Captain Obvious

Haha! Yeah, we'll never know for sure. And of course, all this chatter about what we think was a mistake may have all been perfectly intentional from the very beginning for reasons we don't know.

Gross. Congrats, I think that's the worst I've ever seen. Here's hoping the block and head don't look as bad!!

I don't have one here handy to compare, but I believe the servo diaphragms should be airtight and hold a vacuum. I think if yours won't hold, it's probably got a hole (probably age crack) in the diaphragm.

Haha!! Gotcha. Well I would be happy to berate my PO..... Here's a pic of the kind of PO handiwork I found on my car when I dug into the suspension. Yes, those are huge gouges of missing and upset metal on the precision bushing surface. I'm thinking he split and drove the old bushing out with an air chisel. And heat. Lots of heat. Enough heat to blue the ends of the control arms.

Haha!! "He hates these cans!!"

No, not at all. I'm imaging a conversation like that because I've heard it a thousand times in the engineering department. You're rushing around near the end of a project and some little issue raises it's head... You have to make quick judgment calls between project schedule, cost, and result quality. It happens and I'm not berating anyone. I've been there many times! The only thing that really went wrong (in my imagined scenario) is the memo to the documentation group informing them of the change didn't make it. Or maybe even that did, but they decided that since they already had 10,000 books printed up, they would fix it in the next rev. And maybe THAT didn't happen.

I've heard peopled talking about that in the past, and I'm not going to throw my body in front of anyone's train, but I think it's a bad idea. Clearance (gaps) are an enemy, and Carroll Smith says that bolts are strictly for clamping, not for anything else. I'm not a ME or a suspension expert, but I wouldn't do it. I've been known to substitute and modify stuff all over the place, but that isn't one of them.

LOL. I think I do a lot of that. Probably more than I should. Haha! Good luck with the project and hope it turns out well. My PO installed suspension was a total mess when I got my Z. I've since redone everything, and man.... Is it 1000 times better than before. Other than some steering wheel vibration at highway speeds (comes and goes), it's a pleasure to drive!

Well I hadn't thought much about a sales prospect, but I didn't hate making these. However, I didn't make the internal threads yet* as I did not have the correct tooling. I've got that tooling (special taps) on order and if that tapping process doesn't turn out to be a disaster, then I could probably be convinced to make a couple for sale if people need. Of course, that tapping process (especially in stainless) could still turn out to be a disaster. I'll let you know after the taps arrive. * The astute viewer might ask "Then how does it look like your brass tip is threaded onto the antenna in your pic???" The answer is... I drilled it out so it just slips over the threads. Proof of concept for outside shape only. I'm not really worried about tapping brass. The stainless concerns me more.

Yeah, I think someone missed a detail somewhere. Everything about the whole situation would make much more sense for the bushing to be symmetric. Assembly process would be foolproof because you wouldn't need to pay any attention to which direction it went in. and the documentation wouldn't have to mention anything about it because it just didn't matter. On the prototyping floor... "Hey Boss. I'm putting these bushings in and when I do that, I can't get the strut casting in between them. What are we going to do?" Boss says : "Hmmm... I'll let engineering know." Engineering says : " Oops. We'll need to either:" a) Change the strut housing design to reduce the width. b) Change the rear control arms to increase the span between the bushings. c) Change the bushing so things fit together without interference. And "changing the bushing is way cheapest and easiest to change, so lets do that." Draftsman/Designer says : "I can't shorten the outsides of the bushings because we need that length for the rubber washers. Should we eliminate the rubber washers and make the bushings symmetric, or should we make the bushings asymmetric and keep the washers?" Lead Engineer says : "Crap (in Japanese). I really want to keep those washers. Make the bushings asymmetric and make sure you let documentation know about the change because they'll have to describe how to put the bushings in correctly!" And that last part never happened. I wasn't there for any of it, but that's how I see the whole thing.

I have a bunch of turbo parts around here that I'm not going to use. I'll look to see if I have a cam. And even if I do, I don't remember if it's a regrind or stock. I'll check. Glad to help with the throttle body! I finally gave up on the S30 throttle body completely and switched over to one from a Sentra.

So @Zup, I got your chewed up (what used to be an) antenna tip Perfect for my experiments. The first thing I can tell you is that it's chrome plated brass, not stainless. And I expect this to be the case for those antennas on ebay. Why is that important? Couple reasons: First, it means the prospect of buying something similar off ebay and taking a dremel to it isn't going to work unless you plan to send it out for new chrome plating afterwards. Second, it means that the "color" is different than stainless. Now unless you think some judge at a concourse show is going to dock you points for having a stainless antenna tip instead of chrome plated........ With all that said, it was tropical storming today and I had some time in the shop. Here's some pics: I had some other antenna here from a later year that I could mess with too: I made two proof of concept tips. One brass, and one stainless: The stainless would look better if I polished it. I didn't bother with that. Would still look different than chrome plating, but closer.

