Project Theseus

[Noll]

More hood repair today, nearly done it now.

Wasn't able to get the driver's side repair quite as seamless as I'd have liked, but it turned out pretty well. Easy job to add a little filler to the low spots, and I spent a bunch of time eliminating oil canning from the welding heat, so all good on that front.




Cut the top layer off the other side:




And after a bunch of work I got the cutoff from the other hood all welded in in the right spot and the brace bit welded back on.





There's still some pitting etc visible, but I'd have to basically reskin the whole hood and a lot of the underlying structure to eradicate everything. Down that road madness lies, I just want the hood to be structurally good and not full of holes. I also want to go to a carbon hood eventually, so ehh.

Next up I'll be doing weld cleanup and then welding the outer skin sections back on.

[Noll]

Bushings finally showed up, so started throwing stuff together. Front end all done (well, finger tight as I'll need to drop it all for painting the engine bay):





With everything being poly or solid (in the case of the control arm bushing, it's a camber-adjustable solid piece) it was a bit of a pain to get everything together, but I managed by unbolting the t/c rods to get the control arms in and then bolting them back up. When I drop the front end again I'll be replacing 1/2 the T/C rod bushings with rubber ones to avoid the possible snapping I've heard about, but I've misplaced those at the moment.

The steering rack bushings didn't seem to fit right - as you can see below there was a gap on either side, and even with the rack mounts torqued all the way down the rack could still rotate more than I'd like. Anyone else ran into this? For now I had bought some OEM rubber bushings a while back so I slapped them in there instead.






I then went and made a 2-hour round trip to get all this. Was very nicely given to me for free (I'll be picking up the rear suspension too at some point but it's stored elsewhere). All I really needed was the front hubs (correct offset for my 300zx rotor spacers up front, saves me buying new spacers or 240z hubs), but I'm sure the rest will be handy as spares or to sell to fund other Z parts eventually if needed. I'll measure the rack to see if there's any differences between it and my 260z one that could cause the bushing issue outlined above.

EDIT: Bit of googling tells me that there's different bushings for the 240z rack vs 260/280. They're like 20 bucks so I guess I'll just order the right ones when I next make a parts order.




the rest of the suspension assembly will have to wait a couple days as my volvo locked up a brake caliper on the way home from collecting the suspension bits, fun times. New ones are cheap at least, and I already had some new pads in a box so just going to hit up Napa, swap pads/caliper, and scuff the rotor and ignore the fact that it's probably warped. I'll redo both sides pads/rotors properly in a month or 2, just need a drivable daily for now. I hate the climate/rust here, that's 2 siezed calipers in a year .

[Noll]

So, instead of going to sleep at a sane hour, I spent last night getting the rear diff and all the rear suspension assembled and torqued to spec. Pretty happy with the outcome:






Don't mind the handbrake cables, they're next on the list. Brake lines hooked up too.





With all that done, I had to throw on a wheel/tire to see how it would look. Full droop:




As far as it goes before the spring makes the jack start lifting the car (even with it loosened all the way up). Even here there's no rubbing I can see, and I can dial the camber back a ton and have room still (dunno what it's set to atm, just whatever I threw the camberplates in at)









And at a more reasonable rideheight. This thing is going to look awesome when it's on the ground for real. it's so nice to see how everything actually sits finally; I built the coilovers etc off of old forum threads and photos without being able to see how the possible ridehright range would end up on my car. I couldn't be more happy, and there is zero rubbing at any point in the suspension travel .










Once I get my volvo fixed It'll be on to front hubs and handbrake cables I guess, then just need to get the tank back to drop the car on the ground.

[Noll]

Nothing major today, but I got the wiring harness (engine harness, rear harness, and the visible bits of the harness that goes under the dash area) all re-wrapped nicely, and ran the rear harness through the quarter as I'm pretty sure the wiring needs to be in place for the sender/fuel pump before the tank goes in. No pics of that, it's a black harness in a black cavity so not worth taking one lol. That tape was good stuff, will be getting more for when I run the speaker wires.



