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mr_han_solo

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mr_han_solo last won the day on January 12 2015

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  1. Overview: I was inspired to make my own body pan after seeing a combination body pan/splitter on the "Datsun Parts and Needs" Facebook page. I like the stock look so I wasn't interested in the splitter part. Due to this my body pan is plastic instead of the aluminum. Looking back I could have probably got away with aluminum due to the fact that the body mounting as a lot more level than I expected. Note this was used with a MSA Type 1 style Air Dam. Front measurements my vary depending on what other air dams you use. Parts List and Prices: Polyethelylene Plastic Sheet (Black) .080 48"x60" - Online Metal Supply - $25 AAF-ALL18548-10 Threaded Nut Insert (Needed to Mount to Bumper) - Summit Racing - $21.99 1/2" Steel Conduit (Needed to make spacers) Belmetric.com: 4x WSI10SS Internal Star Washer 6x WFE10X30SS Fender Washer SS 2x M10 Bolts and Fender Washers (Not Stainless) McMaster-Carr: 2x 25mm M10 Stainless Bolt 2x 70MM M10 Stainless Bolt 10x 18-8 Stainless Steel Button-Head Socket Cap Bolts, 1/4"-20, 5/8" Long The Process: My First step was to cut the conduit to the the length needed to make it level with the bottom of the air dam and the cross-member. Once it's cut, weld it up to the end of the front frame rails. Now sure what originally went in these holes but they are perfect. Then I took the two non-stainless washers and nuts and welded them into the round holes in the cross-member (There are four holes in the bottom of the cross-member, the nuts are welded onto the outermost holes on each side). I now had 4-points to mount my belly-pan. Now I had to make a cardboard template and cut it to make sure everything lined up. I used a awl to find my two mounting holes on my cross-member, and the two mounting holes where the spacers are now at. I also had to place a hold where my radiator drain is at. (Here is my template with the dimensions). Next I transferred this onto the plastic and cut it out: Note that I did not cut the entire wheel well area out. I left the "flaps" because I read that rolling the belly pan itself up into the wheel well would help with aero. Unfortunately, I didn't read or account for this before I marked out out and took the measurements on my template. I have added this photo showing that it is possible given the improved measurements. I don't know if this would be possible if you choose to use aluminum. After I have the initial part cut I did a quick fitment test: (Notice that I cut part of it too narrow around the front a-arms. I welded some more back on at a later point.) Next, I removed the bumper and slid the body pan up into the position where it would sit inside the lip of the bumper itself. I then took a drill and drilled the 1/4" holes necessary to put the thread inserts in. The thread insert flanges need to be trimmed down due to how shallow the bumper lip is: Inserts Installed and Body Pan mounted. Just waiting on front bumper: Don't really have a good photo of the finished product. If I ever get the car on the lift I will add a photo. It pretty much looks just like the mock-up photo above except with button cap screws on the bumper. Hope everyone enjoys, and feel free to ask any and all questions.
