Matthew Abate

Side comment: I was thinking about the issue with the header interfering with the steering and was wondering if anyone has investigated using the Trust GReddy TR NA Ex Header with one of these exhausts. Supposedly it is bolt on with no mods needed on LHD cars. Whitehead Performance offers it for $648 and recommends the Fujitsubo exhaust for it. I’ve seen people mention pairing with with the Spirit Garage exhaust, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone actually post pictures of this set up or write up a review. You can also get it from Revmatch for $623. If I had to pull the trigger on an exhaust setup right this second without a chance to do any more research, it would be this header paired with a Spirit exhaust, just based on forum comments (bolt on, fits around diff, tucks high, looks period correct, well regarded manufacturers, sounds good, not insanely expensive). I just wish Trust made it in stainless. I am digging deeper on the full Spirit Garage system, though. If the handful of fitment things mentioned aren’t too onerous and I can find it for less than RHD wants maybe that’s a better choice. Again, it would be cool if someone who understands this and can be objective put together a sticky post doing a compare and contrast with links and dyno charts off the same car.

None taken because that’s the plan, and also it was a shop that messed up.

Yeah, when everything was together it was shy of coming all the way through, so the flange was putting lateral load on the inner bearings when torqued. The shop wanted the spacer shorter to get the bearings closer together. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Yet another example of where I only half followed my father’s advice. I went with the lowest imperial measurement but did not check it against the lowest metric measurement. (Edit: no need, they are the same when converted). I think my plan now is the freeze the spindle and warm the outer bearing to 120 degrees, press it on myself with my floor jack hacked together home made hydraulic press, then freeze the inner and do the same. Taking these parts to shops is only giving me grief. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

I’d love to see someone compile all of this info into a sticky... hint hint. Also, Sean, you said you had a theory on the benefits of twin pipes a few pages ago. Let’s hear it. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Yes, I agree. And yes, zKars saved my arse again. The last question I need to answer out of this mess is did torquing the nut to 181 pounds like the FSM says crush my brand new OEM bearings or was it the idiot who ground my spacer? The shop insists the Chilton manual is correct at 28-32 pounds and pointed to the F-350 spec of 110 pounds as a supporting argument, but they also ground down a NLA part by hand, so... Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

They are type B spacers. You can see the amount of material removed here:

NLA. They just haven’t updated their site.

Update: all parts retrieved. I will asses them tonight and post a picture of the damage to the spacer. The hubs say B but I haven’t checked to see if the spacers match. Regardless I have one that is messed up. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Not sure which letter yet. I need to retrieve everything in the morning and find out. It’s not the same shop. Right now I have three of the five shops I’ve gone to in my area in my black list. The end basically has been held against a grinder so it has a slice taken out of it that’s about .25-.5 mm deep and maybe 15-20 mm wide. It’s not the entire face that mates to the bearing but it’s not just a nick. From what I can tell Motorsport is selling refurbished originals. They’re charging a core fee. Edit: the reason the guy took a grinder to it is he felt that it was too long and the spindle wasn’t coming all the way through. He thinks the shoulder of the spindle should pass through the bearing so that the copper washer (which is an optional part) sits in the spindle rather than the bearing. I think the entire problem was started by the washer. They’re also telling me the FSM torque spec of 181# is wrong and the Chilton spec of 22# is right.

Motorsport wants $50 each plus shipping. http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/classic01a/23-5031R Can anyone beat that? Edit: they only have the B version, so I need to find out which one I need from the shop. Actually, I need to get all my parts back and go somewhere else.

So the local shop that pressed my rear hubs together messed something up and I had to take them back. Not only do I have to replace the bearings, they tried to grind the spacer to make it shorter. Anyone have one I can buy? Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

They are NLA. If no one here has them I’m out of luck. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

I had a local shop press my rear hubs together and had to take them back because the bearings weren’t seated correctly. The idiot working on it tried to grind down the end of the spacer to make it shorter, so now the end has a gouge out of it. Do I need to worry about this? If so, how can I find a new one? Does anyone have one to spare? Thanks in advance.

I just torqued my rear hubs down after replacing all of the bearings and seals and have different results from one side to the next. I had the bearings removed by a local shop, cleaned and repainted everything, bought brand new bearings and seals, and had the same shop press everything back together. The parts sat on my bench for a month and then yesterday I torqued the spindle bits down to 190#s. Both are more difficult to turn by hand than I expected, but the left one gives uneven resistance, which tells me something is wrong. I don’t think it’s the bearings because it seams to be in the same spot in the rotation every time and that shouldn’t happen if I had a flat spot. It would travel around the axis, right? I’m going to see if I can spot a runout problem, but baring a bent spindle can anyone think of what could be happening here?

Unfortunately, I never ran it. The wiring was in but no connectors were attached. I started stripping the car immediately. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Thanks for the advice guys. As soon as I figure out how to test the wiring I’ll start setting up (gotta finish this suspension first). Is it possible to undo the old wrap a bit, wrap the exposed bit, and then when I run out of bare wires undo some more? This part is going to be SUPER fun. I don’t know if you’d remember, but my wiring wasn’t connected when I got the car. It was installed, but not together.

Major SNAFU yesterday: spilled aircraft stripper all over one of my struts being careless. Looks like this suspension refresh is going to take a couple of weeks more than I expected. —- I also have a question concerning wiring: I have all of my harnesses, but I have no idea if they are good. I have considered just building new harnesses, but I think I’m looking at $600 or more if I go that route, and it’s possible that my harnesses are perfectly good. So should I... 1. Test my harnesses and fix any issue myself (never done this before) 2. Pay someone to test and possibly fix them 3. Go ahead and make new ones and know the wiring is good but eat the cost and take a chance on my craftsmanship falling short? 4. Do a custom from scratch wiring job, either myself or paying someone. For this I obviously need to inventory my needs. Right now I’m leaning toward the middle option expecting to need to refresh the connectors, and I would need guidance on sourcing this person. If option 3, should I do any upgrades and where do those upgrades tip me over into option 4?

I’m wondering the same thing. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Correct. Everything is finger tight for now. I’ve had to disassemble things before so I’m leaving thread lock and torque until last. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

It’s just the brace that spans the arm. They squeezed it in a vice and caved it in about 3/16ths of an inch. I measured it against the other one and don’t see any geometry change, so I’ll keep it. Just pissed because it was pristine before I gave it to them.

True. The guy at the shop meant to retorque the old version after 100 and then peen them, which made me nervous they would get loose in that time. Felt like questionable advice and wanted to check it out. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

That did it. The pins slide right out. The ant-seize actually made them less slippery. Had a nice time getting it completely out of the threads. Everything is finger tight for now. I’ll do the blue thread lock tomorrow.

That’s good to hear about the Z Car Depot bolt kit. The Z Car Source bolt kit for the suspension leaves a lot to be desired. I haven’t seen one piece match what I took off the car so far. In other news, after taking some sand paper to the pin tubes on the struts, the pin slides right in. I think it must have been the POR-15 around the lip of the hole. Going to go around and do the rest of it tonight. After that I’ll do some blue thread lock on my ball joint bolts, which came with the joints. Edit: by the way, no one ever commented on whether I should use the original rear hub nuts and peen them or use the S130 locking ones (see above for the comment a shop made about torquing them after 100 miles). I have both. And in other news, looks like the guy that pressed out those bushing and pressed in the new one not only chewed up up the bushings but also bent one of the LCAs. I measured it and it looks like they still match, but one of them looks like it’s been in a North African rally a few times.

Glad I said something! The pins are brand new from Z Car Depot. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile