seattlejester

Small update, I got 3 out of the 4 bushings installed. The last one is being awfully stubborn and now it is starting to mushroom 80% down the shaft. I sanded off quite a bit of the powder coat, but not enough. I should have used calipers to check. I'm going to use an impact gun to get it to seat, and then try and massage the mushrooming out of it. The other three went in relatively easily. I should have stopped when this one gave me resistance, but I figured some persuasion would get it in. Ugh, I really hope this is the last of it.

In regard to camber? I usually only run about 1-1.5 degrees so it is adequate for me. Given that you would have to remove it to adjust the camber anyways, the extra adjustment from the 4 bolt did not appeal to me. I have adjustable lower control arms if I want to add more camber, I suppose if you were really desperate you could also oblong the holes for the old school camber adjustment as well.

I went to the autoparts store to try and find another clip, some guides online said to replace with new clips for new installs. Had a real hard time getting them to really look for it. Last ditch effort I figured I would go to the hardware store to buy a spring and cut a ring off and make my own. Didn't have much luck finding one of the right size. So stuck with what I had, I shrunk the one I had on hand. Sadly putting it back on seemed to deform it once again. A couple more attempts and the inevitable happened, it flew out of the vice grip and flew across towards the trash. After cleaning up my trash I figured it was a lost cause, and went to look for the output shaft for the J30 to take to the nissan dealership to see if they could help me, luck would have it the little bugger turned up. I figured since I was already resolved to give up on it I might as well go for the last ditch effort. Ratchet strap acquired and the route the strap would take secured with zip ties, I started to crank it down. A few clunks were heard as I ratcheted it down to the best of my ability. And at max tension I hit it with a hammer. No cigar. Resolved to deal with it later I took my setup apart only to find...the axle wouldn't come out! I grabbed a socket and smacked it a few more times and it started to go in. Smacked it a bit more and boom seated! So tip to those who are struggling with putting a shaft in. After making sure all your parts fit each other, start the axle in, and use a ratchet strap. Now my newest problem is the powdercoat adding too much thickness on my LCA. I managed to get the sleeve in on one side with heavy persuasion. I think the other sides and arms I am going to sand down the powder to make it a better fit. Question. The bushing that sits inside the poly bushings protrudes more then the threads. With it assembled I can slide the bushing forward and backwards a little bit. Should I shave this sleeve down? Or is it supposed to be there to allow for rotation without the bushings binding?