  2. Late last year I picked up a used louver for...FREE. I wasn't happy with the paint, or the condition of the weatherstripping so I set out searching if anyone had reconditioned the louver before. I found a few dead end threads, but all in all I got the general idea and set out to do it myself. *Disclaimer* After getting started with the process I realized that a how-to was not really necessary as it's pretty much a straightforward process. However, I took pictures anyways, and I have some free time so I decided to write this up and post. *Disclaimer #2* This is for the stock style metal louvers. Not the plastic or aftermarket ones. This how-to pertains to the original 70s style metal ones. Here is how the louvers looked after I bought them. Faded paint, and dry rotted weatherstripping: The first step was peeling off the weatherstripping and wet sanding the whole thing: Once I wiped it dry I put on the first coat of paint. I tried to get a general idea of how it looked originally. From the pictures I saw it wasn't satin, and it wasn't high gloss either. Thus I painted it PPG Flat Black. I used two coats of the flat with a light sand in between (1500grit). I topped the whole thing off with two coats of clearcoat: Now comes refurbishing the latches. They are fairly easy to disassemble, just unscrew the lever and the whole latch is spring loaded. *BE CAREFUL* The spring and toggle will shoot across the room. The spring itself is very fragile and may need to be replaced. Mine were okay so I didn't source a part # for replacement. Ended up cleaning all of the parts with some sandpaper. Used white lithium grease to lube then reassembled: Here is what is needed to re-assemble the weatherstripping around the outside. Permatex or 3M weatherstrip adhesive (be sure to buy the black and not the yellow like I did!), I got the weatherstripping from ebay. 10 feet of 3HCJI U channel. This weatherstripping is 3/4", slightly larger than the original. It can be hard to work with at times so you may want to use L weatherstripping instead.: Lay down your glue, then slide the stripping on. Use clamps and wooden blocks to hold it in place until it dries: It may take several applications to get the stripping to hold around the bends at the top, I think I had to apply and clamp it twice until it stayed down for good. Remember, don't use too much adhesive! Cleanup sucks.: After it dries, I used all new stainless steel hardware and reassembled the mounts. Then I measured, drilled and mounted. Here is the finished product:
  3. I recently purchased a set of Hoosier 245/40/16 and I'm looking at purchasing Diamond Racing wheels in the 16x8 size. I have combed through tons of threads and here is where I'm at. I've settled on +4 on the offset. I've converted to coilovers, and I've trimmed my front valence already, so I'm in the clear on both of those respects. I have done the Toyota caliper conversion on the front as well. My problem comes in with the wheels themselves. Diamond Racing wheels sets theor ordering by backspacing, not offset. I was wondering how I can convert this +4 offset to backspacing. Or if someone running the 245/40/16 on 8" wheels (I know there are a ton of you) would just tell me what their backspacing is, I'll use that. I'm currently running 235/60/14 on the "Iron Cross" wheels which have 102mm or 4" backspacing. Thanks.
  4. Well after doing some more searching I found some vintage Goodyear Bias ply tires for free. The tire size is G70-15. Now after doing the conversion this comes to 215-75-15 or a 225-70-15 in modern size. In turn I'm currently running 235-60R-14 on the tires I use currently. Is this new tire still going to be too tall?
  5. I'm wanting to do a wheel/tire combo upgrade on my 1972 240z for the car shows. My 240z has the early 1970s hot rodder look and my goal it so but some of the steel "nascar" looking wheels and put slicks on them. I'm shooting for the GT40 or Cobra look that was prevalent in the early 70s. Locally, I have found a set of used 27/10/15 Hoosier slicks (item # 10610 https://www.hoosiertire.com/pdfs/speccat.pdf). I was wondering if these would fit under the 240. Like I said before these would be for show only so as far as driving around I would put my current wheels back on the car. I'm really just needing to know if these are going to rub going on and off of a car trailer and driving around the show until I get to my spot. I have done a coil over conversion, and unfortunately I did keep my perches intact. Dunno if this is going to effect the wheel/tire though as it seems they will sit lower than the tire sidewall itself. I have done some reading and I see where some (circle track guys) have mounted their 10" tires on 8" wheels. Do you think this would be a better option for my setup? Here were the wheels I was looking at: http://www.uswheel.com/collections/fwd-drift-series/products/fwddaytona-gold Looks like the only bolt pattern they have left is 4x100 though so I may be out of luck by going with them. I have checked out the Diamond Star wheels before, and they are looking like the ones I'm going to have to go with. Hoping someone here can help me. http://imgur.com/a/5qHQo
  6. Enjoyed doing the write up and giving back to the community. I never really followed up on how the ride is, and honestly most of my driving this year has been on and off the trailer going to car shows. However, this past weekend I hit the road with it. Here is my first impression, the ride is AWESOME! I was really worried that it was going to be way too stiff, like a lot of people have mentioned. However, my stock struts were busted and my car would shake like an earthquake once i got up to 65mph. With the Bilsteins and Cosmos it rides 1000x better. Honestly, I got up to 115 and the ride was perfect. I opted with the Heavy Duty springs over the full race, but hopefully someone in the future will go the race route and chime in. We have a pretty good mountain road around here that was recently repaved, and I wanted to see how she would handle the turns both going up and coming down. It does handle the corners like a dream. The more confident I became, the more I wanted to push it. Still haven't figured out the limit, but these struts and springs have made a huge difference in this department as well. Just wanted to give a follow up. - Han
  7. With winter over my suspension project comes to an end. My 240z, spoiler and a 280z taillight conversion, and the entire suspension painted Datsun Golden Mist.
