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appleslicer

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Everything posted by appleslicer

  1. Thanks for the reply. I totally get the joke. My buddy and I were that way, but now we are just hypersensitive. I swear I find out something new we should have done every day! I guess the issue of alignment is mostly a guaranteed issue if you use an aftermarket bell housing. Particularly Quick Time Performances'. Lastly, just want to note that my Stage 2 rebuild from Tick Performance is running smoothly. My buddy drove the car about 7 hours straight yesterday while I was tending to another matter. It's nice and smooth and not difficult to shift in any way as some people claim it does with bronze pads. So if you are considering a rebuild in the future, in all seriousness, I would try giving them a call.
  2. Woah. I don't mean to hijack the thread but now I am concerned about the bell housing being out of spec?! And the Block clearances? About to sound like a total idiot....here I go: I bought an Lq9, had a machine shop rehone it and I then installed new bearings. Well, I got a T-56 off a guy on craigslist a few months before. The engine ran great, everything was cool for about 20 miles and then the transmission got hard to shift and started grinding 3rd, 4th gears. Then flat out denied entry, and then the input shaft failed completely. I just sent the transmission to Tick Performance. It turns out I had a complete transmission failure. "It experienced extreme heat". And yes, it was filled with trans fluid properly. Lost pretty much everything... Dropped 3,500 For new internals. I could have bought a new trans for the price, but I need this car up and running again. I just got the transmission back Christmas Eve and reinstalled. Never checked bellhousing clearances nor block clearances. Any links or help on how to do this? I have never heard of it before... I am terrified to repeat the situation. Particularly because the transmission seemed just fine at first and then completely failed. I have yet to drive the car after the reinstall and may delay this depending on the severity of these clearences...
  3. So I'm finally finishing my build and decided to make the exhaust cutout on the passenger side. I took a cereal box piece of cardboard, traced the driver side hole, measured 40 times and started cutting only to realize the PASSENGER SIDE IS COMPLETELY ASYMMETRICAL!! The cutout is not only lower by almost an inch, but its in to the left too much. I have measured a million times, even drew a line down the center of the car and the measurement is even from the center of the car to each exhaust cutout, but the distances are all wrong! How has everyone else done this?
  4. I'm not a pro. My last car was an 08 Honda Accord. Honda's are cool, and I dont know your exact experience. I'm 24 years of age and I've spent 30K on my build and it doesnt even close look like it. Anyways, if I could do it over, I would do this: - Properly bag and tag every bolt, washer and nut. Ensure you have good labels on where they go. - Get small plastic boxes from the local store, and label them "Under dash, under hood, hatch" ect. Place your bolts in their individual bags in these. - Replace your hardware with the much cheaper steel that matches the old ones. Stainless not only costs a lot more, but also are much weaker (grade 2). Also they gall easy, and frack up your threads. - Don't reuse any hardware you remove. Chances are its strength is compromised. - Use anti-seize on all hardware. - Dont use lockwashers. Just washers are fine. Enough about hardware - EZ wiring harnesses are super cheap and very very nice to use. You will need relays for higher current devices, and ground wires that I would purchase from wirebarn.com (14/16 gauge GXL grade wire) - Stock wiring harnesses are the devil. Enough said. (Can you say fire hazard?) -Buy a xenon air dam (urethane) on ebay. There is a seller selling them for only 140 bucks shipped to your door! Yes fitment is frustrating at first like the other ones, but no big deal for a file. To me the biggest advice I would give myself is this: - Don't worry about brakes or suspension. Keep it stock. WAIT until you drive the car. Worry about keeping it road worthy. (or as close to it at all times) as possible. - Worry about the engine FIRST. NO COSMETICS (if you can help it!( No paint! No rust repair! No rechromed this or that. - Careful with sandblasting. Things can warp and be eaten very easily! Yes you can think long term projects are okay but it will get frustrating fast and you will rapidly lose motivation if you dive in too deep. Get the car on the road. My two or three cents. Best of luck Kyle
  5. Good find. I got the jpn garage ones before they closed down I guess. Those look exactly the same (actually they look nicer, smoother.) Worth a shot to me.
  6. And I would be interested/definitely committed as well
  7. When I got my 240z, the previous owner jerry rigged a Grant steering wheel on a hub that I'm not even sure is stock. The horn never worked, (there was just no wiring at all for it all), and the turn signal indicators didnt turn off after you complete the turn. I now have an NRG Hub, NRG Quick Release, and Sparco Steering wheel combo. Can anyone snap a few pics / share what their horn / turn signal setup looks like? Even if its a stock setup it could help me determine how to "fabricate" something to make this street legal. Thanks!
  8. What would help me from anyone interested. Post your bushing size with a digital caliper if you can. I recently found out I'm using a 280z rack, so it may be different sized diameter. I don't really know.
