Sweety's R20 Terrano II

[sweety]

I thought it was about time I did a build thread. Being disabled now I was finding it very hard getting in/out of normal cars & so was my Wife as she sadly has a back problem, so we decided we needed a higher motor which we could fit all of our camping gear in but would also be a great tow vehicle as we will hopefully be getting a caravan this year. As we owned an R20 Terrano before & loved it we started looking for one 36 months ago & after looking at over 40 of them during an 18 month period we at last found a low mileage, almost rot free one:wings:
18 months ago when we picked it up from the garage with 51,000 miles on the clock & one owner from new, it's a late 2005 model (one of the last brought into the UK) SE spec


I'm not one to leave my motors standard so over the following couple of months I added
Silver sun strip to top of so they screen
Fitted my old spare wheel cover off my last R20
My own graphics to the bonnet






As time went on I hated the road tyres fitted to the truck more & more so they got replaced with a set of Cooper Discovery AT3's all round. I noticed the front torsion bars had sagged so went under the truck & re-adjusted them so the front end sat at the factory ride height again. A couple of weeks later I noticed I had developed a rattle which turned out to be one of the running board as it's mounting had rotted away so took them off which will save me from ripping them off when laning like I did on my last R20 I also added some wind deflectors (my mate took this pic)

 

[sweety]

The stereo system that Nissan fitted into these trucks is truly dreadful so that was the next thing on my list to sort out & at the same time I added a little bit of carbon Vinyl wrap as well.
Kenwood stereo
JBL 6.5" 2 ways in front doors
JBL 5.25" 2 ways in rear doors
JBL GT3 10"
Kicker ZX250.2 amp
Standard 5x7" speaker next to a 6.5" JBL you can see how small the factory speaker magnet is


Made up some MDF baffles for the front & rear doors but in the summer I will be redoing the front ones so they are angled slightly & will add some sound deadening but as it is it sounds 200% better








Dash with the new Kenwood stereo & the carbon wrap added, I also made a little gauge pod for my volt & turbo boost gauges (getting replaced very soon) & the horrid factory gear sticks have been replaced with a pair of 8 ball pool balls

(photobucket playing up so will add the other pic's soon)

 

[PIPELINE]

Looking good!!! :luxhello:

I'm considering replacing my speakers too!

Keep up the good work and don't forget to post some pictures with the updates! :sombrero:

 

[sweety]

Looking good!!! :luxhello:

I'm considering replacing my speakers too!

Keep up the good work and don't forget to post some pictures with the updates! :sombrero:

Cheers & don't worry I will
Ahh photobucket working again, I also carbon wrapped a couple of switches & a switch blank on the dash to tie things in better & may do the heater vents as well



One thing about the Terrano i've never been very keen on is the lack of a centre arm rest, I solved this on my last Terrano & had to do it again for this truck. I used a Vauxhall (Opel in a lot of countries) Vectra B arm rest & kept cutting off the bottom of it until it was the perfect height for me


It was then bonded onto the top of Nissan's joke of an arm rest/storage cover & smoothed & blended in with body filler before being primed & sprayed silver to try & match the centre part of my dash but the colour match was no where near as close as I hoped but solved that problem which i'll get to a lot later on






I have to say adding the arm rest has been one of the best mods i've done regarding drivers comfort

 

[sweety]

As we are wanting a caravan we needed a tow bar, managed to pick up a second hand Witter one for a good price & it was the type I wanted as you have two mounting points for the tow ball & I'm sure a NATO hitch will also fit on which would be handy for a Sankey trailer but don't tell the Missus that lol The tow bar was in good condition so cleaned it up & gave it quick paint, still not sure on the colour might paint black.
I didn't want the tow sockets mounted on the hitch as they would get ripped off, off road as it's happened before so wanted higher up & where the rear number plate looked a good spot. The plastic No plate mount was badly cracked from an old bump. Plastic welded it & strengthened it with fibreglass, then carbon wrapped it & fixed the sockets on which get lit up from the old No plate lights.
Mounted the No plate onto the rear door & fitted an LED No plate light from a bike above it.

 

[sweety]

 

[sweety]

Never liked the yellow'ish white light you get from standard bulbs so replaced the front side lights, rear No plate & interior lights with LED bulbs. The interior LED bulbs have made a huge difference




Whilst I was at it I thought i'd fit my old blue LED lights from my last car into the truck's foot wells because you don't often see it being done

 

[sweety]

We often take our dog (Jack Russell) out with us & if we have to leave her in the truck for a bit I fold half of the back seat forwards so she has can go from the boot (trunk) where she has her little bed & water bowl or onto the other half of the back seat so she can look out of the windows. One thing I was worried about was her catching her paw on the mounting for the 3rd row of seats which were removed the day we got the truck but this mounting had also marked a couple of things i've had to carry in the back over the past year. The Nissan mounting covers are very costly for what they are (a bit of plastic) & sadly the old owner binned them like most do so I went into the shed & found some old off cuts of MDF & cut them to shape & glued them together, to secure the cover in place I fitted a small bit of steel bar to the cover for the mounting latch to grip & covered it all with some black carpet to match the the boot carpet

