getZ

What kind of car are we talking about? I have a 72 240z with a moderately powered small block. On the front I have a relocated oil filter, transmission cooler and air conditioning (I can't remember what you call that heat exchanger for air conditioning). The radiator is an AZ z car radiator with a taurus fan cooling it. Right now my car is running on the hot side at 210 -215 degrees. I found just by running around with the hood on the safety catch will lower my car down 10 degrees. I haven't tried it yet, but I would guess water wetter will bring it down another 10 degrees. BTW this is not running the high fan speed, that seems to bring it down another 5-10 degrees, but I'm not so sure the alternator puts out enough to keep up with the current draw of the high speed part of the fan, so I only use it when the car stops moving (I have it hooked up to a manual switch right now.

I'll double check my schematic I got from bowtie. If I remember right the pressure switch was in series with the brake switch. It wasn't that obvious when it was locked up or not, so I'll recheck the functionality as well. I even thought about doing a lockup to an rpm switch, so any time it was past 1000 rpm it would lock up.

Not everybody has problems. I never got a big enough response to this thread to make an exact call on what combination did not work, but some combinations seem to be fine. I modified my axles by grinding off the the very ends with just enough material for snap ring to still have enough to grab. The snap ring will come off before the end breaks away. I could have gone one step further and machined a grove to move the end stop ring on the opposite side of the bearing cage from the snap ring and that would have gained me another quarter inch. I would be very cautious about having to force the axle onto the stub. I can get mines on without having to compress the suspension. I don't know this for a fact, but I would guess that to tight a fit will put pressure on the ring and pinion. My car really does not see enough road time to tell if there is a problem, but what I had intended to do was get a temperature reading off the diff cold and after running the hard in turns for a while. I have an infrared temperture gun with a laser pointer to test it out. Well...its on my "to do" list anyway.

The four prong plug is for the solenoid. The only way I know how to determine if you have the solenoid or not is to drop the pan and take a look. The way I have my lockup convertor working is it needs two conditions, a high pressure switch to be made (in forth gear) and the brakes to not be locked. This is where I got mines from: http://www.bowtieoverdrives.com/catalog/catalog_inc/viewitem.php?ITEMID=339 I think I have an extra one I ordered by mistake a while back. PM me if you are interested. I'll sell it for 10 bucks.

Sorry, The question is: Is it normal for the guage to behave strangely like that when the battery gets weak? I'm would have assumed it would start working normal when the battery is up to full charge, after running after a few minutes. If I shut the car down and restart it after its been running a while it works okay. I guess I should put a meter on it and take a look at the voltage to be sure. I haven't looked at the voltage yet. I just assumed the battery was getting weak and old because this is the second time this has happened. After all, how low does a weak battery get? I think 10 or 11 volts is as low as it will get, not counting the voltage during cranking.

This is for another car, but the guage is universal. I have an electronic Autometer fuel pressure guage and it starts to act weird when my battery is about to die. I'm guessing this is because the voltage is starting to get low, but it is the strangest thing. The guage normally resets every time you start the car. On the face, the needle will sweep from it's last reading back to zero and then return to reading fuel pressure. When the battery is about to die, it zeros and then goes to something really low like 30 psi and it doesn't move at all like its not reading anymore.l

see: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=134383&highlight=300zxt+cv I posted pics of what I grinded down on the cv shaft. I also grinded down part of the stub axle and that seemed to work fine for me. Keep in mind I don't run the end caps.

I have the setup. It installed without a problem. I haven't really put mines through a rigorous road testing yet, but like anything else it requires a bit of tuning, balancing the front a rear brake biasing. Also, don't forget to check the end of the control arm clearance to the rotor, especially if your car is lowered. I had to grind the tip of control arm down to give me a clearance I was comfortable with.

I just bought a bunch of different shim washers from .001 to .004 and stuck them in between the rotor and hub. It worked perfect. I didn't think about rechecking it after a few heat/cooling cycles.

great idea, just remember that 280's are slightly different underneath than the older 240's.

The sanden 508 is a much smaller unit than the old AC Delco part and my biggest concern with my setup was getting it fit under the hood. I've seen a couple of places to mount them. Mike's got his above the engine (not sure this would work with a TPI intake. Pete's got his on the left side of the engine with a custom fabricated mount. I have that same setup, but it is a tight fit on that side and when the belt start to stretch a little I run of adjustment. I was starting to look into a shorter compressor like the ones run on the vintage air front runner systems. It would keep my compressor away from the exhaust but I would still have the same problems running out of adjustment travel as the belt stretches. I may opt to go for a serpentine system one of these days, they're just expensive. You might look at the Lt-1 guys setup, but I don't believe it is adaptable to the tpi motor. Then again it may just depend on how much work you want to do to get it to fit. I'm pretty sure vintage air makes a water pump that works going in the opposite counter clockwise.