  9. Hi guys, Talked to a shop about making new bronze bushings for my steering rack. He quoted about 80-120$ for a set, but this price would be cut down depending on how many people were interested. If you don't already know, there are no replacements anywhere out there for these bushings. They are made to be very tight clearance and when they are worn, contribute to a very loose rack with sloppy steering feel. With these replacements, there would be almost every replacement piece available to rebuild your steering rack.
  10. Hi, I'm looking for the shims/gaskets that go around the the gear on a 280z steering rack. See picture for what mine looked like. Thanks! Kyle
  11. Just confirmed... I do in fact have a 280z rack... Is the cross member any different between a 240z vs 280z?
  12. Thank you kindly. To review where I am at, and what I know to do (to help anyone else, and if anyone has some additional advice for me) : 1. Fully disassembled steering Rack 2. Use Blind Inner Internal Bearing Puller Slide Hammer Kit from Amazon.com to remove inner bearings 3. Clean all grease, ect. 4. Paint/powdercoat/ect parts as required Ordered the following: -Super Lube 21030 Synthetic Grease -Rare Parts RP26575 Inner Tie Rod End (X2) -Energy Suspension Rack Bushings (TTT now offers their own variant now) -Empi 88-1509K Rack and Pinion Bellow Kit (X2) -Techno Toy Tuning Outer Tie Rods (Right/Right) -Steering Gear Worm Shaft Seal SKF 6641 I searched for the part number in your thread. It lead me to ebay. The description said the seal only fit 75-78 280z's under part number SKF 5810. Decided to search if the seller had a seal for 240z's. Indeed he did. Bought that. Part number SKF 6641. I still cant find confirmation on the bearings. EDIT: I am doing some research. Not much popping up on the interwebs EDIT 2: This must be acceptable as a replacement. Just used my digital caliper to measure the bearing things: 30202 Single Row Tapered Roller Bearing 15mm x 35mm x 12mm EDIT 3 I would prefer to just order the ball bearings themselves. You can get 80 of them for an entire 2 dollars! Ha! But the seals for the bearings are apparently bad if you remove them, so I would need to find a suitable replacement.
  13. Thank you so much! Answers that question awesomely. I was fearing. "You got to pull hard. Really hard". Edit: Ordered the puller from amazon. 33.00 bux. Anyone know where to get steering rack parts? The bearings feel a little bit worn...
  14. Hi, not sure if this is the right place to ask a couple of questions. I am in the middle of "rebuilding" my 1972 240z steering rack. I fully disassembled the rack and ordered up new inner tie rods from Amazon for $62.00 each: LINK HERE Questions as follows. 1. There were a total of Four shims as seen in the pic. Two thicker ones, and two thin ones. The thin ones look to have disintegrated on one half from rust. Is there any replacements available, or can I safely throw them away and move on? I have never done this before. Dont laugh please. 2. The new inner tie rods, unlike the old ones, dont seem to need the springs and pressure plates, and are instead a one piece unit with their own set preload. Can i toss this hardware? As I fear it will just be loose and rattle around if I put it back inside the rack. 3. Lastly, I want to very much remove the bearings inside the rack as seen in the picture, but even using a pick with a 90 degree bend and inserting it, I cannot seem to pull the bearing out. Seems pressed in. Anyone know of a way to pull them out? Edit: ANSWER: Use a "Blind Puller" Thanks
  15. Thanks Stock Car. We're doing everything we can. We plan to start the engine for the first time in a few hours. With our atrocious luck I don't want to have hope will run smoothly, but well see. I'm currently waiting another hour for the driveshaft shop to finish up with shortening the driveshaft to 25.25 inches for the Hawks motor mount, while my friend is welding in the floor pans and transmission mount. We realized we may have the wrong head gaskets too, so may swing by the dealer on the way to pick up the right ones. Btw, we've never built an engine before so it was an interesting experience...scary really but no one in the area wanted to build it at the time, so we did it after a last minute run to home depot for a couple torque wrenches. Doubt they're calibrated...but what can ya do. lol
  16. I meant to reply back in this thread my findings to help everyone. Crank pulley: eBay 80$ Tensioner: Amazon 80$ Tensioner bolts: Ace hardware 6$ Alternator: 200+$ from AutoZone New not rebuilt Water pump: Got mine on Craigslist for cheap but new ones only 100$ Water pump thermostat: AutoZone 30$ or cheaper on Amazon Water pump Bolts: Amazon 15$ I think Belt, pulley, remaining bolts and brackets ICT Billet around 150$ Total: A lot
  17. The entire project has been nothing short of insanity. Everyday I wake up and go to work on the car, sleep and repeat. Yesterday, today and Friday are the three massive checkpoints in our project. The plan is simple. Get the car to run Saturday. If not, I have no choice but to get a car loan and a new car and return to California because my leave ends.... Wednesday (3 AUG 16) -Recieve new pistons and replace damaged old ones -Recieve intake system and filter, Ect -Get complete LS swap kit from Hawks including the headers -Get the EZ wiring sorted out, and a couple knickknacks from Fry's electronics and the home depot to get it working -Get new battery -Drop diff and clean and service with new fully synthetic oil -Paint engine parts -So much more Thursday (4 AUG 16): -Get heater core back from radiator shop with a new core. -Get completed engine from shop -Get Ecu in the mail -More Well unfortunately, the day started rough and ended rougher. We were ready to start assembling the engine tonight after getting the engine EIGHT DAYS LATE and also charging 75 dollars over the agreed price. Turns out the shop not only forgot to clean the block after we got it home and unwrapped it, but lost/forgot to install crankshaft bearings! A setback this late is extremely discouraging. It's highly unlikely that it can be addressed in time. I will be calling the shop tomorrow immediately in the morning to get the situation resolved, but I have little hope. Also received the ECU today in the mail from psi conversions. Guess they forgot to pack foam in the box because the mounting bracket I bought with it was shattered and the ecu and box pretty beat up. I also ordered headstuds from jegs and they sent the wrong ones. Also got a gasket kit and it was opened and missing some gaskets from summit racing Also couple parts from eBay were pulled for some reason and the user deleted by eBay. Mildly frustrated.
