My 1995 GTR project thread.

[R33-East]

What color temp HID's did you get? I am looking to get some to as the stock one's are not very bright. From what I have read there will be a serious amount of glare for oncoming traffic. Have you had any trouble with this since you installed them?

Here's the kit I am looking at, http://www.vvme.com/hid-headlights/s...conversion-kit

[S13Jordie]

Those threaded holes on the rotors are a lifesaver.

[PurpleStreak]

This thread is inspiring and I'm sure it will be a great reference down the road for me as well..I am glad you choose to spend your evenings like this, that way there's more information for us and parts to drool over!

[cortexx]

wheel bearing replacement .

I appologise in advance for the very basic explanations in the following sections. I appreciate that most forum members could probably do this with their eyes shut . But after searching the web i could find no info on replacing the front wheel bearings on a GTR .

After posting a question in the general tech area on the same subject , i had more than a few people msg me requesting a detailed overview of the job - so here it is !

Now most people spend the evening watching TV , playing world of warcraft (horde ftw btw) , or masterbating to pornos . I spend my evenings like this




Now the forks cruise is over with and the drumming noise on the 407 was really grating on my nerves . So with a pair of new wheel bearings i decided to fix the issue! new bearing set with circlips and seals and a nice shiney impact 3/4 inch metric socket set from princess auto



Jacked upt he front of the car and secured it with a couple of axle stands. I then removed the wheels which I promptly remounted and let the car back down once i realized that the 36mm castleated nut on the end of the drive shaft is a hell of alot easier to remove with the car weight stopping the wheel turning .

removal of the locking cover :-



removal of the giant 36mm nut





Once the large nut was removed , it was jack upthe car time again and removal of the wheels again. Now it was time to remove the front brake calipers to facilitate the removal of the rotor.

There are 2 brackets that hold the brake line to the knuckle assembly , these have to be detached so that the line is free to move. There is also a bracket the runs behind the top balljoint. This has to be removed to allow the lines to be moved.

Once this was done i removed the split pins that keep the pad pins in place then removed the pad pins while keeping my finger on the pad tensioner spring , If you don't do this (i didn't on the first caliper), you'll spend about 10 minutes looking for the spring that just shot across your workshop..



Once thats done used a pipe wrench to press the pistons back into the caliper so that my new pads will have more clearance to be installed on re-assembly later. NOTE - if you do this you might want to drain some of the fluid from the brake resevoir so that it does not spill over and strip the point in your engine bay!

I usually wrap a large rag around the filler of the resevoir to prevent this happening.

Once this is done i removed the pads and squeak shims and immediately found out why my passeneger brake has always squeaked - notice how the pad and shim were installed by the previous owner ?





Once the caliper is removed , either suspend it with a zip tie OR leave it dangling on the ground as long as the line is not under alot of stress ( i was working pretty close to the ground so i chose the latter .

ALSO this is a good idea to remove the abs sensor to make sure it doesn't become damaged. Tie this up out of the way!

Next up is rotor removal , you can either beat it with a hammer or a neumatic chisel like i usually do , or you can be less of a meat head and use a bolt to press it off using the 2 tapped holes in the rotor :-



once the rotor was off i checked thickness across its radias to make sure it was within spec , was actually pretty happy with their condition .

this is what i was faced with after the rotor was removed :-



time now to remove the knuckle or hub assembly ( or so i thought )

the bottom ball joint assembly is held on with 2 studs and nuts - remove them.



then remove the tie rod end , this is a friction fit. First remove it's split pin and castleated nut, then either whack the knuckle where the tierod inserts - or realise that an aluminium casting is not going to stand too much whacking and instead use an air chisel with a blunt flat on it to seperate the ball joint and the knuckle.

do the same with the upper ball joint . Because the drive shaft is going to get in the way of the nut on the upper balljoint i left this to last. This means i was able to grab the knuckle and pull it out enough and push the driveshaft back in far enough that i could get clearance behind to use a 1/2 inch ratchet and socket to remove it. I stuffed a small piece of wood between the knuckle and the cv joint to help - worked a treat.

Once this was done i could pull out the knuckle assembly



after a dose of brake cleaner it looked alot better



the car now looks like this :-



Now .. this is where you can save time from my over exuberance.

Went to brantford nissan today to see my friend who is going to press out the bearings . He took a quick look at the knuckle and said ... cant press out the bearing until you remove the wheel flange because once of the car there is no way to secure the knuckle so that the flange can be pressed out without damaging anything.

W T F .....!

So he leant me his snapon slide hammer and sent me home

I remounted the knuckle on the car with the top and bottom balljoints but didnt attach anything else , bolted the slide hammer to 3 of the wheel studs and proceeded to smack the flange out.

When the flange came out , it still had half the bearing on it - but at least it was out

Then i removed the knuckle sans the wheel flange and packed it ready for return to the press.

