JDMjunkies.ch

Seems like i do a little bit on my car every evening lately and that's so much fun 1) Went to the local hardware store and picked up a few 10.8 grade bolts for installing my JDM three-five Pillowball mounts: Of course i had to install them directly after coming home. One more part instaleld on the front subframe 2) Today i went to the Sandblasting / Powedercoating company to pick up my parts. The battery-mount and the Sparewheel-well only got a sandblast and primer so the bodyshop can weld them in and the painter paint them: The rest of them got powdercoated RAL9005, Satin black. I don't need all of the parts but i thought while i'm at it anyway why not throw in a few spare-parts? No big price difference anyway. Most important is the pedalbox and -parts. But more on that soon 3) And last but not least i went to the local rubber-shop and had them replicate that rubber-insulator between the steering colum and the firewall according to my shitty template i made from the old seal. howefer, the result fits niceliy and it was cheap so i'm happy

Last few evenings i've been working on the assembly of the steering column. Started with the delivery of the freshly sandblasted and painted housing parts: The steering colum mount still had the old glue inside so i tried a few methods to clean it but figured out the "solvent cleaner" (which is actually an industrial grade label-sticker remover) works brillant compared to the dremel-and-wire-wheel method this wass the result after wiping it a few times. see before picture above: Next was glueing the old and cleaned rubber insulators back in. they where still quite nice and soft and no new ones available so i decided to reuse them: Put the plastic piece from the steering lock and the two bearings into the fridge to get them minimized a bit and at the same time put the housing on my radiator to warm and expand it slightly for a few hours: After that it was quite easy to hammer the bearings and the plastic piece back into the housing carefully with a wooden hammer and the professional tool (aka the big wrench nut and expander) After cleaning all the small bits and regreasing them i had them back into the housing as well (thanks to the help of my girlfriend, because it's impossible to compress the spring and at the same time install the lock-ring - trust me. i tried for about an hour The result: So here we have the steering colum minus the mounting bracket: but i've installed that shortly thereafter thats it for today. Have a last small bit of work tomorrow and hopefully more coming soon

I knew my Parts will be back from the paintshop and powdercoating company soon so i wanted to make sure as much as possible is ready for assembly when the parts are here. So ever since i read about it on the internet. something i wanted to do is clean and refurbish the steering colum bearings.. Before (everything nasty and filled with old, dirty grease): Here i have one of them pulled apart and cleaned all the balls (30 total) and shells and the securing ring. I have a total of 4 bearings because two from each Steering colum from each car, in case you're wondering. I reworked all four of them because that gave me the opportunity to choose the best two at the end (to the right on this picture), rather than replacing the Bearing balls with some generic bearing balls as some others have done before..: While i was at work in my basement i decided to finally hang my 1/50 limited Starroad picture with the Inoue-san (from starroad) handsign on the wall as a bit of motivation and inspiration: And then my friend Nadya at the Industrial paintshop sent me this photo of my steering colum parts drying and told me i can pick them up on friday again. Seems like i have some work for the weekend

Today i had a super-productive day in my opinion Had a day off from work so i thought i'd do as many things as possible. I have some big car related news (not this car) soon, so i want to complete a few things here. More to come. 1) However, the day started like this: Bought a cheap Jigsaw (see below) And went to the garage where Z Number one (the white one) is still standing around. The other one has a bad spare-wheel well so i wanted the bodyguy to weld this one into the other chassis: After 30 Minutes of cutting the well as nice as possible with the new jigsaw, The dremel Tool for hard-to-reach Areas and the Angle grinder it looked like this: Out it is: 2) After Dropping off a a few parts for the Anodizing company (parts for the EK9, will post about this soon) I Went to the powedercoating company To dropp of the battery-tray-mount which Yves (the bodyshop guy) gave me, and the Spare-wheel well To sandblast and get it primered so these parts are ready to get welded back in at the bodyshop: 3) Also had these set of parts dropped off at the powdercoating company for a sandblast and Powdercoat. (Original doglegs, Steering colum parts, Original steering knuckles, Pedalbox and Pedals, Seatbelt mounts and Differential-belt mounts): Btw: This is how the powdercoating company looks from the inside. they're specialized in huge parts (like crane-pieces and stuff) so it's a seriously big undustrial complex and a automated powdercoating cycle: 4) And while i was on my parts-delivery tour i Visited my good friend Nadya, who works at an industrial paintshop and delivered the parts from the second steering colum for painting. The reason is powdercoating needs to be burnt-in at high temperatures but because i still have the rubber-seal and the bearing inside i wanted to have it painted without any heat. Also i know Nadya very well and was happy to explain he rin detail what i need. While the Powdercoating company works on a totally unpersonal way and i'ts hard to get special wishes done right. Hope to complete a lot of things as soon as these parts return from the various shops

