My 1970 KGC10 2000 GT

2000gtx · **Posted:** Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:00 pm

great vid eric hope to see you and other skyline owners at jccs....my freind pat might be overseas...and the 2 other boxes should be ready.....i do enjoy driving ...but get a little nervous on the freeway with people taking pics with car phones instead of watching what they are doing....i cant make it to the bayline one due to work hrs....

Davboy · **Posted:** Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:48 pm

2000gtx wrote:

great vid eric hope to see you and other skyline owners at jccs....my freind pat might be overseas...and the 2 other boxes should be ready.....i do enjoy driving ...but get a little nervous on the freeway with people taking pics with car phones instead of watching what they are doing....i cant make it to the bayline one due to work hrs....

I take my DR30 out driving with my buddy that has a R33 GTR VSPEC and people try to catch up to take pics, or they come up along side you and start veering into your lane while trying to snap a picture.

Topher88 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:54 pm

Awesome video man! cant wait to see your car at JCCS

Eric · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:02 am

and its on speedhunters now!

ericbauer · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 1:15 pm

Media love for the red car is spreading... infectious disease! lol...

There's a couple more things in the works...

Stay tuned.

kev · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:13 pm

Fantastic article Eric!

ericbauer · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:25 pm

Thanks for the kind words everybody!

BTW the Daikoku parking lot night time pics of the red car with PMCS stickers that open the speedhunters article is of the car that started it all for me...

I was digging around an old hard drive for Mike G's guest blog and was surprised to find pics of it! It's from summer 98 or 99 if I remember right... couldn't believe i still had those pics lying around somewhere... but it's funny because I had in the last 12years forgotten that this first car was a RED car... forgotten until I saw the pics again two weekends ago... now it all makes sense...

Funny how the mind works, yes?

ericbauer · **Posted:** Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:42 am

UPDATE:

I made the decision tonight to pull the tranny and do something about my loud throwout bearing - better now than on the side of the freeway going up to or coming back down from NorCal in less than two weeks' time!

Pulled the U-bolts off of the exhaust... wasn't much left of them due to exhaust hanging low and car sitting even lower... this is the GOOD one on the left, the other one was worse. New 2" u-bolt from the local muffler shop on the right:

Pulled the speedo gear and boy did it look thrashed... surprisingly I had very little bounce at the speedo gauge... no outward signs that the gear was in this bad a shape - thankfully I had a used spare in my kit of parts...

Was very pleasantly surprised by the driveshaft bolts that are on the car... Check them out! The ones on the car had a nice oversized D-shaped head that makes installing / removing them a single tool operation... The shiny new one is what's commonly available for S30 Z here in the States at places like MSA... Requires two wrenches and is a hair short and can be a bit of a P I T A... New and old share the same pitch / thread! Score a WIN there!

Someone had asked me for more details about the stainless exhaust on the red car... I looked all over and found only the marking below which basically stands for "Nissan - GC10 series" - not very helpful to ID brand... I can tell you it's two 2" tubes that run the whole way back to a muffler with two in / two out. No additional resonator.

On my 240Z, I just don't have enough room between firewall and engine to pull the bell housing / tranny off because it gets hung up on the header collector. I end up having to pull carbs, intake manifold, and header to get tranny off / on - P I T A as well... I was hopeing that I could avoid this on the red car... I checked with Tim (wookieballa) and he said he managed just fine to get his tranny off with the header still on... My header is probably a different brand than his cause at first glance I have my doubts I'll manage to wrestle it off... Will attempt tomorrow night after work

DeRuX · **Posted:** Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:22 am

you must love deallines!!! nothing like a little stress to make you more happy when you make it to the show.

ericbauer · **Posted:** Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:37 am

yeah, reid.. deadlines... lol... can't get away from them...

wookieballa · **Posted:** Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:16 pm

DAMN.. after our email traffic this morning, i do remember that my header had already been off the car for a week or so because i blasted it and wrapped it in black header wrap, i had totally forgotten because i didnt do it all at once, i staggered most of my repairs for a long time.

ericbauer · **Posted:** Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:19 am

UPDATE:

Pulled carbs, header and tranny without any fuss...
It was definitely playing nice tonight... hope it stays that way...

Noticed a couple odd things, so I thought I'd share:

Car came with a 5spd.
Looks to be garden variety "two ear" 5speed from later S130 ZX car...
It looks nearly identical to the S130 ZX 5spd I have in the Z - comparison pics below where the clean one is the Z's 5spd, and the dirty one is the red car's 5spd:

Skyline mystery double extra reverse switches...

S30 Z - no mystery double reverse switches...

I want to pull the "extra" reverse switches and plug those holes cause tranny fluid is leaking from there... but I find it very very odd that someone tapped those holes and used old reverse switches to plug them.. Any thoughts?

Tranny rubber mount is pretty shot.
Do any 510 or Fairlady Roadster guys on here recognize this mount?
It's not the same as S30 Z... S30Z has a single center bolt that attaches rubber mount to frame bracket
But Skyline has two bolts and obviously frame bracket is different...

Thoughts?
Thanks!

wookieballa · **Posted:** Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:48 am

Hey E, know anyone with a Fowdy??

all my S14's had a very similar tranny mount, MIGHT be the same, BUT don't just take my assumption LOL

i can get you a replacement for about ¥4000, give or take. they are all over the auctions.

i think my tranny only has the one reverse switch, its very weird!

ericbauer · **Posted:** Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:02 pm

Tim is definitely on to something, S13/S14 rubber mount looks like it WILL work...

