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wvumtnbkr
wvumtnbkr UltimaDork
9/19/24 5:34 p.m.
preach said:

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

FMV not to get protested sure, but how much value added is getting a 16(?) year old into the Challenge in his own car?

A LOT!  I think this entire thing is awesome!  I was merely commenting because it felt like a gray area and I didn't want these awesome humans to get surprised!

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/19/24 6:12 p.m.
wvumtnbkr said:
preach said:

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

FMV not to get protested sure, but how much value added is getting a 16(?) year old into the Challenge in his own car?

A LOT!  I think this entire thing is awesome!  I was merely commenting because it felt like a gray area and I didn't want these awesome humans to get surprised!

Thanks guys. We are all on the same page here. I get what everyone is saying. It's all good!

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/19/24 8:24 p.m.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

16 in October... Full driver in March.

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 12:12 a.m.

Mounted the clutch slave cylinder last night, then a neighbor stopped by and needed help with a nail in a tire.

So today after work I went out and worked on the Z. Jack wasn't home yet from cross country practice, so between wanting to make use of the daylight and wanting to surprise him with his first chance to drive his car I made the executive decision to start without him....

And routed the line across the top of the engine compartment,

Walking to the other side, I saw this:

Hmmm that's interesting. Turns out it was battery acid. The battery is from 2018... probably has a bad cell , as I know what the voltage was on the trip. Pulling the battery out, I braced for the worst, and found this:

Wow, not at all bad for a 34 year old battery tray! I attriute the pristine condition to this liner that was under the battery:

If you still have one in your 300zx, clean out this hole... it will help. Ours was full of leaves.

 

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 12:36 a.m.

Take a look at this fine mechanic work.

The line on the left side of the tee comes from the clutch master cylinder. The tee branches from there, to a downward connection that goes to the slavs cylinder, and to the right to a line that is larger diameter and dead ends at the right hand fender well, behind the light, where it terminates at a block with a bleeder screw.

I believe that Nissan's intention was to somehow improve clutch pedal feel by adding this "buffer line",, but I'm not certain. Is anyone familiar with the system, and know what its intended use is?

In any case the last shop thought it wise to break off the bleeder block, crimp the line, and disconnect the line from the tee.

 

In the process of doing that and plugging the line, they crimped the main line from the master cylinder to the tee. I'm not entirely sure how the clutch worked at all honestly.

Moving on... this is where I chose to drop the aftermarket braided line, using the mangled old hard lines as a guide to keep the braided line away from the exhaust manifild.

Under the car I chose to route the line through the old clutch line mounting tab which put the new line in about the same place that the shorter OEM fles line ran.

 ​​​​​​

In the end if we do pull the engine to freshen everything up, I'll probably replace all of this with one hard line down to the original flex line connection.

About this time, Jack got home... and he got to run the clutch pedal... down, DOWN, up, UP, down, DOWN, up, UP... ok now check the fill level...

You all know the routine.

Well in the end we got it bled as good as we could, but we could not get the clutch to fully disengage. 

We decided to stop, because night time, frustration, nice paint and brake fluid don't go well together at all...

I do have to say though, that while we will try bleeding  again over the weekend, we did a decent job tonight, and I'm starting to wonder.... bad TOB? collapsed diaphram?  Disc in backwards?..

 

IDK...  like I said ... tomorrow... :)

And oh yeah...as for he battery.. optima red is probably going to be the solution. No fuss, no muss.

tb
tb Dork
9/20/24 6:00 a.m.

I'm pretty bummed out at the quality of work supplied by the local "good" mechanic. 

 

The battery area deserves a good look on every Z32; those pics are after I spent a day cleaning and painting 2 years ago. Iirc, the cables were "repaired" with random bits from my garage...

 

I was gonna start with the braided hose and cross my fingers! Really cool seeing you guys dive in 

wvumtnbkr
wvumtnbkr UltimaDork
9/20/24 7:31 a.m.

I have always had to either pressure or vacuum bleed clutch hydraulics.  I can NEVER get it right without doing that.

 

I would think if it was something major, it wouldn't shift at all.

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 8:01 a.m.
wvumtnbkr said:

I have always had to either pressure or vacuum bleed clutch hydraulics.  I can NEVER get it right without doing that.

 

I would think if it was something major, it wouldn't shift at all.

Funny you mention that, I ordered a new pressure bleeder last night, it will be here today!

However I have seen TOB's be wrong or installed oddly so that they don't slide smoothly. Clutch covers can fail and drag when disengaged, and some cars will somewhat tolerate a disc in backwards, where the clutch hub does not bind with the flywheel, only rub hard enough to spin.

But for now we are focusing on another good bleeding. I'll also probably measure the maximum possible slave cylinder stroke on the old cylinder as a gauge for how well the new parts are working. I could not find a nissan spec for that value,,, if anyone knows it.... :)

I have had good luck for the most part with clutch hydraulics on various cars.

Except for an 89 Ranger. That was bad. Probably the most difficult one ever.

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 8:12 a.m.
tb said:

I'm pretty bummed out at the quality of work supplied by the local "good" mechanic. 

 

The battery area deserves a good look on every Z32; those pics are after I spent a day cleaning and painting 2 years ago. Iirc, the cables were "repaired" with random bits from my garage...

