Hardway

Zed, is the front of your car sitting a little higher than the rear? It is hard to tell as the picture gets darker towards the front. Gosh I want some Panasports! Love your car Zed.

So glad you got it done Diseazed and with no damage to the tubes. Goes to show, sometimes you got to leave it to the pros.

Good news! I QC'd the second clip this morning and it is 100% spot on. I gave them the green light to make the other 99 and then send them off for clear zinc plating. Turn around is about 2 weeks from today. This will be a total of 100 clips (25 sets) I will be keeping 2 for myself and selling the remaining 23. Once I have all the clips in my hand I will post an official thread in the Garage Business forum. Zup, I have your clips and will be sending them back to you soon. Once i do I will PM you the details. Thank you again for letting me use them to get this project off the ground.

A quick update. I went and QC'd the hatch clip this afternoon. The metal was not thick like I thought and easily rested flush in the recess of the hatch vent trim. There were two minor issues. 1. The hole was a little too far to the right based on the pictures. 2. The bend on the bottom and far right was a little too long. It actually would have worked the way it was but I asked it be corrected to match the original more. The next test clip should be ready tomorrow or Wednesday. I will keep everyone posted.

Hey Zed, with the Eibach Pro-kit springs, how much suspension travel do you have with your car on the ground? What strut are you using? Do you run a bump stop at the top of your struts? I remember seeing pictures from other owners with the Pro-kit springs and a ES poly bump stop that they had only an inch or two of travel before the gland nut would hit the bump stop. I am going back and forth on what to do with my Z regarding a suspension upgrade.

Got a few updates. First, I received pictures of the test clip they produced. They called me last week and they were having trouble making the clip due to the spring steel breaking while they were bending it. The clip they were able to make looks a little thick. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon to check it out in person with my digital calipers. An issue I see with the metal being too thick is the chrome vent cover will not be able to sit on the metal. It already has a shallow recess for the stock clip and I am concerned this new one may not fit in the recess. I am taking a cover with me too for my test fitting. Check out the pictures below. While I was at the parts store picking up some items and looked through the Dorman hardware section. I found packages of #8 and #10 speed nuts. In the middle is the OEM spring nut that Zup has loaned me. On the left is the #8 part number 454060BP. On the right is the #10 and its part number is 454030BP. The #10 looks really close and I am unsure if it is possible to find anything closer. I still need to check out Auveco but thought I would share my findings.

Since it has been re-listed I will add my thoughts and suggestions. 1. You need to add the all of the pictures from under the car to the auction. We know someone can always ask for them but being more upfront from the beginning drives buyer confidence and lowers your inbox count. 2. Lower your starting bid to something like $5,000 and let the bidders bid. Add a reserve back if you like but the market spoke once at $26,100 but that was without the chassis pictures. You should have dropped your reserve to meet it because that is a very strong number and after people see the chassis pics, you won't see it again. 3. I think the value of the car as it is shown and taking in to account the pictures of underneath is around $12K - $18K. I know that is far from the other numbers you hoped for and someone overseas or in the rust belt might pay more but as it has already been said, this is a '73, not the more desirable '70-'72. 4. The suspension has not received any attention in a long time and therefore does not command a $20K+ price. The repair work underneath was not done to a high standard. People will value this in different ways. Some will care less that the floors are flat and the rails are not closer to stock, they will just be happy that someone else replaced them. It will be a deal breaker for others. 5. The color is less than desirable. If it was a more popular color it would bring a few to several thousand more as long it was done to the same quality. Finally, I do not mean to knock the car in any way because it is very nice in it's own right. From what I understand Mike was very proud of it and rightfully so, it is very pretty. At the end of the day it comes down to who wants the most and what they are willing to pay. In the end, I hope you get a number that you, the family, and the buyer are happy with.

I like that tool you made grannyknot! Goes to show, when you a very specific job to do, you need a specific tool. On the topic of "force" needed to get the gland nuts off, I left my rear strut tube attached to the car, disconnected the parking brake cable and half shaft, and was able to swing everything down and away to work on it. My experience was the same using the socket I modified and a pipe wrench as it only took a one good push and it broke loose. I know from previous experience that some heat and 50/50 mix of ATF and acetone might be needed to help break the gland nut loose. However, for anyone using channel locks or pipe wrenches, once the glad nut starts to deform or shear, just stop and walk away. The picture of carnage above and on the previous page can certainly be avoided.

I like your idea Careless. You are right, a box end wrench with a shim would be perfect. My new AST strut inserts are on the way. I will be interested to see what size the gland nuts are that come with them.

The pictures posted above and on the previous page are some real carnage. Sorry to see it all happen. Regarding the use of a 12-point 2" socket like I did, if some of the space at the points needed to be taken up, a thin strip of aluminum or steel, bent at the angle of the of the point in the socket would do it. Probably wouldn't have to do all 8 points either. Just would need something to hold it in place, even temporarily. A dab of axle grease comes to mind.

That is a good idea and I am sure you would find other uses for it too. I will be interested to see how other alternatives work out. Just as an update, I used the socket to remove the gland nut on the driver side strut and it came off just as easy as the other.

I have not decided if I am going to leave them all chrome or paint them. With my current hatch vent duct project and rear suspension work, they are not a priority right now. I like 240260280's idea on paint prep. The pitting is very shallow so it would not take much filler to fill it in. In fact, a few coats of filler primer and sanding would probably do the trick. I am just glad they are no longer rusting away.

That is so funny because a box of larger clips they had were in a green box but I could not tell what name was on it. Now I know! I will research their site and see what I can find. Thank you Mike!

Thanks for the compliments guys. The last time I did this I used two big pipe wrenches and ended gouging up the strut tube and pretty much destroying the gland nut. The socket is much more precise and like all specialty tools, it is an investment. When I got the strut out it was a KYB Excel-G. I don't know why it failed but I do not believe it is old as I think I have a picture of the previous owner installing new struts on the car when they rebuilt the suspension. I plan to get the driver side rear strut out this this weekend and start shopping around. The fronts seem to be fine so I will look in to some of the popular and new options out there.

The need to extract my rear strut inserts had me facing the same challenge as many other owners needing to replace the struts on their classic Z, removing the dreaded gland nuts. More often than not they are seized on due to years of use. Worse, it seems to be the best method for getting them off by using two opposing pipe wrenches can also be the most damaging. I went through this same exercise with my 1972 lime green 240z several years ago and vowed this time would be different. I remember seeing an workshop manual showing how these were installed at the factory using a special made socket and wrench. I searched for a long time to find an 8-point socket of any kind that was 51mm or 2 inches in diameter. I was hoping to find an axle socket but after many days and nights of Googling and searching I came up empty handed. So I purchased a 12 point 2" socket made by Stanley on eBay for $21.50 shipped. I verified it fit as I could easily push down on the strut piston. The 3/4" drive opening was already close to being big enough. After about 30 minutes of enlarging the hole using my "worth its weight in gold" Makita rotary tool, it would now slip over the piston. Next was to grind some flats on the socket so I could use a pipe wrench to turn it. Threw it on and with one good turn, the glad nut was loose! Once I off I verified there was no damage to the strut tube or the gland nut itself. You can see in the last picture with the gland nut in the socket that the corners are not exactly aligned in to the socket. I am a little lucky as the entire suspension on my car was rebuilt in the past few years. Why the strut insert has already failed on stock springs is another story. If your gland nut is really stuck there is a decent chance the socket would slip. Going down one size may help with this. Anyway, that was my solution, it worked, and thought I would share.

I picked up the wheel covers the other day from the chrome shop. I knew going in they would not be show quality but anything was better than the "tetanus shot ready" state they were in before. The chrome shop warned me there would be a lot pitting due to the rust damage. He had called me last week to let me know that two of the covers could really stand to be sent off for restoration at a local metal shop that specializes in this type of work. He estimated 2-3 hours per wheel cover at a cost of $100/hr. I passed and asked they do they best that can and I believe given what I paid versus what I got back, it was very fair. All in all, 2.5 weeks and $260 total with tax. I dropped one of the D medallions on just to see how it looked and to be honest, for something that will always be driver quality I am questioning if I should even paint them. Thoughts? I welcome any feedback and questions you guys have.

I have a few updates. I spoke to the manufacturing company today. They have started working on the tooling for the clips but cutting of the first clip is still one to two weeks out. The account representative I am working will let me know when I can come by and inspect the first clip for QC. I went by Fastenal today to see if they could get a spring nut. Pictured below is the closest they had. He verified it is a #8 spring nut. Price is .45/ea if 100 are ordered. The one below is actually shrink wrapped to the reference page so we could not flip it over. Another name for these is a fender panel clip. I am going to keep investigating to see if I can locate something that is closer to the original.

Another thought is to cut the pins down all together and replace with threaded metal studs. This way you could use a lock washer and nut to hold them on. I did something similar to this with my Datsun script emblem. See link below. http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/49682-diy-datsun-script-emblem-repair-refurbishment/

I dropped the wheel covers off late last week at Cen-Tex plating in south Austin. The price was $60/each. The D center caps came off without any issues so I will be able to re-use them. David at Cen-Tex looked at the 2 rustiest wheels covers and was not optimistic about being able to plate them as the blasting process may punch holes through the metal. He assured me they would be as gentle as possible but they really need to be "restored". I should know more in a week or two and should have them back in no more than three weeks. We will see how they look and go from there. At the very least I believe they deserve the effort to be saved if possible given how rare they are.

A big thank you to Zup for supplying the OEM clip and spring nut. I have dropped it off and signed the paper work for production work. Once they create 1 I will go inspect it to give the green light on moving forward with the other 99. I am doing a run of 100, clear zinc plated, made of spring steel. It will be 4-5 weeks until I see the first one to inspect. I am hoping to make it to Fastenal and Grainger tomorrow or Friday to see if a spring nut is available that closely matches the OEM that Zup sent me. Once the full run of clips are done I will post up all the details in the Garage Business forum.

Thank you for the info guys! I knew Mike was not going to be doing anymore plastic chroming. Luckily the center caps are in pretty good shape and I will see what I can do about brightening them up a little. I just spoke to Cen-Tex plating in south Austin as I had sent them the pictures above. Just a ball park he could give me over the phone was $50 - $60/each or $240/set. He walked me through everything they would do from stripping, to blasting, the multiple coatings, and polishing and $60 each sounds very fair. Since they are open on Monday and I am off I am planning to make the drive down, get a quote in writing, and drop them off. There is a 3-week lead time so this would still put me in good shape for ZCON. I will keep you posted.

I acquired this set of D wheel covers for helping a friend part a car out that had them sitting in the hatch. I also have three 14x4.5 original wheels. The wheel covers are rough but complete and appear to be free of any impact damage. The rust is pretty severe and I unsure if it would be financially viable to have them blasted, repaired, re-chromed, and re-painted. The metal is pitted where the build up of rust is on the outer edge. I took some fine steel wool just to see what could be done with elbow grease alone. The hazy residue took some real effort to get through but I can already tell that to do them justice, they need to be re-chromed. I already have inquiry out to a shop here in town for a ball park estimate before driving all the way down there. For those of you that have restored these wheel covers, what kind of cost did you encounter with them?

I had some time to dig around in the garage and found some spring nuts as Nissan calls them. I believe this kind of hardware is very common, we just need to know the dimensions of the OEM pieces. Once this is known, a suitable replacement can surely be located. No need to have these fab'd up. Below are some pictures of what I found in my stash. I probably have more in other places but this should help. US nickel for reference.

Thank you Zup. I think they just need the clip to take exact measurements. I would make sure you would get it back in original condition. We can draw up an agreement around it if you like. I will PM you all of my contact information. I think I am going to do the run of 100 first with the clear zinc as the corrosion protection seems worth it, that would create 25 sets and I believe all of those would sell. 50 sets is a tough sell unless everyone believes the demand is there.

Okay, I got the quote back from the shop and the breakdown is below. These are spring steel, not stainless steel. Qty. 100 without plating (bare spring steel) $6.92/ea. With clear zinc plating, $7.93/ea. Qty. 200 without plating (bare spring steel) $5.97/ea. With clear zinc plating, $6.47/ea. As you can see, there is a price cut for going with 200. I would have to of course pay for the full run upfront or once complete, I would need one clip from someone for them to prototype off of, and it would be a 5 week turn around once everything is signed. Shipping would be $5/set to anywhere in the cont. US including the small padded envelope and I would add $5/set for my time. Since each car needs 4 clips the math would work out to the following. Plated: $41.72/set Not Plated: $37.68/set This is based on a qty. of 100 as I do not want to be sitting on a mass inventory of clips that may never sell. I show this because I want to be 100% transparent and show everyone what it really costs to get this kind of work done. So the question is, are the prices beyond what people would pay? Would you prefer plated or bare steel? Who would send me a clip to borrow? I would give you a discount on a set of clips of which we can talk about.