MrFancypants

Man that's a long way. Only car shippers I know travel in specific regions of the USA (like southwest or south). You might want to look into rail shipping. The other thing would be to find someone in Burlington and drive/tow it across the border yourself. I bet that would be MUCH cheaper. International car shipping would be much more work. - Greg -

Mikelly -- keep up the good work. I know you guys take a lot of flak from those guys on "the other site" for being a dictatorship. I think there's simply too much crap on the internet these days and good information is hard to come by. I applaud you guys for sticking to your principles and keeping at least this little corner of the internet in order. I didnt have a problem with Mike, but he did seem to have a volatile side. He got excited quickly and it sounds like he burned some bridges. Sometimes you gotta learn the hard way. - Greg -

I agree 100% with this. $100 for a factory ball joint has little to do with quality and a lot to do with scarcity. It's already been posted that you get about a year more out of a NISSAN ball joint under hard use than an aftermarket one (and we dont know WHICH aftermarket one it was). NISSAN ball joints dont have a LLT warranty either, so as long as you dont mind changing ball joints, the aftermarket ones will be a better buy even if they last half as long. Luckily the ball joints in the Z are really easy to install and dont need to be pressed in. Im also not going to pay $100 for rack boots. I can replace the cheaper quality, LOCAL versions 5 times for that amount of money. - Greg -

The 260Z also has the clamp-on bumper. Not sure if it will be necessary after I put the ES bushings in, but I'll reinstall it anyway. - Greg -

Ive had rims powdercoated and even from regular street use, the PC on the mounting surface of the rim seizes to the brake rotor and makes it a pain in the ass to get them off the car. Because of this, I will never PC brake components. It's easy to exceed the 500* threshold for PC. Maybe the high temp stuff would work better, but why bother with that high cost. You can get VHT caliper paint and use that. - Greg -

Found out from another thread that there is a universal fit steering rack boot from AutoZone that will work (Part# UF2020, $10 EA). I picked up two of them last night and will let you guys know how they work. They do not show up in the parts database and you have to ask the guys to check their universal fit boots in the back. - Greg -

Ok my parts came in. One ball joint is a McQuay Norris -- same brand sold by Suspension.com and are a reputable aftermarket unit. The other came in a Dana box. Must be the exact same ball joint sold by Napa for $49.99, then. In other words, AutoZone just rebadges the ball joints as Duralast with their own part number -- and sells them for a pretty damn good price. The ball joints do not have zerks on them, but the ones that came off the car did. Im not too worried about this since I will just replace the whole unit under LLT warranty rather than try to service it. They also have nylon lock nuts rather than castle nuts. Shouldnt be a problem since Ive never had a ball joint that didnt pretty much seize up under the weight of the car anyway. The tie rod ends do have zerks just like the ones that came off the car. My steering rack boots did not fit. The ends towards the middle of the rack are too big ID and therefore won't seal. Need to find out why the special order parts didnt fit. Anybody know the difference between a 240 and 260 rack? I would assume it has the original 260 rack. Anyone got an AutoZone part number they know works on a 260? - Greg -

You know, I dont know if the front bearings were ever changed on my Z, but when I pulled apart the hubs, the bearings and seals looked brand new. Not a hint of corrosion or gritch on any of them. I was truly shocked. Seems like the front undercarriage was sprayed with some muddy undercoating crap -- had to scrape what seemed like pounds of material off to get to the parts underneath. It was a pain, but when I pulled bolts I could still see the cad coating on the threads! I was afraid I'd have to rebuild the steering rack but after I cleaned it up it looks brand new -- not a hint of rust. The boots are dryrotted and it will get fresh grease but the metal parts are pristine. All the front suspension bits are at the powdercoater... will look brand new underneath the car at the end of the week I'm going with the same front brakes, and will be upgrading the rears to the 11.4" disc setup. More on that to come later! - Greg -

Go with PC... your choice of color and I think it will look better than the shiny bling. Only thing I would cad/zinc plate is brake components, due to operating temps. - Greg -

Yeah I forgot to mention I got 2 ball joints, 2 tie rod ends, and two steering rack boots for $160, so just the ball joints and tie rod ends were $130. Wouldnt be surprised if they came from the same place and just got rebadged. - Greg -

I just went to AutoZone and got all Duralast stuff. They have LLT warranty on everything so I figured the risk was lower than ordering someplace on-line. Still cost me ~$160 - Greg -

Just ordered my brackets/hats from JSK. Bling! - Greg -

Get those wheels with the Mako Shark paint job and you will be stylin - Greg -

So this weekend I began the front suspension tear down. Found my first rust problem -- after scraping off the undercoating in the wheel well under the battery tray. Cant say it was unexpected, but still annoying. At least everything else came off easily. Everything was covered in goop, but once the bolts came out they still had the zinc coating on the threads! Both ball joints and tie rod ends are really gritchy. They looked like they hadnt had fresh grease in years and whatever mud/undercoating was just caked on everything. It was a huge mess but the end result is I need new ball joints and tie rod ends. Who's the recommended ball joint source? Nissan? NAPA? How about tie rod ends? Can you press out the tie rod end or do you have to replace it with the tie rod? Since Im going to be lowering the car, I'm going to need bumpsteer spacers -- is there an aftermarket tie rod that eliminates the need for a bumpsteer spacer, or do you have to make your own? - Greg -

FWIW I had a perfectly good running FWD SR from my 300 whp turbo set up and I ditched it. Sometimes it's not worth making something work when there is a better solution out there. Granted Im not 100% that I'll be going SR, but if I do, it will be a full RWD setup. - Greg -

Bet you put the clutch disc on backwards... If it doesnt sit flush all by itself, using the bolts to tighten it down is a bad idea. Just pointing that out for when you go to install it again. If you dont have reverse drill bits and a good tap and die set, get them. They will save your ass many times over. - Greg -

Einstein aint got nothin on this guy! - Greg -

Yeah the gas mileage is the low point... I get around 15 city, 17-18 highway. - Greg -

I have the same model (in Storm Grey rather than Electric Blue). Nissan built a winner with the 2nd Gen Frontier. Ive been really impressed with the value! - Greg -

Shouldnt need to break in a puck clutch... copper pads dont "bed" like organic discs. Should be able to beat on it from day one. - Greg -

Those would look great... on a Chrysler 300M. - Greg -

Get some new tires at Discount Tire and pay the extra money for their Ride Matching service (i.e. Road Force Balancing mentioned above). It makes a huge difference and I do it with all my new tires. It's also easy to mount 4-lug wheels slightly off balance. You should install each wheel, hand tightening lug nuts in a cross pattern until the wheel is snug. Then use a torque wrench to tighten to the right spec. Dont just fire them on with an air impact - thats a good way to cause problems. Try moving your wheels around on the car and see if the vibration feels different (like moving front to rear). - Greg -

Bosch Plat +4 are crappy plugs. Ditch em and buy NGK. - Greg -

Not your exact question, but I typically ran Mobil 1 15W50 in the summer and 10W40 or 5W40 in the winter in my turbo SR (300-320 whp). For a time I ran Royal Purple 20W50 but it was too expensive. For gear oil I ran Royal Purple SyncroMax 75W90 for a while, then switched to Redline Heavy Shockproof. Georgia shouldnt get really extreme temps (hot or cold), so I would expect 10W40 would be good. Havent seen a Nissan engine that didnt spec 5W30 so YMMV. - Greg -

Little update a few levels deep if you havent read it: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=26646019&blogID=230300540&MyToken=501bf42b-5026-4b38-bc5f-5b26fdf942e2 - Greg -