1986 Nissan Sunny lovebarge

[wurlycorner]

There won't be updates to this one any time soon, because it's buried in a garage a few miles away and now unfortunately needs a fair amount of work to get it back on the road...

But anyway, I found these old pics of my second car, the first one I ever bought.

1986 Sunny Spirit 1.5 SGL estate.
Yes, you read that right - SGL!!! That's the top of the range!!!!!!!!
(means not only did it come with the GL spec tachometer, soft plastic twin-spoke steering wheel and internal adjusting side mirrors, it also got the luxury velour seats and door cards AND remote cable controlled opening rear quarter light ! )



It was also the very last of the line, facelift version, which means it had slimmer front headlights with a body colour metal strip underneath and more fancy grille!!! So yes, you can tell that as an 18 year old, I was a MASSIVE Tackle Box magnet

I scoured for ages to buy it and bought the best I could find and then spent a lot more time making it mint (including full engine strip down and massively anal rebuild). Then a couple of k later, some rhubarb lorry drove into me on a roundabout and it was written off - this set of pics were taken for the insurance claim.






That's 3 bloody panels the bloke drokked up so it was written off.

The prick contested the claim and it dragged on for 2 years, with him only caving in the night before court, leaving me out of pocket all that time (third party insurance only).

The Sunny was replaced with the dark grey 2.5 petrol turbo CX lurking in the background

[wurlycorner]

Come on, admit it...

You're all jealous!!!

[macky_6]

That's awful

My dad had a Datsun fetish. He had a Stanza. Was good at the time

[wurlycorner]

That's awful

My dad had a Datsun fetish. He had a Stanza. Was good at the time

Aye, they drove much better than any of the equivalent euro stuff of the time (and much more reliable of course) and this used to out drag XR2's on the A127 (much to their annoyance!)

Never liked the look of the front of the stanza, never really liked the look of the back of this Sunny, but the compromise on the looks on this one was a very wide boot opening which was very practical...

I'll get round to getting it back on the road one day. My plan is to get an engine from the Cherry turbo of that era (1.3) and use that to cobble together a custom 1.5 turbo for this!

[Doggo]

I kinda think the CX was a good move. Are you sure the shunt made it look worse?

[nitin_s1]

1986? That's older then me..

[mercutio]

1986? That's older then me..

I have underwear older than you

[W1ggz]

I had a nissan sunny coupe for a brief period it was the 1.8 and was pretty quick but it fell apart lol

[wurlycorner]

Yeah, those 1.8 sunny coupe's ( ZXi?) were very quick!

[wurlycorner]

Went over to it today in preparation for the move tomorrow...
I had a horrible surprise and a nice surprise.

The horrible surprise was that time and concrete council garage have not been kind to the old girl


(it has the optional Citroen CX front bumper style chin spoiler )

Lots of surface rust appeared through the paint on the front wings is not the end of the world



But rust around the A pillar is a bit annoying


You'd never know that engine has only done about 15,000 miles since I completely stripped and re-built it. All new seals and gaskets, core plugs, rings, main and big end bearings, valve seals, seats re-cut, head skimmed, block painted and all aluminium polished and lacquered



More rust in the skuttle panel



And gutter


Nothing that can't be sorted, but annoying considering when it was parked up in there it had been freshly washed and was pretty much rust free.

The nice surprise was that I thought I only had 1 spare CX bonnet stashed away in there and a rust free tailgate for the Sunny.
Turned out I have 2 bonnets, 2 doors, a mint front bumper and rad grille for CX's and a rust free rear door for the Sunny (one of the bits that got bent by the lorry) as well as the tailgate