working on cars... not B13, nor SE-R

[Erik Halvorson]

Blame it on Jerry.

Well I had planned on working on the son's B13 last weekend, to get his driver's door lock to actually "lock", but he took off with it to go somewhere with his GF so I looked around and saw the set of Bilsteins that I had bought about 18 months back for my red daily driver Nissan which I use as a daily driver, April through October (No snow nor DOT de-icer).  So I went through the routine, broke the lugs loose, jacked up the car, put it on stands, sprayed the fasteners on the lower ends to help removal, (man, coil over style multi-link sure are easy to remove vs strut), put the coil compressors on and snugged them a couple turns, loosened the top nut while holding the strut rod with a small wrench,  inspected the bump stops (they were in great shape and would be reused but the old KYB Climb Gear Dampers were shot and pretty much out of oil), should have bought new boots as old ones were falling apart...  too late now.  Inspect the brake pads, suspension bushing and steering joints while I am here.  Pads need replacing.  1992-96 Z32 pads are the same (4 pot and 2pot) so no over seas ordering needed there but I am not sure on the rotors which are worn past service thickness.  HICAS inner and outer rod ends have play....  not good.  Front suspension's bushings are all cracked and soft and allowing more movement than I would say was intended by design so looks like I have old car blues and it is time for a bushing "Re-Do", some tie-rod and might as well do bearings and ball joints while I am in there....  Damper replacement re-assembly was a breeze with no mishaps.  Why wasn't it this easy when we were younger?  With everything buttoned up, I decided to rewire the front turnsignal/marker lights so that the side turn is now a side marker...  You can still see the turn signal from the front, side and from slightly behind so not sure why the factory didn't do this in the first place as this car has NO side markers whatsoever, front nor rear...  If I was stopped on a dark road sideways you wouldn't see me... now it does.  In the front at least.  Looks great and the wiring is tidy (looks like it was factory, with heat shrink, expensive connectors and all).  I washed it.  Then went for a test drive on my favorite twisties.  Dampers work very nice.  No more "bounding" about in my favorite corners and I can now feel the rest of the loose suspension bits moving about...

 

I need to get my arse in gear and get my Dad's classic Bronco finished (lots of work still to go) so I an get this car in my shop and get the suspension work going....  all work above was performed in the house garage which never goes over good with my better half.

 

Cheers!

Erik

 

Jerry wrote:  Wow!  This “discussion” is just like old times, except we used to talk about cars…….

  		 	   		  
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