Matthew Abate

I just torqued my rear hubs down after replacing all of the bearings and seals and have different results from one side to the next. I had the bearings removed by a local shop, cleaned and repainted everything, bought brand new bearings and seals, and had the same shop press everything back together. The parts sat on my bench for a month and then yesterday I torqued the spindle bits down to 190#s. Both are more difficult to turn by hand than I expected, but the left one gives uneven resistance, which tells me something is wrong. I don’t think it’s the bearings because it seams to be in the same spot in the rotation every time and that shouldn’t happen if I had a flat spot. It would travel around the axis, right? I’m going to see if I can spot a runout problem, but baring a bent spindle can anyone think of what could be happening here?

Unfortunately, I never ran it. The wiring was in but no connectors were attached. I started stripping the car immediately. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Thanks for the advice guys. As soon as I figure out how to test the wiring I’ll start setting up (gotta finish this suspension first). Is it possible to undo the old wrap a bit, wrap the exposed bit, and then when I run out of bare wires undo some more? This part is going to be SUPER fun. I don’t know if you’d remember, but my wiring wasn’t connected when I got the car. It was installed, but not together.

Major SNAFU yesterday: spilled aircraft stripper all over one of my struts being careless. Looks like this suspension refresh is going to take a couple of weeks more than I expected. —- I also have a question concerning wiring: I have all of my harnesses, but I have no idea if they are good. I have considered just building new harnesses, but I think I’m looking at $600 or more if I go that route, and it’s possible that my harnesses are perfectly good. So should I... 1. Test my harnesses and fix any issue myself (never done this before) 2. Pay someone to test and possibly fix them 3. Go ahead and make new ones and know the wiring is good but eat the cost and take a chance on my craftsmanship falling short? 4. Do a custom from scratch wiring job, either myself or paying someone. For this I obviously need to inventory my needs. Right now I’m leaning toward the middle option expecting to need to refresh the connectors, and I would need guidance on sourcing this person. If option 3, should I do any upgrades and where do those upgrades tip me over into option 4?

I’m wondering the same thing. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Correct. Everything is finger tight for now. I’ve had to disassemble things before so I’m leaving thread lock and torque until last. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

It’s just the brace that spans the arm. They squeezed it in a vice and caved it in about 3/16ths of an inch. I measured it against the other one and don’t see any geometry change, so I’ll keep it. Just pissed because it was pristine before I gave it to them.

True. The guy at the shop meant to retorque the old version after 100 and then peen them, which made me nervous they would get loose in that time. Felt like questionable advice and wanted to check it out. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

That did it. The pins slide right out. The ant-seize actually made them less slippery. Had a nice time getting it completely out of the threads. Everything is finger tight for now. I’ll do the blue thread lock tomorrow.

That’s good to hear about the Z Car Depot bolt kit. The Z Car Source bolt kit for the suspension leaves a lot to be desired. I haven’t seen one piece match what I took off the car so far. In other news, after taking some sand paper to the pin tubes on the struts, the pin slides right in. I think it must have been the POR-15 around the lip of the hole. Going to go around and do the rest of it tonight. After that I’ll do some blue thread lock on my ball joint bolts, which came with the joints. Edit: by the way, no one ever commented on whether I should use the original rear hub nuts and peen them or use the S130 locking ones (see above for the comment a shop made about torquing them after 100 miles). I have both. And in other news, looks like the guy that pressed out those bushing and pressed in the new one not only chewed up up the bushings but also bent one of the LCAs. I measured it and it looks like they still match, but one of them looks like it’s been in a North African rally a few times.

Glad I said something! The pins are brand new from Z Car Depot. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

That’s the plan! Anti seize on the pin. Red thread lock on all nuts and bolts. Everything is just test fit right now. Question in that front: the pin should be very hard to get into the strut, right? After I used those barrel brushes I went to test fit it and found that it’s going to need to be pressed in, which makes me nervous about making sure it’s properly aligned to the little pin that keeps it in place. For some reason I had hoped it would slide in the way it does with the bushings on the LCAs. Oh, and forgot to include this:

Update: This is the junk from one spindle pin tube:

Update: Got a credit for the bolts and a line on some OEM ones. This is what else is going on... Those LCA bushings aren’t going anywhere.

Okay. So. I got my suspension bolt kit from Z Car Source on Tuesday and opened it up immediately. My first issue is that nothing is organized. They just put all the hardware of a given size into baggies. I appreciate that they didn’t throw it ALL into ONE bag, but by comparison, Z Car Depot takes the time to sort hardware kits by where they go on the car and label everything. Now I have to go match my new hardware with my old hardware and my spreadsheet. Which highlights my second issue, which is that it’s a damned good thing I started doing that because this hardware does not match in at least one critical area: the bolt that connects the lower control arm to the crossmenber is longer but has less grip length. This means you end up with threads on the crossmember wall rather than a smooth bolt shank. BAD NEWS. Now I have to go through every single piece and make sure it’s the right size head, the right diameter, and the right length. I mean, I guess I would be anyway, but I’m nervous there are other mistakes. Here’s the LCA pivot bolt. My pops has a friend who sources small quantities of specialty hardware for Raytheon, so we’re going to see if that’s a path to a solution. Might be able to get a bunch if people are interested. I’ll let you know if it pans out.

I know this is an old dead thread but I thought I should add that my July ‘73 240z has the cream primer underneath, not body color, so they must have made this change before the 260z came along.

Been thinking about paint again. Right now these are the cans of spray touch up I have in my amazon cart: Nissan A16 Atomic Orange (close enough to 918) EBB Monarch Orange Pearl NAM Magma Red BMW B44 Valencia Orange Metallic B50 Sakhir Orange Metallic Lamborghini Arancio Borealis Suzuki Candy Max Orange Want to narrow it down to three before I go to the painter with option. Opinions?

Hmm. Okay. One more thing. He recommended that I not stake them until after 100 miles, at which point I should back them off and then retighten them just to the point of rotational resistance, whereas the lock nuts are supposed to be torqued. Opinions?

Question before I start a whole thread on something potentially insignificant: Did I buy the wrong nut for the rear hubs? I bought the OEM rear bearing lock nut that comes up in the Nissan parts search on most dealer sites, but the guy who pressed on my bearings told me that nut needs to be peened like the factory did. I was under the impression that the newer lock nuts didn't need to be peened. Z Car Depot has a Rear Outer Stub Axle Lock Nut that looks the same. I have read that the 280zx nut doesn't need to be peened. Did I get the wrong thing? I'd like to correct this before I put them rear struts back on the car.

New resonator design, too. Wonder if it sounds much different. The sound data claims it’s 4 dB quieter, if I’m reading that right.

First pass came out alright. Another pass should do it. Still some rust in the splines. In other news...

Also, can someone point me to a GOOD thread about what is involved in converting a 240Z to EFI in addition to this one? I have a hazy sense of what is required (280Z gas tank, different wiring harness, megasquirt or similar), but the search function is basically just yielding a bunch of threads of people asking if they should convert to the 280Z fuel injection and being told to use the search function. :/

I just saw a guy on Instagram named Francisco Gutierrez (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCTvrwMREOb53ARiCs23q5tg) got his Jenvey system in the mail today. I’ll let you know what he says if he isn’t already on here and doesn’t chime in. Edit: Here's his first post on it. So how can we get in touch with Mikuni to convince them there’s enough interest to make them? I feel like they could undercut the competition and become the default solution.

More stuff, this time from Woodmen Nissan:

It’s great, but use a rag. My phone doesn’t recognize my fingerprints now. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile