Captain Obvious

When I was trying to find lug nuts for my old aluminum wheels, I had a little trouble getting an accurate measurement number for the hole diameter. Seemed the hole diameter as measured at the front face of the wheels was smaller than the hole diameter at the back side. But the holes were never meant to be tapered, so wtf? Under magnification, the issue became clear... All the years of lug nut tightening by previous owners had extruded the aluminum at the wheel face a little bit and actually squeezed a metal ridge into the lug hole. So when I measured that hole at the front, I was actually measuring the diameter inside that burr. But the diameter at the back side (with no burr) was the accurate measurement. So I'll second Zed Head's mention of a round file. On mine, some quick work with a fine round file to remove the burr and my lug choice went up dramatically. Hopefully that's what's going on with yours as it was an easy fix.

Cool pic! Even though it makes sense, I just never would have guessed it would affect a welding arc. Physics!! For the triangle shaped welding magnets, I'm wondering if they don't cause problems because they are either a) much less powerful/concentrated than what you were working with, or b) the steel shells on the outside corral the field and concentrate it between the two sides. In any event, thanks for posting about this. It's one mysterious issue that I hopefully won't ever have to figure out for myself!

Will do!! Thanks!!

I understand the issue. Give this a try... Take a front wheel off the car, snap the cap in, and then put the front wheel back on.

I've seen it work with two tricks... First is to flatten the top of the grease cap a little (as mentioned above), but in the case of @GGRIII, they still wouldn't fit. Hopefully he'll chime in with any details I miss, but I believe the solution was to snap the caps into the front wheels first before mounting the wheels on the car. Problem is that if you try to snap the caps in after the wheels are mounted, the little plastic retainer fingers have to move inward to get past the retaining ledge. But with the rotor casting in the way, there isn't enough room for the fingers to move in. But once the caps are fully installed, the fingers snap back out just a little and it's enough room to clear the rotor snout.

You got nothing to beat yourself up about! You will probably be the only person who would ever see those flaws! Looks great!

Cool! I never would have guessed that, but it does make sense. That's the same phenomenon that they use to make the old style (CRT) televisions work. They use magnetic fields to steer the electron beam. Was the field pulling the arc towards the magnet, or pushing it away? I would assume you should be able to reverse the direction by flipping the magnet over. Not that you're going to try that though.

What? You're not going to deburr those cut edges for me? Aren't you worried that I'll cut myself?

And be real real real careful with this... One snag and you could be in big trouble!

Well I don't know, but I'm gonna guess just so I can play the game. My guess is your wire was slipping in the feed wheel and burning back making a large sloppy intermittent arc.

Yeah, unfortunately I've confirmed that the Smyrna accordion and fan assy is for the 240 and is incompatible with the later 260/280 system. So this one from OB won't be free or personally hand delivered, but at least I'll have one! I'm not spoiled... Haha!!

Perfect! Thanks so much!

Those would be perfect. Only issue is I don't want the snow. I'll send PM for shipping details.

Seconded. Those wheels look great.

I believe that all the 2-seater 77-78 door cards are the same (2+2 is different). My 77 door locks are 8.5 inches from the back end of the cards (just like OB's pics), and I'm sure yours are too. I have very little doubt that the cards OB has would be fine for you.

Haha!! Good answer!

If you go fetch the door cards, how about you grab the heater blower box for me? Personal delivery would be fantastic!

Cool! Thanks for checking! And if you remember anyone else who has done the tube cut-off thing recently, could you tag them here? I tried to come up with forum names of people who had been through that, but didn't do so well.

Well I don't know what it IS for, but it just doesn't look like a Z part to me. Not positive, but it looks like too many bends.

For those of you who have cut off your 280Z strut tubes and installed coil over assemblies instead... Anyone have their old cut off front strut tubes laying around, or did everyone chuck them into the trash? I would like a pair of the old cut off front tubes with the spring perches to use as part of an experimental project: https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/60161-lowering-bottom-spring-perch/ I don't remember who all has done this recently... @wheee! @AlbatrossCafe @Zed Head ?

Oh... And sent PM.

I'm not really sure what that rubber intake hose is for.... Doesn't look like a Z part to me. Is that ZX maybe?

Looks great so far! Looking forward to seeing it on the road!

Helmet envy! Happy new year to you too!!