Than you make four out of four people now to support the theory of being designed that way. Thanks for the data point. Such a small difference though. It screams "oops" at the factory that they fixed by modifying the bushing.

What's the number and grind stamp you're looking for?

Excellent. Glad to hear they went in without incident. Out of curiosity... Did you find the same small amount of asymmetry in those outboard bushings that I did?

Sorry... One more thing while I'm in here. The rubber fuel line in this pic doesn't look right to me. Looks kinked. Is that just a trick of the camera angle?

Actually, that's not really a big deal. If you overfill it, it will just run into the carb throat and the first time you start the car, it will just get sucked in and burned. One little blue puff on that first start and problem solved.

I'll be the dissenting voice: I don't think you should block off everything. I think there should be a small amount of flow through the thermostat housing at all times (even when the thermostat is cold and closed). If everything is blocked off, you can run into the situation where the thermostat is sitting in a stagnant pool of liquid. Problem with that is a stagnant pool won't correctly reflect the temperature of the coolant inside the head and the thermostat could be delayed in opening. On my 280, I'm routing coolant through my throttle body, and that coolant bypasses the thermostat. Once I installed that line the temperature gauge reads completely different than it used to. My needle starts to move much earlier than before indicating that with the previous system there was no coolant flowing around the temperature sender until much later. So you don't have to pass the coolant through the carbs, but IMHO, there should be some flow. If you insist on blocking everything off, drill a hole in the thermostat. My experience with my 280 leads me to believe that the little jiggler hole built into the thermostat isn't enough.

When it goes from bad to worse To the Harbor Freight Community: I'm writing to apologize. I often reach out to tell you about Harbor Freight's commitment to quality and all the investments we've made to deliver quality tools at the lowest prices. Your trust matters deeply to me and I'm proud of how far we've come. So when we have a product recall, it hurts. A few months ago, we recalled our Pittsburgh 3 ton and 6 ton steel jack stands (SKUs 56371, 61196 and 61197) due to a manufacturer's defect. We asked customers to return them and receive a gift card that could be used to purchase replacement jack stands. I felt terrible about that recall because you should never have a concern about the safety of any of our products. Today, I feel even worse. I'm disappointed and embarrassed because we've identified a welding defect in a small number of the Pittsburgh 3 ton steel jack stands (SKU 56373) that replaced the recalled jack stands. We're now adding these jack stands to our recall. Unfortunately, this defect wasn't discovered during the initial recall investigation. If you own these jack stands or any of the jack stands in our original recall, whether or not you have had an issue with them, please stop using them immediately and bring them back to your local Harbor Freight Store for a full cash refund or store credit (see details here). We have investigated all of our other Pittsburgh 3 ton steel jack stands (SKUs 56371, 56372 and 57308) as well as the Pittsburgh 6 ton steel jack stands (SKUs 56368, 56369 and 56370) and Pittsburgh 12 ton steel jack stands (SKUs 56374 and 56375) and did not find the defect. Although none of these other jack stands are being recalled, if you own any of them and have any concern whatsoever, please bring them back and we'll give you a full cash refund or store credit for those as well. I want to apologize to all of our customers. While we've dramatically grown our team of engineers and inspectors, and intensified our tests and inspections, I assure you that the lessons learned from this will drive further improvement. As the owner and founder of Harbor Freight, I want you to know that we stand behind every product we sell and that safety will always be our top priority. Sincerely, Eric Smidt Owner and Founder Harbor Freight Tools

LOL. I tried to find the old SNL spoof ad where they circumcised a baby in a car to illustrate the smooth ride. But SNL has clamped down pretty hard on copyright stuff and I couldn't find it. Zup, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Making a mast tip from scratch should be a relatively easy task on a lathe. I might be convinced to give it a go if someone has a sample to use as a pattern. As for getting the mast out of the body, all I can do is assure you that there's nothing holding it in other than corrosion.

I think those post-trip numbers are fine. I'd be happy with those too. If you put new rings in you'll probably use less oil, but there's no way I would go that deep in just for that.

Wow that's a real win! Way cheaper! So (other than to different arm shapes) does everything else look the same? Same mounting bases and everything else? Can't wait to see how it works on the gauge.

I think the biggest problem is that everyone thinks "poly is better than the crappy soft stock systems". Just ask everyone. It's all over the internets.

Agreed. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but my design sense tells me that they designed it for predominant forces in the wrong direction. They should have designed the bushing orientations for predominant forces in the up-down direction (both for gravity and for driveline torque) Instead, it seems they designed it for lateral forces first and then up-down second. They fixed that with the ZX mounting scheme and I've pondered a little on ways completely change the Z to a different scheme. But for now, just finding a modifiable bushing that could be adapted to the existing design would keep me occupied.