Captain Obvious

Nuh uh:

Haha!! Thanks guys! Those are beautiful, but I've already started building my own using stone knives and bearskins. Now about the president part... I'm up for that!

I'm so glad that after all that effort you got something you're satisfied with. Lot of effort, but finally something suitable!! About your dash LED's... I redid my whole dash system maybe a year or so ago and am thrilled with the results. My prediction on yours? You may find them to be way too bright. If I can see them that bright in the daytime, then once everything outside the car is dark, I'm thinking you're going to need sunglasses to look at the instruments. I solved that problem by modifying the LED bulbs themselves, and converting over to a PWM dimmer.

Happy Birthday Mark!! You guys are making me feel young!!

Excellent. I've removed original rubber bushings that were so crusty, deformed, and dryrotted, that it was pretty much impossible to discern what direction they actually started with!

How can that HP be so accurate without a mirror on the needle? I have an old Simpson 360 in the wood box too. Is it just me, or does it have a unique signature smell to it? Do they all smell that way?

Not that I'm doubting, but just to double check... Are you sure you got the washers and bushings in the correct way?

Meter nerd!!

Woof. That's no fun. Good luck with the alternate removal techniques. What are you going to do with the other struts now that this one has gone so badly? Are you going to try traditional means, or work up one of the gland nut tools discussed above?

Easiest solution so far! Just slip a chunk of that square over the nut and put a pipe wrench on the outside.

And if it is, it's probably the star design. You might be able to get creative and grind off the internal points of the stars and get it to fit. You don't need it fit full depth, just enough to get over the nut. That should be better than a 12 point because there would be more engagement. I could probably hog an octagon out of a half inch thick chunk of steel. Good fit on the nut and use a pipe wrench on the outside. Would probably take less time to grind the points off an appropriate sized star design. One thing though... I know on must nuts and bolts, the size protocol is determined by the flat-to-flat measurement. I'm not sure if they use the same convention and measure them that way. It may be 2" point-to-point. I haven't looked into it, but @SteveJ will know soon enough!

My wife has confirmed that male humor stagnates at age 13.

Beautiful car. I'm reliving my youth as well with mine. Good call. You're going to Zcon 2017? Right in your backyard?

Cool. I was poking around a little more and found "axle lock nut sockets" that are the correct octagon shape, but I didn't look long enough to find one at 2". Let us know what you get from ebay! Bow Chicka WOW WOW!

Probably not. The reason being that when they say "eight point" they are probably talking about the "star" looking heads, not what's on the gland nut. I haven't researched much, but I think the best thing you're going to find off the shelf is a 12 point. So in your travels, have you seen 8 point sockets that are not the star design?

What was the measurement flat-to-flat of the gland nut? I agree that for stubborn nuts, you would want a tighter fitting socket. You had mentioned going down a size... I'm wondering what size that would be.

Nice. That's better than what I did... I bought a BF adjustable wrench from HF. (BF from HF?) http://www.harborfreight.com/24-in-adjustable-jumbo-wrench-60702.html The wrench cost a little more, but is more portable to other tasks (although I haven't used it for anything else since). The wrench was able to be tightened up snug against two sides the nut, but only two sides at a time. The wrench was fiddly and easy to misalign. I think if I have to do struts again, I'll do something more along the lines of what you did. Hopefully my KYB's will outlast me...

So I got a question... Having never used one of them smoke machines, what is it that keeps the smoke from just picking a cylinder with open valves and passing through the engine and out the exhaust system? Do you stick a banana in the tailpipe or something?

Probably not the end of the world, but I wouldn't want the Delrin to spin in the sleeve. But just like my new TB bushings, it shouldn't take a lot of encouragement for the motion to be confined to the center cylinder.

Wow... That's cool. I think I might have to get me one of them smoke machines!

Well let me add a little clarity to my seemingly harsh review above... If you know what it is you're getting yourself into and your plan is to buy it cheap, cut the whole rear end off, and weld on a good one from a car that had been wrecked in the front, then this might be the perfect candidate. Or if you just want to drive one, and don't really care that it has had extensive poorly done body work done in the past, then this might be the perfect candidate. If this thing is being presented as "in good condition", or "restored", or "a survivor", then I protest. I'm out of touch with Z prices, and all I know is they are going up. But I sure hope you could do better for that money.

I can guarantee that the right has had extensive work as well. Look at the bad body filler outline at the front of the bumper tip. Look at the horizontal sheet metal line above that. The center side crease line is completely smoothed out with filler. The gas filler door won't close. Uneven body filler door gap. Body filler filled rocker seam. Ten foot pole, I tell ya... I know it's somebody's baby, but I can't help imagining what that thing looks like with the paint and filler removed.

Chickenman, Those are cool. Never having messed with such entities... What keeps the Delrin from spinning in the outer aluminum shell? Just pressed in?

What kind? One that looks nice. And not too expensive.

That body is not clean and straight. It's had a crap-ton of work done to it! You can even see the rivet heads poking through the incredibly thick runny paint. There is no body crease remaining due to the thick bondo on that thing. I may be imagining the worst, but I wouldn't touch that thing with a ten foot pole. Original owner, huh? Ask him if the bodywork is due to rust or and accident.