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Sandman's R33 Skyline Drift project

Sandman

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Soooo, after what can only be described as another stupid year thought I should really get back to this car. Basically put it in the shed after Winton and haven't touched it since. So started to get it ready for the 2022 season which is due to start Feb-ish. First job on the list is the car will be getting wrapped with a bit of a livery in a couple of weeks so I've spent the last couple of weeks attempting to do bodywork of sorts on it to make it look presentable and easy enough that it can be wrapped. The bonnet has always had clear coat peel and also has a few cracks and blemished when it hit the roof a few years back. So that's been sanded back past the clear and all the way down to 1500 grit, the gouges have been filled and I've started sixaflexing up the back size where there was issues, that's not quite done yet, but the rest is sorted. The LH guard with the big dint has also been replaced, did have some fibreglass guards to go on, but wasn't happy with the fitment on them so got another steel one and sanded that down to 1500 too. This then took a bit of work with the hammer and dolly to get the bottom to line up with lower mounts, but got to learn something new too.

The Sideskirts are plastic M spec ones which were pretty rough I got off a mate last year, finally got them to the point where they are kinda presentable. Still not mounted yet, but they're finished as well as they're getting. Also bought a new front bar too, bought a GTR style one from Jetspeed here in Melbourne, they're hideously expensive, but not a fan of the standard bars and atleast I didn't have to pay freight compared with all the interstate suppliers. Once again still to be fitted but this should happen this week. The rest of the car has been clayed and de-ironed so all that's left beyond that is to sand down the boot so its nice and smooth like the rest of the panels and remove the remaining rubber marks.

Car should be wrapped 1st second week of Jan so to follow that the car will receive its new turbo, will be getting both Power stering and oil coolers, both with sensors to keep and eye on whats going on with both of these systems. Additionally I'll be getting a front bashbar made to suit the new front bumper with a lower skidplate to prolong the life of it and also reworking the piping between the intercooler and the throttle body as well as the intercooler mounts themselves as both are rather average currently. So there's enough to keep me busy. Enjoy some photos of my least favourite job, bodywork.

3K8kPVs.jpg

How the bonnet started, with the annoying clear coat peel which would have shown through the wrap
cPAJ22x.jpg

Sanding
mk9aPKh.jpg

Not quite after, but after a lot more sanding, the bonnet is a carbon/fibreglass composite. You can see where the rear bracing is clearly.
dd5UiLu.jpg

The damage from the roof years ago, it's rather hard to fill small areas so this took many layers of spray filler to build up
ydvZ6iA.jpg

Sanded down to match the bonnet lines, other side of the bonnet has the same
XKNhuhc.jpg

Dinted guard, I did keep this to try and learn more panel work in the future
Mm4T9F9.jpg

Replacement guard, not the best but it was reasonably prices and straight. I leave the nicer panels for street cars.
W3lA0qs.jpg

Sanded down to 1500
Son3uAS.jpg

Mounted, this took longer than expected as the lower mounting points on both the car and guard were both a bit bent. so It probably took 1.5-2 hours to get it mounted properly on the car.
DdI97iY.jpg

A very rough mockup with the new panels
ke8qMbA.jpg
 

Sandman

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So not a lot more progress but a little, fitted the side skirts with rivnuts on the rear of the body. I have new plugs and screws for the front mounts but its just zipties here. A couple of pics of how I marked out the holes on the body maybe not quite 100% accurate, but works pretty well for this.

The rubber that was hiding in the bottom of the drivers side guard
wuedR1q.jpg

Locating the existing hole on the body to be used, rivnut is already installed here.
YUdMcL5.jpg

Transferred to the side skirts
m9z0etx.jpg

Now just the front bumper to go
c74DxCJ.jpg
 

Sandman

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I'm fairly time poor so not a lot of updates but here goes. To continue, made an upper intercooler mount from some 3mm alloy and mounted it up to finally have a fairly solid intercooler mount. Also had to modify the lower mounts to angle the intercooler closer to the rad support to make room for the new front bumper. Trimmed up and prepped the new front bumper which fits fairly well with only a bit of trimming around the front arches. More trimming may be required once I put cooler piping back in, but its pretty good currently. As it will be held on with zipties I made an alloy brace and bonded it to the bumper below the grille area so the load would be spread over a larger area than just the small holes in the fiberglass.

Currently I'm doing the wiring for some additional sensors, main one being a Bosch oil pressure temp sensor. Additionally I'll add a fuel pressure and PS temp sensor, the wiring is there but they'll come later. Luckily this can be done fairly simply with an off the shelf expansion loom, but it still requires making neat and terminating for the sensors themselves. I balls'd up one of the crimps so will get some more terminals tomorrow then the sensor is done and just requires setting up in the ecu. Then comes trying to make the cooler piping fit again enough to take the car to go and get wrapped. Slowly progressing....

Top intercooler mount with rubber isolators
2sN1CZb.jpg

Front bumper brace (screws are just sitting there whilst I get clamps onto it)
S6jrtJl.jpg

The moment I realized I needed to buy more clamps
RaSzk4x.jpg

90% mounted up
FgYVHRL.jpg

Birds nest of wiring for the new sensors
1Egx4o9.jpg

Its hard to see, but this main sensor wiring is now loomed up and then heat wrapped and secured across the back of the engine bay
oZasuGF.jpg
 

Skylarking

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All looking rather good :cool: but curious why you used spray filler rather than resin to fix the cracked bonnet? Or did I miss a post or two…

Maybe you did actually use resin and fibre to repair the cracks and then topped with a spread of filler but skipped that in your posts… Its just that spray filler would have little to no strength in it and if there are cracks, they’ll com back later which would be a shame given how well it’s all progressing…
 

Sandman

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Lack of knowledge/skill on the matter more than anything lol. Didn't even cross my mind to use resin, as I don't really have any experience with composites. Though with how shallow the damage was I'm happy enough with how its come up. The damage only came through the bonnet flipping up and hitting the roof so hopefully in its normal usage it won't put excessive stress on the repairs. If it does I can always re do it in resin, though not ideal.
 

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Lack of knowledge/skill on the matter more than anything lol. Didn't even cross my mind to use resin, as I don't really have any experience with composites. Though with how shallow the damage was I'm happy enough with how its come up. The damage only came through the bonnet flipping up and hitting the roof so hopefully in its normal usage it won't put excessive stress on the repairs. If it does I can always re do it in resin, though not ideal.
Live and learn… (won’t go into the foo bars I’ve done :p:p:p)

When I zoomed into the photo, the one with the blue masking tape, it did look like there were cracks in it and some fibres were cut… cracks ran from bottom left to top right… probably not cracker all the way through but better to redo it now rather than later, though that depends on how cosmetically appealing you want it all to look…

Me, I’d just want any cracks to not grow which means a bigger repair job is needed. Such would require grinding back and filling with new fibre and resin. As always when working with fibres and reain, use protective cloths and breathing mask and eye protection… working with that stuff can be nasty…
 

afstruct

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Live and learn… (won’t go into the foo bars I’ve done :p:p

Me, I’d just want any cracks to not grow which means a bigger repair job is needed. Such would require grinding back and filling with new fibre and resin. As always when working with fibres and reain, use protective cloths and breathing mask and eye protection… working with that stuff can be nasty…

Grinding back in a shallow V and then laying up in progressively wider layers of matting is the go .
If cracked all the way through go V one side to about half way ( repair ) and then V from the other side and build up= same layering .
Can't hurt on the under side ( if not critical to look/finish ) to go a little more thickness for strength.
 

VS 5.0

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Grinding back in a shallow V and then laying up in progressively wider layers of matting is the go .
If cracked all the way through go V one side to about half way ( repair ) and then V from the other side and build up= same layering .
Can't hurt on the under side ( if not critical to look/finish ) to go a little more thickness for strength.

Should you also drill a small hole at each end of the crack to prevent it spreading ?
 
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