240Z Resto - 01/1970 Car

[bartsscooterservice]

On ‎4‎-‎12‎-‎2015 at 4:50 AM, Careless said:

sooooo anyone know if the calipers were plated from factory? 

no

[Careless]

1 hour ago, bartsscooterservice said:

no

Thanks! I've got some rebuilt calipers that were cheap and done well and they have all the factory hardware too. So I just coated them and they are ready to install with ceramic pads so that they don't dust up the fresh wheels and wheel covers!

[Careless]

Public Service Announcement RE: Clutch Friction Discs

It seems that Nissan has created a compatibility issue with their superseding chain of parts... allow me to enlighten:

 

Here we see item Key #1 for clutch disc

 

Here are the part numbers associated with the selected item key #1 for the clutch disc

 

Assembly 30100-E4300 supersedes to 30100-E4301 and to a bunch of other numbers, all of which are NOT available from the dealer. Surprise, Surprise. I know what you're thinking- get a clutch kit... Well I had the flywheel resurfaced, and had a very very very light skim on the pressure plate (so as to not reduce clamping load from over-machining), and thought the disc at 125 dollars would be cheaper, but now due to this incompatibility issue it's costing me money out of pocket because I don't think the owner of the car should be responsible. I will take it up with my dealer and see if I can prove the compatibility error and at least get a full or partial credit.

When I discussed with my dealer, the 30100-E4301 number moved on up to the following:

- 30100-D4400 (280Z number, I think)
--- 30100-59E01
------ C0100-22500

My guess is that the numbers work... provided you have the associated pressure plate. However, being that it's such an old entry, there are no comments in the dealership FAST software that denotes any requirements or prerequisites- soooo that may be the ticket for me making a case with my parts guy. the last number is the one I ordered, and it is also the same number I found on another website that used the nissan parts database and had notes like "this part has been replaced with the following" and had a link to another page. If I find that site, I will post the link, it should still be around somewhere. Just a matter of finding it again for the sake of verification. It really makes no difference if Nissan themselves has the same issue with their parts listings. I would have ended up with that disc anyways if I went straight to them. My only issue is the "special order" stuff is not refundable- but in this case, it wouldn't have been a mistake on my part since the part provided would have matched the one I was seeking anyways.

Anyyyyyyyyyyyways... I may have found an NOS disc in a stockpile that I will be looking at soon. On my way to get the pressure plate and clutch parts to do some more test fitting tonight. It will put me back a week or so, but I can do other things like concentrate on wiring and other bits and odds and ends.

Will have reports soon, so at least this kerfuffle is documented somewhere on the outernet.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Careless

[Careless]

 

This thread linked above (cool forum feature, btw!) has photos of the same setup (everything) that is on this car.

it is the 4 Speed Type "A" style setup.

you can see from these photos taken by member fuzze that there are the 3 pads on the inside of the pressure plate that have the 2 rivets. These are what the new clutch disc with a wider hub and 4 larger springs which I've been given seems to contact. Later pressure plates with (shorter ones, I think) do not have those 3 flat spots and 6 rivets on the inside of the hub area, and they accommodate only the 6 spring smaller diameter hub section from what I can tell.

This is the outside of the pressure plate. the rivets on the outside are purely for balancing purposes, as the one I have are in different spots, and have different amounts of metal sandwiched on the back.... though the rivets in this photo looks to be a lot better condition. perhaps I will just replace the rivets:

Now I know there is a way of getting the newer styles to work with swapping collars and yada-yada, but to be honest I'd rather just have the original parts in there, so I think the new disc that I ordered will be fine.

The old disc has a number F225DC and is marked AISIN, so it's not a Valeo unit, and the pressure plate has 30210, and has A N stamped on it, as well as a very faint circular blue stamping that is probably some sort of quality control check. It is most likely Aisin as well.

I believe the new disc I am getting is a Daikin unit, but not the Exedy Daikin that is available through parts dealers.

