1986 Nissan c32 laurel. Fitment.

[Dez]

Another month, another new car. Because when everything you own is broken, the obvious answer is to buy more ropey old cars, right?

It started as these things often do with idly browsing eBay looking at 'other classic cars' sub £1k on the road. This quickly escalated to ringing the number in the auction, having a chat with the guy, and then lead to taking a punt on it based on the curse word listing and godawful photos, and chucking him a deposit to pull the auction, as I knew If I didn't it would sell for a lot more.
These are the amazing photos that lead to that decision....



















As you can see, skilled in the art of the photograph he was not, although they did manage to show most of the bad bits. A price of 800 quid was agreed, and that I would send him a 100 quid deposit to pull the auction. A calculated risk that paid off in the end. Not bad for a on the road laurel with a fresh, seemingly legit MOT given its advisories and checking its previous history online.

So with the car secured, onto the next small issue- it's in Manchester, I'm in Ipswich.......

[sciclone]

80's Nissan? I'm in. Love the marque, and with these coming out with either an I6 L24 or RB, or VG30 V6, they're easy to swap bits into from newer turbo skylines. Also S13 suspension can be made to fit quite easily.

[gazjon]

The colour of that interior is.......interesting, can't wait to see more pics

[kevstarlet]

Have one in the exact same colour all be it a lot rustier needing various body panels and hours of welding. Sr20 sitting on a pallet ready to go in.
What's the plans for yours?

[jimspolicev8sd1]

Green on green! Fantastic stuff.

[Dez]

Dec 7, 2016 23:58:46 GMT sciclone said:

80's Nissan? I'm in. Love the marque, and with these coming out with either an I6 L24 or RB, or VG30 V6, they're easy to swap bits into from newer turbo skylines. Also S13 suspension can be made to fit quite easily.

It's an L24, that's all they came with for UK market. It's a pretty nice engine, if a bit archaic.

Already done my homework on the s13 stuff, that's what It will be getting shortly, once I've gone through and sorted any current niggles.

[Dez]

Dec 8, 2016 0:01:21 GMT gazjon said:

The colour of that interior is.......interesting, can't wait to see more pics

The interior is amazing. Quite an achievement to be bland/beige yet in yer face green at the same time. That's what made this era of car so cool.

[Dez]

Dec 8, 2016 7:35:12 GMT kevstarlet said:

Have one in the exact same colour all be it a lot rustier needing various body panels and hours of welding. Sr20 sitting on a pallet ready to go in.
What's the plans for yours?

Drop, wheels, exhaust, tidy the body up, maybe a manual conversion if I can find the parts. Really tempted by some goldrush customs style body enhancements too. More shakotan or yanky style than full on Garuchan.

[adam73bgt]

That interior reminds me of those Olive green bathroom suites from the 80s/90s Love it!

[Dez]

So to continue the story, it broke before I even picked it up. I'd organised a mate taking me up to collect (4-5hrs each way depending on the traffic). Day before we were meant to go I rang the seller to find the rad had sh1t itself and was curse word water out badly. Fuxxake.

My options were to have my deposit back and forget about it, or source and supply a replacement rad and get it sent to the seller, as he had no money to buy one himself, and he'd knock it off the price. Seeing as you're reading this its fairly obvious I went for the latter option, as I figured I wasn't going to get a comparable car anywhere else for the same money. But, I was getting even deeper in to it financially, so if i turned up and it was a proper crock id lose even more if I then didn't buy it.

I sourced a new pattern rad through datman for £122 delivered, not that it was any skin off my nose. The next day delivery took nearly a week, then we were good to go again.

It transpired when the old rad was removed it was the wrong one anyway, it was smaller than the replacement and held in with some dexion and some random brackets and self tappers. The new one dropped straight in and bolted up at the top, the bottom is zip tied in for the mo, just to get me back. I am missing the original fanshroud that I could rather do with as having the massive stock viscous flaling round without a guard is a bit scary. Or if I cant find one I'll stick a leccy one on instead.

[Dez]

So with the rad replaced and the sellers assurances it all seemed OK, on Monday I was up at 6 (painful) to meet George at the yard at 7. He turned up eventually (he's even less of a morning person than me) and we hit the road. We made good time to start with, and after a maccies breakfast at Cambridge services, we eventually got to mankchester just after 12 after hitting some roadworks on the last bit of the m6.

And here we are, a pic taken from far enough away to have all of the car in it!




We had a bit of a poke round whilst waiting for the seller to turn up, and tbh it's pretty good for an 800 quid car. It's got a parking dent or scuff in every panel, and a few bodgy repairs to keep it on the road, but nothing that bad. I pretty happy with it tbh.
I think the seller was a bit of a chancer, he'd had it up for 1200 quid In the summer but hadn't sold it, and he'd only bought it around March time off the widow of the previous owner, who according to the v5 had bought it in 1988!
So, it's more or less a one owner car.

Anyway some money changed hands, as did the paper work, then I got behind the wheel and we went round the corner to get some fuel. Here's a pic I took after the first fill.
Don't know why really, think I was enjoying all the green.