Currently i'm working in my little-basement-workshop almost daily trying to get all the small details right. So here's an update on all the small things i did lately: 1) Zcarnut over at the JNC Forums pointed out that my Steering rack spacer was mounted the wrong way. After checking a few pictures i could confirm. Why you wonder? Because the drawing in the exploded-view and Manual is wrong. Damnit However i've corrected that now: 2) Added those washers that are mentioned in the manual as well but did not fit properly and were not installed on both cars originally. But somehow i like the look of these and think it's better to not have the nut directly on the rack so i like this solution and had them reworked to fit my needs (Not torqued in the pictures so thats why it looks loose ) 3) Next i installed the Kameari Engine mounts. Before: Specs from the Manual: And done - love how everything comes together slowly 4) I'm currently preparing a load of parts for powdercoating so i decided while i'm at it i will also put the Diff mount baseplates into this even if i'm not sure yet if i will reuse them or replace them with something like the "technoversion Diff mount kit". Before: And after: 5) And last i felt like my last Steering colum disassembly somehow was a bit of a fail. Lucky me i have two sets of almost everything (the advantage of having to cars to choose parts from ) So i repeated the whole thing with the Second steering column and this time used proper professional tools (aka the Spanner-extension-bits and a wood hammer, as seen on the Top). Worked way better this time without any damage: 6) I wanted to remove the bearings from the Lower part of the colum as well but this item is not ment to be removed i think... There is nothing mentioned in any manual about how to get this thing out.. so i tried on my own.. But ended up with a damaged bearing and cover cap. (See right). So i decided before destroying the nice one (left) as well i might get this sandblasted carefully and repained i stead of powdercoated. because powdercoating needs a lot of heat to burn the colour in and this woud destroy the bearing-rubber-seal and by using paint this probably would be possible. Have to check this but so far this is my best solution...

Have wanted to visit my Fairlady and Yves at the Bodyshop for a while, but sadly i never really found time. That until last thursday. Just wanted to talk about the "Master plan" regarding the chassis and see the work he did so far. As usual great work from what i can say. But i'll let the pictures talk: So Far the front-right Corner almost is done... - Battery-tray area fixed (battery tray will be sandblasted, primered and welded back in soon) - New Rocker panels created from sheetmetal and replaced old ones. - Inner side sills repaired - Frame rail rebuilt and partially replaced with the NOS one i brought him. - Complete front inner wheel well repaired - Front air channel repaired and rebuilt from sheet metal - Firewall below Battery tray replaced (Work in progress) Next steps will be replacing the floorpanels with replacement panels i brought him, as well as completing the firewall on the passenger side. Then the work will move to the passenger-backend of the car.

