a tube that runs from the engine block...

 

...inside the car and right to the back of the gauge. The oil inside the tube pushes on a diaphragm, which then pushes the needle around the gauge. Very simple and interestingly, the tube doesn't get hot at all, even though there is a small amount of engine oil inside it.

 

The replacement is this, an electronic VDO gauge, which doesn't use the oil-tube system, but rather has an electronic sender.

 

The sender screws to the side of the block, and you wire it up to the back of the gauge.

 

Wiring up the gauge was pretty easy, a long time ago I fitted one of these Narva mini fuseboxes. I run a main power wire to it that's switched to ACC on the key, and whenever you need an accessory power source, you just pop in a blade fuse and plug in a wire. Very convenient for things like wiring up gauges, wideband sensors and stuff.

 

And without further ado, the VDO gauge burst into life!

 

The elation was short-lived though, because as the oil got hot, the idle oil pressure began to drop to zero. And the oil pressure on the move dropped from a max of 55psi to 35psi.

 

This had never happened before, so I suspected that the VDO sender was a dud....sure enough, with the old Omori re-fitted, hot idle oil pressure returned to 15psi (as it should be for an L-series) and on the move, max pressure was 55psi, whether hot or cold.

 

From chatting with our esteemed JNC Technical Editor Datsunfreak, it seems that electronic pressure gauges aren't as accurate as mechanical ones like the Omori, but this sender was clearly a dud, and VDO seems to have a problem with their stock. This dud one is actually the second sender I bought. The first one was new and boxed, but was obviously used, since the threads were oily and it had bits of thread tape on it :) I handed that back to the shop straight away, and they ordered me a new one, but I get the feeling that someone is playing silly buggers, and is replacing bad ones for good and returning them to the shop. Oh well, I guess this is a sign from the resto-gods that the Omori is meant to stay :D

 

The other thing that I did recently was something I had wanted for a long time. A real 2000GT-R looks like this inside (I took this pic at the Tokyo Nostalgic Show a few years ago):

 

The 2000GT-R, even though it was twice as expensive as the most expensive "normal" Skyline of the day, was a real stripped out, basic motorsport homologation car. It had no heater, no carpets (just the taxi-pack vinyl mat)...and no radio. It just had this plate over where the Hitachi radio normally lives. When I fitted the Becker Europa stereo last year, I was pretty stoked with how it looked...but it always grated on me that I had this redundant radio at the top of the dash, too. The slot at the top of the dash wasn't DIN-sized, so moving the Becker up there wasn't an option.

 

Now when I first bought my car in 2007, I remember that all the restoration shops offered the 2000GT-R radio blanking plate as a repro. But by the time I realised I wanted one, they were all gone. Luckily, the repros are being made again, and I snapped one up from Yahoo Auctions, thanks to my friend Ryan. And what a beautiful looking thing it is.

 

Fitting it isn't the work of a moment though. First you have to remove the old radio, which means that the centre stack has to come out. So it begins with delicately removing all the knobs from the ventilation controls and radio.

 

Remove a few retaining nuts from the radio and fan knobs..

 

Undo the cables that run from the ventilation controls to the heater box, remove a few screws and the centre stack can slide off

 

Then the radio has to be removed (it's located by a single screw on the side, which you can just about access from under the dash)

 

And out that comes too.

 

The radio plate just screws in place through the holes left by the radio controls, and it looks just great!

[Rustbucket]

These are hands down one of the most stylish cars in existance. Taking a longer than anticipated lunch to finish reading your whole build! :)

[JZ33]

When I see an update, or even just a picture of this car:

 

 

BEAUTIFUL car and amazing work!

[Babalouie]

Since we've decided to keep the old Omori gauge, I decided to tidy up something. You see, when the Japanese owner decided to deck out the whole car with a million gauges...

 

They had to make room for all those Omori tubes to feed through the firewall. So they took a cold chisel...and made this er...anatomically curious hole :) The thing is, it protrudes 7mm from the firewall, so putting a flat plate over it won't work, and the funny shape of the er...hole...means that a grommet won't fit neatly into it.

 

Years ago, after I removed most of the gauges, I plugged up the (now gaping) hole with this rubber mushroom, and it's done the job for a long time. But now that we're keeping the Omori, I thought I'd make a bit more of an effort :D So I start with a piece of 1mm aluminium

 

And this, my bead roller. I've had it for a few years, but don't use it much.

 

It comes with a set of different rollers, and when you feed sheetmetal through it and turn a handle on the end, it can roll a round bead (like say for the ends of intercooler pipes) or a step like this. The kit comes with a few different sized steps, and this is the medium-sized one:

 

I start off with rolling a shallow step.

 

Then I put on the biggest stepped rollers, and if I space them apart a little, and pull down on the left side of the sheetmetal as I roll it, you get this nice, domed shape. I'll be the first to admit that there's definitely a knack to using one of these, and I'm just making this up as I go along...so if anyone has tips on how to do it properly, they would be welcome :D

 

After it's shaped, I rough out the shape I want with tinsnips, then clean up the edges on the belt sander, and then a little with a handfile for the bits the belt sander couldn't reach.

 

Then make a central hole with a step drill...

 

Pop in a rubber grommet, and give it a big of a polish (not necessarily in that order...)

 

And here we are!

 

I'm thinking it looks a little...rustic...:) but it'll do the job until i figure out how to use the bead roller properly. It's mostly hidden behind the brake booster hose anyhoo :)

[Babalouie]

Recently, I've noticed a little coolant weep between cylinder 4 and 5, about here. You can't see it now, but sometimes there's a little droplet right there:

 

Now just over a year ago, the head gasket blew at the racetrack, and it looked like this:

 

Not wanting to have a repeat of this, I tried to think of reasons why there might be a bit of a leak there, and a friend suggested that maybe I should try retorquing the head. Well you never know...so first the strut brace and the throttle cable have to come off.

 

Then the rocker cover can be removed...

 

And everything under there looks as it should, after 15,000kms, Tony Knight's handiwork on the head still looks new...in the middle of the pic you'll notice the 12-point nut for the ARP head stud kit that I fitted last year. We'll be loosening these, and retightening them again.

 

One of the possible theories is that maybe my Old Faithful Torque Wrench isn't so accurate anymore. That's the one at the top of this pic (which is the common kind that everyone has). I've had it for about 20yrs now, and during that time it's been abused and never been recalibrated. You see, this kind of wrench relies on an internal coil spring and various spring loaded gubbins inside, and over time they can lose their accuracy and need to be calibrated.

 

But the new one is a really nice, aussie-made Warren & Brown unit, which is reassuringly oldschool. Basically it simply relies on its shaft bending under torque when you tighten a bolt.

 

To set the desired torque, you slide that black triangle thing back and forth, and the tighter the setting, the further to the right it goes (and hence the more the shaft has to bend). When that conical thing on the bottom touches the black triangle, it pops some internal spring loaded device and makes an audible click. So this kind can never go out of adjustment, as long as its used appropriately, and is a really nice thing to hold.

 

First, I loosen every head nut a 1/4 turn, starting with the ones at the firewall end. Then I loosen the ones at the radiator end, and work my way towards the middle (this is the sequence according to the factory manual).

 

Then, to retighten...do the opposite, and start in the middle and work outwards. I start off with tightening all of them in sequence to 40ft-lbs, and then do a second round to take it up to 60.

 

And the verdict? :) Well it seems that Old Faithful is perhaps not really all that faithful anymore, because 60 pounds on the old wrench actually turned out to be 40! With the new wrench, the nuts took almost an extra quarter of a turn tighter at 60ft-lbs. I'll keep an eye on that coolant weep, but I presume that clamping the head 50% tighter isn't going to hurt...and Old Faithful is now enjoying a well-earned retirement in the Garbage Bin of Shame :D

 

But while everything is apart, it's a good time to give the rocker cover a bit of spit and polish...

 

And it's all looking good again :)

[Topher88]

awesome

[Tomakze]

This car is so incredible... I wish I had a car that was half as nice! I am sorta living vicariously through you, just so you know. :D

[Babalouie]

It's been a busy few months for car shows with the Hako, with Showcased a few weeks ago, and the Motographix Show and Shine at World Time Attack in a few weeks. But for this weekend, the Hako will be shown at Meguiars Motorex

Tonight was the bump-in, and the Hako is safely tucked in with the rest of the cars from Sydney All-Stars and Zen Garage.

I had a chance to do a quick wander around the halls tonight while everyone was setting up, and it's shaping up to be an awesome show.

Can't wait to get there tomorrow and check out the rest of the show properly.

Motorex is one of the highlights of the calendar, so I'm super-stoked to be allowed to have my car there.

If you see me at the Zen Garage stand, make sure you come and say hello :)

[Babalouie]

It's been a pretty hectic past few months with the Hako being in a few car shows (it's never been polished so often in its life!) and this weekend marks the last show until the Sydney Datsun Day in November.

