No, it's not about driving up a steep hill at 20mph in 4th gear ...

 

It's about replacement lug nuts for the authentic Libre wheels on Zup's immaculate silver 73 240z.

In looking at his car, my eye was always drawn to the deteriorating condition lug nuts on the wheels.  I became determined to find a quality set for him that would do justice to such a nice car.  I quickly found that it is not so easy to source the correct lug nuts for those lug centric wheels.  The standard M12 x 1.25 spec is no problem but in the correct shank & washer style with the all important shank length is difficult.

I found a quality set of Mcgard tuff nuts that met all the specs except for the shank length being too long, they would bottom out against the hub before the wheel was seated and tightened.  The solution it seemed, was to machine the shank length of the nuts down to the optimum length for the wheels.  It then became obvious to me that the answer was to recruit the assistance of a highly skilled forum member ..... Captain Obvious.

After discussing the details of the secret project with him, he very generously agreed to assist with machining the new Mcgard nuts to Libre specs.  I ordered & shipped the new nuts to him and in the meantime, made careful measurements of Zup's Libre wheels to determine optimum length.  The end result we agreed upon was .460 effective shank length after the washer is installed.  The Captain completed one set & shipped it to me for test & verification of fitment.  They were perfect and so was the quality of his lathe work!

The final 4 completed sets were delivered Saturday, I drove up to his house & presented them to him, we did the final installation, and he was extremely happy with the results. 

A very big thanks thanks to you Bruce for making this Obvious / Driver joint project possible.  He was very busy working on a complete top end job with his son's new Subaru but still took the time to work on the nuts.

Nut in the chuck

 Original vs Machined   End view

  Captain's lathe at work   Zup's Ok  Job done                      Inspector # K9 gives final approval ...

Edited February 22, 20169 yr by S30Driver

Awesome. Car looks great and I'm glad I could participate in this secret project!

My kid had me chained to his car (not a Subaru, but a Hyundai Tiburon) in an effort to keep me working on it, but he underestimated my lock picking skills. When he left for school, I picked the lock, shed the chains, and snuck out of the garage and into the shop where the lathe is to cut some lug nuts. 

As for the kid's car, I'm trying to have him do whatever he's capable of. I did all the delicate valve work, but he's doing a lot of the work. And for an update on progress... I've got all the valves back in the head, the head back on the car, and we started it first time yesterday. Runs great!! Couple small issues to deal with, but it's alive!!!

This pic is close to the beginning of the job before we pulled the head. Here he is doing a little wrench turning while my Z sits neglected in the background:

For the record---

Captain Obvious  "Nut Cutter Nonpareil"        

 

 

Many thanks Bruce and Jim!

You guys are the best!

great to see you got this done - nice teamwork!

bruce, i'm jealous - i wish my teenage sons were interested in mechanics. how cool to pass on your skills/knowledge to the next generation, i always wished i could do that the way my dad did for me. i can't even get them interested in checking the fluids - unless i tell them they may not make it out to their friend/girlfriend/party/whatever... as a result they have no understanding whatsoever about what's happening under the hood and would rather take the bus than fix their own vehicle. so i'll live vicariously through your posts - hope the hyundai project proves successful and the boy learns to become an intrepid tinkerer like his dad!

Well of course there's a little "blackmail" in the desire to get his car working. We bought it as a severely overheated, non-running derelict, last fall with the intention of repairing it for him to drive. And I made it clear to him that while I would eventually get around to working on it, things would definitely progress faster if HE were to take matters into his own hands to do some of the work.

 

In other words, the more sweat equity he expressed, the faster the job would get done. Not only would it be more hands turning wrenches, but his interest sparks my interest. And working with him went really well. I don't know if he'll ever turn into a hard core gearhead, but his ability to pick up the concepts of this kind of work has been excellent. I can explain things to him with hand motions, analogies, some physics, and he gets it. We were pretty deep into this engine and when he turned the key for the first time after all the parts went back together and it actually started?  He was a happy boy.

 

Haha!! And remembering back, last fall, I used his car to help me get a couple things done on OTHER cars in the family. The family truckster needed front brakes, and my daily driver Civic needed an oil pan gasket (I'm really down on Felpro at this point). I told him we couldn't put his car into the garage bay until those other two things were done since they were higher priority.

 

But this thread is about lug nuts... This is my favorite pic. If you look closely, you can see wispy smoke trails from hot chips and some cutting oil:

19 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Awesome. Car looks great and I'm glad I could participate in this secret project!

My kid had me chained to his car (not a Subaru, but a Hyundai Tiburon) in an effort to keep me working on it, but he underestimated my lock picking skills. When he left for school, I picked the lock, shed the chains, and snuck out of the garage and into the shop where the lathe is to cut some lug nuts. 

As for the kid's car, I'm trying to have him do whatever he's capable of. I did all the delicate valve work, but he's doing a lot of the work. And for an update on progress... I've got all the valves back in the head, the head back on the car, and we started it first time yesterday. Runs great!! Couple small issues to deal with, but it's alive!!!

This pic is close to the beginning of the job before we pulled the head. Here he is doing a little wrench turning while my Z sits neglected in the background:

Bruce - I seriously doubt that your Z is ever "neglected".  Perhaps not driven as often as you like but not ever neglected.  BTW - great pic!

Super great stealth project!  So glad to have met all of you guys at ZCON as I can put a face and personality to each of you participating in the effort.

1 hour ago, jfa.series1 said:

Super great stealth project!  So glad to have met all of you guys at ZCON as I can put a face and personality to each of you participating in the effort.

Ditto

20 hours ago, Zup said:

For the record---

Captain Obvious  "Nut Cutter Nonpareil"  

that made me laugh out loud...

"Nut Cutter Nonpareil"   Title accepted with honor.

I'm not sure if neglected is the right term, but there are definitely things I had intended to do to my Z this off season that I haven't gotten to. And I'm running out of time before it's not "off season" anymore. Hopefully in the next week or so I can get some Z work done!

I realize this is about lug nuts, but I'd be interested in a source for the center caps.  My caps fit rather loosely and really want to get replacements.

Haha!! OK... Who's the wise guy? I check the mail, and this package was just delivered. 

 

Zup & I felt you just had to have something to commemorate your new moniker.

Maybe you and your son can munch on the goodies while wrenching on the Tiburon.