 

I was gonna start with the braided hose and cross my fingers! Really cool seeing you guys dive in 

Yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I don't think they were very good. You mentioned I think that they did the rear main when they put the clutch in? Well I haven't put eyes on it yet but ALL of the oil is coming from the bellhousing out of the clutch and starter openings. 
I guess at least you can know how they work and feel good about crossing them off your list without any doubt...

Lug nuts were 160+ ft/lbs everywhere.

That was another shocker. lol.

tb
tb Dork
9/20/24 3:22 p.m.

Yeah, I got beat bad on the clutch / rear main job it appears. I guess i bet on that shop, and lost... first time I paid someone else to do a clutch felt luxurious at the time.

 

Makes me feel better that I followed my gut and passed it cheap to a loving home! 

 

Don't forget to check the switches under the clutch pedal, they messed with them too

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 3:34 p.m.

In reply to tb :

I'm glad it adds to your happiness with the decision to choose us... sorry otherwise though that it worked out that way. 
 

Thank you too for the transparency on the dialog with the shop... it will likely save us some time or confusion along the way.

Thanks for the heads up on the switches, I'll check that out as well. Did they mention why the were messing with switches?

Do you know which Z1 clutch kit was used? Good news I can see a bright red pressure plate..

tb
tb Dork
9/20/24 4:17 p.m.

https://www.z1motorsports.com/z1-products/z1-motorsports/z1-300zx-twin-turbo-tt-clutch-and-flywheel-kit-p-1837.html

 

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 7:41 p.m.

FIXED!!!

 

Thanks tb for the heads up that they had monkeyed around with the pedal.

I found marks where they used pliers instead of wrenches and just WENT TO TOWN screwing up adjustments that did not need ANY change,

This clutch has a power vacuum booster on it INSIDE the car. 

They adjusted stroke out of the pedal on the inside of the booster and adjusted the clutch master rod on the firewall side, in 3/16 of an inch, which is a HUGE amount.

Film at 11.

 

Right now we are out joy riding!!

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 9:55 p.m.

Dimension A was barely 0.40"

Now that that is correct, I need to revisit this to get the last of the slop out of the pedal.

But man, let me tell you, at this stage, half adjusted back to spec, the clutch pedal is substantial. Nice release height now too.

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 9:58 p.m.

Tim, this might sound like a left handed complement, but here it goes anyway.

Your shop was not intending to rip you off in my opinion, I think they were just in over their heads. They OBVIOUSLY spent more than the normal amount of time trying to get this to work... they just had no clue how to go about doing it. 

I've been there, Ive just never been paid to be there... lol.

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/20/24 11:39 p.m.

And in all of the excitement, I almost forgot we also did wiper blades and this:

tb
tb Dork
9/22/24 10:06 a.m.

Great to see it getting sorted so promptly and very well done! Exactly the kind of things I suspected but just never got into yet...

 

Makes my day! I should add no rush on the DVD, I can always grab it when I come down in March.

 

Might be too much tread depth on the rear tires, probably want to heat cycle 1/64 off out on some back road with go pros running...

MuSTANK
MuSTANK Reader
9/22/24 10:15 a.m.

In reply to tb :

"Yeah, it is an old school northern way to keep the metal protected . . . " Here in Massachusetts the process was sold through dealers as Rusty Jones.

tb
tb Dork
9/22/24 10:49 a.m.

In reply to MuSTANK :

It works, too, so i dont knock it. When I lived in MA I raced a 1G DSM that would have already been Swiss cheese but it got the full Ziebart treatment when new. That stuff was like cosmoline on steroids!

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/22/24 11:58 a.m.

First bath in Florida.

Took it to the car wash mainly to get the first flush of oil off of the bottom.

Automatic car washes won't be a regular thing just a necessary evil so I don't kill ALL of the grass in the driveway. And also this way that water from the 1st layer will see some treatment.

 

 

amg_rx7 (Forum Supporter)
amg_rx7 (Forum Supporter) UltraDork
9/22/24 1:07 p.m.
a_florida_man said:

Tim, this might sound like a left handed complement, but here it goes anyway.

Your shop was not intending to rip you off in my opinion, I think they were just in over their heads. They OBVIOUSLY spent more than the normal amount of time trying to get this to work... they just had no clue how to go about doing it. 

I've been there, Ive just never been paid to be there... lol.

A lot of mechanics do that. Instead of downloading and reading the FSM, they just try whatever worked on cars they have experience with. 

a_florida_man
a_florida_man Dork
9/22/24 3:42 p.m.

The first thing to break during out ownership?

The glove box latch.

There should be a rod and spring here... as well as a little more plastic lol.

Zip ties to the rescue.

Jack enjoyed learning about rod clips...

And a quick re-install...

I found the missing plastic that broke off. 

Im willing to bet that if the rod had not been splined, the tab would have lasted.

 

Todays lesson, not all car projects are big expensive oily, greasy messes that go on and on....

...they come later...

stafford1500
stafford1500 Dork
9/22/24 4:02 p.m.

Time to fire up the computer and 3d printer. That latch/bracket looks like a good modeling project.

stafford1500
stafford1500 Dork
9/22/24 4:38 p.m.

Also what was Jack's reaction to boost lag? Shouldn't be too much based on its age, but worth asking.

Stampie
Stampie MegaDork
9/22/24 5:00 p.m.

In reply to a_florida_man :

Tell Jack that I approve of his safety shoes.

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