It has finally happened! Managed to get a dry weekend and meet up with a fellow petrol head and hit Ullapool and Applecross for a wee drive. It was brilliant. Such fun driving about up there, weather was perfect bar a small cloud / mist type thing for about 10miles but damn it felt just right flowing the cars through the corners up there. I'm not going to lie. I did have in the back of mind that this 29yo JDM vehicle might not be the best for those roads esp sitting on coilovers that are pretty stiff but not like I had a choice at that point and these are the roads this car was made for and certainly what I bought it for.
Now I must mention the Spring Service that was done during the MOT / timing belt change. So the timing belt was due for replacement by age rather than miles. We had no idea when the last service had been carried out, when fluids were changed yada yada but we did know 5th gear didn't like being shifted into when the box was hot. Not at medium to higher rpm anyways which made joining motorways and shifting into 5th a somewhat noisy and expensive sounding process if not done really really slowly. So the decision was made, easy really that we'd get everything changed and dear lord was that some shopping list.
Alt belt, Air con belt, Power steering belt, timing belt, tensioner for said timing belt, water pump previously confirmed as not needing replaced, engine oil and filter, power steering fluid, brake fluid, front diff fluid, gearbox fluid, transfer case fluid, rear diff fluid, HICAS steering fluid, new brake pads all round. Got all that done plus the MOT plus putting in the stock airbox and getting rid of the HKS mushroom super intake kit. Horrible thing. Anyhow, here is the new airbox snorkel and the 2nd hand airbox I managed to source
Yeah I know not very exciting but it works very well to way above what I'll ever run the car at and pretty much can ignore changing the filter for a long long time! The great news from the service was that the coolant was also changed, cause it was manky as and the gearbox fluid change also got rid of the crunch into 5th gear. Still needed testing at higher rpms and after the car had had a good run out. Road trip you say eh? Sadly the weather from April to er September was shocking. I mean terrible, lucky to get three days dry in a row and then it was all hands to the garden to either enjoy having one and or do grass cutting weeding tidying up. Not a lot of driving was done at all, total let down. Then one September weekend stood out on the weather forecast. A plan was envisaged, contacts were reached out to and a plan was hatched. ROAD TRIP! A one nighter to Ullapool and then the Applecross and home.
So the plan was, if the weather forecast held that we'd scoot to Ullapool on the Saturday and stay overnight before doing Applecross on the Sunday and heading home our separate ways.
Previously I was debating whether or not to change tyres on the GT-R as the ones on it were and are a bit old. Like really old but because the weather had been quite frankly mostly sht I'd not bothered my butt about it and now in 5 days I was heading on a near 700 mile road trip. Aw baws. After much humming and hawing over grippy tyres versus something that's good enough for summer / dry days driving I'd chosen and ordered tyres. I not only chose badly but i also chose the wrong fitting place. They delayed the fitting by a day and then on the day they'd picked they then couldn't fit them in the allotted time slot. Leave it with us and come back, we'll them fitted for you. Aye right, that doesn't suit my lunch break and how am I supposed to get home and back again so that was canned. Cue many a frustrating call to the suppliers and the short version is, I was going on the tyres already on the car. Naturally when I woke up on the Saturday I was raining here. Grand, just grand. Forecast said the destinations where going to be dry and sunning so stuff it, we're going!
Once I was about halfway up the loch side the sun came out and the aircon was working fab. Car felt good and the gearbox and tyres were all keeping me rubber side down. Stopped for petrol halfway up and bought a bit of of a packed lunch for eating in a loch side parking area. Once back on the road north the weather was a bit so so and not exactly the brilliant sunshine I'd had til then. Met up with my mate on the road to Ullapool and he confirmed it was beautifully sunny at Ullapool. Right then, what we doing in the mist, lets go go go.
Onwards to Ullapool for an overnight camp and then the run to Applecross. Slightly nervous about the run and all the single track roads, the bumps the potholes and that damned front splitter over the crown of the roads and the many weird and wonderful undulations and of course having to move slightly off-road to allow other oncoming vehicles to pass. Well there were a few scrapes of that front lip and definitely some heavy braking moments to scrub off the speed before hitting the bumps / pot holed road but yeah the car and me made it with only a few er interesting moments.
So, the Applecross is like, well this is the sign that greets you as approach it from the south
Yes, that is 2053ft summit and hairpins. Oh yeah, we do all remember the GT-R's ae part time AWD yes ? So my thoughts were, please god do not fail me now and also wonder what the AWD is going to do when i try and hoof it out of the hairpins. The good news is that the AWD is quite happy for one to drop into first gear, get the car half way round the hairpin and then give some beans and lo the front drive kicks in and car hauls out of the corner and up the hill. Ah bliss. It is the simple things that amuse us.
So, can you in a Nissan even a 29yo model. Yes it turns out you can. Happy days.
Amazing, absolutely amazing. Time was a marching on at this point as we'd been delayed getting out of Ullapool so the decision was made not to head onwards down into Applecross for lunch at the pub but to head back down the way we'd come and grab lunch in Loch Carron if possible, it being a Sunday and all. It all worked out grand and then we scooted south for the run home and discovered pretty quickly that we weren't going to have the fuel to do the distance we thought we'd need to. I couldn't really understand why I seemed to have a quarter tank less fuel that I expected but I also wasn't going to argue and see if it was right so the choice was made and we changed our route to go 10miles further south than intended to where we knew we could get fuel. Yeah it turned out my gauge was lying to me but at least it wasn't going to cause me to run out fuel with a quarter full showing on the gauge. A winter time investigation I think. So we doubled back slightly, got onto a very lovely road only to be stuck behind some traffic that was stuck behind a bus that would not pull over into the passing passes. I mean really, that's just no on sir! Anyhow, we did the required turn and got some clean fresh roads and off we went and when the time came we waved our goodbyes and a flash of the lights and we parted towards our respective homes.
So, some 650miles later over two days of driving and I felt grand, no back pains no legs pains but i did have some ankle pain but that's to be expected with using the three pedals in the car. The GT-R seats are the best I've ever had in a car. I there are not the easiest to get in and out of but for the job of keeping you in place while driving and being comfy? Oh yes, beautiful to be sat in. Bliss indeed.