So everyday i try to spend at least 30minutes in the basment in my little Home-workshop assembling parts. But honestly progress is allways slower then i was hoping for, because it needs just so much time figuring out all the bolts, nuts and how everything belongs together. But better do it only once, but slow istead of rushing and messing everything up 1) Yesterday i got som industrial grade Superglue from the office to glue that rubber-stopper that is mounted on the steering rack Assembly. Before: And after glueing it back (I reused the old rubber piece because it's not available anymore and after a bit of cleaning it looked nice). Should be bulletproof now 2) Had some sparetime after t hat so i decided to use it and prepare the Seatbelt-mounts for sandblasting and powedercoating. Before: And after. Mounts removed. Note sure about this seatbelts. it's a swedish brand so definitly not Genuine Nissan. Probably installed by nissan switzerland upon import due to different safety regulations here. But they looked like a nice solution so i think i keep them if i don't find any better thing 3) Today i started with the Front subframe. Started like this: Then after a few small fitting-works installed the Front Lower control arms (LCA's). Click here for a great writeup about how to install them! This was very useful! Here we go! Front LCA's temorarly installed. Haven't tightened the nuts yet because i want to be sure everything alignts befor tightening stuff... 4) Then installed that rubber-stopper-thingy on the Steering rack: And then couldn't help myself but had to install the steering rack to the front assembly temporarly just to get me the feeling about how it will look soon. Somehow satisfying seeing all these puzzle-parts come together: 5) And of course, Yves my bodyshop guy keeps me updated almost daily about progress. But i will visit him and my fairlady again tomorrow so expect some nice fotos Note these are work-in-progress Fotos of the front Firewall / Battery tray area (which is usually rusty from leaked battery-acid). So the final result will look better

Remember i have a second chassis for spare-parts. will need to cut a lot of parts from that one soon But the reason was that i didn't have space for a third chassis and my calculations made it pretty equal to buy a 10k$ Chassis in good condition and import it to switzerland (and it still needs work) or get mine done with no extra work and the fact that i save an "unsaveable" car. I know many of you wouldn't propably not go the extra mile, but i feel like it's worth the money and it makes it even more special. From a junkyard-worthy 300 dollar car with rust, dents and bad repair attempts everywhere to the Queen that she hopefully will be in a few years It was never ment to be a fast restoration (well maybe at the beginning, but that soon changed). The plan was always to have a long-term project and build my dream

Since i got the Zinc plated parts back i'm trying to push the assembly of parts. Just because it's so much fun to finally see the puzzle-pieces come together to bigger pieces Started with the installation of the lately returned Zinc plated bolt and lock-nut: Then felt like it makes sense to clean a lot of small bits before putting it together. I mean wile i'm at it.. Dentist tools... And and old toothbrush came in handy and worked fine: The result. Well i even cleaned them another 30minutes more after this picture: Then started with the installation of the rest of the parts. like the steering boot clamp / Dust ring and the tierod-link stop nut: So next step will be the installation of the NAMS / Nagisa Auto Motor sports (Japan) adjustable Tierod endlinks (now discontinued ) and the steering rack boots. Takes a lot of time to figure out how all belongs together and to clean all the small bits. but honestly it's so much fun

Today i have some nice news: Got back my first load of parts from the Zinc plating and yellow-passivating (which makes it look "golden" and also secures it better from corroding: Honestly this was my first attemt ever in doing something like this. so not all parts ended up perfect as i hoped, but however most of them are usable and some of them were for trying anyway only because anything up t 39 kilograms was the same price so i put whatever part i wanted to have replated into the box anyway. Here's a closer look at the colour: So while i was looking at all the nice parts i got a bit motivated and decided to complete at least the fuel cap So i started with cleaning the still nice and soft rubber seal and adding a bit of Vasiline (Petroleum lube / Jelly) Just to make it last a bit longer. After done i put it back to the cap And installed all back together. Yay - first part complete But not only me was productive today, also Yves over at MUC is working hard at the moment and welded back some hand-crafted rocker panels: Still needs a few touches but it looks brilliant compared to what it looked before Here's another view: With the zinc-plating delivery today i got a lot of parts back which i was waiting for to complete the steering rack assembly and the Front subframe parts. So Expect to see a lot of these parts assembled soon

Thanks to a steel tube, a Hammer and the Torch i somehow managed to remove the steering column bearings which are only press fit. However it seems like i damaged the Plastic spacer and i'm still not sure how to remove the bearing on the lower part of the steering column Jacket. And on we go with the updates from the bodyshop. Yves at MUC is currently replacing the Floorpans, seat mounts, and rocker panels and installing the NOS Framerails: Thats it for now. More to come soon.

