19 hours ago, JDMjunkies.ch said:

Wiper linkage and arms. I went the extra mile and took apart the whole assembly. you can see everything on my car is heavily corroded. And those clutch springs are broken. I'll make a special post dedicated to those springs and its function. I have ordered some generic spring steel wire and I hope I'm able to reproduce those myself.

I did a lot of experimenting with the wiper linkage several years ago to see if I could discover the purpose of the spring and the eccentric bushing (aka 'cam').  I made a bench test rig so that I could exercise the entire system manually. I also installed the linkage and motor in the car so that I could watch what it did (especially when powered to the 'OFF' setting). I concluded that:

1. The joint in question does not provide any 'clutch' action. That is to say, there's nothing that engages and disengages.

2. The eccentric bush ('cam') is used to provide some compliance in the linkage, without having to resort to designed-in free play. Without some compliance, those long, stamped-steel connector links could bow under compression or get over-pulled under tension.

3. The spring is used to take up 'slop' (excess free play) in the linkage, so as to mitigate chatter or rattle. Unfortunately, the spring's engagement tang is usually discovered to be broken off... and a broken spring serves zero purpose. Since the wipers seem to function just fine even though the spring is broken, one has to question whether the spring really provides the intended benefit.

4. The spring has nothing to do with the so-called 'auto-rise' function. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 'auto-rise' was just Nissan's way of saying the the wiper motor parks the blades a bit higher than their lowest sweep point when in wipe mode. I could find no evidence that the wiper blades would park low and then magically rise by a few mm's. That would be a great party trick, if it actually happened ('Watch this!'). Instead, they just park at a slightly high position.

5. It is possible to make your own replacement spring. However, if you use tempered wire with the same wire diameter as the OE spring and use the same coil diameter and number of wraps, I think you may find that the resulting spring is much too stiff. I just used regular wire and the resulting spring seemed to function very nicely, once installed.

On 7/16/2026 at 3:14 PM, Namerow said:

I did a lot of experimenting with the wiper linkage several years ago to see if I could discover the purpose of the spring and the eccentric bushing (aka 'cam').  I made a bench test rig so that I could exercise the entire system manually. I also installed the linkage and motor in the car so that I could watch what it did (especially when powered to the 'OFF' setting). I concluded that:

1. The joint in question does not provide any 'clutch' action. That is to say, there's nothing that engages and disengages.

2. The eccentric bush ('cam') is used to provide some compliance in the linkage, without having to resort to designed-in free play. Without some compliance, those long, stamped-steel connector links could bow under compression or get over-pulled under tension.

3. The spring is used to take up 'slop' (excess free play) in the linkage, so as to mitigate chatter or rattle. Unfortunately, the spring's engagement tang is usually discovered to be broken off... and a broken spring serves zero purpose. Since the wipers seem to function just fine even though the spring is broken, one has to question whether the spring really provides the intended benefit.

4. The spring has nothing to do with the so-called 'auto-rise' function. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 'auto-rise' was just Nissan's way of saying the the wiper motor parks the blades a bit higher than their lowest sweep point when in wipe mode. I could find no evidence that the wiper blades would park low and then magically rise by a few mm's. That would be a great party trick, if it actually happened ('Watch this!'). Instead, they just park at a slightly high position.

5. It is possible to make your own replacement spring. However, if you use tempered wire with the same wire diameter as the OE spring and use the same coil diameter and number of wraps, I think you may find that the resulting spring is much too stiff. I just used regular wire and the resulting spring seemed to function very nicely, once installed.

Thanks a lot. I saw some of your old posts while doing the research. I will definitely do some trials once I have everything ready :-)

Today marks a big day in the Project. Well somehow. I have disassembled every single fastener on the car and its subunits. Well almost. I left some parts for the specialists. Mainly the Engine, the SU carbs, the Mikuni carbs (currently at a specialist), the Transmission (partially), Differential (partially) and the shafts. Other than that, every bolt, nut and washer that you can find on the car is removed and documented. I don't want to show you everything (would be  hundreds of photos) but just some examples:
Blower assembly:

Heater box flap control mechanism:


Fresh air vent flaps:

Horns

As the housings needed a proper cleaning and re-plating, I even drilled out the whole electromagnets and membrane assembly, and will rework everything.


Line hardware including brake line proportioner and T-shape distributor pieces units (I've further disassembled them but not visible in this photo)

Carb Intake, linkage, balancer tube, etc. As said, I'll leave the carbs themselves for the specialist:

Aside from the few mentioned parts, everything now is disassembled. I went through all my storage boxes and marked them with to-do's. Every color has a meaning. As you can see, plenty of work is awaiting.
But it's a turning point. from now on it's no disassembly or organization, it's cleaning, replating, repainting, replacing and - eventually - reassembling things.

I'v already started the cleaning process and I'm currently doing some trials, research and upgrades to my workshop hardware, so stay tuned for another update, soon.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I have been experimenting thoroughly with varous methods to remove dirt, grease, paint, primer, bondo and especially rust from all my parts, in preparation to get them repainted or plated with fresh zinc. Especially for that, you waant to have a nice and smooth surface, to get the OEM look.
I tried electrolytic rust removal, various acids and bases, petrol based fuels, paint stripper, etc, and used a variety of tools, like the ultrasonic cleaner, parts cleaner, rotary tumbler, etc...
Here is what I figured out works best for me:

1. Degreasing.
For big parts, I use the parts cleaner. Currnently there is a petrol based degreasing solvent inside, but I want to try more modern, more ecological and solvend free solution in the future. The workshop is full of petrol fumes after using it, and those new fluids should not evaporate, and also are biodegradable.


Make sure to remove big chunks of grease manually beforehand to not mess up the degreaser fluid too much. This was the result after a quick wash. I have figured out that if there are no critical parts (rubber, etc) on the parts you want to clan, you can easy soak it in the parts cleaner overnight for a deeper penetration.

For smaller pats, I use a household ultrasonic cleaner with a simple industrial cleaning soap solution (5 parts water + 1 part solution).

I let it run for about 20 minutes at a temperature of about 35°C. Some metals lose their specification when getting too hot, and that is not what you want (for e.g. spring-steel loses it's tension, etc.). You can obviously run this for as much as needed.

The results are usually quite good. But this will only remove dirt and grease and no corrosion or anything like that.

2. Paint stripping.
Before paint stripping, ensure that you have degreased the parts and roughly cleaned them.
Parts which were originally sand-cast and have a rough surface anyway, or those that will get primered and painted anyway can be sandblasted:

I use standard sandblasting media "Normalkorund" in German.  and the results are quite OK if you ask me:

For parts that need to have a smooth surface in the end, I use paint stripper. Unfortunately, that strong stuff is prohibited here now, so I have to use whatever home-depot is offering. It's usually some kind of gel, which you put on the paint in a thick layer. Optionally you can wrap it in tin-foil, I figured out that keeping it in a closed plastic box also works well: 

Usually, I leave it overnight, but it should look like this after 1-2  hours already. some modern paints come off harder that some old stuff, which gets wringky as soon as you apply the stripper. Use a spatula or natural hair (no plastic) brush to remove the paint, preferably under flowing water:

I realized that those paint strippers often do not work very well with rust-protection primer (red stuff in the photo), but i have a solution for that too, see below. 

3. Rust removal (and old zinc layers)
Ensure the parts are degreased and the paint is stripped before removing rust.
I figured out the best stuff for me is Ecvapo-rust. An american product that has no solvents and fumes, is biodegradable, harmless, reusable and works really well.
You throw in the stuf fin a bucket with some of that evapo-rust:

And after a few hours, or overnight, the stuff is free from all rust, without removing any of the metal, or without atticking ruber, plastic or other stuff:


I threw in this heavily corroded bracket for two days:


And afterwards all the rust was magically gone. the rough surfase comes from the rust, and not the product itself. but as you can see, all the rust is gone:

Note: This product will also remove old yellow or blue zinc passivation (which is great for re-plating). Also not that the metal is completely unprotected after this, so flash-rust will appear within minutes if not treated further.
But, if you plan to zinc-plate. the stuff will have surface-rust removal anyway again, so don't worry about that.

4: Primer removal:
I have figured out that evapo-rust will also remove rust-protection primer. My guess is that this has to do with some chemical or physical reaction of that rust-protection paint itself. because evapo-rust would theoretically not attack any paint or primer, but it even removed some old paint in some cases. most probably because it attacked the corroded metal layer underneath. anyway. this worked better for primer-removal than paint-stripper!!

5: Old rubber & glue removal
I tried various products again, to remove old (sticky, partially hardened, degraded) rubber parts from my rear quarter window frame, and then some old glue, too. An orange-oil based label-off cleaner worked partially, but I figured out the best way is to leave the parts in the parts-cleaner with petrol-based grease-remover overnight and then remove the stuff with a plastic spatula (blue part in the photo). Sometimes 2 or 3 attempts were required to get those really hardened parts out, but it worked very nicely:


6. Surface treatment (rotary tumbler)
Some might remember that I used my rotary tumbler to clean parts in the past, but there are two flaws: It won't remove any old paint, nor will it remove rust deeply, and then it can really smoothen out sharp edges, which is not what you always want. 

Due to the size and shape of the delfir-chips I use, it is too large to attack any threads on bolts, and screws, etc. but it will give a nice surface and smooth edges to parts. After rust removal may leave "cancer surfaces" afterwards, this can be used to smoothen it out. Note that this stuff is abrasive, so you do not want to use this for any structural important part.

This is how the water look after 24 hours of tumblering. I figured out that about 250ml of water with 1 cap (ca. 15ml) of compound works best for me together with 2kgs of delfir chips. and those chips last very long!
I talked to a specialst who manufactures those abrasives and he told me that this process should always be done with water and compound, because the water-solution will remove the dirt and dust that would otherwise remain on the chips and reduce their effectiveness.


Note, this might also remove old zinc plating, etc... You can also use walnut shells to polish things. Ore use ceramic chips for more abrasive processes, but be careful as this will remove way more material from the metal.
My setup also worked very well to smoothen (almost polish) aluminum parts. like the horn membranes of my 240Z, which are a thin alumium plate.

6. Metarex metal polishing wool.
This is one of my secreat weapons. Metarex is a wool soeaked in some polishing fluid for metal. you simply rub it on any metal and it will polish it nicely. I tried to remove some corrosion on some metal parts, but it worked so well, that it also removed the thin, old yellow-passivation on zinc plated parts within a short rub.

You can  see it here. So, While i can recommend the product for many, many applications, cleaning passivated, zinc plated parts is not one of them.

Often, a combination of of multiple of the mentioned processes is required. for e.g. Degreasing, then paint stripping and then, finally, rust removal. Sometimes manual intervention with a scalpel or so is required, to remove small bits of paint and stuff, that won't come off with the mentioned methods, for whatever reason.

I will try to improve my processes on the go, and if I find any significant things, I will let you know.

Using Evaporust in the Ultrasonic cleaner heated to 60C is even more effective and quicker. To remove plating an acidic solution or one with Lye in it strips the plating. Purple Power works really well for this. https://www.purplepowerinc.com/ It also strips off old paint followed up by a wire wheel to remove any rust or paint. Lemon juice diluted is great for cleaning aluminum parts.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by SpeedRoo

The best paint remover I have found is Formic acid, just submerge the part in the acid over night and the paint just falls off. And then rinsed with water to neutralize. It is quite strong so use it outside or with the correct respirator. Here in Canada it is easy to buy as it is used by bee keeping to treat a nasty mite infection.

Edited August 10Aug 10 by 240dkw
Spelling error

I want to avoid strong Lye / Acidic solutions, as the will attack other parts like plastic shims, etc. and if you don't rinse it off and neutralize it correctly everywhere (in cavities, or between moving parts, etc) you will end up with more and faster corrosion than before, Also you have to be carful when handling strong acids / basic lye solutions and you don't want to have strong acidic fumes in the workshop all the time, as it will force flash-rust on basically every surface in the room. i cannot ventilate my workshop very well, so other stuff works better for me. Also from an ecological point of view.

I was also told to not heat up more than 50°C to avoid losing the tension of spring metals, or cause damage to special (for e.g. brass) alloys, Aluminum, etc, in the ultrasonic cleaner. The professional company I talked to said they set up their process to 43°c, which works with everything wthout the risk of any damage. Be careful when using 60°C, this might ruin your springs, or special alloys physically without any visible damage, allthough most metals are probably safe for this temperature!

I do also not recommend a wire wheel, if you plan to replate the parts without any further primer / paint. it will leave small scratches in the surface which are still visible after plating. I made that mistake before..The factory zinc platiting / yellow passivation is very thin, so there is no material to fill any small scratches, and therefore it requires a very careful treatment before plating, if you want to keep the glossy factory shine.

This is how the same hood hinges, which I showed a few photos earlier with the red primer on, after soaking it in Evaporust for 2-3 days:

Edited August 13Aug 13 by JDMjunkies.ch

On 8/7/2026 at 4:34 PM, JDMjunkies.ch said:

Also not that the metal is completely unprotected after this, so flash-rust will appear within minutes if not treated further.
But, if you plan to zinc-plate. the stuff will have surface-rust removal anyway again, so don't worry about that.

What I am doing is once the evoprust is rinsed off the parts goes into a solvent which the water is soluable in, so removes most of/all the water and the solvent dries/volatolizes off much quicker than the water.

Time for a very long overdue update on the project. I wasnt silent because of no progress. Quite the opposite, actually. I was so busy with all the small things that I simply found no time to post here. And also you don't want to see every bolt I spent an hour on cleaning it. So instead of boring you with all the small details, I rather post a little summery. So what happened in the last few weeks?

In the last post, I thought I had everything disassembled. Well, turns out there was more stuff to dismantle. for e.g. the windows:

I also decided to disassemble the window regulators, which requires drilling out the rivets (or whatever you call those), because all the old plastic rollers were completely wasted.

And last but not least, the door locking mechanism. Which consists of surprisingly many individual parts:

I also disassembled the rear quarter window frames completely. While they looked OK from the outside, I knew from one previous case, that the L-shaped brackets that hold the frame together are the weak point that often rots away. this one was no different. Luckily I was able to find some sets that survived. So first was to remove all the gunk and old rubber from them. which alone took a few days (Soak it in kerosine worked nicely):

After everything was cleaned, I sprayed all the rust-prone points (everything that is not stainless-steel) with a special rust-protection / epoxy primer (Swiss product, called Brunox).
This stuff is amazing. It reacts with the metal and turns it purple-blackish, and at the same time adds a clear primer coat. You need to apply 3-4 layers, but once dry you can paint straight over it.

So once that was done, I painted all the areas which were originally flat black in - you guessed it - flat black again. I will now use the best set to reassemble some rear quarter sets for me.

The last step was only to polish the stainless steel again and remove some of the minor scratches. Still needs a bit of work but they're more or less ready for reassembly.

Speaking of reassembly: I had a few EU-spec rear bumpers (without overriders, but with the additional holes for the additional lower number plate lighting). but either the brackets were rusted away, or they were damaged beyond repair. Well I had collected so many over the years, so I took them all apart:

And managed to assemble one pretty solid one. With some cleaning and my NOS fasteners and brackets, it almost looks like new. It has some nasty spots under where the rubbers originally where, so I will have to have that fixed and rechromed again. but at least it's straight and complete...

As my original doors had the body-line removed (cleaned) by some previous owner, I thought it's easier to replace the entire doors than to have somebody fix that. Especially since they needed some rust repairs anyway.. Luckily i still had some spare doors and found an additional set. Just in case:

I brought them to my local paint-stripping company. They use an alcoholic solution which is relatively PH neutral compared to acid based solutions others use. Also they dip the parts in a weldable KTL-primer if you want so. (that strange olive-green color): I marked all the damage and then chose the best sets to go on the car.

While hunting for parts, I also found a used, originally Swiss-Car FS5C71A early 5-speed ("Competition", in some markets) transmission and decided to bring it back to Switzerland as a spare, in case mine fails (It's kind of hard to find  parts these days):

Speaking of Parts: I have meanwhile collected all the required parts to rebuild my Mikuni PHH's

My Carb specialist was in Japan the other week to learn from the experts and I made sure he ahs the correct tools for it too (more details on that soon): 

I also got some missing documents and cool parts from Japan: That Brake Master cylinder repair kit is quite neat:

I also got some stuff from USA for my collection and some parts needed to assemble everything on the car:

Now I'm slowly starting to assemble things on the car with all original Nissan Hardware. It's still just temporary, So some items might be missing, but I replaced the J-hooks and tank straps with new / replated items.

Got my NOS front bumper brackets in stalled:

And also all the mechanical hardware for the inspection lids. This stuff needs all to be installed for the bodyshop to make all the adjustments and some will even get painted-over. Just as it was from the factory. 

I have a constant stream of new Nissan factory parts arriving here. Some don't have that original yellow passivation on them like the old units did (Chrome VI+ is banned in many places due to the hazard, but it's still possible if you find an accredited company with all the neccessary paperwork and precautions). So these parts need to be replated, despite beeing new:

I was very lucky to find a reasnobly priced set of NOS FRP headlight buckets with the threads for the original Nissan headlight covers in it. very nice.

And also foun two Sets of NOS MK63 brake pads. Some say they contain asbestos. I don't plan to use them (I have project u brake pads in stock) but I I think they look so nice with the factory color marks and will but them on display.

I also found some nice color charts and other stuff in Germany recently. Just for my archives :-)

And then the game-changer arrived. I  present you "The beast":
My old compressor was simply to small and not enough powerful to cope with my now almost daily blasting work. What was supposed to take an hour, took 3 days of work because of the lame compressor. So here is the new one, including some chemicals for my parts cleaning production line... (Ultrasonic cleaning fluid, Parts cleaner degreaser, and Evaporust, plus some hand-soap :-P)

I also heavily modified my blasting cabinet for improved LED lighting and dust-suction so now it's really a blast (pun intended) to do some work. Some examples:
Engine mounts and crank pulley washer, before:

After (I mainly use Glass-bead blasting at 8bar pressur with a 6mm Nozzle), for that smooth, flat and dense surface finnish.

Hand-brake mechanics, before:

after:

So the reason i'm doing all of this is that I plan to drop off a massive load of parts for zinc plating and yellow / blue passivation. I'm currently negotiating and trying to find the best shop.
Some can do big loads of small parts in rotating drums, others do it all manually. Some can still do the original Chrome VI+ Yellow passivating, others use replacement methods. Some with the same effect, some not so much yellow. I hope I find someone good. It seams that at least one company is less of an industrial plating company but more specialized in classic car parts. Probably the most expensive one, too :-P
I'll keep you updated and hope I can keep the pace...

Edited September 4Sep 4 by JDMjunkies.ch
Typo corrections

Last weekend, I met my Carb specialist, and was able to hand over all the missing parts (and some goodies) to the man.
So he immediately started with the assembly work, as everything else was already prepared.
Using the tools, which he recently acquired during a visit to one Mikuni specialist in Japan:

He started to assemble everything. the body was glass-bead blasted. some metal parts got nickel-plated, and all the other parts remained origina brass, or the original blue-zinc or yellow zinc as they came from Mikuni or the aftermarket suppliers.

You can really see here's a specialist with a racing background, as he tests everything multiple times - also adding securing color dots, etc.
You can also see that now an additional retainer spring has been added (thanks, however gave me the input!). For better throttle response and feel. My Carb specialist was quite happy with the effect of it!

And, h ere we go:

Once done, he tested everything on his homemade bench (sorry for the blurry photo), to adjust everything, etc. His setup is only made for twin carbs, so he has to test them two by two. but nevertheless, still a very cool homemade test bench!

Aaand drumroll here we go. All three done! Well, almost. We figured out that I had ordered a wrong sized main jet, so I had to order three new ones, and once those arrive, everything will be set up correctly. I'm more than happy!

Remember, this was the exactly same set, when I got them. Quite the difference.

We also discussed some details regarding the Intake manifolds, spacers / Insulators and throttle linkage, fuel lines, etc. And that made me think about some details which I haven't thought of, before. I have both a FET and a Nissan Compe intake, and having them in my hands, I thought it was about time to get those nice, and shiny, too.
Using my "winged-nut-plus-counter-nut" method to unbolt the studs


I disassembled everything from my two intakes. 

Masked them off

And then got them into my, now upgraded, blasting cabinet:

30 minutes or so later. and the result is stunning, if you ask me. Below is the glass-bead-blasted FET Intake, while above is the NISMO / Nissan sports option intake, in it's originaly aged dirt:

After the succesful tests with the FET, I decided to give the Nissan item the same treatment, and it turned out great as well. So what next? I removed all other hardware, and I'm currently getting it ready to be replated, together with all other stuff.
I also made sure to oreder plenty of different linkage hardware, bushings, spacers, and whatnot, to test different setups.
I'm really looking forward to assemble everything and have all the nice and shiny bits installed on these, together with the freshly restored carbs.

Massive thank you to my Carb specialist (You know who you are!) for the outstanding work and service!