My 1995 GTR project thread.

[frankiman]

^^ 95% deionized water + 5% water wetter

[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.

[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.

[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 .

[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!

[S13Jordie]

Those threaded holes on the rotors are a lifesaver.

[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

[R33GTRVSPEC]

Took almost 2 hours to read, but finally reached the end...of what will soon be more knowledge to retain :P Great job and keep up the great work! Any advice for someone not so handy under the hood? Because ur right, the satisfaction of doing projects ur self is as the french say "Tres Magnifique" :P

[cortexx]

I'll tell you a short story of my youth many moons ago...

When i was 17 and drove a 3 wheeled bon bug (if you want to know what that is , google it), i blew the head gasket.

After waiting for 2 months for my dad to do the work and fix it , he told me to start work on it and he'd come along and finish it.

So i started stripping parts of the engine , manifolds , carb , headbolts etc etc and because he actually didnt come to help , i ended up stripping the whole thing myself.

Removeing the head was a pain, one of the studs stripped the thread in the block and i had to have the head skimmed. The engineering firm also leant me a tap and die set to recut the thread in the block , and machined me a new stud for it . After a few more weeks I reassembled the whole thing with the help of a haynes manual , had the thing running and driving.

No help from my dad. I bitched at him for not helping me and he told me .....

"if i do everything for you , you'll never learn how to do anything yourself . By doing it yourself , you learn how it works , you save money and you experience a sense of accomplishment when it starts and runs"

Ive pretty much applied that theory to most of my life including the running of the business i currently own!

Best advice he gave me .

[C-unit]

Just saw your update, glad that the diffuser work out for you! I think you are only one with it in Canada..lol

[R33GTRVSPEC]

I'll tell you a short story of my youth many moons ago...

When i was 17 and drove a 3 wheeled bon bug (if you want to know what that is , google it), i blew the head gasket.

After waiting for 2 months for my dad to do the work and fix it , he told me to start work on it and he'd come along and finish it.

So i started stripping parts of the engine , manifolds , carb , headbolts etc etc and because he actually didnt come to help , i ended up stripping the whole thing myself.

Removeing the head was a pain, one of the studs stripped the thread in the block and i had to have the head skimmed. The engineering firm also leant me a tap and die set to recut the thread in the block , and machined me a new stud for it . After a few more weeks I reassembled the whole thing with the help of a haynes manual , had the thing running and driving.

No help from my dad. I bitched at him for not helping me and he told me .....

"if i do everything for you , you'll never learn how to do anything yourself . By doing it yourself , you learn how it works , you save money and you experience a sense of accomplishment when it starts and runs"

Ive pretty much applied that theory to most of my life including the running of the business i currently own!

Best advice he gave me .

ur definitely right if u dont try things, ull never learn to apply it, Thanks for ur advice and i hope to make an inspiring build thread like this one with my future R33 V-Spec (currently have a commuting car 2011 Jetta) its definitely no GTR but my parents want to keep my racing habits down (i race go karts) and teach me to be mature, as owning a GTR is a big responsibility (no sarcasm :P ). Thanks and keep this anxious community posted as we r dying to here what u do next!
Thanks for the reply, by the way my name's Alex

[frankiman]

Just saw your update, glad that the diffuser work out for you! I think you are only one with it in Canada..lol

not!

[C-unit]

^ i mean R33..lol

but your can does pull it off super dope!

[trickey1991]

fu ck this guy .. lol jk man this thread rocks..i just spent 1.5hrs reading if from page 1.. wow time flew by..anyways..now u know what i do at work everyone..lol anyways sick build

[frankiman]

^ i mean R33..lol

correct