On Saturday, the Hako will be on display at the Motographics Show and Shine, as part of the World Time Attack round at Sydney Motorsports Park. For the first time, the car show will have a vintage JDM section, and I'm stoked that the Hako can take part. So if you're at Eastern Creek on Saturday, come and say hello!

http://www.worldtimeattack.com/index.php/motographics-shownshine-the-biggest-yet/

[Babalouie]

Super-stoked that Performance Garage Issue#2 is on sale at your favourite newsagent now :) I urge you all to go out and buy it (if you are in Australia, that is) :D

 

Congratulations to Adrian, Jason, Dave, Daniel, Ryan and the rest of the PG guys for putting out such a great mag. IMHO it's nice for a car mag to be unafraid of telling a story with words instead of just pictures, and I'm over the moon with Dave Carter's article on the Hako, which spans 9 pages and 4000+ words and of course some EPIC photography from Jason Gynn :D

 

Well done guys, and thanks for having my cars in it :D (oh, and for those not in Australia, here's a little peek)

[Babalouie]

For those of you who have been too busy to rush out and buy Issue #2 of Performance Garage Magazine :lol: They have put up a video and a short article on their blog:

http://www.performancegarage.com.au/blog/vid-real-jdm-enthusiast

[mcmlxxxv]

your car leave me speechless ! congrats for the featuring ! you did a perfect work . :thumbup:

[Babalouie]

Great news, everyone!

The Hako will be on display at Eastern Creek on the weekend of the 9th and 10th of March, thanks to our good friends at Motor Magazine.

Motor Magazine will have a collection of cars at the Motoring Village section of the pits, and the plan is for the Hako and an R35 to be on display together.  Come and say hello :)
 

 

For those who don't already know, the TG Festival looks like a great weekend of petrolhead fun, more details here: http://http://www.topgearfestivalsydney.com.au/  So for any Sydney guys, hope to see you there!

[Dattokai]

How am I barely finding this thread now? 

[Babalouie]

Y'know, sometimes life overtakes you a little, and the next thing you know...you haven't driven your pride and joy for eight months! :) 

That's the situation that I found myself faced with...after World Time Attack last September, I drove the car back into the garage, set it up on ramps, and went back into the house to have some dinner...with every intention to come back down and do some spannering after din-dins.  Anyway, I never did come back down to the garage after dinner :lol: and eight months later, I'm dropping the car off the ramps again :)

One thing that I always seem to hear, is that modern fuels have gone all environmentally-friendly, and as a result they don't hold up well to long term storage anymore.  Over time, it's meant to turn into this brown goop that gums everything up.  So as a first step, I renew the pre pump fuel filter (who knows what's going to come out of the tank)...

Then I unplug the fuel line in the engine bay, and run the fuel pump for a while.  And what comes out...looks clean and clear to me.

Just in case...I install a new pre-carb fuel filter.

The tank's probably got 15 litres of the old stuff in it, so I top it off with a fresh slug of BP's finest.

Then crank the engine over a few times with the ignition unplugged to get the oil circulating...and...turn the key!

After a nice long drive to get everything up to temperature, dump the old oil out, which looked really black and nasty.

I have to say, that I find it easy to forget what a great car this is.  My other car's an air cooled 911, and everything that ppl say about those things is true: they really are the everyday sports car, and after a while it's like that comfy pair of jeans that you end up wearing everywhere.  But the Hako's character is so different.  It's a lot simpler, and I suppose, more "honest" in its personality...but in its power and its sound...just wow. 

Even after 6yrs of ownership I still get a shock and a buzz out of it.  This never gets old.

The only casualty of the car's hibernation seems to be that one of the rubber elements of the door latch has disintegrated, and the door won't latch closed without it.

For the time being, I've stolen the one from the passenger door (I just have to remember not to open it, until I get a new one!)

But thankfully, it looks like 510s have something pretty similar, so I'll give Baz and Tracy a call at Datsport on Monday to get one sent up:  http://datsport.com/body-rubber-door-latch.html

Gotta get the car ship-shape for Top gear Festival next weekend :D

[Babalouie]

Many thanks to Motor Magazine (Australia's best performance car mag!) for inviting the Hako to be part of the festivities at the Top Gear Festival in Sydney last weekend.

So without further ado, the Hako has to get prettied up for the occasion, so late on Friday night, she gets a bath and a well-deserved coat of polish.

Which didn't leave much opportunity for sleep, before the 5am wakeup call to get down to Sydney Motorsports Park for the bump-in.  The TG organisers were quite strict about it, and all the vehicles in the show had to be inside prior to 7am.  What you can't see, are the dozens and dozens of cars lined up behind, and the small army of ppl marshalling the ensuing chaos into some semblance of order.

It just so happened that I got there a bit earlier than the Motor guys, so it was a great opportunity to park up and watch everything go together.

Some Unreasonably Priced Cars.

Hako would be on display at the Motor Magazine stand, which was in the "Supercar" part of of the grounds.

So our immediate neighbours are "Stig's Supercars", and I have to say that our white suited friend must obviously do quite well for himself :)  Apart from the F40, there were also representatives from Koenigsegegegegegg, Pagani, Lambo, and McLaren.

