johnbell47

I did the exact same thing on one of those bolts. I walked over to the tool box got a 1/2 fine thread tap and an appropriate drill bit and retapped the hole. I have found that the metal in my 74 varies from soft to extremely hard. bolts all seem to be very soft, but I cut a hole in the hood for some aero catch latches, DANG! That metal was tough!

Did not take a single pic. I was too determined, to greasy and too worried to even think about it, but next time I jack it up I will take a pic of the front differential mount set up. That's about the only thing that is different than stock.

I finally fixed the vibration. I was unable to find just a pinion flange and had to buy a complete 3rd member. I changed the flange, didn't fix the vibration, then I noticed that the driveshaft had the paint worn off the slip flange about 1/2 inch rearward from where it goes into the transmission, then I got to looking and the moustache bar was in contact with the down braces for the rear of the A arms. I had built a Ron Tyler mount according to the specs that I got I know not where, but the dang thing moved the 3rd member back. I put the factory mount back on and reworked the Tyler mount to be just a snubber to prevent the front of the diff from moving. Basically I sandwiched the diff between the factory mount and a modified GM transmission mount, I shaved about 3/4 inch off the G.M. Mount eliminating the single bolt on top. now we just have a rubber block with a two bolt mounting flange, I compressed this about 1/8 inch with the front crossmember. That moved the vibration rearward. I did not have the half shafts on so it had to be the rear end. I took a chance and mounted the junk rear end that I had bought to get its flange and that was the problem. No more vibration. I cannot see anything in the bad rear that would make it vibrate, but there is something wrong in there. this car is smooth as silk up to 95. It has never been right, but I just did not know what "right" was. With the Hushmat, quiet mufflers, mild 350 chev, stock rubber suspention all new. new KyB struts, air conditioning that works pretty good, all new rubber window and door seals, Mid line Sony sound with component speakers and Lexus Mirrors,Honda wiper motor with working washers, working rear window heater, flashers, seat belt warning chime, etc. I believe this baby is ready to drive just about anywhere in comfort.

Is the spline count on the axles, the same? Is it possible to just buy a 2004 Subi rear and bolt it up? I hate to be so stupid by my brain is swimming with all the info out there. I have, basically a street machine, it is a boulevard cruiser, So I am interested in reliability, I have a tuned down 350 which is plenty of power for me, air conditioning, lots of sound dreading material, quiet exhaust, etc. What I want to know is can I actually swap out a diff that is 30 years newer, get a gear ratio that works better with my T-5 overdrive transmission for a hell of a lot less money? really?

One thing I wondered about that you might answer. The Nissan flange is difficult to find, the Subie flange is out there all over the place, My drive shaft is 1310 U joints with an adapter to the Nissan flange. there is probably an adapter from the 1310 joint to the subie flange available, but I wonder, would the late model subie flange fit the old Datsun pinion shaft? The Subie flange looks to be a lot stouter!

I have hunted this problem for over a year, did all the things that you do, U joint angles, balance the shaft, twice, etc. etc. I found the vibration by putting the car up on six jack stands, taking off the wheels and firing that baybie up, 5th gear, idle screw set to 80 mph,(this is when the vibration gets really bad) then crawling under with a stethoscope. when I touched the nose of the diff it liked to have knocked the ears off my head! this pretty much isolated the vibe to that area. The dial indicator told the rest of the story, I figured the pinion shaft was bent, as the indicator on the flange indicated twenty thousands out, but when I removed the flange and put the indicator on the shaft, it was perfect. that's when we went to the drive shaft shop, chucked it up in a lathe and checked the runout. it is thirty at the front of the flange and was in fact 20 where I checked it. So, the machinist verified what I had found. How did the flange get bent, I don't know. It was bent when I bought the car I guess. Could be the 400 horse 350 and a hard launch, could have been a U joint turned loose 30 years ago and banged the dang thing, I just don't know. There has been a lot of speculation among those that have looked at it, but nothing that I definitive.