Also got the 240z hubs removed from the struts, will get those cleaned up, painted, and new lug studs on over the next few days so they can go on the front. Need to call the rad shop about my tank tomorrow, hopefully they are able to do it (they mentioned more pinholes when they sandblasted it) and I can get it back soon and get the car onto the concrete.

[Noll]

Just heard back from the rad shop - apparently the inside of the tank cleaned up pretty nicely, but there's enough pinholes that they'd want to coat both the inside and outside of the tank, which would get pretty pricey (over the 300$ estimate from previous).

They say that I should be able to get it decent with some welding though, so I'm going to pick it up from them (they're only charging 80$ for the dipping/cleaning done so far which is nice), do a bunch of repairs myself now it's a clean and safe thing to weld on, and possibly drop it back off to be coated although they say that after I do the repairs it should be fine as-is if I didn't want to get it coated (in terms of corrosion that is). Will depend if there's any small leaks I can't eradicate after welding I guess.

Seems reasonable overall, more work to do but I'll save a bunch of money that can go into paint and stuff I need soon.

[zedfoot]

I'll be interested to see how the welding goes. I assume yoh will be brazing?

[Noll]

I'll be interested to see how the welding goes. I assume you will be brazing?

Brazing or soldering most likely yeah as opposed to actual welding, going to depend on how much work needs doing. Possible I might need to cut out some bits and MIG in a patch, we'll see - haven't seen the tank yet. It's all clean and free of gas fumes now though, so MIG is safe to do and should weld nicely if needed.

[zedfoot]

With the skills you have acquired, I'm sure you could hammer out a new tank from scratch. As long as the seam is intact, it can be repaired

[Noll]

With the skills you have acquired, I'm sure you could hammer out a new tank from scratch. As long as the seam is intact, it can be repaired

In a pinch I'm sure I could make something haha. I have my work cut out for me with this tank regardless, pics below.


--------------------------------

Got the fuel tank back today, and the rad shop only charged me 60$ which was nice. First, the good. The inside came out great, most of the black flecks of stuff will come out when I shake it around a bit. Zero pitting on the inside that I can see (even on the tank 'roof' that would get condensation etc).






The outside though, well, lets just say the rad shop wasn't exaggerating about the pinholes.









The really annoying part is that these were all from the outside in from moisture getting stuck between that rubber coating and the tank skin itself. If they had just painted it as normal, this tank would be basically perfect.

It's all fixable though, need to start practicing my soldering and brazing skills, and will also probably just cut out some of the bigger pinholed sections and weld in new metal.

The bottom of the tank is pretty much perfect happily enough, one corner might need minor attention but the rest is rock solid.

[Noll]

Got the front hubs and brakes (the latter temporarily, to test fitment) all on today:


Unfortunately the bumpsteer spacers cause the tie rod end to foul on the wheel, but only barely. I spaced it out with some 1.5mm washers to see if that sorted it, and it did indeed create enough clearance. I've ordered some 3mm spacers (smallest I could find), but if those for some reason cause fender rubbing issues I can probably just grind down the offending area of the tierod end. Just wouldn't want to grind through into the interior grease cavity, not sure how thick the walls are.
Anyone done this before?




And wheel on. This thing is looking more and more like a car again 🙂 .





Also dropped and reinstalled the rear d/s suspension after fixing the bushing that had popped out. That should be about it for suspension stuff for now, still need to hook up the handbrake cables and slap in the steering column so it's easier to move it while it's a roller.

[Dr.Diesel]

The clearance with the outer tie rod ends with the front rims in your car is an issue. Clearly, you want to stick with those rims you have. They certainly look cool! Your rims look like 15". So going to 16 " rims are probably not something you want to go with to gain clearance. Because you have the bump steer spacers in the car, I presume your intent is to run your car lower than stock. What you might want to consider is removing the bump steer spacers. Then drill the engine cradle for the purpose of raising the attaching point where the lower control arm is attached to the engine cradle. By drilling the attaching point in the cradle 1" higher than its current position. You will remove the need for bump steer spacers & you will regain the correct steering geometry for a 1" lowered car. Doing this will also give you the clearance between the rim and the outer tie rod end you are looking for.