Hulking next to the F40, is this scratchbuilt creation, which is a mockup at this stage, but is planned to have 1000hp V16 power one day (from two LS1 Chevs mated together and presumbaly turbocharged).

And this would be home for the rest of the weekend!

The Hako has been to plenty of shows, but nothing as big as the TG Festival, which I think, had 50,000 visitors through the gates during the weekend.  As a result, I didn't actually manage to get out and about to check out the show that much, but it's always a real privilege to talk to all the nice people who wanted to come and chat about the Hako.  It really still blows me away, that so many people know so much about this car that was never sold outside of Japan, and want to see and touch it.

Sharing space with the Hako at the Motor Mag stand, were two Velosters kindly supplied by Hyundai, the one on the right being their drooltastic tarmac rally car.

And our other neighbours were Deus Ex Machina, the super-cool Sydney custom bike abd lifestyle shop.

Deus certainly put their best foot forward, with a huge collection of pretty bikes, some muscle racers, and their ultra-cool vintage mobile home.

Elsewhere in the grounds was a huge area set aside for car club displays.

The Sydney muscle car scene is very strong, and they always turn up in big numbers.

But overall, the TG Festival is based around a schedule of track events, like Radical, GT, and Muscle Car racing.  Interspersed during the day, were demonstrations by the drift guys....um, they're in there...somewhere.

So the pits (which you were free to roam) was chock full of eye candy.

[Babalouie]

• 

  ex-Alan Jones' William F1 car.  Would you believe that the Hako was stored overnight next to this thing?  The other occupants of the 4 car lockup was the Red Bull F1 car, and the Lexus LF-A.

  

  Speaking of Red Bull, local hero Mark Webber was on hand to go out and try to set the lap record, which naturally...it did quite handsomely. 

  

  There were also plenty of top-level drag cars on hand, to do burnouts and wheelies down the main straight.

  

  Some of the other sideshows included various stunt displays on the skidpan

  

  A driving test where you could (very slowly) have a go at the latest Volvo

  

  A Land Rover thing where you could go for rides on a pretty hairy looking offroad course..

  

  Plus lots of cool little things, like RC car racing challenges (there was a tarmac one, too) with a leaderboard that provided lots of competition during the day.

  

  It was basically, like being trapped inside an episode of TG!  There was heaps of other stuff that I didn't go to see, like a F1 vs touring car vs superbike race, a touring car vs acrobatic plane race, plus the usual whacky TG stuff, like Clarkson and May playing car-soccer in modified Reliant Robins, tanks crushing caravans, you know the score :D

  All in all a great weekend, and everybody else obviously thought so too, since it seemed that 50% of Sydney's population was there :D

  Oh...remember those rubber spacers on my door latches which busted?  Tracy from Datsport was kind enough to express post a pair of new 510 ones to me, which were pretty close, but slightly smaller than the Hako ones.

  

  They do fit though, with a little stretching....I don't think this is a long term solution, but it works for now.  I guess that's as good a reason as any, to order some more parts from Japan :D

  

[72240z]

Wow that looks like a blast! I wish we had something like there where I live. 

[DAT510]

Ugh your Hako is so perfect. 

I swear its the utmost thing I desire. 

[Babalouie]

Eager eBay watchers might have noticed this reasonably-priced car come up for sale recently:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1972-Nissan-Skyline-Hakosuka-2000-GT-Red-manual-Coupe-/111028247489?pt=AU_Cars&hash=item19d9cc9bc1

You might recognise it as the red coupe that was for sale at the Edward Lee dealership in Sydney, which was sold a few months ago, and its enthusiastic owner has confirmed that this eBay ad is a scam.  Hope nobody's being taken in by this, but the current real owner has already notified eBay that it's fake.

[72240z]

23.5k BIN and no feedback lol surrrrrrre. 

[Burabuda]

Eager eBay watchers might have noticed this reasonably-priced car come up for sale recently:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1972-Nissan-Skyline-Hakosuka-2000-GT-Red-manual-Coupe-/111028247489?pt=AU_Cars&hash=item19d9cc9bc1

You might recognise it as the red coupe that was for sale at the Edward Lee dealership in Sydney, which was sold a few months ago, and its enthusiastic owner has confirmed that this eBay ad is a scam.  Hope nobody's being taken in by this, but the current real owner has already notified eBay that it's fake.

thx for the heads up baba, but this is ratsun and 99% of us couldn't afford it whether it's a scam or no

(but we do have a guy who collects dealer plate frames)

[Babalouie]

Well, you never know :D

 

That car had a $54k sticker on it at the Edward Lee dealership, so the $23k buy it now price pretty much falls into the "too good to be true" basket :)