Details here: http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18739&p=160085#p160085

wookieballa · **Posted:** Fri Jun 22, 2012 1:21 am

NICE! i was suspicious every since i pulled my tranny, wish i had thought about comparing that while it was out, I'm sure theres an SR tranny laying around the shop.

2000gtx · **Posted:** Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:04 am

yes the trans mount will work curreNtly what is in my c10...yes you will need to lower mount bracket to get right angles on drive shaft ..althought depending on how high it sits might not be to bad i shimmed mine about 1/4 inche but i have rb20 trans aND RB MOTOR...

ericbauer · **Posted:** Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:15 am

Cool

Thx for confirming

ericbauer · **Posted:** Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:01 pm

UPDATE:

Let me start by saying that normally I don't do this much prep for a car show... but this time the dates ended up being such that I have a magazine photo shoot on Thursday morning of this week, am driving up to NorCal on Saturday, Bayline Gathering on Sunday, and next weekend (July 7) I am taking the red car to its first track day (this is the EVENING 4pm-midnight event at Streets of Willow I mentioned in a separate thread).

I am starting a new contract job at VW Audi next week so I know I wont have any spare time then.
So whatever prep I wanted to do for the track day had to happen before Bayline...

If you follow the red car's adventures on instagram (@e_g_b) already, then some of this will be repetition - sorry!

Also, a handful of peeps have asked me over PMs, over email, and in person what the red car cost me...
While I haven't divulged the magic number, I did want to say something about that:

I'm mentioning this because a friend is about to receive a 3L straight six from Rebello and I've been super impressed with Dave R's level of service. After my friend plunked down a fair amount of change, & mailed in his carbs and his ignition to NorCal, Rebello built the engine, then broke it in and tuned it on their dyno with his parts. When it shows up in the mail, there will be no length guess work in tuning it, it will be 100% ready to be installed and driven hard - that's pretty amazing imo.

When I bought my 240Z in 2001 for $2350 off of a internet classified ad, I started the very long process of buying a piece here, & there, sitting on them for a while, then installing, then realizing that part A didn't go with B, so I had to order C and sell A, etc... You know the drill, a long drawn out piecemeal process which in the end has cost me much more and given me less total performance than plunking down at Rebello from day one...

If I had to do it all over again I would definitely go the easier route... I would recommend this to you as well if you're on the fence

The red car's turning out to be this (easier) way.
It wasn't cheap by any means - it's the most $$ I've spent on a car in one sitting
But the more time I spend with it, the more nuggets I discover, the more I get a sense that it was loved and well put together by its previous owner, & as a result the happier I am with my purchase...

The discovery process has been a treat!
And I know the car still has a couple surprises left in store for me...

So enough words, time to share some discoveries...
This all started last week when I decided my "noisy throwout bearing" was a bit worrisome with the track day fast approaching, so I pulled the tranny. First, pull the carbs, manifold, and header, and ...

... my o my those intake ports look big ...

... exhaust leak as I suspected ... partially explains carbs not being 100% happy all the time...

... super port job & brass guides ...

... finally pulled tranny, and this is what i found... :shock:

the "noisy throwout bearing" wasn't that at all, it was as Eric from JDML had guessed a twin plate clutch!
... i got a bit light headed at the sight of this ...

... dirty block looked sort of Nissan "blue", needed some elbow grease to clean up ...

... turned out to be a crazy pearl turquoise - i know, i know doesn't photograph very well... but take my word for it... it's "unique"... lol, so someone in Japan had a sense of humor, I'm cool with that...

ericbauer · **Posted:** Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:02 pm

remember the wrapped header from the beginning of this thread? the wrap was so brittle and old that in places it came off like paper... why would anyone want to wrap something so good looking? the wrap unfortunately killed the finish on it over time... we'll see i might get it coated ...

can anyone translate the stamp on the header flange for me plz? I can do some hiragana / katakana, but no kanji...

simple comparison of US 240Z aftermarket header vs Japanese C10 header

Since the tranny was out, I sand blasted the frame bracket, and re-painted it...

I really wanted the S13 / S14 tranny rubber mount thing to work (other thread), but it didn't work for me... The newer rubber mount was just too thick and in my case put the top of the tranny right up against the top of the trans tunnel... your car might be different - didn't work for me... You can see I ran a couple thick 3/4" bolt washers (1/4" total thickness) to space down the bracket) and that wasn't enough... bummer...

I was still having a hard time getting the mid-pipe and rear pipe to seal properly, so I had them welded shut... I did the same thing a while back on the Z to help get rid of exhaust fumes in the cabin ...

Pulled my gauge cluster to try and work on my nun-functioning tach, and discovered the closest thing to the car's birthday! The gauge cluster trim panel was made on November 23 1970 - I guess I'll make Thanksgiving, the car's birthday then... seems fitting, yes?

ericbauer · **Posted:** Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:08 pm

Other items I didn't photograph:

_ Swapped in new driveshaft u-joints and had it re-balanced

_ Did some basic fiberglass work on inside of chin spoiler - I've got cracks I need to fix

_ Swapped in the red car's Solex carbs back in (I had the 240Z's Mikuni Solex on there for the last two months)

_ Swapped out stainless line from tank to fuel pump for rubber one with barb fittings and added a fuel filter... car didn't have one up until now ... re-set all the remaining AN fittings with new teflon tape

_ Am now waiting on a Nismo intake / exhaust gasket to come in (wednesday?) - will definitely push me to last minute... ugh...

My 1970 KGC10 2000 GT

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