11/29/11 Frame Rails pt.1

My new frame rails arrived this weekend, so it was finally time to start installing them. The first, and dirtiest, step in this install is to remove the old rubberized undercoating from the areas of the floor where welding will be required. This means taking an angle grinder with a wire wheel attachment under the car and slinging bits of goop everywhere. It's slow going , but when finished, the area should look something like this.

Notice the shiny bare metal on the lower section of the frame rail. This is where I will be welding the new section in.

And along the original rails where they meet the floor. Because my car is very rust free and I am adding these rails for additional strength rather than to fix rust, I will be leaving the original rails in place. I haven't decided whether I am going to leave factory undercoating on the original rails or strip it and apply POR-15, like I will be doing on my new rails. Using a weld-through primer on the sections to be welded, both methods should provide enough rust protection, especially considering I don't plan on driving this in weather or on salt.

Next it was time to mock up the new rails to see where they need to be trimmed or adjusted. These rails aren't exactly the same shape as the originals, and all of these cars are a little different, so a bit of massaging is often required to get them to fit perfectly. I may box in the section from the TC bucket to the new, wider rail.

As you can see here, there is a section of the original rail that bows downward, keeping the new rail from being flush with the floor in the front. A little coercion with a hammer should get it to fit perfectly flush. More on this tomorrow.

-W.W. SBSS

11/28/11 Coming Clean

OK, I got in a minor motorcycle accident in September. I hadn't mentioned this on the blog because I didn't want to worry my mom, but the hospital bill was sent to her house, so the cat is sorta out of the bag...

It was a silly accident. I was between a dentist appointment and getting full dental scan. The scanning facility was 5 blocks away and I needed to move the bike across the street for street cleaning anyway, so I decided to ride. Because of the short distance, I decided to forgo my usual riding gear for only the second time in 2 years of motorcycle ownership. This was stupid.

I was riding down 73rd between Columbus and Amsterdam, and there was a schoolbus parked on the right side of the road. As I approached, the bus threw out the stop sign. Trying to be a good samaritan, I attempted to stop before the bus, despite the fact that I was pretty much right up on it. The hard braking, combined with the torn up and potholed  surface of the block, caused me to lock up the front wheel and go down. It was a pretty low speed accident, ~20-30 mph, but it was enough for the bike to bang into something and bend the front fork. I wasn't very injured, only a sprained ankle and some light scrapes. If I were wearing my boots and my jacket I literally would have had no injuries at all, none.

I picked up the bike, parked it, and walked home. After a while I decided it would be best to get my ankle checked out, just to make sure it wasn't broken. I took a cab with A.D. to the hospital and got an X-ray to confirm my ankle was just sprained. I was in and out in less than an hour, which is a credit to Mt. Sinai. The moral of the story is ALWAYS WEAR YOUR GEAR. ALWAYS. EVEN IF YOU'RE ONLY GOING A SHORT DISTANCE.

In any case, I used the damage to the bike as an excuse to do a suspension and brake upgrade. I got a smoking deal on a used '06 GSXR600 forks and started collecting the other parts necessary to put it on my bike. Right now I have the forks mounted. Lookin' good.

In other news, I saw this awesome Ducati 999 on the street the other day. It's been streetfightered out a bit, with the fairing and rear seat removed, but I think it looks great. 

This was a less awesome Ducati sighting. It seems someone knocked over this row of bikes the other day, The Duc had some damage, which is unfortunate, because it was a very clean bike that I had been admiring for a few months. This is why we can't have nice things. 

In Z news, two major things happened this weekend. First, my frame rails arrived! I started prepping the floor for their installation, but this will be a reasonably long process, as undercoating is somewhat tough to remove. Stay tuned for updates on that.

Second, a member of the HybridZ forum posted that he had some parts he wanted to get rid of but didn't want to ship. Luckily he was pretty local to me, so I was able to score some great free stuff. First was an intake manifold and two carbs for a triple carb setup for a Z. Complete working sets of these go for $1000-$1500, so this was a total score for free, despite the rough shape of the carbs.

Second, he had two 5speed transmissions for the Z. All in all not a bad haul for a few hours of driving!

-W.W. SBSS

Success!

I finally got the stubborn strut cartridges out of the struts. Turns out they were old school Koni's. That is all.

-W.W. SBSS

11/21/11 Goodbye Old Friend

This weekend I finally sold my 280z 2+2.

Saturday morning I loaded up the G35 with a battery and the 280z hood (which I was running on my 240z) and drove home to Newark, where the 280z was. I dragged the car out of the garage with the focus, installed the battery and it started right up. The clutch had drained itself, so I topped off the master cylinder and pumped it until it had pressure. I put the hood on and it was ready to go.

In fact, I drove it to Maplewood for lunch. It was nice going for one last ride before giving it to it's new owner. It was a little sad to watch it drive away, but it's better that the car be used than just sit there while I work on my 240z. Not to mention it frees up some cash for the suspension and brake components that I need to buy.

While I was home, I pulled some parts out of storage to bring to the shop for the 240z, namely the original gas tank from my car and the heater controls. I don't want to cut this body up too much, so I'll be installing the gas tank rather than putting my fuel cell in it.


Friday night P.C., A.D. and I did an awesome Livingsocial deal. For $70, a bus picked us up in midtown, drove us to Grand Prix New York, set us up for a 90 minutes endurance race, fed us, then drove us back to the city. Not a bad deal.

It was a great time. The karts were fast and the track was interesting. There was quite a bit of elevation change, and lots of traffic to play around in. Our team came in second place by a margin of only 55 seconds. We're the 'heavyweights' in the table below.

I got in a little bit of trouble for aggressive driving, but the real problem was following slower traffic a little close, and bumping them when they braked at inappropriate times. In any case it was a ton of fun and I recommend it highly. Next time that deal shows up on living social I think I'll do it again.

-W.W. SBSS

11/17/11

Video Hour - Control

Stance

11/11/11 Daily Dose

10/11/11 A little culture

I decided I'm going to expand this blog to cover a little more of the culture surrounding cars and motorcycles. As with the Depth of Speed video I posted a while ago, I want to share some of what drives me and those like me.  To that end, here are some pretty pictures.

-W.W. SBSS

College Essay

Just thought I'd share one of my college essays. This apparently got me into Princeton...



I accidentally give myself a shock trying to connect the jumper cables to the battery. It seems that I'Il have made the mistake of not running my car in the past few weeks, and to spite me, it has drained its brand new battery.

Rumbling to life, it's immediately apparent that this car is different from most here in northern Jersey. It, like my afro that touches the roof when I get in, was born in the early seventies, and while they both were a common sight at the time, it is a special occasion to see one today. 

The cheap, dent hiding white paint job has been replaced by grey primer, then flat black paint, because rust reared its ugly head in small spots around the car’s body. The dents are just cosmetic however, and the frame is solid. In the same way my body is decorated with scars that I wouldn’t want to remove even if I could because each of them tell a story.

When you strap into the four point racing harness you may notice that the car doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that are now expected of cars like air conditioning, power steering, and a radio, but they aren't missed. And while it doesn’t have airbags or crumple zones, it does have harnesses and a roll-cage, which do the job just as well but in a slightly more spartan way. Great cars were made before these new standards were set and great scholars and people existed before this new definition of a well rounded person was created. 

Start moving and you understand why someone would get a car like this. Both driving and being a passenger in it are an experience to remember. Created before engines relied on computers and throttles were electronic, the car has personality and soul. It fights you when it doesn’t want to do something. The throttle is touchy, while the clutch and the brake require a heavy foot, so the car takes some getting used to. It doesn’t like running in the cold and will let you know it, but, it will always run. The car is happiest at 3250 rpms in second gear; dip into the throttle then, and the car comes to life, lunging forward with a roar and strong vibration all the way to redline. It, like me, is human, and has its flaws and strengths, and it makes no attempt to hide them.

Before working on your own car voided the warranty, and before we felt we needed trucks with a foot and a half of ground clearance to commute to work, there were true cars, cars that shocked you and were alive.

11/3/11 Snow in October, Sunburn in November

This weekend the guys and I spent some quality time in the shop. AY started the rebuild of his engine, aided by a VERY indepth video. 

Saturday night, as I was going to a Halloween party, we got a very strange October snow storm. Because it was so early, most of the trees still had leaves on them, and many trees and branches broke.

As I said before, the chassis reinforcement and interior work is on hold until I can get the new frame rails, so I've moved on to the suspension. The plan is as follows:

• clean up all the original Datsun steel parts
• either powdercoat or paint them with POR-15
• replace all rubber with polyurethane
• shorten the struts to give me more suspension travel when the car is lowered
• install new struts cartridges and springs
• then put on some huge brakes and call it a day. 

I started pulling my old front suspension completely apart the other day.

Note the cheap coilover kit I bought a few years back. The silver spring perches are about the only thing I will be reusing, as the springs are too stiff and too short. Adjustable strut cartridges will be installed as well.

I was going to use my old struts, but the only work I ever our sourced on my car in it's previous life, the replacement of the strut cartridges, was botched. They replaced them alright, but they stripped the nuts that hold them in completely, meaning I can't remove them...at all...ever. 

I did beat the crap out of them trying though. Because I knew I was now going to need to use the struts from the new car, I dropped the suspension out of it for disassembly.

Next I started removing the bushings from old lower front control arms. These are pressed in, and are a very  tight fit. This, combined with decades of water grit and rust, make them pretty much impossible to remove. To get them out, I first twisted out the inner metal sleeve, then used my milling machine to very precisely cut the outer sleeve without cutting the control arm. After that, the sleeve just taps out easily. It's nice having the right tools for a job. 

More sheet steel showed up at the shop, so I got the hint that one of our benefactors wanted more boxes made. Last night I welded up as many as I could. After a solid 2 hours of welding I had 7 boxes and a mild case of welder's flash.

Showering this morning, I discovered that I had one more product from last night; a sunburn. Check out the tan line from my welding gloves. Sunburn in November, awesome. 

-W.W. SBSS