Lewis Schwier

Plates on! Enjoyed my first drive since being freshly detailed, missed driving it so much! Decided to use heavy duty Velcro for the front plate, cut circles out to match the two big holes in the front bumper, looks alright!

To die for!

Have you got a photo of yours?

Always good to see another MK1 Nismo pop up as they are so rare to see! Lovely car, some amazing upgrades! I bet the car feels so planted. Very nice actions shots there

I ended up going with MPS4S all round. 245/35 up front and 275/35 on the rear.

Yep same! I also put a post out on the Facebook to try and find out who it is but no luck

If my car goes missing at the Torqen meet I'll know where to look Thanks for the sticker, complementing it perfectly

Thanks @davey_83 for the kind words as always! Yep so worth it, now all the hard work is done all it requires is basic maintenance washes and it will come out looking like this every time! Yep the DE headlights still look good, I have got some facelift ones I bought but waiting to put those on when the Bodykit goes on. Haha it’s amazing what an iPhone can do these days. The rear splitter was something I decided to keep on as I just couldn’t imagine the mess that was lying underneath, just like the rest of the bodykit that was on it, it has been poorly fitted.

Thank you, yes! So looking forward to driving it

Haha I’m flattered! Love an arch clean, mega job! What a difference. Also is always a good sight to see when your summer wheels are fitted Sorry I couldn’t make it today, Car was still in the unit. All done now though, looking forward to meeting up

So this will be the last update for a while! Happy and sad at the same time haha Its been a long 9 weeks and I've really missed driving the car, but have throughly enjoyed making the most of lockdown and working on my car to the extent I have. So side skirts finally came back from the paint shop so they were fitted back to the car followed by the wheels, rear bumper and rear lights. The side of the rear bumper that sagged down before (DS) still wasn't perfect despite me replacing the broken clip, better then before but not perfect, hopefully this is something that can be sorted by the body shop once new body kit is fitted. Same with the DS side skirt, just me being very very picky but fitment wasn't 100%. Little pieces of trim also fitted back. Another quick clean up then I was ready to go onto the final stage of detailing. Rear Lights were cut and refined, had not cut these as knew it would be easier once back on the car, yellow Rupes pad with Koch-Chemie H8 followed by Gyeon Primer. Onto the paintwork refinement, now this is where all the hard work ties in and for me is the most rewarding stage, although the Medium Cut I had done before had refined down really well, it never fails to surprise me just how much gloss you can achieve by a further refinement even when you think you could get away with not doing another step (obviously I would never actually not refine unless it was just a single stage detail). So the original plan was always to use a wax to finish off instead of a ceramic coating as with the future plan of the NSM bodykit going on and painted it would need to be detailed again after that anyway. So I have some Angel Wax Fifth Element that I was looking forward to using so I thought it would be great to use Gyeon Primer to refine and leave it on the car overnight as it creates a nice layer of SI02, a perfect base for the wax to go onto. So thats what I did....but I had ran out of time and my car needed to be out of my unit as I had the electrician coming in the next day Managed to polish the glass with CarPro Ceri Glass and coat with Carbon Collective Platinum Glass as well. So car was refined, glass coated, wheels coated, ready to lay down some wax but was now outside...not ideal. JUST MY LUCK it rained of course So the car was dusty and car had water spotted in places. So got the car back in once electrician was done and gave it a quick wipe down with Meguiar's Wash & Wax. Now I could of then taken the water spots out with water spot remover then gave it a coat of wax and it would of been fine. But it didn't feel right plus there was a chance I had marred the paint whilst wiping it down. So decided to refine it all over again, by this time I had changed my mind and wanted to use a light ceramic instead of wax so no primer was needed. So Rupes White (diamond) polish was used. I then treated all the rubber seals with Swissvax Seal Feed (great product nothing else on the market quite like it). Then wiped down the car with IPA to prepare for coating. Car Pro CQuartz Lite was my product of choice, a 'light ceramic' that has great hydrophobicity and will last 6+ months, just what I need. Just need to fit my front window wipers and the plugs for the wiper delete on the back, plates on then MKS Customs is coming over and wrapping the front lip black then the car is completely finished. Phase 1 COMPLETE. Car looks mega now, such a good feeling when its your own car. Nice to be in my customers shoes for once thats for sure! Enjoy the finished photos, any questions please feel free to ask away!

What colour? this is down the road from me (wasn't me as car has been in my unit for 9 weeks) but intrigued

How good does it look with the roof down! modded really nicely. Great purchase

Thank you. I used Hammerite Silver spray paint, also used one of those spray gun triggers that goes over the top of the can so you can get a better even coverage. I made sure I sanded off near to all the rust so it would last. Then two coats of Hammerite, 4 hours drying time between each. I know there is better products out there then Hammerite but I had a can to use up.

Yup hopefully! Yes agree with you with the front hubs but painting the hubs wasn’t on the list at all, was lucky to be able to find the time to do the rears. Need to get my car out the way, got customers cars booked in!

New tailgate now on, cleaned up the hinges, have also sealed them now too. De badged the rear, also had to wet sand out a deep mark where you could see the previous owner had damaged the paint by de badging the original. Makes me cringe when I see people do it in correctly. So a bit of heat with the heat gun to soften the glue, then using fishing wire take the badge off using even pressure so you have 'a clean slice through' and you're not pulling one side of the badge away from the surface as the other side will go the opposite way and dig into the paintwork, this is where the damage is usually done. The using Tar and Glue remover and some cotton pads let the product soak into the left over residue, once soaked its as easy as peeling off, no need to scrape, scratch and rub unnecessarily. Once done the surface is machine polished to take away any ghosting if any. Window wiper stalks refurb was completed (after running out of paint previously haha), all ready to go back on. Rear Brake hubs sanded down and painted, as you can see they were pretty bad! Front Hubs were okay so just cleaned those up using some wire wool. Rear spacers to go on the back. Cleaned the plastic retainers up that were okay to re use. Bought a packed of new ones as a few of they snapped when taking off the car due to how old they are. So now finally now all the dirty work was done, safe to say my unit was probably the worse state its ever been in! A massive clean up was needed, so I spent a whole day cleaning and organising things to be ready for things to be put back together and paintwork to be refined. All new weather stripping for the rear fender guards and brackets. Some plastic welding on the bottom of the bumper and side skirts, not very neat but has done the job (will not see it anyway) Rear arch lining and fender guards re assembled. Looking so much better now, well worth doing! Is solid now, no rust, no missing bolts or retainers. Final part of the detailing has been started. Wheels cleaned, decontaminated and ceramic coated. Also as you can see I ended up going for a new set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4s all round Exhaust tips also polished So car should be done today, Bumper, side skirts and wheels are going back on, paintwork is being refined and waxed. Then just the little bits and its ready to be back on the road! Can't wait

Have you got a build thread?, would love to see it!

Xpel * Gtechniq *

Been following DSD for a while now, saw your car on their Instagram and thought that looked neat. Daytona Blue looks so damn good when it’s been detailed

Thank you! I'm Cambridgeshire based. Forum discount available of course LD Luxury Detailing on all platforms.

Thank you! Yep been loving it, can’t wait to get back on the road

Coming into the final phases now, all ready to fit back together! Side Skirts taken apart, front lip off too. Wheels, spats & side skirts sold. Original side skirts are at the paint shop as they have been damaged from poorly the fitted aftermarket extensions. Here is some satisfying before and after photos when I got the wheels refurbished. New owner was very happy to say the least! Centre caps were a bit worse for wear but I did my best to try to save them, new owner put his own centre caps in anyway I think. Cleaned under the side skirts, used Bilt Hamber Surfex HD with Hog Hair Brush and steam cleaner. Then proceeded to remove the rust from the lower sills. Used a wire wheel to grind rust away down to the metal, smoothed with sanding block, degreased then used grey primer and KY0 Silver to finish off, very pleased with the results! Have also refurbished every bolt that I have taken off the car (probably around 30-40 at this point) I let them sit in a bowl of Bilt Hamber Detox-C. Wasn't expecting miracles as some bolts seemed too far gone but miracles I got! Couldn't believe how good the product was! Left over night and pretty much stripped all the rust off every bolt leaving them looking like new. Rear arch liners and fender guards removed, now after seeing how must dust rust removal creates when using the wire wheel I decided to leave the wheels arches for another day, the whole underneath needs doing at some point so no point making a mess in my unit, anyway breaking down the fender guard supports and arch liners gave me access to clean the fuel filter neck and other areas I couldn't before. Arch liners, cleaned, de tarred and coated with trim coating. All the rear arch liner supports and fender guards themselves were badly corroded along with the bolts that held in place the arch liners which are connected to the supports, so much so that I had to hack saw them off and drill out. Dismantling these rear sections just makes you realise how badly designed they are. 1. Why are plastic arch liners held in by plastic retainer clips in most areas and then metal bolts in others. 2. The fender guards and lower arch liners sit flat which allows build up of everything that the wheels flick up causing bad corrosion and rusting. Anyway rant over have now made so that arch liners are only held in by plastic retainers to avoid having to hack saw rusted bolts off again. Drivers side fender guard was replaced (thanks Adrian) and the passenger side fender guard and all supports were sent off to be sandblasted. They were then painted (Grey Primer and Satin Black) on the bits that sit flat I gave a base coat of POR-15 Rust prevention paint to give good protection. Here are a few before and after photos of a couple of the bits that were done (weather strips to be added) Onto another unexpected purchase, which means more work! The original tailgate had a smart repair that was done really badly, also the Nismo V1 Spoiler is a replica which has also been painted horrendously. So the plan was when fitting the NSM kit I was to buy a new carbon v1 spoiler as I mentioned in the last update and also get the tailgate re painted. BUT was browsing on Facebook 350z Buy & Sell page as you do and found someone selling a tailgate with a Genuine Nismo V1 spoiler on it, in KY0 Silver too! So snapped at that as I knew it would ultimately save me a bit of money in the long run. So travelled up to S****horpe to collect. The weight difference between my old tailgate with the rep spoiler and the new one with genuine I couldn't quite believe! Only good to have a bit of weight saving right So that is where I am now, new tailgate ready to go on, hinges have been taken off, sanded down and painted. As you can see Nissan smooth over the edges of the hinges to stop them corroding as they do sit in a water channel after all. So needed to cut out with Stanley knife once bolts were removed. Quick sand down and lick of paint to tidy up, far from perfect but not bothered as you can't see this once the tailgate is on, plus will need resealing once hinges are back on. Cheeky little time lapse! Will put up first episode of vlog on YouTube once car is back together

Welcome, very nice zed! I agree with the other either original spec or if you don't want to pay out for Diamond cut refurb you can go full silver like me (still looks good )

Guide I went off when I first used the product

Looks like marring to me, very easily done when trying to polish by hand. Also those swirl marks can be caused by a number of things also. Marring specifically can be caused by various things, dirty/damaged cloths (do not wash with fabric softener!), poor prep work, dusty environment, over application, under application. Like ilogikal1 said when buffing off its a good idea to spiritz the buffing cloth with some QD.