I've been following this project and I think it's great. It's not even about saving money. If I could get a chance to kick the oil companies in the nuts, I would gladly do it! This is down right personal. Figure out a way to generate power from the sun and you could be totaly self sufficient.....well at least a lot more self sufficient.

Isn't that a 3 phase input? You're my hero if you have 3 phase wired into your house!

Those look like a nice option if you are making big horsepower and drag race routinely. If nothing else they give you piece of mind. A way to keep track of how much your axles are getting abused is to paint a straight line down the axle. It's not a guaranteed method, but axles often show signs of twisting before they fail. BTW, that's a bit of information I got from some drag racing buddies not my personal experience.

I dig the size of that fuel cell. If that's your grocery go-getter, the store better be near by, like within a quarter mile!

Well, I grinded off about 5mm off the end of the CV and that looks like all I will need. Dan was right, a little grinding here and there and it fits without a problem, at least on my setup. I took about 4mm off the stub axle (couple thread still showing on the nut) and 5mm off the CV (end cap removed). Just to make sure everything was going to be okay, I took the spring out and moved the suspension through its travel. You get the most binding from the CV to the axle at full droop, not compression. A little gasket sealer on the companion flange to the CV and it's a done deal. The picture with the nut in between the outer CV and the companion flange is the suspension on the end stop (full compression). You can see gap between the stub axle and the CV actualy get parallel, thus creating an even larger gap.

I thought about doing exactly that, but you have to move both ring grooves. On the other end of the ball bearing cage there is another end stop ring (about a mm thick). I may still go that route, but grinding off 4mm may be enough to do the trick. Not sure I want to go without the snap ring, it would allow the inner part of the ball bearing cage to slide into the end of the stub axle which may or may not be a problem.

Okay, I think I know what you're talking about now. I assume it changed the distance the CV sits into the pumkin. Can you post a pic? I took some measurements and I can get away with grinding the tip of the CV that goes into the companion flange. It's about 6mm from the end of the snap ring groove to the axle tip, so I could probably grind about 4mm and leave 2mm to hold the snap ring, that sure beats a custom set of axles.

Freddy, I'm not so sure that is a good idea running without the locking ring. I assume you meant the snap ring. What about the other side of the ball bearing cage with the other locking ring? I thought about taking mines to a shop to be shortened, but I do not think it is possible. The axle tapers after the spline and cannot be resplined. I'll go price some axles out just to get an idea if this is going to be painful.

The companion flanges are not what is hitting. It's the stub axle to the tip of the uncapped CV axle. I could probably grind a bit more than a mm off the end of the CV to get it to fit without hitting. I have already grinded about 2mm off the end of the stub axle, anymore than that and there is almost no thread sticking off the end of the nut. I think tonight I will take the shock off, reinstall the CV and check to see the clearance through its travel. If it looks too close I think I will take apart the CV and see what it's going to take to shorten it or if it gets to expensive I'll go for the aftermarket control arms.

There is definitely a difference in the space between the companion flange and CV axle. My car is so tight I cannot get the CV into place moving it straight down. I have to sideways around the outside before it will clear. I can't remember how my car was originaly with the old style moustache bar. I think it was a straight bar as well, but I thought that's how all r180's were. I thought about moving the diff forward an inch, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. Maybe some spacers on the back and modifying the front diff mount, but that may also require shortening the drive shaft.

I have another CV for the driver side and it is identical in length. I ran back outside to check it and there is only one part of the CV that slides in and out, the ball bearing cage. The other part just rotates like a ball joint. Both sides had the pictures taken with the both shafts "clicked" into place.

I put more pics just to illustrate the point. See how close the inner axle of the CV is to the stub axle. The outer green bearing cage is the part that does most of the moving in and out. In normal driving the car never has the control arms drooping that far down so the CV would square up against the stub axle when the car is resting on the ground. This is also without the end caps! I think I'm going to send these axles out or at least price having them shortend up about half an inch. If that gets to out of control expensive, I'm going to opt for the aftermarket control arms.

Just for reference I put some pictures to show the angle of my halfshafts. They are just about perpendicular to the diff. There were some ideas for fixes, custom axles, move the slightly forward I just havent had time to realy try anything yet.

There have been several discussions on people having problems getting 300zxt CV's to fit correctly. Some have resolved their issues while others have not. I am one of those who still have issues with the fit, so I was wondering what combinations of parts others have used from stub axle to differential, year of car etc. This my combination: 1972 240z, original 72 shock tower, orirginal 72 rear bearing spacer, 78 280z control arms, MMS stub axles, MMS companion flange, 88 300zxt CV's, 88 300zx r200, power brute LSD.