So a lot of mixed progress today. Started with getting all the parts ready to install the other stub axle into the housing. The housing of course The stub axle, note the sealed side of the outer bearing facing towards the outside, also potentially note the bent dust shield.... The new lock nut The spacer The flange adapter With the parts ready the assembly began. Fill the housing with grease Pack the bearing full of grease using the palm technique Also pack the inner bearing and place the spacer on, making sure to add lots of grease. Smack bearing into the inside of the housing. Note you can get this bearing started with your hands if you line it up correctly. Smack in seal so it sits down against the bearing. Use a liberal amount of grease both inside and outside as the outside will sit against the rotating axle flange. Place the flange adapter on and impact the nut on. And no that is not an attempt to be fancy with a soft focus, that is grease on my phone Here's where the problem occurs. I notice a tough spot in the rotation. Upon closer inspection I notice the dust shield on the stub axle is bent contacting the lip. I try to pry it out, but the space is so tight there is no way that is going to work. Now I could neglect it and let it auto machine, but I figure it is worth a shot to try and disassemble the thing. I take the lock nut back off and to my surprise a couple smacks with the hammer and out pops the stub axle from the flange. I use a screw driver to pry the dust shield back into place and assemble it all back together, and give it another spin. Nice and smooth. That is when it occurs to me that the other side is not nearly as smooth at all in fact it is really quite stiff. I try to disassemble the other side and I'm hit with a lot of resistance. After smacking it with a rubber mallet I upgrade to a hammer and have much better success. I panicked a little bit when the little trick of flipping the nut backwards to save the stub axle from mushrooming backfires and the nut gets stuck against the flange. Wiping the grease off my gloves luckily gave me the grip to get the nut off. After removal I find the seal was as I suspected riding on the flange. I smacked it down a bit more and put it back together. Very smooth on this side as well. So after that little fiasco, I torqued both of the lock nuts to 200lbs and am giddy with excitement at the prospect of putting the car back together. I filled up the diff and torqued the mustache bar and the drain plug. I figured for the last task of the day I'll get the axle on the driver side in. Note this is the 280zx turbo axle going into a 300zx turbo differential housing with an infiniti J30 VLSD center. I thought I covered my basis as I made sure the 280zx turbo splines were the same, made sure the clearance for the retaining spring was correct, and even took the spring right off the old input shaft from the driver side of the infiniti J30. To my chagrin, the axle is not going in. I even disassembled the axle so that I am hitting the axle itself with no luck. Best to my guess is that the retaining spring is not compressing enough to get started. With the retaining spring removed, a couple good smacks gets the axle seated quite nicely. After about an hour of different method of hitting and pulling the retaining spring out and trying to compress it a little bit came to no results I left defeated for the day. My options are thus. The lazy way: Take the spring out, put the axle in, deal with it down the road. The axle is spring loaded so it will always be pushed towards the differential. The retaining spring for this center section on the driver side only does the job of keeping the axle from popping out, not to prevent the axle from bottoming into the differential (there is a large expanse towards the center instead of the usual slot you find). The suspension being stiffer then expected along with the non droop nature of coilovers means that the possibility of the axle falling out is pretty small. The futile way: Try to compress the retaining spring more. I fear this is futile as any amount I can get it to compress I have to stretch it back over the axle shaft so it will be lost. The futile way # 2: Put in j30 input axle. This is futile as this would be using the same retaining spring and would be subject to the same problems. However given that it came from this differential there is a possibility it may be more happy to take it in. This would require me to build another custom axle for the driver side. The creative way: If I apply enough force something has to give. Best case scenario the axle goes in, worst case scenario I bend the shit out of the spring and have to spend the next day fishing it out. A ratchet strap wrapped around the differential would provide the extra force I would need. I imagine this is going to be an exercise in frustration as trying to force a shaft with a pivot point in the middle of it into a hole is going to be difficult. Not sure what to do. Of course I want to do the lazy way, requires zero expenditures, meets most of the requirements, but if anyone has any thoughts it would be nice to hear.

That is very good to know. Measured pre-load although that took quite a bit more torque then I was expecting. We'll have to see how it sounds oil in it, I just got the oil pump to fill it the other day. I'm going to try to take pictures today, last time working with all that wheel bearing grease and diff oil I decided against it, but goodness that is a huge wall of text.

I helped to lead you astray here. Namor is using a good example. This system where you only have a collar for the spring pre-load only comes into play when the spring meets resistance, this would be when the shock is fully extended, as in the same type of situation when the car is hanging in the air allowing the wheels to droop. Pre-load means exactly that, you are pre loading the spring as in you are adding load before you add the actual weight of the car. So if you can imagine if you slowly lowered this theoretical car with pre-loaded springs the car would not drop in height until the weight on the spring over came the amount of preload.

