2004 Nissan 350z

[sainz92]

Strudul said:

A lot of people like to get rid of locking nuts anyway as they often cause more trouble than they are worth.

I'm in 2 minds whether to remove the new ones or not to stop it from happening again, do people steal alloys nowadays?

[Strudul]

sainz92 said:

Strudul said:

A lot of people like to get rid of locking nuts anyway as they often cause more trouble than they are worth.

I'm in 2 minds whether to remove the new ones or not to stop it from happening again, do people steal alloys nowadays?

You're in Wales, not Liverpool.

For the cost of a new key, you could (pretty much) get a nice new set of lug nuts. Maybe some fancy neo-chrome ones? And so begins the slippery slope as you're plagued by Zeditis

[GrantD5]

Glad you got it sorted, I would keep them on for peace of mind but then I am London based.

[sainz92]

Not too much of an update, but I felt like posting so here it goes.

Since I last posted I was getting some brake judder when braking at around 60-70mph. A quick inspection of the rear brakes revealed a tragically worn disk.. Albeit the pads still had about half of the friction material left on, but to be safe a new set of brembo rear disks and pads were ordered. The only problem I encountered whilst changing the brakes was a seized caliper bolt, which I could have cracked off but the breaker bar was hitting the floor before i could get enough leverage on it . It was no biggie though, a quick trip to the local garage and they cracked the remaining bolts off for a fiver and 2 packs of chocolate digestives. With those cracked it was plain sailing.



Then I done a few cosmetic bits, starting with the wiper arms. They were heavily corroded and looked awful, so I whipped them off and gave them a fresh lick of paint so now they look like brand new!

Before



After



And then the final job was a rear wiper delete, I also removed the weight from the boot lid as I felt it was pretty pointless and weight saving... haha

[was8v]

Lovely, I had an azure blue one.

Have you seen the price of those (forged) rays wheels at the dealer? You don't want them to go, they are special, really light.

When I lost my wheel nut key on my Z, I smacked a socket on with a lump hammer and the bolts all came off in 10 mins.

Just shows how easy they are to get off really.

[pembo]

was8v said:

Lovely, I had an azure blue one.

Have you seen the price of those (forged) rays wheels at the dealer? You don't want them to go, they are special, really light.

When I lost my wheel nut key on my Z, I smacked a socket on with a lump hammer and the bolts all came off in 10 mins.

Just shows how easy they are to get off really.

I had azure blue too, cracked a Rays alloy by bumping a kerb in the snow..... £1400.... each!

I bought a full set on ebay for £500

[was8v]

pembo said:

I had azure blue too, cracked a Rays alloy by bumping a kerb in the snow..... £1400.... each!

I bought a full set on ebay for £500

Yup mine went in a pothole.

Lancashire county council paid for it, without admitting any liability.

[Strudul]

The stock RAYS are fantastic, but looks like you need some spacers

[kaveney]

I ran one for a few years and did / spent a fair bit of £ and time on it .

Great car and one im happy I owned .

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=...

[sainz92]

kaveney said:

I ran one for a few years and did / spent a fair bit of £ and time on it .

Great car and one im happy I owned .

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=...

Unfortunately I can't see any pictures due to photobucket I will definitely have a read though!

[sainz92]

Strudul said:

The stock RAYS are fantastic, but looks like you need some spacers

They should be going on soon, not sure what setup i'm going to go with yet though.. Maybe 20mm on the back and 10mm on the front..

[Strudul]

sainz92 said:

Strudul said:

The stock RAYS are fantastic, but looks like you need some spacers

They should be going on soon, not sure what setup i'm going to go with yet though.. Maybe 20mm on the back and 10mm on the front..

25/30mm

[sainz92]

Strudul said:

25/30mm

That setup looks good!

[sainz92]

So today hasn't got off to the greatest of starts.. I dropped the car off for an MOT and within an hour I had a phone call to say that the car had failed and asked me to go back to the garage so that they could show me the reason for the failure. Obviously I knew that it wouldn't be good news, I knew that the car needed new front tyres and that the handbrake was a bit high, but I definitely wasn't expecting anything like what they were about to show me. When I arrived the car was still on the pit and the mechanics invited me down to show me the problem.





So as you can see (please excuse the poor quality pictures, it was pretty tight down there) the rear subframe bed is completely corroded through. Everything past the diff (which isn't aluminium) is shot, including the exhaust. I know that I have myself to blame as this is something that I should have checked, but in my defence, when I viewed the car it was sitting so low that I wouldn't have been able to see it anyway and both the advert and the guy I bought it off stated that the car had a visual inspection before it was posted for sale and that it had no rust underneath. Safe to say that I'm never going to trust anyones word and in future I will always organise my own inspections. The car wasn't bought locally either (2 hours each way) so I can't see the previous owner doing anything about it.

So now I'm stuck as to what to do.. Do I cut losses and sell it for half of what I bought it for? Or do I buy a complete rear section (if I can find one) and pay the labour to get it fitted?

Not the greatest start to the weekend eh?

[Strudul]

Is it actually rusted through or just surface rust?

It's pretty common for things to get rusty back there, but can often be resolved by just cleaning it up and giving it a lick of Hammerite.

[_Neal_]

Sorry to see that OP, and think you are saying it is rusted through, right?

Surprised it's not had advisories on any recent MOT (can see it hasn't from MOT history check). Subframes can be replaced, and it may not be as expensive as you think, and at least you'd have peace of mind. Phone up some breakers maybe?

[SuperVM]

I think you should get a second hand subframe and refurbish it, i.e. new bushes, diff mounts, braklines etc. throughout. I doubt it would cost all that much if you did the work yourself.

[sainz92]

_Neal_ said:

Sorry to see that OP, and think you are saying it is rusted through, right?

Surprised it's not had advisories on any recent MOT (can see it hasn't from MOT history check). Subframes can be replaced, and it may not be as expensive as you think, and at least you'd have peace of mind. Phone up some breakers maybe?

Thanks mate, yeah unfortunately its completely rotted . I'm going to have a look around on the weekend to see if any breakers have the parts, but failing that I've found a US breaker that has all of the parts I need that should be around the £300 mark (As long as I don't get a hefty import tax bill). I'll be sure to change all of the bushings etc while i'm at it too, as well as a few upgrades. Looks like this thread may be getting a little busier in the coming months haha.

[sainz92]

SuperVM said:

I think you should get a second hand subframe and refurbish it, i.e. new bushes, diff mounts, braklines etc. throughout. I doubt it would cost all that much if you did the work yourself.

That's the plan now mate. While i'm down there I'll be sealing everything too!! I'm not leaving anything to chance now haha!

[_Neal_]

sainz92 said:

Thanks mate, yeah unfortunately its completely rotted . I'm going to have a look around on the weekend to see if any breakers have the parts, but failing that I've found a US breaker that has all of the parts I need that should be around the £300 mark (As long as I don't get a hefty import tax bill). I'll be sure to change all of the bushings etc while i'm at it too, as well as a few upgrades. Looks like this thread may be getting a little busier in the coming months haha.

Excellent news - keep the thread updated!