Time for another update: 1) While still waiting for the parts to return from the zinc-plating shop i ordered and got some fasteners and small OEM Bits from nissan for the Pedal box. nothing spectacular: 2) Also my Bodyshop guy constantly keeps sending my updates andi hope i can visit him once again next week. Hower his work looks very promising and his fabrikation skills are stunning: During work (Area below the battery tray): The finished, hand-crafted product. Absolutely great in my opinion! Today he started with the floorpans and rocker-panels: Current state of the car. Not much original Metal left. but the work is just brilliant! 3) While waiting for parts and work i decided to disassemble the Steering column. Before: Almost finished. If someone can tell me how the bearings are mounted into the housing and how i can remove them, this would be very helpful. Will get the housings sandblasted and powdercoated and don't think the bearings like to have sand and heat inside. also the service manual, haynes and other books only mention "replace bearings if worn" but not how to... Any advice i'm very thankful for Hope the zinc-plating parts will return early next week and another delivery goes to the powdercoating company

So here we go. Started preparing stuff for getting it zinc-plated / Replated. The company that does the work told me they can only remove slight surface rust and old zinc so i had to remove the thicker rust spots and old paint, grease and rubber: Started like this: 60 pieces total (Note the Snow in my Garden ) Gave all the pieces a treatment with paint-stripper. just to make sure everything is gone: After letting it soak for a while and then cleaning it with water. it looked like this - much better already Spent another hour or so cleaning all the bits with a dremel and a mini wire-wheel. Much better. Now ill ship it to the zinc-plating company and hope to get the bits back soon

Honestly i would like to show you some assembly progress here but unfortunately im still in need to get all the small bits and fasteners cleaned and zinc-plated before i can continue. Also I have a bunch of parts that need to be powedercoated so i decided to spend time with this task first: 1) On my way home from work i stopped by the garage because i had a good idea during work. I Finally found a solution to remove those rear subframe bolts from the chassis (the ones that bolt to the moustache bar): The wheel-torque wrench with a long shaft and a metal-tube extension finally got them out. Thesre are pretty special so no possibility to get those new. I had to get them out for zinc plating. They have a conical shape with both threads on the top- and lower end. 2) Before i went home i made sure to pack up all the parts i need at my home-workshop during the next days. because my garage is a few minutes away from home... 3) Decided i need some parts zinc-plated from the pedalbox as well and all the bigger bits need a sandblast and powdercoat so i started the dismantling. Before: And after: Still need to dismantle the steering column and safety-harness mounts and some other parts before sandblasting / Powdercoating and Zinc-plating all the bits. THEN finally i will hopefully be able to move fast forward with assembly of many small things...

Also got some updates from the bodyshop. He's currently working on the Framerails, battery-tray area and the passenger-side firewall. I'll let the pictures speak. please note that most of the work is not completed yet, so it might look a bit like a hackjob - but you have to wait until it's done That's it for now. hope go get the parts ready for zinc-plating soon because this will give me all t he missing fasteners i need to move forward with the subframe assembly... Now taking a day off and go to the Zoo

It seems like every post i write starts with a "finally". So this one is no different: Finally some Assembly work started. After many years of taking parts apart and cleaning them, finding replacement and doing research - i started the assembly of the Steering rack-and-pinion system. This is how it started (Note the new workdesk light i installed also ) I highly recommand using these Surface cleaning pads (pot cleaners) for removing old dried-out grease, slight s urface rust and dirt. Works brilliantly and is super cheap and easy to get Also love my new multi-purpose grease pump It's so much fun cleaning all the little bits like the grease seal seen here: Looks like i didn't do a lot but after two hours of cleaning surfaces, degreasing, re-greasing a lot of bits and puzzling it all together i ended up like this Still need to get a few parts zinc-plated before i can complete the assembly but at least i have something like an almost-finished steering rack Then bought a simple spring-scale from an online auction so i can make sure to have all the parts within specifications as mentioned in the service manual. No the most high-tech thing but it was cheap and wil do the work for me Also got a little delivery with some Nissan OEM Fasteners that were on back-order. Now have most of the parts ready for a full subframe re-assembly with all new OEM bolts. still need to get a few replated but most of the parts are ready. this will be fun

Jepp, progress is currently a bit slow because i'm still working on a lot of research stuff and the weather is cold and snowy over here (and you know my garage is unheated). However got some small stuff done again: Ordered a big bunch of OEM Nissan Nuts, Bolts, washers and springs for the rear subframe assembly. Still a few missing they will be delivered delayed. Also finally got a little update from Yves over at MUC. He's currently preparing for exchanging the Genuine frame-rails i brouth him a few weeks ago (See below):IMG-