If you want to stick with the bump steer spacers, you might want to consider putting in quick steer steering knuckles. These are shorter than your current steering knuckles. This would give you the clearance you're looking for. In addition, you will have more steering response with less steering wheel movement. On the downside, these are not cheap. This will result in the car being harder to steer at lower speed as well.

Or you could install wheel to hub spacers. But, without fender flairs your tires will likely rub on the fenders
Lowering the ride height does have its challenges.

Anyway, these are just a few things to think about to solve your particular issue.

[Noll]

The clearance with the outer tie rod ends with the front rims in your car is an issue. Clearly, you want to stick with those rims you have. They certainly look cool! Your rims look like 15". So going to 16 " rims are probably not something you want to go with to gain clearance. Because you have the bump steer spacers in the car, I presume your intent is to run your car lower than stock. What you might want to consider is removing the bump steer spacers. Then drill the engine cradle for the purpose of raising the attaching point where the lower control arm is attached to the engine cradle. By drilling the attaching point in the cradle 1" higher than its current position. You will remove the need for bump steer spacers & you will regain the correct steering geometry for a 1" lowered car. Doing this will also give you the clearance between the rim and the outer tie rod end you are looking for.

If you want to stick with the bump steer spacers, you might want to consider putting in quick steer steering knuckles. These are shorter than your current steering knuckles. This would give you the clearance you're looking for. In addition, you will have more steering response with less steering wheel movement. On the downside, these are not cheap. This will result in the car being harder to steer at lower speed as well.

Or you could install wheel to hub spacers. But, without fender flairs your tires will likely rub on the fenders
Lowering the ride height does have its challenges.

Anyway, these are just a few things to think about to solve your particular issue.

Thanks for the suggestions! Yep, definitely keeping this wheel/tire setup. Drilling the front crossmember is definitely an option if needed, a last-resort sort of thing though as I have a bunch of other stuff to try first.

If it comes to it quicksteer knuckles are a good option too, but there are tradeoffs as you say. Low-profile tie-rod ends are definitely also a possibility, T3 makes a nice set but they're not cheap so also an "only if I have to" (or possibly in the future as an upgrade when money allows) - https://technotoytuning.com/nissan/2...-260z-and-280z

I ordered a 3mm set of spacers today to test out (30 bucks for the pair so no big loss if they don't work out). Even if they were to cause issues with fender rub (they shouldn't - the front camber is currently either 0 or slightly positive as I haven't adjusted anything yet, so I'll end up with more clearance when I do), I am pretty sure I can dial that back out easily with how my car is set up - my front LCAs have camber-adjustable bushings (see link below), and in conjunction with my strut-top camber plates I could in theory move the whole strut assembly inboard a few mm if needed.

https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/23-4170

I'm also going to be rolling the fenders regardless (rears are already done), so that will alleviate any issues from spacers somewhat too.

[zedfoot]

What are the ramifications of lowering without bump steer spacers or other modifications?

[Dr.Diesel]

zedfoot, The initial ramification of lowering (with the car at rest) is you will get more"toe in". Toe can be adjusted back to specification. However, when driving, what you will end up with is excessive toe in and toe out throughout the travel of the strut. This is very undesirable. This is caused because the lower control arm is in the incorrect position effectively changing the geometry of the suspension as a whole throughout its travel. This will give you a feeling that the car has a mind of its own going over bumps and dips. Very unnerving as speed increases.

Adding more "toe in" gives a better feel once lowered without any other compensation. However, this leads to poor tire wear and the car will not handle properly.

[zedfoot]

Thanks, Craig. I had mine done by a well respected shop almost 15 years ago and it has no spacers. Maybe that's why I spin out on the track and even a few times on winding roads. I always blamed the driver.