I just read a post from jmortensen, that these differentials did not have crush sleeves for pinion preload, he was saying that he just set his 1/2 impact gun to the middle setting and hammered it on.

your location in reguard to N.E. Texas etc. oops! see that you are in the bay area. how much for just the flange and to ship.??

you are of course correct. But what is to say that the complete diff won't also whine? The bearing preload procedure is in the FSM, which I have and have read, Doesn't seem too complicated to me. Or is it ?

I need to buy a pinion flange for a R-180. '74 260 Z. Mine is somehow bent which causes a heck of a shake in the driveline. Good used would be great! Thanks!

In my search for wiper wiring continuity I rememebered this thread, I had to take my steering wheel off anyway because it was in the wrong place slightly. I found that even after cleaning, it wasn't exactly right. Then I noticed that the cover plate was bent. The cover plate has a hole that the pivot point of the switch goes in. Mine did not go in and it just bowed the plate up, leaving the pivot pin loose on one end or maybe not loose but being mashed down. I miked the pin and gauged the hole with a drill bit. No way that pin was going in that hole. I put the cover in my vise and with the aid of two crecent wrenches staightened it and then drilled the hole bigger. I left .05 clearance and that feels about right. My bet is that the reason that the anchor end comes loose is that the cover plate did not support the other end. Anyway, that helped my swithc action a lot, it still ain't great, but is better.

I failed to mention that I got to looking at the wire size coming out of the Honda motor..It's way bigger than the Datsun wire. I decided to add a "Hot Shot" relay to just use the Datsun wiring to trigger a relay that was wired to a new fuse block that I have under the hood. I used 12 gauge to run the motor from the relay. I am afraid that the Honda motor must pull some serious amps to work as good as it does and that the old Datsun wiper switch and wiring might be getting a little weak after 38 years. I used that technique the first time on the weak starter signal to the solenoid when the thing failed to start, worked there and worked here. Taking the pressure off those old switches is always good.

I finally got everything working. I had to check continuity from the combo switch to the wiper motor harness and re label the wires. the color coding was way wrong at the wiper end. I'm thinking that Datsun had a few old harnesses left over that were a little short, so they put the 8 inch extention in that had all black wires and did not pay attention to the pin coding. Anyway, after I relableled the wires to the correct color and by using Z"sOndebrain's diagram, it worked the first time. High, low, park. By the way, this is worth doing, these wipers kick!

You remember that I did not have a yellow black wire? Well I pulled the original combo switch that I had changed out. It did. I ran a continuity from it to the wiper harness under the hood. It has continuity with the solid blue wire. The harness from the combo switch plugs into a short extension harness that has ALL BLACK wires, the other end plugs into the under dash harness, but guess what, the colors don't line up with the pins. I am going to have to run continuity on all of the wiper switch wires. None of this rig looks to be jacked up, spliced or anything but stock. Bear with me, I'm tired but I think I'm on track. Anybody care to check if they have that little 8 inch extention right after the combo switch, I think you can see the floorboard end without taking off the combo switch cover...

website acting wired again, if you get two post, don't think a thing about it. I found that the car to wiper harness plug changes color on one wire, I can't remember which but I did do a diagram of it, right now, its miller time...I do have fast, fast and clean, and park at the moment. I'm only missing low...

yep, I checked all before i started and found every wire there hot, except the black. that must mean we are switching the grounds. anyway, i rewired the auxillary relay back in, but with the knowlege that on yours system i now had high, so i switched the blue red in the datsun harness to go to the blue yellow in the honda harness. i now have high..i also switched the green black and my wiper washer pump comes on with the wipers when i push the wash button. So, I now have high, park and wash working..Now for getting low to work!! If anybody is confused here, it looks like blue red on the datsun is high, not blue yellow as was picted before.

