Captain Obvious

Sorry. Once per day or my little brain overflows. Mr. Osborne, may I be excused?

I'm looking to read, modify, and then reburn a flash ROM for a non-Z application. It's car related, but just not a Z. I apologize for asking this here, but you guys are the best. Anyone have a programmer compatible with an AMD part number AM29F400BB? It's a 32 Meg part and has 44 pins. It's a surface mount part, but I've got a 44 pin SMT to through hole adapter socket that would fit into a programmer that accepts 44 pin parts. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks for the pics guys! One more tiny piece of knowledge that I didn't have yesterday!

Does anyone have a pic of the adjustable style clutch slave rod? I've never seen one of those beasties.

Yeah, that would be great if you have an AFM as well. Keep me posted, and take care of your back!

Haha!! Well clearly the answer is we need you around to answer the really tough questions! We can handle the easy ones.

Yes, they are yellow zinc. At least when I bought them a couple years ago. This is what they look like: And just in case there is any question about the orientation of everything, here's how it should go together. Small washers on the ends. Concave side of the large washers toward the bushings. Poly in front, rubber in back: And here's how it should look when installed:

Go to rockauto and buy two boxes of AC Delco part number 45G25036. The picture on rockauto is wrong. The picture shows just the bushings, but in fact, each box has one complete T/C rod worth of parts! All the washers, bushings, sleeve and nut for one side. Buy two kits and put the bushings in a box for the future and just use the rest of the kit. Best eighteen bucks you'll spend on suspension parts! On edit... You're going poly and are going to be needing two rubber bushings anyway!! With two kits, you'll have four. Just put two in a box for future use and use the other two on the back side now!

Pffffft. Who needs that 260 guy @SteveJ. I got this one. Those metal pieces are the spring loaded fingers that go between the HVAC control head and the metal bracket below it. Remember those two weird looking shoulder screws that go in from the underside? About a half inch long? Those fingers slip onto the bracket before those screws go in. The weird screws go through the holes in those weird brackets. The HVAC controls aren't hard mounted, but sorta "float" on those springs instead. No idea why they did that. Manufacturing tolerance stackup maybe?

Haha! And I thank you immensely! No hurry on sending a care package my way. I'm not taking my car down right now. With so few remaining Z days in my part of the country, I'm going to stall on any hard core work until the weather turns! And as for your back, I completely understand. You know I'm there with you bud!!

Progress looks great! I will post up details of the moustache bar bushing dies when I get a chance. Since the bushings are NLA and you likely have the last two remaining pieces in the world, I'm not sure how much use they would ever get, but I think details would still be fun to look at! (PS - The thing that puts threads on the outside of a male part is a "die". The thing that puts threads on the inside of a female part is a "tap". You bought and used a tap. Pedantic, I know. )

Zed Head, Thanks for the pics. They both look basically like mine, and either would work for what I want to do. Let's give it a couple days though... Maybe someone else wants to actually use it as an AFM, so give a little time for other requests to come in? It would be a shame to take one apart that someone else could actually use!

Right! Reminds me of something with Fed-Ex! I got the exact same price (quote) you did when I used their on-line estimator tool. Quote tool said $12.49, but my receipt says $15.71, and I'm not real happy about that. At least I think I figured out what happened... I've got a Fed-Ex account that I opened up a number of years ago because it's a little bit cheaper if you use an account. Saves them time because they don't have to go through all the hassle of dealing with payment at the store. They just charge it to the account number. And I also suspect they give you that little price break because it "keeps you coming back". In the past, I've saved like 5% on the on-line quoted prices using my account number as opposed to just some random guy walking in off the street. It also makes it easy for me to have stuff shipped TO me without sellers padding the amount. I just tell them to use Fed-Ex and give them my account number. Easier for the seller because they don't have to worry about any of those details, and also that way I'm charged actual shipping only. Well anyway, for reasons unknown (to me), this time it was actually MORE expensive when I used my account. Unfortunately I didn't figure that out at the time, and just paid it. The down side of using an account is that you walk in and they don't have to ask you anything. You hand them the package and they hand you a receipt. So you don't even know what the total is until it's over. You can ask ahead of time, but I usually don't even bother anymore because it's usually a trivial amount LESS than the quote. I should have told them to screw the acct and I'll just pay cash. I've opened up an incident ticket with them. I'm not real happy about it. My bad for not asking first, I guess. Or their bad for what I consider questionable business practices?