Thank you for the offer, that is very generous! I may have to hit you up on that depending on how this goes. Definitely hope to see you around, I plan on actually driving this car quite a bit this year. Spent the last couple weeks putting a little time into the car. The FSM is filled and I mean filled with a vast amount of information regarding backspacing and shims etc, you could really get lost in it if you wanted to. I don't have the shims to measure, and given the large amount of adaption I'm not sure how much will apply. The consensus of the nissan community seems to be to install it the way you pulled it out and you'll be fine. We'll see how that goes. Assembled the rear diff with an ever so slightly thicker shim. Impacted the ring gear bolts all on with blue locktite. Center went in easily enough, put the bearing caps in and torqued that to spec. Cleaned the cover and scraped off the old gasket, added a new gasket and tightened all the cover bolts. I tried to install the side input shaft and had trouble. A little bit of gear oil helped it to finally slip in. Here I had another worry moment as spinning the input would generate a small click before the side input shaft would turn. Searching online, it seems adding oil will dampen this click and it isn't audible. Beginning to feel like quite a bit of assumption/blind trust is going into this whole deal, a learning experience I suppose. Installed the mustache bar, then tried to install the diff with the RT mount attached. Then I remembered that, that was going to be damn near impossible. The correct method from what I've done the last two times and this time is to first install the mustache. Then install the ES mount on the diff and loosely place the RT mount on top of the ES mount (start the threads on the bolt). Jack the diff up and engage the mustache bar, then loosely add the nuts to the studs. Then move the jack forward and get the RT mount lined up. Install the RT mount and then pull the ES bushing up to the mount by finally tightening the bolt. If you try to tighten the bolt before you line up the RT mount you are going to have a hell of a time lining up the 4 bolts. With the diff installed I started on the uprights. I greased up the inside of the outer bearing, slipped on a greased spacer sleeve and set that aside. Then I greased up the inner bearing with the old palm technique to make sure it was coming through both sides. I thought I had saved an old bearing but couldn't find it for the life of me so I found my bearing punch and tapped the inner bearing into the greased up housing. I added a liberal amount of of grease in the housing, quite a bit contrasting information to be found here. Some people say to pack it so full that grease oozes out as you push in the bearing and the stub, others say just a dab on the surfaces will be fine, and others say to just coat all the surfaces. I erred on the side of too much and coated all the surfaces and put a few handfuls smeared in the hub. I put the stub axle through and had a bit of a confusing moment when it didn't seat, I realized I could either press it in or pull it in. Having seen some damaged housings from no doubt someone trying to press it in, I decided to pull it in and made sure to install the grease seal and made sure to add a little bit of grease to the outside (I had read of a story wear the flange sat a little close and ended up melting the seal from the friction). Then I installed the 280zx turbo adapters and installed the washer and the lock nut and impacted it on to about 130lbs. I have both a 250lb torque wrench and the in/lb wrench to check for the drag so that will come after. Ran out of grease so that will continue this weekend, but we are getting to the short list. X Finish other side upright X Torque nut X Fill diff with redline fluid X Tighten drain plug X Tighten mustache bar/diff nuts X Install rear hanger X Weld spider gear to axle X Install axles X Install lower control arms X Antiseize coilovers X Install uprights with coilovers X Mate up axles and LCA to uprights X Install drive shaft X Install brake hardware Bleed brakes X Install sway bar end links Torque check all bolts Put on wheels!

Hmm I think I've had this all wrong then. I thought you had to overcome the weight of the vehicle to begin raising the car. I guess the corner of the car just needs a certain amount of force to hold it up. The 4 extremes: 250lb/in spring 500lb corner weight So if you would up the collar to add pre-load equal to the weigh of that corner, when you load the suspension, that corner would not move. 500lb pre load 500lb corner weight, suspension does not compress when loadedm car does not change from droop height If you wound the corner up higher with more pre-load then the weight of that corner, then the car still would not rise. 750lb pre load 500lb corner weight, suspension does not compress when loaded, car does not change from droop height If you wound down the collar so the spring has no preload, then the spring and subsequent car would compress the spring until the spring held up the weight of the vehicle. 0lb pre load 500lb corner weight, suspension compresses 2 inches, car drops 2 inches If you continued to wind down the collar then the car would still compress the spring the same amount, you would just loose shock travel as it will take a certain amount of height before the load reaches the spring. 0lb pre load 500lb corner weight, suspension compresses 2 inches, car drops 2 inches + the distance needed to engage the spring So anything in the middle where you begin to add preload would subtract away from the height the spring has to compress. 250lb pre load 500lb corner weight, suspension compresses 1 inch, car drops 1 inch Is that more correct?

I've got just the fronts installed. I have the 3 bolt extreme low kit, earlier 240z. I don't think they are quite as extreme as one may think. I have them at about .5 to 1 inch drop with about 1/2 or a 1/3 of the adjustment used. What little driving I have done with them, they are nice. Decently stiff with reasonable rebound control. Will have more hopefully this weekend.

Holy crap, I hoped that is all he touched that looks like a fire waiting to happen

Recollection is that it was explained that the gears have to line up to hit all the gears. If they aren't lined up then they won't want to engage. I think my friend showed me the concept by forcing it into gear without the clutch in on flat ground ended up moving the car a little forward or backward. I might be mistaken. Bottom line is you don't need really need to hit all the gears while you are stationary.

Yea stop assuming...it is hard to do, but keep at it. Take off the valve cover and see if any oil has made it up there. Assumption gone. Can't suggest much on the oil pressure, not too familiar with all the little passages and what not, but either one of the passages right after the gauge port is blocked, the gauge sender is faulty, or the oil pump really is pushing that much pressure. Some people keep it on to help the system develop pressure to get to temp faster, but then there is the added risk when you pull the cap off, those fancy caps with funnels seems to be a nice compromise. You need to fix each system here. You have concerns with your engine, concerns with the transmission, concerns with the hydraulics of the clutch. Pick one item and work on it, kind of hard to figure out what is exactly going on with what, and if you try to make theories with so many separate concerns it won't end well.

Nope.

Their suspension setup might be different, might have pulled the wheels in via a shorter LCA, or they could have trimmed a little bit of the interference area, or it could just touch when they are turning. They only need to showcase the wheel so not much driving has to be done.

Is it the correct sender? I just checked my start vid, and my stock gauge sat around 80psi, which definitely feels like it is on the high side, 100 seems real high. Coolant: Fill it, let it warm up until the thermostat opens, fill it up again. Different permutations of cap on cap off, etc. Basically make sure there is coolant in there, let the car get up to temp to open the thermostat, once the level drops fill it up again. If you have a heater core make sure you have the heat on to fill it with coolant. Check it before you go adjusting anything, assumptions are bad. Reverse bleed would indeed be that, but if your slave does not have a captive pushrod then what I am thinking might not work, the syringe might indeed be better. I'm still a bit bothered by the custom adjustable slave push rod. I guess if it returns to flush and is not partially engaging the clutch it should be fine.

I think my rebuilt motor was running pretty high in pressure at the beginning I'll have to go check if it was that high, I don't think so though. That sounds like a pedal adjustment problem. Your going to have to stick your head under there and look at it to make sure it isn't binding before pushing on the rod. My problem came to a bad clevis, it was bending straight up instead of pushing and would only engage the clutch a little tiny bit after it bound up from being pushed up. If you can make sure that it is actuating the master in a linear fashion, you can adjust the engagement point by lengthening the rod so that it begins to push fluid sooner. Your going to need someone to watch the slave for you to tell you when the slave starts to move. Another thing that was helpful on my swapped drive train when it wouldn't engage the clutch properly was a reverse bleed. I don't recall if you can do this with the datsun style slave, but you basically pump the slave to push any bubbles towards the top given the slave lives under the master. I do see that some slaves come with adjustable push rods, but the standard replacement one should have appropriate engagement. If the brakes work you can always have it dragged to a more friendly spot or trailer it if you have the means. If the car moves in first gear you can get pretty far without shifting, although that may not be good if your motor is rebuilt to rev it that high for that long.

Ah that clears up some things. With my nissan 5-speed I had a similar thought when it wouldn't go into certain gears smoothly. It depends on where you stop. With the clutch working it should engage all gears without problem, but without the clutch it might only engage a couple while stationary. I panicked when it happened to me and thought my trans was also bad, a friend explained the reasoning behind it and confirmed it with his own car, I don't have my phone so I can't look it up, but it happens. It happens on my toyota 5-speed too, I can't row through the gears making vroom vroom noises without it fighting me on some gears. Make sure the hydraulics for the clutch are working, check fluid level, and slowly go for a little drive around the block. I think you will find it will shift into the gears once in motion with the clutch. Why do you have an adjustable slave rod? Are you running a strange clutch combo? Clutch pedal resistance is going to have to do with the return spring and the pressure plate, a lightly sprung plate will be easy to engage and disengage, a heavily sprung one will fight you quite a bit.

The threaded collar will lower the car and raise the car, but if you are maxed out in height aka shock is fully extended and you keep cranking up on it you are just adding more preload. With a spring so soft I'm worried about coil bind potentially coming into play, my apologies if I led you astray. I'm thinking more from an assembled coilover where you turn the body for height adjustment and the perch for pre-load. Given the strut insert you would actually have to jack the car up quite a bit to start engaging pre-load in the GC style coilover.

The simpleton in me would ask if you made sure to fill it with the proper amount and kind of oil after you took it apart. If the wheels have to be turning, I'm wondering about the clutch. Do you have enough travel? Have you bled it recently? Just get in the car with your feat up and your head in the foot well and pump the clutch with your hand and a flash light, have your dad look at the slave and see if it has good throw as you pump it. If it doesn't have proper engagement it could be hard to get it into gear. You could think you are getting the gear, but if the clutch is not disengaging all the way out you could be partially engaged all the time which would cause lots of grinding. It is overall a pretty basic test for the clutch, do as mentioned above and visually check that the clutch pivot isn't binding. Then make sure that the clutch slave is moving out enough and then just as importantly going back to rest. I had a short (in height) shifter and it was pretty easy to shift. My short shifter kit for my toyota drivetrain required quite a bit of breaking in and adjustment to be able to shift it with one hand.

