galaxyg

I'm a designer-manager in a marketing department. I've been working mostly at home since 2012 so it's not a big change for me but I miss the once-a-fortnight trip to the office (140 miles away). What is better is now when there's a meeting, I'm not that one person who is on the other end of a phone whilst everyone else is in a room together. Equal footing. I'm hoping one of the things that might come good from this situation is that companies and managers who are squeamish about the whole working from home thing might now see it's a good thing, and the % of homeworking hours for the country will remain at least a bit higher than pre-Covid levels.

I can think of a few things that'd be worth this treatment - Mazda Cosmo Sport, RX-7 FC, and of course 240z.

I think it looks pretty good, although from some angles it has a bit of a fat arse - top two photos. From the side it's not apparent at all.

I like this Z4 from the back and the front, but not the side. It is no Supra, aesthetically. Mind you the Supra is no Toyota, mechanically.

Design wise it's very disappointing. I've no problem with the colour or the graphics, just the plain bodywork. Slap the colour and markings on a Nismo body kitted one, some more interesting wheels and it'd be a lot better. Same with that heritage edition.

Just coming up to 101,000. About 10k of which are mine. It not being a daily driver has brought down it's average/year.

Bank holiday spring cleaning of the exterior. It's great when it's clean, it's just a pity that black cars stay that way for only about 12h. And also the daily driver scrubs up well but for a 5 year old low mileage car, it's no excuse:-

For my tastes I'd bring back:- 1) Honda Integra, 2) Any of the good Lancias. Before Lancia dies 100%. 3) Nissan Silvia 4) Honda Prelude

VHS has an analogue warmth that digital formats like DVD and Blu-Ray will never have. They just *look* better Just like vinyl *sounds* better.

We're bang in the middle of an era of terrible leaders, looking at the US, China, Russia, Turkey and Brazil as examples. We're not likely to be any different.

Very nice. Glad to see older Japanese cars are bona-fide classics.

A positive shoutout to all the guys at Horsham for my new 350Z clutch/slave/w-brace/service this week. New clutch is so nice it's like driving a new car. Great work; my 2005 Z's ancient bolts gave them more work there..

I've picked up my 2005 Z today with an all new clutch and flywheel. It's certainly made a massive improvement, especially at low speed. The other one was a bit clattery and juddery more often than not when starting off. However there is something new regarding gears.. has anyone experienced this? When I picked up the car it was parked nose in, so I put it in reverse and set off. Forwards. I tried a few times and then sought help. Turns out I'd been putting it in 6th. How it can move forwards in 6th is another question but anyway... I figured I was just being dumb after they reminded me to push down to engage reverse and demonstrated. I was puzzled at my own driving incompetence.. but at the same time I never remember in 2 years every pushing down. It was always hard over to the right and pull back. I did sometime fear one day putting it into reverse instead of 6th because they were so close. I put it down to a temporary lapse until I did the same thing later that same day (today) in a petrol station. Muscle memory did not push down. Clearly push-down is correct, so the car is better than it was. The question is... have I lost part of my brain or is an old clutch also meaning no-need-for-push. I thought it was some mechanical accidental-reverse-guard. I can feel the leather boot is slightly folded different, I wonder has changing the clutch reset something here - for the better?

3 days of mostly warm and sunny weather (aside from one thunderstorm) made me decide to tackle the front wing that's been bothering me since I got the car 18 months ago. A blast with the jet-wash a few weeks before did not help the front wing's situation, and it began to look a lot worse as the water pressure feteched off some bubbles. . I've never done bodywork before so I watched some Youtube videos. I've captioned the images with what's going on. The one thing the YT video never said was how to stick the mesh to the car, and since I had a tube of Gripfill handy (it's like industrial No-more-nails) , this seemed liked a good enough choice. It sticks anything to anything. Including aluminium to Nissan.

Thanks. I'm hoping to not have to contemplate selling the Z for quite a long time but I have considered whether or not to chuck in the model with the sale. Last time, I sold my RX-8, I kept the model as a reminder - partly because the "helper-car-expert" person that came with the buyer was such an obnoxious character.

All done. Most of the photographs are taken on top of the real car.

Further progress all the way to completion. I will take a lot more/better photos of the completed car in the next few days. The polished body is as much of a pain to keep clean as the real car. Why did I buy a black one? I should have learned after the black Honda Prelude. Photographed my own number plates and printed some 1/24 scale versions to fit here. My own B Pillars are wrapped in carbon fibre stickers as one of the was scratched when I got the car, so I've duplicated this effect into the model. Various finishing details. The Honda S2000 stubby aerial I fitted is made from the last of the clothing tag, (Blue arrow) and borrowed from other kits are the Nismo stickers I have on my B Pillars and the joke Japanese emissions sticker on the back window. Completed model, to be photographed better later.

Further work to complete the interior. I find it easier in most cases to just cut out the decal and leave it on it's card backing , then use a dab of white glue to stick it into the "tunnel" formed by the dials/dashboard area rather than to get the flimsy and easily tearable decal to go down there and sit right.

Drilling some holds and using a cut-up clothing tag for the air valves, to be painted black. Might as well paint the inside of the exhaust tips as well since I have the black paint open. Some cables and wires on the underbody, with ref from my own car. Not sure what the white ones do - they look terribly exposed to weather/damage but they appear to be electrical in nature and go into the Y-pipe, I guess some kind of exhaust sensor. The clothing tag is again useful and I'm not done with it yet either, the thicker part will make a suitable stubby aerial. 6 shots of the underside from start to finish. I've tried to aproximate the incredible amount of surface rust on the underside of my car. Those familiar with the underbody of the 350Z will notice there is no W brace here - it's not moulded in or included in the kit. Polishing the body Test fitting floor pan to body.

A load more pics. First, cutting some plasticard and gluing into place for the front bumper number plate mounting. Then sanding off so it makes a flat surface for the number plate to sit on. Drilling a hole for the rear spoiler mounting nub. Body is ready for undercoat In this instance I find matt black works just as well as an undercoat as regular primer. Car looks pretty cool Matt black. Here's the first top coat of black. It's a bit orange-peely at the moment but I'll be sanding this later. Also at the side are some shots of the 1:1 car, my 350z. A lot of smaller parts prepared and ready for spray painting. By drawing on the underside of the boot storage area with a red marker, I can use it as a stamp to plan out the carpet template. As I usually do, the carpets are made from spray painted sandpaper which gives a realistic enough scale finish to the roughness of the material once double-sided taped down inside. I do the same for the driver and passenger floor mats too. Drilling a pilot hole for the door handle. There are both sides available in the kit, as the kit includes steering wheels,wipers etc for both US and Japan/UK configurations. Tamyia handily includes window masks for most of the windows. But never the main side windows. I have spare making material for these however.

Oh also, Day triping Kyoto from Tokyo will result in a lot of the day on the train. Fast as it goes, it's still a long way. Kyoto is worth a few nights.

I cam back from my 7th visit a few days ago. The UDX Building in Akihabara has a underground carpark. If you visit level B2F on a Friday or Saturday night, you'll see some good stuff parked down there. Skylines, Silvias, Zs, Imprezas, Celica, all sorts. Often decorated in the Itasha style. B1F and B3F are full of the usual three-box cars that you'll see on the street. The side streets of Akihabara have some interesting stuff on them also on Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday not bad either for the streets and the UDX. Above was mentioned Odaiba Island. There is a large AutoBacs store there and there's often some decent metal in the car park.

I build quite a few model car kits so this is not new to me. Fortunately my own 350Z is Kuro black, so this is going to be a straightforward build. I've chosen the "track" version of Tamiya's 350z as it comes with the small boot spoiler that UK spec Zs have. Unfortunately this particular kit does not steer but in most other ways it's the same as a European spec 350z - closer than I could find in kits by other manufacturers. My own 350Z is entirely unmodified also so that helps too. The two areas of my car I'm not going to duplicate are the rust on the nearside wings, and the fact that despite being solidly fixed to the car, my exhaust is not quite straight. I think a mounting hangar is a bit bent. Where the Tamiya kit does differ from a European Spec car is the number plate areas. There's no front mount and the rear enclosure is JDM plate sized. This is where I'll address the bodywork first, as below. Now I'm cleaning up the few mould lines across the front.

Thanks for the info.

I'm thinking to buy a used-but-more-or-less-new OEM exhaust from a work colleage, it's one he took off to replace with a Cobra but it was new-replaced when he got his Z. His was (I think) a 2006 - the one with the more fancy headlamps. Mine is a plain 2005. I know when facelifts, versions etc happen not everything that fits X will fit Y hence the question: Does a 2006/7 OEM exhaust fit on a 2005 ? I'm attempting to make mine as much of a back-to-factory-fresh as possible, hence the OEM one is of interest.