 

[sweety]

Our Son is a member of a local car club which is mainly lowered, modified, high performance cars but they invite us out every weekend to the meets & to the local car shows & the truck always seems to go down quite well as it's something different:smiley_drive: Here in the UK they put loads of salt on the roads over the winter so everything rusts badly so all of the floor pan & chassis has had a good clean & underseal which will get done every year to help slow the rust down. With the truck going on the club stand at car shows the rust covered suspension was really letting the look of the truck down so it got cleaned up & painted, but still got a few bits to do yet but the winter has stopped that but as soon as it warms up i'll get it finished




A couple of months age I developed a nasty knocking/crunching noise so a quick look underneath I found the front anti roll bar (sway bar) drop links had gone. I couldn't get the old ones off the anti roll bar without removing the bar so whilst I had everything off I replaced the standard bushes with a nice new set of poly bushes. I also fitted a K&N filter into the air box which has helped improve the throttle response & the MPG has went up a tiny bit
Never been a big fan of the mud flaps fitted to the Terrano & the front ones form part of the shape of the lower part of the wheel arch which doesn't look quite right to me if they are removed so I cut them back a bit so they don't sit as low. I removed the rear ones totally & made up some steel plates to go where the rear mud flaps mounted to help keep road spray off the rear part of the rear lights & to act as a mounting for the rear bumper
With the mud flaps

 

[PIPELINE]

Sway bar links are alwais a nightmare! LOL

The mudflaps turned out ok! I'm about to remove mine for a few days just to see if i like that way or not... Altough I'm not a big fan of the front without them!

 

[PIPELINE]

In your Terrano, if you remove the mud flaps, it's actually very nice to look at...

Mine is just weird looking at it without those parts, specially in the front:

This was in the first one i had...

 

[sweety]

Well that's about 18 months ownership up to date (might have missed a couple of things off) Two weeks ago I got a message off a mate saying he had a set of headlight protectors & a bonnet guard for me as he had stripped them off his Terrano before selling it, so we had a run up to Scotland to see my mate & his family & to pick the bits up which was a nice 140 mile round trip in the snow.
The light protectors had a lot of scratches on them sadly but after using some G3 rubbing compound on them they came up ok with just the odd deep scratch left The bonnet guard had been painted by my mate as it had been a clear one which he didn't like. Some of the paint had come off so I resprayed it & it reacted with the old paint so had to strip off all of the paint & sand it down to key the surface before repainting it & luckily it came out great
Close up of the light guards



And the truck with the bonnet guard fitted:wings:

 

[sweety]

For some reason i've had a thing for putting some stickers on the truck lately but there are 2 Expedition Portal ones on the rear side windows:bowdown:

 

[sweety]

When I fitted my extra gauges at the bottom of the dash it seemed a good idea at the time. What i've found is to check the gauges my eyes are taken off the road for to long for my liking so they needed moving to a better place where I could easily reed them & keep an eyes on the road at the same time & the best place would be where the centre air vents are in the dash. After a long wait I at last found someone selling a centre dash at a good price:wings:
Here's my dog checking out the new dash



The air vents were cut out & their mounting points were ground down with a dremel & so was the thumb wheels which operated the vents opening/shutting of the air flow to the vents in the centre



The air vents rear ducting also had to be largely cut away as the rear of the gauges was fouling on it & also to make room for the gauge wiring & pipe work for the boost gauge



Next job was to make up some blanks to replace where the air vents were & for the gauges to mount to. I found some 6mm (1/4") acrylic in my shed so cut it to shape & used a hole saw to make the opening for the gauges. Once this was done I used lots of strong epoxy resin to bond the planks into position & smoothed over the thumb wheels for the vents with fibreglass filler then a skim of body filler over that to give a smooth finish & also added the body filler around the edges of the blanks to blend them in with the dash



The whole centre dash was sprayed with plastic primer then with a couple of coats of high build primer to fill any small low spots I might of missed. The whole lot was sanded down & then sprayed with grey primer ready for the top coat colour




Four days ago I was able to spray the top coat on which is Nissan Blade silver & left it to dry for 24 hours before spraying on the clear coat which i've left to harden off for the last 2 days



Hopefully i'll get time to rub the centre dash down with G3 rubbing compound & then get a coat or two of polish onto it to give it a nice shine & add some protection. Still waiting for my blue silicone boost gauge tubing to come but am hoping to have it all fitted this time next week. The next job is to remove & paint the gear sticks surround so it matches the centre dash & the arm rest & the mark on the surround the last owner left from sticking something on it will be a thing of the past as it's always bugged me seeing it

 

[PIPELINE]

You are going to put a turbo gauge, and what's the other one? Engine Temp, battery Volt?

I was thinking of getting another engine temp gauge, but i'm having a little "debate" with myself on where to connect the sensor... any ideas?


I haven't touched this new center console yet, but if i'm getting another gauge, i'll probably be doing the same as you did!


Nice work! :bowdown: