Leaderboard

Alright, the suspect carrier is in a vat of oil and the new one is in. This one has fewer miles on it anyway, so I’m looking at this as a glass half full situation. Once I had everything ready to go back in I put fresh bearings on the new carrier and new seals in the case, which is what caused this most recent delay. 🙄 Figuring out how to torque the ring gear bolts without putting it in a vice was fun. The key ended up being an oil filter wrench with a reinforced rubber strap. Two people can do it, three would be better. They need 78 foot pounds on the Subaru diff (probably the same on all “K” r180s). They are only 50 to 58 on the Datsun (probably because they have lock washers). Luckily I had the right mix of shims to get the backlash within tolerances (0.1mm to 0.2mm). Major obstacle out of the way! Edit: I forgot to mention the Ron Tyler style differential arrestor. Not much to say about it other than I was surprised how much of the bushing had to be removed to get the r180 to fit. I only had two notches to go before it was all the way to the hilt. I’ve seen these where there was a gap leftover but they must be using a different bushing. This one is pretty compressed. This isn’t going anywhere. *** So now the differential is in. My 240z now has a limited slip… sort of. It’s a Torsen, so not a true LSD, but I’m thinking this is the most drivable option given it behaves like an LSD under power and like an open when you let off (open into the turn and closed out of the turn). *** This was perhaps unnecessary, but Nissan added this transmission mount shield when they designed the 280ZX/S130, so it is probably not a bad idea. It’s not like it weighs a ton.

Well honestly, I find that description of "full hardened temper" to be marketing jargon at best, and completely nonsensical at worst. By that, I mean... For something to be "full hardened" it means "was made as hard as we could make it and did not temper at all after hardening". If you tempered it, it's not full hard anymore. That's the whole point of tempering. But even before that... The description of the listing says it's 1008 steel, which doesn't contain enough carbon to even BE hardenable in the first place. You need a certain amount of carbon in the mix before steel will even react to a hardening process, and 1008 is well below that threshold. So, when I see "full hardened" 1008 steel, it really makes no sense to me. I would expect 1008 to be dead soft malleable whether you TRIED to harden it or not. The plastic deformation threshold would be very low compared to something that is (honestly) heat treated hardened. For example, if you take a look at the shims from McMaster. They also offer low carbon steel shims. 1008-1010 steel. And the hardness rating is Rockwell B40. The higher carbon "spring steel" shims (1074-1095 steel) is significantly harder at Rockwell C44 or at least B85 I'm curious how hard the original spacer is.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

……..or take your favorite IPA down to the paint shop. Brandon just painted his Z31 Safari Gold. I’ll see if he can help.

@grannyknot thank you for the suggestion. I will try to approach the metal work this way. I spent time today taking apart the rear of the car. For the most part it looks like the undercoating has kept the car clean. It all has to come off of course, just to confirm. Nothing too crazy.

Hahaha ……yep we were just browsing that last week. Happy New Year Site. The color is easy to mix. We use PPG.

I think I have most if not all of the metal working done now, at least the cutting and welding. I picked the supplies for the new paint job today, still have to go back p/u the paint and clearcoat as the guy at the autobody supply shop couldn't find a modern code for 920 Safari Gold. I'll ask that question in a separate thread. We knew there was something funky going on with D/S quarter panel, I got all the filler dug out yesterday. Time is money in collision shops, so much so that an extra 10 min with a hammer and dolly is asking too much.😄