Anyways... food for thought!

[Zed Head]

How did you even see that?  Most of us would have just put the thing together, there would have been some odd noise during the first few clutch disengagements, and the rivet tops would have worn off.  Problem only discovered, maybe, years later.

Also, is it possible that you were looking at it with the disc backward?  The normal contact spot, if the disc is backward, is the hub on the fly wheel bolts, but if you were just looking at disc and plate, you wouldn't notice that.

[Careless]

I've done many clutch jobs in my day, not on S30's, but on Z31s, 350z, 370z and many other non-nissan cars, including plenty of older domestic cars... All with my back on concrete, mind you- but nonetheless it was easy to see while test fitting. I am aware of the hub direction when installing, so that is definitely not the issue. Either way, I tried it upside down anyways, just to be sure. 

I had bought the disc at first and compared it to the old one, and even placed the protruding side of the hub into the pressure plate, and it was all good. But when going to do a final check before putting the scatter shield and flywheel on, I was inspecting the parts. The disc DOES indeed go hub-first into the pressure plate, and the friction pads do touch the pressure plate surface... However, when turning the disc, there is about 5 degrees in either direction (CW/CCW) before one of the rivets on the hub contact one of the rivets on the pressure plate. I thought at first I could get by using a grinding disc and just nipping a bit off the rivets, as they are much thicker than the ones on the old OE disc, so a 1/16th off the rivet would barely make it any less rigid and provide a long service life, but then the bent tabs that hold the disc hub springs (which are also 4 instead of 6, and much larger in length and diameter) would then touch the edge of the 3 flat spots on the pressure plate that holds the two rivets.

Yes, I could have put it together and hoped that the rivets would be wiped off... but the idea here is to not have the rivet tops wear off, because if the friction pads fly apart, it is then severely unbalanced, and could cause catastrophic failure. Also, the pressure plate rivets are very thin in comparison to the disc hub rivets. I don't want any contact where it's not supposed to be an issue later down the road. I've not only seen first hand what an exploding flywheel does, but even clutch discs that try to expand outward into a million pieces don't fail gracefully. It would not have been so insignificant as a rivet top being burnished a bit. The rivets on the pressure plate are very thin, and the spring tabs are thick, so being impacted would tweak the 24 splined hub of the disc on the input shaft axis and cause it to bind, being that there is a spring underneath them and they aren't going to just bend inward like it was being hammered.

So that's my prognosis. It wouldn't have been pretty!

The reason I am posting it is to make anyone with the same pressure plate aware of the fact that the disc provided by the dealer is no longer compatible with the very early "A style" clutch components, unless it is the narrower 6 spring hub, or an aftermarket narrower 4 spring hub like later exedy's (can't confirm on that 100%). Even the 6 spring style sweeps passed the pressure plate rivets just ever so slightly so much as to make contact if they are really both worn out, but I think by that time the pressure plate clamp load would be so light that it would be time to change to a new assembly altogether anyways.

To give an example example of how rare these pressure plates are... I have yet to find any other photos of the units online with the same undulations and shapes like the ones posted by fuzzee. Most are replaced as an assembly and thrown away, I guess.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Careless

[Careless]

Being over 4 decades old, the original pressure plate rivets that hold on the balancing weights barely had any rivet head left on them due to galvanic corrosion. I would expect that the steel would be the item to disintegrate over time first if it were on sheet steel, but the pressure plate is much thicker and the only reason I could come up with for the OE rivets having barely any rivet head left over was due to the thinner aluminum corroding to nothingness sooner than the steel pressure plate- the blasting process that was used on the pressure plate must have removed most of what was left of the rivet heads. I didn't feel comfy with those spinning at 2000+ rpm at any time. Some were far gone worse than others. They were so gone that they looked like a stain on the pressure plate steel, or like a solder smear, but drilling them out showed that they were indeed aluminum.