I just sent a package to someone. It was about 36 inches, by 7 by 5, and it weighted a little over nine pounds. It cost about sixteen bucks to ship at Fed-Ex. Hmmm. I wonder who I sent that to...... I wonder if they opened it..... YET!!!

I disagree. Not for something a pound or two but relatively large for it's size. The large flat rate box is currently 18.85. You could do a lot better than that if it doesn't weigh a lot.

Is that dimension supposed to be measured with the pressure plate bolted to a flywheel and a clutch disk in place? Or is it sitting free on the table (like the yellow one in TimZ's pic)? The reason I ask is...That dimension would be different if the pressure plate springs are compressed squeezing the clutch disk, right? I think that measurement would be greater laying loose as opposed to bolted in place. Not sure how much different it would be, but Diseazd's pic shows a measurement "as installed on a flywheel with a clutch in place."

I don't know anything about it, but would be happy to help someone who did! So if you've got an AFM suitable for dissection, that would be great. It doesn't have to work electrically since I'm just going to take it apart. I want to build an AFM adjustment tool (to take some of the tediousness out of it), and I just need some of the mechanicals. I suspect they used a screwdriver looking device tool to adjust them at the factory, and I'd like to make one. Picture a screwdriver with a small gear at the tip instead of a flat blade or Phillips. As far as shipping methods go, I'm not a big shipper either, but I can tell you that the flat rate boxes definitely work best for small heavy things. Larger lightweight things would be candidates for a different method. UPS or Fed-Ex or non-flat rate at USPS. USPS changed their pricing schedule a whole bunch maybe a year ago? They used to always have "Priority" and "Standard Ground". Well now for many packages, they've done away with the standard (cheaper) ground and only offer priority. I think they will still allow you to ship "standard", but they will charge you more for slower shipping, so standard ground may as well not exist. Anyway, when you get around to digging through the pile, PM me a pic of the candidate AFM so I can make sure the mechanicals look like mine inside? Or I can send you a pic of mine?

Zed Head, I'd love to have an AFM to dissect in my lab. For science. All of my needs are obscure.

"Seems everything I touch on this car is a project." Onions. They're like onions.

Nice! I think I still have a set of Z32 tension rods around here somewhere that I had planned to modify like that, but I ended up selling the car before I finished the project. I don't know what steel they used, but based on the finish, it doesn't look like a whole lot of fun to machine.

I believe there is another stumbling block with the round 280 headlight connectors. I do not think anyone has turned up a source for the larger brass contact that clips into the plastic connector shell. The smaller contacts are available, but I don't think anyone has found the larger ones. I know I looked some and didn't find anything suitable. Derek, Also I forgot to ask. How did you fare in the recent storm? Everything OK?

Derek, Details, details.. But it looks so easy on TV! Seriously though. Thanks for the details on the scanning process

Probably not. Don't know. And probably not unless it has a logo on it. Engineering Marvels is a good one too. I can't watch the news anymore, so I watch old episodes of How It's Made and SpongeBob. Actually, that's not true... I've discovered that I can watch the news as long as I turn the sound off. I can even watch any of the stations that way. The trick is the stuff they are actually willing to put into print is truly news, but all the talking heads are just opinion. If they aren't honestly willing to put it in writing, then I don't want to hear about it. I don't want opinion. I want news.

This morning, I was watching Season 25, Episode 9 of "How it's Made": Armored Vehicles Tension Fabric Buildings Rowers Sculpture Enlargements The last one... sculpture enlargements. They started with a small artist created sculpture (of a dog). They sent the small sculpture to a company that 3D computer scans it, and then blows up the size, and CNC router carves a larger version out of polystyrene foam. You got the scanner, and you got the CNC. How bout scanning and carving replacement dash foam pads? You don't have to enlarge it. You could create a 1:1 copy. I found that episode on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwNfx-YDzHc

Who lights who's in this competition??? That's love right there.