Then we hit the road for the long trip back. I had to top up the water at some service where we stopped for kfc, I don't think he'd run it up to temp when he filled the rad so the thermostat opened. Here's the obligatory rolling shot, somewhere on the m6-


Hit ALL the traffic around Cambridge on the way back, and despite the temp gauge being all over the place, we got back without incident. It was hot when we got back though, turned it off and I could hear it bubbling away.

[darrenh]

any tips on how to get all the car in a photo ?

[Rich]

No fan shroud? Don't be a wuss. My E28 didn't come with one from new. And my Landrover is missing the top 'finger guard' and that is a big curse word.. love the car btw. Like these a lot.

[sciclone]

Dec 8, 2016 9:41:34 GMT Dez said:

Dec 7, 2016 23:58:46 GMT sciclone said:

80's Nissan? I'm in. Love the marque, and with these coming out with either an I6 L24 or RB, or VG30 V6, they're easy to swap bits into from newer turbo skylines. Also S13 suspension can be made to fit quite easily.

It's an L24, that's all they came with for UK market. It's a pretty nice engine, if a bit archaic.

Already done my homework on the s13 stuff, that's what It will be getting shortly, once I've gone through and sorted any current niggles.

We had an L24E in my mum's HR30 skyline, which I drove when I first got my licence. I did plenty of stupid things in it, got up to 196kmh, mountain runs, drifting and generally thrashed the poop out of it and it took it like a champ, despite my mum not maintaining it. Eventually seized it after the waterpump belt broke, but for reliability and toughness, they are great.

[Dez]

Dec 8, 2016 21:24:33 GMT darrenh said:

any tips on how to get all the car in a photo ?

I find standing more than 2 foot away from the car helps massively. Also actually looking at the viewfinder on your phone is a great help.
Notice I ran the gauntlet of standing in the middle of possibly the quietest road in Manchester to get that shot. The risks I take for you guys huh.

[Dez]

Dec 8, 2016 21:29:38 GMT Rich said:

No fan shroud? Don't be a wuss. My E28 didn't come with one from new. And my Landrover is missing the top 'finger guard' and that is a big curse word.. love the car btw. Like these a lot.

This is one of those cars that REALLY feels like it should have one. Even removing the rad cap with it running feels sketchy.

I'm liking this quite a lot actually, even in stock form. Tooling round listening to absolute radio on the knackered crackly speakers and interference plagued stock radio like a character from a low budget independent film set on a gritty northern council estate or something. Except in Suffolk so dodging the sugar beet wagons instead of the burnt out cars.

[Dez]

Dec 8, 2016 22:53:07 GMT sciclone said:

Dec 8, 2016 9:41:34 GMT Dez said:

It's an L24, that's all they came with for UK market. It's a pretty nice engine, if a bit archaic.

Already done my homework on the s13 stuff, that's what It will be getting shortly, once I've gone through and sorted any current niggles.

We had an L24E in my mum's HR30 skyline, which I drove when I first got my licence. I did plenty of stupid things in it, got up to 196kmh, mountain runs, drifting and generally thrashed the poop out of it and it took it like a champ, despite my mum not maintaining it. Eventually seized it after the waterpump belt broke, but for reliability and toughness, they are great.

That's what this is too, the injected version. I had this sideways before I'd left the guys street, and broke a ton on the way back- still felt like it had a lot more to go too!

[Dez]

Ok, I'll spill the beans. Seeing as it took a whole 3 weeks or so for me to collect the car, in that time I'd got over excited and bought some wheels. Not just *any* wheels though.....

I'd been looking since I'd paid the deposit on the car, quite few evenings of research liking at other c32s lead me to believe I was looking for a staggered set of 8s and 9s with an offset somewhere between 15 and zero. I came very close to just ordering up some brand new hyashi reps from driftworks, but the one thing that stopped me was their diameter. For the period correct late '80s/early '90s look I was after, I was adamant I needed 14s with a taller, rounder stretched tyre, rather than15s with low pros.

And that's when these happened.
Bought via eBay off a young lad who worked at serck Motorsport, he had them fitted to his consul of all things, but needed the money as his s13 had sh1t it's turbo.





Acceptable amounts of dish-





Suffice to say, they're a pretty rare set of rims. What are they? Here's your answer-

Albert rennsports to be exact. Magnesium alloy centres, face mount, 3pc splits. Proper racecar stuff. Each one weights about as much as a bag of crisps.

They're 14x8 et12-ish for the front, and a healthy 14x9 et2 on the rear. The more astute if you may notice the *slight* issue, they are 5x114, whereas laurels are 4x114. If I have space I'll run adapters, if not 4 to 5 stud on the same PCD is an easy redrill- one stud stays the same, drill 4 more holes. Either way I think they are the perfect wheel for what I have planned with this car.

[strikey]

Dec 8, 2016 21:24:33 GMT darrenh said:

any tips on how to get all the car in a photo ?

one of those el crappo clip on fisheye lenses for your camera phone off ebay for the cost of a pint should squeeeeze most motors in...that or stand back a bit.

get those rims on!!!

[düdo]

You've certainly got a broad taste Dez, encompassing all of the 20th century and surely the 19th too if you could find a steam powered car.

My Grandad was called Albert or Bert for short, he would have loved those wheels.. he couldn't drive though.