I replaced them all by doing one group at a time, and marked each hole in each group, and cleaned underneath each weight using a fine wire wheel and also cleaned the weights themselves (probably reduced the weight a smidge, but whatever!) I believe the original pop rivets were closer to 6mm, but the retained mandrel head of the 3/16 in. (5mm) rivet once popped into place is the same diameter as the OE ones, so it tightens up real good. They're not going anywhere. I was satisfied with the tightness of the weights and the way the rivets appeared when installed.

In other news... the clutch disc I got from Beck Arnley is an old (but not asbestos lined) disc made by ASCO, which is Aisin Seiki COmpany- an O.E supplier to Toyota, and the disc is indeed made in Japan- not at their new Thailand facility. The clutch disc is very close to the one that came out, and it clears every rivet great, and it has the Nissan clutch spline (24 tooth). So now that I got that, I'm going to take it to the dealer and see if they'll refund or credit me because the clutch disc I got is for a Stanza- just like the one Nissan gave me, and specs for the same application... sooooo I'll take what I can get.

The original pressure plate is an AMPCO (I can veryyyyyyy faintly see an engraving on it, but it's definitely there, and matches the AMPCO on the O.E disc). I'll try to take a photo of it, but it's just going to look like bead blasted steel.

This is a screen-grab of the same pressure plate (note the 3 flat areas with 2 rivets each) in the 1970 FSM, which is a very unique look for 240z pressure plates as far as I can tell, and is a clear indicator of it being the OE style to use with the "A" style long body collar.

 

There is also an inked stamping...

it is a 1 inch circle, with P at the 12:00 position and A at the 6:00 position, and running in between the two letters it says REBUILT very faintly and in small letters. It guess the unit was serviced at some point. I am going to double check it with some gauges tomorrow to make sure it's at least close to max spec. I'm sure it will be.

Will post pics during install and of various parts of the components for documentation.

 

 

Edited January 21, 2016 by Careless

[bartsscooterservice]

On ‎12‎-‎1‎-‎2016 at 2:42 PM, Careless said:

Thanks! I've got some rebuilt calipers that were cheap and done well and they have all the factory hardware too. So I just coated them and they are ready to install with ceramic pads so that they don't dust up the fresh wheels and wheel covers!

The hubs also not.

[motorman7]

 

Original clutch disc from my 3/70 240Z and the replacement disc.  Original disc shown has about 95K miles on it.

Rich

[Careless]

15 hours ago, motorman7 said:

 

Original clutch disc from my 3/70 240Z and the replacement disc.  Original disc shown has about 95K miles on it.

Rich

Thanks for adding the pic here for reference, Rich. Would have been nice to have an original disc with the box to add to the build for originality, but the replacement disc will have to do. In the future it can be changed if there's nothing left to do. The one thing I noticed with the replacement disc was that the splined section that sticks up above the hub itself is a tad bit shorter, but I think even the clutch kit ones are the same. It shouldn't create any issues, as i'm sure there is more than enough engagement area on the hub. All Nissan's I've installed clutches onto grab the splined input shaft with splines showing passed both top and bottom of the splined region. So aside from this disc not being exactly OE, I think it's gon' work! Bit of a set back waiting a week for it to come in

 

17 hours ago, bartsscooterservice said:

The hubs also not.

 

Thanks bart, I just gave 'em a quick splash with some satin black (or semi gloss, i can't remember now) and put the new BR6 and BR2 bearings and races in and filled the grease as per the manuals specs before throwing in a new rear bearing seal. I am waiting to drop the chassis onto the motor now before install the front uprights and then the rest of the items. Everything is so clean and ready to go on. I'll probably be doing that starting tomorrow and finish on Monday or Tuesday. Then onto wiring + interior while the rest of the cool items are on order.

 

Edited January 22, 2016 by Careless

[grannyknot]

Take some pics!

[Careless]

that's the idea, Chris!

had a minor setback today so I didn't end up going, but I'll be doing some garage things @ home and then going there on monday ready to get at'er again.