dpuma8 Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 Hired a welder from Craig's list to install my T3 camber plates and they are slightly off. For example in this picture, the plate appears to be slightly forward and the corner towards the front of the car is a little lower by a millimeter than the corner facing the rear. Is looks a bit messy but it is getting pretty late here and I don't care about looks. So does being off a little bit make a major difference or do I need to get them cutout and redone? It will be driven 95% of the time on the street. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpuma8 Posted September 3, 2013 Author Share Posted September 3, 2013 Pics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 Hack job. Cut them out and start over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EF Ian Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 The plates need to be aligned 90 degrees to the centre line of the car. Don't mean to be rude, but that does look a total hack job, I'd cry every time I opened my bonnet if I saw that. I'd be worried about that not being very strong also. Done right this can look very good and its not that hard to do: http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/113907-78-260z-rb26-in-the-works/?p=1074134 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpuma8 Posted September 3, 2013 Author Share Posted September 3, 2013 Crap. I knew that was the answer. On all four corners he cut out too much and then filled in the gaps with his MIG welder. So the plates are not sitting on anything. If I am getting this corrected, what do I do to fix this problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KROz Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 Wow. Never having welded anything before in my life I did a better job than that on mine. Get your money back! A better welder should be able to ad material to reweld the plates onto fairly easily. There is still plenty to work with there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nelsonian Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 Did you just leave everything up to him without researching the recommended way of doing the job? Look on Arizona Z Car install instruction section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namor Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 Crap. I knew that was the answer. On all four corners he cut out too much and then filled in the gaps with his MIG welder. So the plates are not sitting on anything. If I am getting this corrected, what do I do to fix this problem? Find a reputable shop to fix it. They are likely going to have to reconstruct the top bit of your strut towers and then weld the camber plates on. Think about it like this, the weight of your car is resting on 4 points; all of which have been hacked up and filled in with a mig welder by someone who is obviously less than skilled. How long before those camber plates give out and your struts introduce themselves to your hatch or hood? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 It's about 4 hours of work to fix each strut top. You'll also need the chassis dimension drawing from this web site and a way to level the front to back and side to side. A laser will help. Make sure who ever fixes it doesn't fill any gaps with weld. The weld gaps should be mo wider then the width of the welding wire. That means a good fabricator is more important then a good welder. BTW... I wouldn't touch that repair job for less then $800 in labor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComicArtist Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Holy shit and I thought mine looked bad. I did this a over a year ago and it held up to daily driving on the streets, but I just cut all of them out and am having them professionally re-welded in. They should look like this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nelsonian Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Mine are Arizona Zcar and they were not cheap to have done properly by a local fabricator, as I also had him smooth out the front welds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideways Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 My condolences to you and your wallet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 dpuma8 Please send us a photo from the under-side. All may not be lost. If the repair job is going to exceed budget and turn the whole car to scrap, this may be salvageable if this is just gonna be a fun car for you. The thing is at least slotted, which gives you some slop for adjustment. My alignment guy totally screwed up my caster first time out-I couldn't tell a thing was wrong when I drove it. So long as the desired camber is achieved, and if the area is strong (which can be achieved with some re-welding and perhaps some form of reinforcement like over-plating the junctions, who cares what it looks like? These chassis aren't totally square to start with. Chin up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtreme_240z Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Looks like most of you guys when the plates were fab they were tiged in place. Although ours dident turn out like the poster ones. ours were just stick in place by a licensed welder tho. Then we ground them down. Haven't had any issue with them and its been over 5 years on the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLOZ UP Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 So this just solidifies my decision to go with bolt-in plates. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madkaw Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Yikes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LLave Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Did he hack up your fender too? I am sorry man... but honestly that is just terrible. I suggest you listen to the folks here. If I were you I would get a grinder and learn how to use it. Seriously though, getting that fixed properly is going to be much more difficult that doing it right in the first time. You should get your money back if possible. Too bad you aren't a little closer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpuma8 Posted September 5, 2013 Author Share Posted September 5, 2013 Ugh, I am super depressed. I bought a laser and tried to see how off they were and it doesn't look real good. Notice the red laser line in the pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpuma8 Posted September 5, 2013 Author Share Posted September 5, 2013 (edited) Here are the underside pics from the front of the car. He didn't leave a lip to put the camber plates on. He cut too much out on all 4 corners. The guy had all the equipment and was certified. REALLY upset now. Sure it can be costly but I don't even know how to load this thing on a trailer anyways. So how much does a regular shop charge to put the plates in? I see they cost a lot but, how much are we talking here? I put the link to the arizona Z site and I added a youtube video of someone doing the plate install on a S30. He said he looked it over and knew what to do Edited September 5, 2013 by dpuma8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted September 5, 2013 Share Posted September 5, 2013 (edited) Here is what I would do (I think). Carefully cut out what you have welded in now. Take one of the plates and trace it out oversize on a piece of manila folder. Then, add a 1/4" or so (what ever is needed) to make them have a larger outer border, keeping the inside slots the same. I don't know if that makes sense, but take your template to a place that does either plasma cutting or water jet cutting (I think this leaves a cleaner edge). Basically have a larger set of camber plates made to overlap the excessively large holes in your towers. Around here you could have them cut out in a day or two. Spend time researching folks to do your setup and welding and have somebody come over and redo it correctly. I would guess that it will cost about $100 to have the plasma cutting done. You need to join a local car club and I mooch off them a lot. I hang with the local Cobra replica club. They have members who are machinists, welders, and electricians. Just about any trade you might need. The corvette and mustang clubs around here are no good for anything but waxing paint. But, the street rod clubs are pretty good at sharing expertise. Go to the local drag strip and ask around. Look for the old, retired looking guys. Usually these guys love to help a guy out of a jam, for free! So start networking. You might also want to find another Z to take measurements from so that you can do some extra marking before you start cutting. You need reference points to get lined back up. I know you were hoping to just farm this out to somebody, but it wasn't meant to be. Now you get to learn something new! Get excited! Edited September 5, 2013 by RebekahsZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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