  18. It's funny, but I originally thought I'd run out of cash pretty quickly for the project. Instead, it's time, so things like coilovers would take too long to ship and then we'd have to install so the option is unfortunately off the table. Only suspension upgrades are TTT Tie Rod Ends, Poly Rack Bushings, and ST suspension sway bars.
  19. So this project officially began 10 days ago. I sold my accord in only 2 days after arriving for 8,500 and immediately began ordering loads of parts. Not a single person thinks my friend and I can achieve a full overhaul of the project. Especially because we ended up buying a fully disassembled LQ9 motor off Craigslist. The engine came with no accessorys, no intake, and missing a lot of bits and pieces. Including a camshaft, which I had to source before arriving. It had only 15k miles on it. The vehicle it was in badly overheated. And then wrecked. The good is that everything is in decent shape. That's it... We took the block to Portland Engine Rebuilders for a block hone, cam bearings, cam polishing, crank bearings, and crank polishing. The owner is too busy to build the engine for us, but has answered any question we could ask and has given us tons of advice. We took scotch Brite to the worn piston skirts and he gave us new rings and instructions on how to install. The Car -Stripped entirely -Used rustoleum Rust Restoration spray paint on any hard to see spots -Cut out the trunk for fuel cell -Cut out all misc brackets that were unnecessary Most work has been going around gathering parts and talking to shops. Ordering and waiting. Almost everything comes in this next Wednesday. Well have to pull a couple all nighters but the car should be running by the weeks end. Couple "Old Pics". I have a busy day so will post more later.
  20. Wow. That looks really nice man. I didnt even think about using rockguard...makes a lotta sense though vs just using rubber undercoating! Ha.
  21. Just picked up the ST sway bar set off Ebay for 280 bucks! Link below if anyone is interested. http://www.ebay.com/itm/281852714095?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
  22. Reliability, fuel mileage, better throttle response; all reasons I decided to go with the LS. It's a lot more of a pain to do, as now I'm 100% starting from scratch, but it will make a much better DD. Wiring: I looked into painless wiring for a bit, but the reviews aren't too promising. No matter who's kit I go for, it will be hard since there is no plug and play or any kits made specifically for S30's (kind of surprising). My plan so far is to get ahold of a Ron Francis kit. The wires are all separately bagged and instructed and you run them TO the fuse box FROM the component, which to me sounds much easier to prevent spaghetti. I don't want to rush on the car, but if I don't get the car driving and take it with me, it will have to sit for another whole year until I return. It wouldn't be painted, or have much for an interior (at all), but that could be done anytime. My work is only 5 miles down the road from my apartment, so its not a big deal if my car is a real rat rod for a bit. If I wanted to take a trip anywhere soon after, we would just take the girlfriends 350z. I also don't want it sitting there taking up a bunch of room in my friends garage for such a huge length of time... Anyways, its still hard to tell what will happen. Worst case, I will sell my Accord and by an old civic for a DD, and invest the funds into the Z while I'm there, and make good progress. Considering I have never done any project this extensive, we will have to see what happens. I know I could do the engine swap a lot cheaper if I cut some corners, in both the fuel and exhaust side particularity, but it just makes a bigger mess and waste of money in the long run. Already I'm considering buying a 5.3 from a guy at work for 2,000-ish (would include three wire hookup, ls1 intake and throttlebody), even though I would rather have the LQ4/LQ9 platform. However, I would save at least a grand or more, which is substantial at this point. If I don't use the sweet headers from Hawks third gen, it also saves a lot of cash, but I'll have to rework exhaust a bit later to refit them. I can save even more pennies by going with an external fuel pump, instead of installing a nice in tank type. The list goes on.