I'm at a 23 inch tire, 225/45/15. That was only because the rivals were only made in that size, otherwise the tire is too small. Add stiffer springs as suggested if your struts can handle them and you can lift the car up a bit. Right now rolling the spring up via the collar is only putting in pre-load. If you do get to the point where you have more pre-load then is weighted on the corner (lifting the car up) you basically are no longer riding on the springs. 150lb is also pretty soft, Gabe from TTT says his kits at the low end starts at 200F,225R. Even my tokico springs for the 280z were at 185F,200R.

^You sir are a man of many talents!

L28 now, but build for the RB. Get your fuel lines and system setup to fuel for the RB, make sure your ECU can be transferred over to the RB, ignition system is compatible, etc. Once you have that all setup then it will just be a matter of unplugging and pulling the engine and slipping in the new engine with a swap kit and plumbing it up along with any wiring adjustments you have to do.

Looks like a lot of progress! The bed liner stuff works pretty well, I've used it and it has held up pretty well on my car.

Well this is a fun exercise. What are you running? Whatever it is is 280hp apparently. If it is a V8 you could cut spark and fuel to 1 bank. If it is a turbo you can just keep the waste gate fully open. If it is a high compression NA L6, I'm not sure what you could do other then make it run pretty bad via restrictive exhaust and intake. It is the reverse of making a car run well. So you have air, fuel, spark, compression, exhaust you just have to limit those without causing too much damage. I imagine limiting air would be a relatively easy one.

I'm pretty pissed, so a bit of a rant I apologize. I'm having very annoyed feelings with the endlinks. MSA was only responsible for setting up a store for vendors to sell so they don't have much fault in this other then the fact I got my endlinks in about 34 days? I had to contact them 2 weeks in to find out where they were and only then they told me it was out of stock, and that they thought it would ship out the next week. I got a call on day 30 after I ordered as they were required to confirm I still wanted the part since it had been so long. I really could have ordered and made these, but my lazyness got the better of me. Quality is pretty poor. TTT setup is miles ahead, I wish they sold a larger version of theirs for use in the rear, combined with aluminum spacers to correct the incorrect offset of the ST sway bar that would be absolutely golden for your average joe. The poly bushing is the super hard kind that has tons of casting marks, means that traditionally that is where cracks like to start. The bracket is just a bent piece of metal. They didn't even have the decency to make it a sharp bend to capture the bolt head nor did they leave enough room to get a socket on it. That means you have to hold it with an adjustable wrench held in line with the bolt. The bent metal was not even coated, there are scratches and I would say machining marks, but since it was just bent I guess vice marks that show un-coated metal which means it is a start point for rusting. The washers are thick, but don't seem to be hardened versions, which means I imagine them bending out after use. The washer that engages the sway bar doesn't even look big enough to keep from sliding through the hole. The spacers for the rod end are not even the same on either side and are not the same size on both pieces and additionally they are quite thin which means to capture it you have to crank the bent piece of metal either together or add more washers to use as shims at which point what is the bloody point of having the spacers if you have to make your own. The spacers in and of themselves are just a cut piece of tubing, one side even has a large chunk of burr hanging off of it. Bolts are all grade 5 except for the bolt that bolts to the actual sway bar which is a grade 8. Look, I'm glad they exist, and someone even did some research as there is an option to adjust the offset with two holes which despite what they wrote it for should probably be used front to aft not side to side, but just disappointing, I think I'm going to rebuild it with better parts because this one feels almost unsafe to put it on as is. /rant After reading about all the trouble that can happen from an improperly torqued pinion flange and nut, I decided to order everything to install it correctly, yoke holding tool, 25-250lb torque wrench, and a 0-60 in/lb torque wrench to measure pre-load. I even ordered an axle holder so I can torque the stub axle correctly, my plan was to just zip it on with an impact gun with the studs in a loose wheel, but might as well be reasonable about it. Center section is assembled waiting to go in along with redline 75-90 gear oil. Pretty excited to put the car back together. After the rear end is in place the glaring problem will be the oil leak which I ordered a UV kit for and the driver door and window not closing properly. I bought new guides and strikers to fix it, but I think this may be a golden opportunity to just swap one of the spare doors onto the car. I figure I'll get the car running and then paint the spare door and go out for a long drive then come back and install it.