Progress has been a bit slow lately with me being busy with christmas-stuff and working and yves, the bodyshop guy being stuck in other small customers works. However i'm working hard on finding a solution (aka a useful shop) for galvanizing my bolts and it seems i just found one. And somehow i found the time to order a few more bolts, nuts, springs, fasteners and other stuff for the project. This time the fasteners are for the engine- and transmissionmounts. Great stuff. Now will make a next big order for the rear subframe bolts. we be slightly bigger

My Job forced me to work in sunny Brazil for almost two weeks and when i came home i had a terrible cold. So updates were rare. However it's christmas time and i got some cool stuff: Thanks to my mate stev i got a printed version of the S30 Service manual: and thanks to my lovely girlfriend i got a nice air-compressor as a christmas gift. Wow, something i've wanted to buy for a while but always spent the money on other things

Got a huge truck by my house yesterday which brought me a big Plywood box from USA directly from the Airfreight-carrier Heavy duty stuff It contained a part both my chassis didn't have in needed quality and which i've been looking for for a while now.. But finally Thanks to an ebay auction from a great guy called Kevin i finally have a straight Roof without any sunroof-patch-repairs or a ton of bondo. Even the roof liner inside si there. Great news and big thanks to the seller Will completely unpack it when needed for easier storage

Today i got an early christmas surprise I decided to change my plan regarding the bolts and take the easiest possible way. Finding all the approximately 300 Different nuts, bolts, washers and springs in the correct size, threads, coating, lenght, strength etc at a hardware supplier is a pain in the arse. Specially because some of them are custom made only for Nissan. So i thought the simplest way is just print all the part numbers out of the nissan E-Fast tool, and place a big order at the local nissan dealer... Well it wasn't that easy. But this is what i got today: In fact i had to find replacement partnumbers for the original obsolete parts and at the end this are all the original parts still available from nissan europe. Also checked with nissan japan. they only had one nut more So At the end i have at least 60% of all the steering rack and front subframe assembly / Suspension bits together. All the standard pieces will be bought from a big hardware store and the custom made bolts like the transaxle mounting bolts will be cleaned and recoated / zinc plated because they still look nice! Yesterday i also visited My Bodyguy Yves from M.U.C who is working on my chassis. Not much changed since he last sent me an update but talked a lot to him and had a closer look at his work: So much better than before: This is the current state of the car. As you can see on the floor i dropped of the NOS Frame-rails i got a while ago so he can replace the rusty and patched up ones. So happy to have these items even if they cost me a kidney Prepare for another big update coming this weekend

A work of art, as usual Today he started work on the frame rail. Pretty rotten. good thing i Have NOS Nissan frame rails ready to get built in more updates soon again i hope. even from my side

I've been doing a lot of reasearch on small bits and pieces and ordering a lot of bolts, nuts, washers, spacers and stuff. So no pictures to show you from my side untill the parts arrive here. It's kinda hard find all the right partnumbers in Nissan E-Fast and than find Nissan Replacement partnumbers on a Homepage like this (great Page for finding replacement numbers! www.online-parts.co.uk/nissan/ ). However I have big news soon. And at least my Bodyshop guy Yves from M.U.C is constantly updating me with pictures so i can show you some progress on the body: He started to repair the passenger side inner wheel well. Before: During repair: Done Same on the other side:

Thanks mate Well yeah, all of my cars are japanese, White and have flat gold wheels so i think i'll stick with the theme. it's my fetisch **

As you can see there is still a lot of old lube inside (the yellow stuff): So i took my favourite dremel tool and cleaned the mess. way better Then worked after the energy suspension manual to install the bushings. First add lube to prevent the clean metal from corrosion and make installation easier: And finally they're installed. Still needs a bit of cleaning at the end Oh also went to the garage and vacum cleaned chassis number one And last but not least installed the Nissan E-FAST tool which is great for looking up original drawings and part numbers. You can get it here: http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html%C2'>