Brubaker

After doing more reading, I can see the 280 set up and your 240 are totally different animals. I did see some pics of other 5020-F's that seem to have similar compression to yours. Sorry to be of no help.

I see where the 240's are different, but he still has at least 11 -12 turns of the coil. Looking at Blue's and my Eibachs there are at least three less coils and I did not nor do I believe Blue cut any out. With the car on the ground my springs have at least 1" of separation. I counted the turns of my original springs and there were 10 1/2 on the rear and 11 1/2 on the front. The additional coil on the front was surprising as this is exactly opposite on the Eibachs, that is the rear has an addtional turn so is a longer spring. My original springs were taller in the front. Do the rear spings on your Tokicos have fewer coils that what you put on the front?

I believe the rear spings on these are a bit longer than the fronts at least that is so on my 77. It looks as if you have put the rear sping on the front. Most say you don't even need a spring compressor to put the fronts on. That was the way it was with my Eibachs. I count 12 coils and the fronts only have 8. There is a pic in the technical section where blue put up how to replace your struts. Here is a pic from that section. Yours is really tight, must have been tough to get them on.

That is what I thought. So I haven't been truly indoctrinated to the pin zed club. I don't see how someone did the pins and didn't change out the wheel cylinders. Maybe they did, maybe the life of a pin before it rusts in is longer than a wheel cylinder corroding.

Much better. Thanks.

I can see a "Night of the Living Dead" moment, with all the Z ombies chasing you down all saying the same thing. Z Z Z Z Z. They then grab your keys and get in the car and take off.

Took some suspension parts out. Clean and powder coat next.

Spindle Pin Success!! OK I could not find the tool so I wanted to try the washer idea, only I did not have enough washers. I thought what could act like the washers -how about box wrenches. So I strung some box wrenches (and a tube bender) over the spindle as it moved along. Just adding another wrench as the spindle pin moved. It did get easier as it came further out. Once I had enough spindle out I used my lawn mower spark plug wrench. Rube Goldberg would be proud. I must say I was surprised how good the spindles looked. After my ugly wheel cylinders I was expecting the worse but they look like they can go back in and I won't need to use the new ones.

O Canada!!!

While on vacation out west, we stopped at Meteor Crater. When we left we stopped at the nearest gas station and found a wallet with money. Couldn't get a hold of the guy who lived in New York for a few days. Told me to keep the money just send him his wallet. Didn't want to send money through the mail so wrote him a check for the amount he had. He was a very happy guy, as I would be. I would give the money back no matter how much there was. Cajunz, great story but I would be concerned that unidentified cash would somehow not find its way back. You and the Wal-Mart employee did a great thing. I have found money in parking lots, the most was $20 and kept it.

I also have the craftsman brand and have had them replace 2 ratchet drives and a couple of adapters. You just walk in with the busted part and they replace it. You don't even need your receipt. I felt a little guilty because I was really torquing the drives with a breaker bar and the nut won. The one thing you will find with Sears is that they run sales that rarely is done by Home Depot and Lowes. Check out the weekly sales and you may find yourself with some great deals. Black Friday is coming up and Sears always has a number of their tools discounted. One thing you will want is a torque wrench, I picked up a couple on a black friday at Sears for $59 each. That said the parts stores do have great loaner programs for some of the less used tools. I recently borrowed a strut spring compressor, wheel bearing race driver, and currently have out a slide hammer and axle puller. Mostly I am getting these from O'Reillys but Advanced Auto and Auto Zone also have a number of tools you can borrow. The tool I really like now are the rachet drive wrenches. No need to keep adjusting the wrench in a tight spot. Also make sure you buy good quality phillips head and flat head screw drivers. Cheap ones strip your screws and don't last.

I may rebuild them but for now I have new ones that are going on purchased from Rock Auto actually. The old ones are stamped Tokico and Japan 7/8. Anyone know if that may make them original? Hard to believe in 34 years they were never touched but they look it. This is going to take a little time as I am also replacing the bearings, struts, springs, spindle pins, bushings and powder coating the parts like I did for the front.

I was in Edison, now down in Atlanta. Appreciate the offer, if you are ever in Atlanta let me know.

Blue, thanks for the reply. Also, a Big Thanks for all the technical posts you have made. You have made my job go from "no way can I do that" to "Yea, I can do that (if I follow Blue's easy step by step instructions). Thanks for the time you take to post your work and make it understandable for the occassional wrench jockey. You have probably saved more Z's from mr. junkyard and also made the cars safer for the owners.

I have a silver Z and rather than go with the standard black, I wanted to bring some color to the suspension. The silver in the strut, control arm and tension bar matches the car. I debated the red caliper for a while and just went with it. I am in quandry with the rear aluminum drums as I am thinking of cleaning them up and just hitting them with clear high temp. I added tokico illuminas and eibach progressives. When you take these crusty rusted parts out and they come back silky smooth - not bad. It does take some $$$.

I picked up an impact wrench/driver at a home depot triple mark down a couple of years ago and I have yet to use it. I am on to the rear axle nut and wondering if I can just hit it with the impact wrench and not bother with the unstaking. It will be my first use of this monster. Anyone remove one this way, do I run the risk of messing up the threads? Particularly since I have never used one of these things might be a good time to start? I do have the trusty breaker bar as well.

In my ongoing tear down of supension and brakes, the rear cylinders were no fun. I have never come across such rusted corroded cylinders. The brake pipe was rusted in solid and after a few days of pb blaster would not move. I resorted to the dual vice grip approach since I bought some pipe to bend and am replacing all parts. I imagine all my braking was being handled by the front after seeing this:

Went with the $130 powder coat and finally got the parts and back together. Looks like new. :classic: Now on to the rears. I guess I need to take the little yellow tag off on the SS line.

I have had to use locksmiths on more than one occassion. No offence to you but I had one that changed out my car lock tumblers to one key when the ignition, doors and hatch all were different. I figured if he could do that a gas cap would be a piece of cake. $3 that would be a deal but I suspect you would have to pay more.

Blue, you beat me to it.

Maybe you can take it to an old time locksmith and they can refresh the mechanisms.

A work of art. I like your earlier pics of the body sitting on a bench. Gotta love the DIY.

If this part fell off, clearly a nut unraveled itself. I would check if any other suspension parts are loose and did the nut holding this part on hold anything else on.

Where do you get the 12mm all thread from? I assume you connect the threaded rod to the spindle pin but I haven't been able to find a 12mm connector or all thread. I tried to remove the spindle pin nut, didn't have good leverage (car on the ground) and not much time but with a breaker bar I couldn't even get it to budge. Sprayed all with pb blaster will try tomorrow.

I ordered some Eibach springs and didn't open the box for a few months. When I did, I found they sent me the ones for a 240 not the 280 I needed. Called them up, they had Fed Ex at their cost pick them up the next day and sent out the correct ones. Never had a problem with these guys. They have lots of stuff we need.