Patcon

Fired up the plating bench again today. It's sort of hard to start and stop. Would probably be easier to just plate until everything is done. The starting and stopping can make it hard to get the setup working right again. I tried to plate this "grease catcher" today. It goes on the back side of the front hub, held on by the wheel studs. Got mixed results I had these dull spots. I ran the current up and down and couldn't get rid of it. I ran this all the way through yellow cad and dried it. The dull spots wouldn't take color. Then I bead blasted it again and replated it. I had to rotate it a good bit to get it all to plate. I still had a few dull areas that I polish with a scrubby pad before chromating. Here is the result I think part of the issue was my power supply was maxed out. I ran this basically at 10 amps and I think it could have been higher. I have found higher currents make my parts brighter. I plated some front grease caps at close to 6 amps and they fizzed the whole time, but they came out shiny and nice. You can see them in the earlier picture...

For reference these are the stock floats Pretty much every vertical line on the float was a small crack. So they fill up with fuel. Here is the replacement from Z therapy Pretty much the same price as Courtesy Nissan so I would encourage supporting the little guy who is so good to our community!

I also finished rebuilding the front fender I have been messing with for probably a year I disassembled the inner and outer fender so I could rebuild the inner fender and patch some holes in the outer fender. I reattached this bracket to the inner fender before sliding the inner into the outre fender. I spot welded the bottom and the inner top flange then I dollied the flange back down flat Hung it up and added some black. I shooting black under the whole car and in all the wheel wells

I have been tinkering with the upper steering column for a couple of weekends. Plate something, paint something, on and on until I could finally assemble it. The replacement U joint I bought needed some detailing to work. The shoulders on the new joint were wider and I couldn't get into the yoke. So I took a die grinder to it with a cut off wheel. It wasn't very pretty but really not visible when it's assembled A little paint and here is the result Re Reassembled the column. I know the bottom cap is not supposed to be cad plated but it does look nice this way

Ok so I have been working on the fuel tank and some suspension bolts to try to get the car back on the ground. Worked on fuel tanks for awhile. I may be repeating some of this as I forget what I have covered and not... ? Stripped the tank and treated with rust dissolver Ok, here is a test for you. Do you see a cherry tree or a puller posts??? I worked on the 280z tank for a while. It will probably have to be cut open to be made right. Some areas you just can't pull I used Caswell sealer on the 240z tank. It's a clear two part epoxy. Very tough! This is a puddle I peeled up out of the spray booth. It pulled the dirt and all off the poly floor... This is the finished 240 tank I am using Eastwood satin chassis black. I like the sheen and so far it has done well. We will see how it holds up

I would think 3-4 psi should be good

Outside seam to outside seam is 51 9/16" or 1310mm Center to center on the front shock towers is 35 7/16" or 900 mm It looks like the FSM has 913 for this dimension. Will be interesting to see if my hood and fenders fit correctly when I set it off the rotisserie??? That's a pretty big "bust"!

Yes I will try to get a center to center on the front shock towers. I measured inside to inside on the pinch welds. I will get an outside to outside and see if that is more in spec. It would make sense they would work on outside dimensions and leave the error for the inside. There are a number of metal layers there so the flange is fairly thick

Ok, so I went and measured the car in the shop. The pinch welds on the bottom of the rocker panels appear to be parallel. It's a little hard to measure the front because the floor supports interfere with a straight measurement. The rear was easy and measures out at 51 1/4". The under floor pan frame rails are close to 30" outside to outside but get a little wider near the front of the floor board. I wonder if that is because there are more layers of metal there. For center line in the rear there seems to be a list of good candidates. Center of mustache bar bolts, center of control arm bolts, etc. All of these seem to be centered off of the wheel wells. The front is more difficult. I agree that everything forward of the firewall is suspect. I ended up concluding that the center of the hood latch bracket is a good candidate for a center line. It seems to measure very close to center from the top of the fender supports. If the hood latch is not centered anymore then you probably have bigger problems. Not much else there to work with...

You are likely to trash the system if you just hook it up. It needs a vacuum pulled and it needs to be dry. It would be a shame to tear up a bunch of new parts for no reason

Overall that doesn't look like the issue...

Well, the upside is, the yard aught to be cleaner!!! I know my wife would like that! ?

Did it have bolts in it you removed? If so it is either glued or stuck. I would vote for stuck. Some heat or warm water might help. I agree, proceed with caution!

I almost bought a 190SL they have have really increased in value since then!

So glad you bumped the CR some. I think that was a good decision!

I think it would be great if Steve would make a mold of it. I don't know if he would be willing to reproduce it but the mold would be a good start. @nix240z

When the time gets close. Some one will start a PM to share contact info. Makes it easier to meet up when we get there. If you need any thing, ground transport or something. Let someone know

You can buy straight lines at most auto parts stores and bend a whole new line. Just need one with the right ends on it

You need to keep the cooler lines. Why don't you fabricate some reshaped replacement lines?

See if you can source a factory harness that hasn't been "improved"! That is the path of least resistance if you're not a "sparky"! ?

That sounds just like body work! You have some serious "bumples" there in areas you don't normally see serious "bumples"!

I thought your compression numbers looked good, well below 10%...

Steve and I have talked about it. He doesn't want to produce parts that could have significant liability attached to them

I googled the part number off a diaphragm out of a booster. I found a source for them but they had a minimum order of like 1000. I don't think rebuilders are patching up booster parts. I believe booster rebuilders have sources for these parts that we don't have...

I bet that's a lot of fun! Super light and lots of horsepower...