Oh, one more thing. the relay on the datsun motor is what makes it go intermittant, I experimented on the bench with a battery charger and it would go fast, slow and intermittant with what is just there on the motor, so that relay is the intermittant one. And it's the blue white on the Honda harness that you dont' want to ground,,fuse kaplooey!

SteveJ, that got me high speed only. no park, no slow. I did find out that the first way I had it wired (DirtKing) that I had low and park, not high like I thought. If I can get the high and low switched and just have high and park, I'll be happy, I think I have enough sense to be my own intermittent switch.

Well, as i said the 74 harness does not have the yellow black wire..I do have one solid yellow and two plain blacks left off.. I'm going to try SteveJ's wiring now, but I'm thinking that the relay mounted on the side of the old Datsun motor is the park relay..if it is then there will be no parkee. Let you know in about an hour. If it makes you feel better I have two industrial fire extinguishers in the shop!!

Web site has been squirrely for me all day, I tried to reply and it evidently did not register. Anyway, do you think that this will park without a separate relay? Do you think I need to unhook the intermittant relay at the passenger kick panel? I'm not opposed to just trying it, but would like to take the approach that produces the least smoke...Thanks for your intrest. I am done working for today, but will try this later in the week when I get time. I took this opportunity to renew that kick panel area, I had the new cardboard panel, but it is behind the fuse box and relay center, kinda of dog to get out of there for this old man. !!!

Hey Dave, hope this finds you alive and well! I've done your parking light and headlight harness upgrade sucessfully, so I decided to do the Honda wiper motor upgrade. I have it in and it works on High and parks sucessfully. I do not have low speed. My car is the odd ball early '74 260. I also do not have a yellow black coming out of the car harness. I do have two plain blacks and the yellow left over in the car harness. Where did Low speed go?? I'm really pretty happy with the result so far, it will actually wipe the windshield, even dry!!! I also have never heard anybody mention the washer mode. mine works! but it does'nt wipe at the same time the pump runs. (so what!) I can still wash the windshield. If you can figger me out, lete me know! Thanks!!

I did the front today with new mounts, Kyb struts, etc. I compared the new strut mounts thusly, I turned them upside down on my drill press table and set the drill down on the inside of the mount against the metal. I marked the scale and then checked the new mount. The new mount is 3/16 of an inch taller than the old. I then put a fish weighing scale on the end of the drill press handle and pulled down 1/16 inch more than just resting on the mount I then noted the weight it took to compress the mount 1/16 inch. It took about 10 pounds to compress the new mount, and somewhere over 20 to compress the old. Definately hard as a rock! Therefore, I have now answered my own question. Change the mounts! They are hard, they are compressed and your car will ride like mine does. Like New!

No I did not compare the mounts, the spacers looked just like your old ones, mashed. The rubber on the new mounts was softer to the touch. I really don't know exactly which component made the most difference, but the washers were mashed, the old mounts were hard and the old shocks were stiffer, they had more resistance to being pushed in. Anyway, I will compare on the front and let you know what the difference is. I do know that the wife is happy and that is good. She drives a new Avalon and she knows what smooth is!!

New Kyb struts in with new strut mounts and the spacer...My wife says I done good. Car is very smooth now, no more rattles or shakes from the back, now for the front. I am going to go ahead and put new strut mounts in there too..Expensive but I believe they are worth it.

Just an update. I ordered new struts, KYB standard from Rock Auto. New Strut mounts, 118.00 shipping and all from Nissan parts zone. I ordered the urethane spaces from motosports. I pulled this thing down today and found that I did indeed have the spacers..only thing is one was 3-m glued into the strut mount, the other side was glued to the inside of the spring cap. I never would've thought that would work, but it all fits..I'm putting it back together by the diagram. I didn;t believe this so I showed it to my wife. I wonder if this will make any difference?? I thought i remembered that the struts that were in there were made in Venezeaula and they are..Amybody know what they are??