  23. Thanks for the advice/tips! I doubt more and more I'll be able to finish my z this year. A measly 12 grand doesn't look like it can cover the cost of the engine swap, so its more likely I'll have to wait until next summer...which is depressing, but unfortunately seems to be the only responsible way. I guess we'll see. Regardless I'll make some kind of progress soon enough. I've been in California for over 4 years. The drivers are the worst. A lot of them shouldn't have a license. Ever. Paint wouldn't be done until after I get out next year, and go back north.
  24. About me I don't want to go too in depth and bore anyone, so feel free to skip. lol My name is Kyle. I'm from Oregon City, Oregon. I'm in the USAF so that's why I am in CA. My current car is a 2008 Honda Accord V6 Manual 6 speed. It's a fantastic and very reliable car. Nice interior and sleek looking exterior. Just a good all around daily. And its the first car I have driven with a stick, and boy did I love it! I have spent a couple years with it, but after increasing its power steadily, I realized the limits and problems with a forward driven car. Not to mention the absolute BS that is California smog. I was at the point of either spend the money on a power adder, or a new car. I decided it wasn't worth pouring more money into a car that had such limitations. Especially in size and weight, she just wasn't very good in the twisties and back roads, so I decided I wanted a Rear driven pre- 1975 car. After a length of time searching, I couldn't believe what an awesome find a 240z was! A small, lightweight, Japanese car, pre- 75, endless parts, huge forum support, the list goes on! I was sold! The Car While on leave back in Oregon for a week, after 3 months of searching for a good deal on a 240z, one popped up for sale for $3,500. Super cheap! It was a 1972 240z with a Chevy small block V8, with a 3 speed automatic. A lot of people had interest, so decided I was done searching, and ready to start building; I bought her outright. Here is the AD: The Good -V8 Swap -The Trunk area, engine bay, and I (hope) under fenders were sprayed with bedliner -Body panels are straight -Badge and side marker light delete -Its a 240z The Bad (As I have quickly, or slowly discovered) -The paint is awful, and needs to be redone (Huge amount peeling) -The windshield wiper doesn't work -The heater doesn't work -The Air Blower doesn't work -The dash was cracked in multiple places -The passenger door was missing the interior panel -The engine, differential, and transmission were pissing oil -The hatch strut was blown -The lights were all extremely dim -The car got less than 8 MPG -Seats are cheap aftermarket ones. Fit nice though actually -You have to SLAM. And I mean SLAM the doors to get them to shut. I'm scared I'll shatter the glass! -The passenger window won't roll down -Probably a lot more I'm forgetting So yes, the car needed work. A lot of it. Was it awesome to drive and own a V8 car? Yes. Yes it was. I only had a few days of leave left, and I sadly realized I couldn't take her with me. Especially with the gas mileage at aircraft carrier fuel consumption rates. On the last night, I took my friend out for a spin, and very soon after leaving the driveway we could smell something burning. It was too foggy to drive fast, so we turned around and went home. I ended up leaving the car at my friends garage, which happens to live only a couple houses down from my dads. Here is the car next to his yellow V6 Mustang: We pulled the windshield wiper motor, the dashboard, the heater blower assembly, cut out random disconnected (and unsafe) wires and taped them up, and cleaned and vacuumed any debris. I loaded the dashboard and wire harness into my car to take back to Cali so I could be somewhat productive for the next 6+ months. Later my friend discovered that the wire harness caught fire in the engine bay! And the harness I had, was melted in multiple places. I decided to scrap it. I will need an entirely new wire harness. What I have been doing Research. Researching like a crazy person. I have also been buying parts like crazy and shipping them to Oregon. Since I'm stuck here, I: -Fixed the Dash Cracks / Sanded / Painted -New Vents -New glove box setup and badge -Autometer gauges -Realized the wire harness I had was hopeless after attempting repair My Friend has been inspecting parts that I send him, and tinkering on the car. -Sold Engine / Tranny / Radiator / exhaust for 750.00 -Sold Bumper -Sold Fuel tank Has a total of 1k. So the car as a roller was 2,500. Even cheaper! What Happens Now I am taking 30 days of leave starting on 20July2016. I plan to: -Sell the Honda -Engine Swap the Z to an LS motor. -Make the 240z my new DD. Here is the car as it is today. My friend installed the $420.00 Fender Mirrors, and there is the photo of the horrible quality Retro-Spec spoiler sitting on the hatch just to see what it looks like: That's it for now. Later I will post shots of my excel sheet of costs, future plans, ect.
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