  8. Just refinished my iron crosses. I am also in the process of adding custom knock off style spinners. Hope to have a "How to" article soon.
  9. That looks great! I like how the line-x turned out. I just ended up painting mine black. I have a question though, is there a reason you didn't use a braided line going from the tank to the fuel pump?
  10. Thank you! Here is the painted front suspension with the coilovers installed: Now a before on the rears: And After: All new Yellow-Zinc Hardware on the Suspension bolts. On the few bolts I couldn't find, I just painted them the Nissan Golden Mist. Now for the wheels. My original goal was repaint the inners gold (like they were originally) and polish all of the outer flat lips and just leave the rest of the wheel, the "iron cross" part bare aluminum. After they started soda blasting I noticed that the flat parts were just going to be too much work to polish. My guess is that the wheels had been blasted before. It wasn't a flat machined surface, but but more of a very fine sandpaper surface. Anyways, I just had them hit the wheels with the finest sand that they had since I couldn't (a.k.a. didn't have the patience) polish them at this point. Fortunately, there is a metal flake look in the aluminum and it looks amazing. You can just barely see it in the photo below: Once I got them home I masked them off and re-shot the Golden Mist: I'm looking to pull off all of the masking take and clear coat them this afternoon.
  11. Wanted to update everyone and someone that may have future prospects of doing this. I sandblasted all of the JB weld off of the old line/tank. Once the line was lose I put some needle nose in the tank, around the line to help fish it out as I pulled on the outside part of the line. To my surprise, the outside popped off. It was after this that I noticed that the inside part of the line didn't move at all. After looking at the outside piece I saw that it was a clean cut. Same goes with the inside part of the line. I couldn't find any information about it being a two piece line, but since it's a clean cut and the inside line it still firmly in place I suppose the two pieces just butted up against each other. At this point I went to Oreilly's and bought a foot of 5/16" copper tube, cut it and had it installed back in place, then hit it with some primer. I finally got my compression fitting on there and it's now ready go to.
  12. Thanks! Going to use this to run to the fuel pump. The rest of my fuel system is good for now , but I will change it in the future. I do have a question about how you used the fitting. My fuel pump is mounted like this: The tank line comes out an an angle so the line itself makes an "S" to get to the fuel pump. Did you cut of straighten the metal line coming out of your tank before you put the fitting on it or did you just leave the metal line alone? Here is a picture of what I'm talking about. Disregard the JB weld, I put that on there last year when I was in a hurry to get the car running and I noticed that the brazing around the metal line had broken. I'll be sandblasting all of this off before I put the fitting on. - Han
  13. Hello, I recently bought a 6AN steel bung to weld to the gas tank and over the existing fuel line (pickup) coming out of the tank so I can have the looks of an AN line going from the tank to my fuel pump. However, I have a question about welding the bung around the existing line. If I go ahead the leave the line sticking out of my tank like if is from the factory and slip the bung over it, and weld it to the tank itself will it still be able to pull fuel from the tank? The reason I ask this is because a stock line is pipe clamped onto the metal line itself giving a good seal. While after I weld it the fuel line will just be slid over the metal line and not compressed. Of course the fitting itself will be welded completely to where its airtight so the only place to pull suction from is from withing the tank itself. Just wanted to see if anyone else has done this and if my thinking is correct. I am using a carb with electric pump so I have removed the return line from the tank and welded it up. I did a search and saw there some owners have threaded the AN pickup into their tank drank. I want to keep the tank as stock as possible so I really don't want to go that route. Also, there is the fact that I'm not sure safe that is for a road driven car. I have looked into a fuel cell as well but decided that I wanted to keep the stock tank (and stock look) as well. Thanks, Han
  14. Are you using a specialty program to make your diagram or just a regular paint program?
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