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Probably about time I started a project thread on here. It's a bit of a cut and paste from my reader's cars thread on pistonheads.
Inspiration from here:
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I finally got the car in October 2012. I'd been researching for a while and come to the conclusion that to get the colour and condition I was after, I'd have to import a car from Japan. I decided to use japaneseusedcars.com as an agent as you get to pick the car from the auctions yourself and they then inspect it prior to bidding. They were brilliant throughout the entire process. I had one car rejected as it failed their inspection and months with nothing suitable appearing in the auctions when finally, this popped up.
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It's a 1990 R32 GTR in TH1 Dark Blue Pearl. It only had a couple of mods too. A Fujitsubo Super R exhaust, R33 GTR wheels, a CD player and an Apexi speed/rev meter. Exactly what I was after with reasonable mileage (96,000 kms) and full history present. Put in a bid and had a couple of days to wait for the auction to happen. Woke up and checked my email the morning after. I'd won the auction. No going back now!
Pics at the docks in Japan:
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Cue a month and a half of nervous/excited waiting to pick the car up at the docks in Southampton.
I had sorted my insurance a while beforehand except they didn't mention that they were only giving me 14 days to get the car registered and provide them with the registration number. Great! Rear fog light was fitted in a hurry and then I drove it straight down for the MOT. It conked out at a set of traffic lights which was slightly embarrassing but it did start up again after a couple of minutes. It wasn't quite running right but I planned to give it a full service after the MOT anyway. It flew through, not even any advisories so that was a relief.
I had some fun at the Bristol DVLA office who were very helpful, it was the insurance company that caused issues as they hadn't put the vin number in the right place on the certificate. It then took them an hour and a half to fax it through. Registration number and tax disk came in the post two days later. Result!
On to the service. I did all the work myself with help from my Dad. I changed the timing belt and the water pump as well. It was reasonably straight forward although the crank pulley bolt put up one hell of a fight (The starter motor trick only bent the breaker bar!). In the end my Dad had a tool fabricated at work to clamp to the pulley and lock it in position. Was then a case of levering a bigger breaker bar with my leg to get it to break loose.
Problem pulley:
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New water pump, tensioner and idle pulleys:
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Next task once I'd put it back together was the spark plugs:
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I fixed the running issue by resoldering one of the AFMs which is a common problem.
Since then it's just been regular servicing and a set of coil packs and I've recently picked up some original wheels.
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I originally created my rear fog light by putting a red bulb in the driver's side reversing light and operated it using a rocker switch screwed underneath the dash:
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Functional but not pretty!
I'd been planning on rewiring the switch for a while now and got around to sorting it last week. Using the aux switch is fairly straight forward. You just need to attach the live wire on the fog light to the live wire coming from the switch. It's the orange/black wire that's the live one.
MOT rules, however, require a "tell" to be present. I wanted to fit an LED to the aux switch whilst making it look as original as possible so I bought a spare switch so I could examine it and see what could be done.
As it turns out, it's possible to do it without even taking the switch apart!
The switch:
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I bought the brightest 3mm led I could get from the local electronics shop. The grey diodes pull out and you can fit the LED though the hole they come out of, like so:
![]()
You need to wrap (I stripped some thin wire and used the casing) the legs of the LED to ensure there is no shorting as it is eventually wired separately. Test fit without wrapping:
![]()
I split the new live wire so that the power goes to both the LED and the rear fog light. The LED is grounded in the driver's footwell. Soldered up:
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All put back together:
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Not the best pictures (taken on phone), it's brighter in reality. And that's not light shining out the bottom, it's the reflection from the handbrake light.
Much better than the rocker switch that was there before!
Latest pictures:
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I've now dropped it of at Zealou5 this morning for some proper rust protection.
Inspiration from here:
I finally got the car in October 2012. I'd been researching for a while and come to the conclusion that to get the colour and condition I was after, I'd have to import a car from Japan. I decided to use japaneseusedcars.com as an agent as you get to pick the car from the auctions yourself and they then inspect it prior to bidding. They were brilliant throughout the entire process. I had one car rejected as it failed their inspection and months with nothing suitable appearing in the auctions when finally, this popped up.
It's a 1990 R32 GTR in TH1 Dark Blue Pearl. It only had a couple of mods too. A Fujitsubo Super R exhaust, R33 GTR wheels, a CD player and an Apexi speed/rev meter. Exactly what I was after with reasonable mileage (96,000 kms) and full history present. Put in a bid and had a couple of days to wait for the auction to happen. Woke up and checked my email the morning after. I'd won the auction. No going back now!
Pics at the docks in Japan:
Cue a month and a half of nervous/excited waiting to pick the car up at the docks in Southampton.
I had sorted my insurance a while beforehand except they didn't mention that they were only giving me 14 days to get the car registered and provide them with the registration number. Great! Rear fog light was fitted in a hurry and then I drove it straight down for the MOT. It conked out at a set of traffic lights which was slightly embarrassing but it did start up again after a couple of minutes. It wasn't quite running right but I planned to give it a full service after the MOT anyway. It flew through, not even any advisories so that was a relief.
I had some fun at the Bristol DVLA office who were very helpful, it was the insurance company that caused issues as they hadn't put the vin number in the right place on the certificate. It then took them an hour and a half to fax it through. Registration number and tax disk came in the post two days later. Result!
On to the service. I did all the work myself with help from my Dad. I changed the timing belt and the water pump as well. It was reasonably straight forward although the crank pulley bolt put up one hell of a fight (The starter motor trick only bent the breaker bar!). In the end my Dad had a tool fabricated at work to clamp to the pulley and lock it in position. Was then a case of levering a bigger breaker bar with my leg to get it to break loose.
Problem pulley:
New water pump, tensioner and idle pulleys:
Next task once I'd put it back together was the spark plugs:
I fixed the running issue by resoldering one of the AFMs which is a common problem.
Since then it's just been regular servicing and a set of coil packs and I've recently picked up some original wheels.
I originally created my rear fog light by putting a red bulb in the driver's side reversing light and operated it using a rocker switch screwed underneath the dash:
Functional but not pretty!
I'd been planning on rewiring the switch for a while now and got around to sorting it last week. Using the aux switch is fairly straight forward. You just need to attach the live wire on the fog light to the live wire coming from the switch. It's the orange/black wire that's the live one.
MOT rules, however, require a "tell" to be present. I wanted to fit an LED to the aux switch whilst making it look as original as possible so I bought a spare switch so I could examine it and see what could be done.
As it turns out, it's possible to do it without even taking the switch apart!
The switch:
I bought the brightest 3mm led I could get from the local electronics shop. The grey diodes pull out and you can fit the LED though the hole they come out of, like so:
You need to wrap (I stripped some thin wire and used the casing) the legs of the LED to ensure there is no shorting as it is eventually wired separately. Test fit without wrapping:
I split the new live wire so that the power goes to both the LED and the rear fog light. The LED is grounded in the driver's footwell. Soldered up:
All put back together:
Not the best pictures (taken on phone), it's brighter in reality. And that's not light shining out the bottom, it's the reflection from the handbrake light.
Much better than the rocker switch that was there before!
Latest pictures:
I've now dropped it of at Zealou5 this morning for some proper rust protection.