The Drivers side was next, armed with recent experience from the passeneger side i dismantelled down to the point where i caould slide hammer the flange out only ........ after an hour of beating the crap out of it - it didnt move. Sooo having acquired some bruised palms i decided to call it a night , not sure how i'm going to get over this hurdle though so i'll keep you posted .

[collector240sx]

Nice info there Cortexx,

But I'm thinking that he wanted to said, that he buys the concentrated stuff and mix it him self and not the 50/50 already mix that sell for the same price. Might just be wishful thinking tho.

Other useful bit, 100% antifreeze WILL freeze if it gets cold enough (lower than -30 but not sure exact temp. probably vary a little by brand too (diff. additive)).

Edit: Was told that diesel antifreeze was better then the regular stuff. Because of the way diesel engine work and how they can have real high temp in concentrated area, was told that regular antifreeze could boil in the same condition. Haven't confirm this info yet, but did come from a guy I hold in high regards when I have any question.
I can't remember exactly now since this is from a while ago, but if my memory serves me correctly ford started using essentially diesel antifreeze around 2005 (basically silica base antifreeze). Please fell free to correct me if I'm way off, where talking about chit chat going back 3 years ago.

[MarusGTR]

And you would expect just water to be the best coolant - but you need a lubricant in the system to lube the water pump or it will leak. Antifreeze also contains corrosion inhibitors .

Forgot to mention, I was speaking of deionized water, which you can find at Can Tire. Without a charged ion suspension, there's no electrolysis to create corrosion.

You would need to flush often because contamination would eventually reionize the water, but my mix advice was for a performance application.

[frankiman]

^^ 95% deionized water + 5% water wetter

[cortexx]

The coolant should consist of 50% water and 50% antifreeze , antifreeze by itself is not an effective coolant , it's basically a lubicant.
When you mix antifreeze and water you end up with a very fine suspension of water droplets in the antifreeze.

When the temp drops below freezing the water droplets still freeze but it retains an apparent liquid consistancy due to to size of the frozen droplets. If you were to look at coolant at -10 deg c under a microscope you would see microscopic frozen water droplets. The Ethyl glycol is just medium they can exist in and slide past each other to retain liquid like properties.

I remember checking this a while back and i'm pretty sure the water holds about 90% of the heat and the ethyl glycol holds around 10% of the heat in a 50/50 solution. The water wetter alters this to about 95% water 5% ethyl glycol.

And you would expect just water to be the best coolant - but you need a lubricant in the system to lube the water pump or it will leak. Antifreeze also contains corrosion inhibitors .

[MarusGTR]

Non-Mixed coolant??? That would be Highly acidic and rot your block?

And has far less favorable thermal properties than water... If you were going for high performance, I'd go pure water, water wetter and an over-pressured system (1.3bar rad cap, etc) but that's my engineering POV. Seriously though you need to mix some water in if you don't want sludge, stat.

Edit: I have RP in my tranny and I still have to play with my second gear so that it doesn't crunch. I'll eventually try Redline.

Edit Edit:

and the colour .... i could almost drink it , strawberry falvour anyone ? lol

Ever got mistfull of Rust Check in your mouth? Smells and tastes like cherry. BTW, don't use a spray outside when you're facing against the wind.

Edit Edit Edit: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu looking at your fabbing and parts I wish I had a job, a garage and a liiiiiiiiife

[GTRADDICT]

Non-Mixed coolant??? That would be Highly acidic and rot your block?

[aN4rk1]

Redline is awesome oil. In all honestly, all my experiences with Royal purple has been sh!t.
I seriously dont like that stuff, all of it, engine oil, tranny oil, etc etc.
For me its Castrol Edge In the engine, Redline in the Tranny, Motul RBF in for brakes, and Prestone Non mixed for coolant!
This thread requires MOAR PICS!

[cortexx]

and the colour .... i could almost drink it , strawberry falvour anyone ? lol

[ColinR33]

Filled mine with Redline last year, lovely stuff, glad it worked for you too!

[frankiman]

thats great news

Redline FTW!

[cortexx]

Update:-

Well i have been experimenting with different fluids in the transmission - the car had some dodgey synchros for 2nd and 4th (not too bad but crunched if you tried to shift too fast ) since i got it .

I originally drained the oil that rightdrive had used (not sure what it was) and filled it with royal purple max gear . That was 2 weeks ago and the tranny was alot worse for synchro crunching. I figured it was inevitable that a tranny refresh was in the near future.

Last night i drained the royal purple max gear and refilled it with Redline heavy shockproof gear oil . The difference is amazing , very slightly stiffer when cold but after about 10klm the thing shifts like butter .

After about 40 klm last night the redline has proved it self , i can pretty much run up and down the gears as fast as i like , its like a different beast , no crunching at all .

I did some reaearch on the product last night and it seems that although the oil is very thick , it has a low friction coeficient so it does not create unecessary drag on the synchros while cushioning the gears and bearings themselves. Pretty neat Going to fill my front diff with it tonight , too bad i cant use it in the rear diff.