jmortensen

What you'll really be doing is adjusting toe, not camber, since you can't move the bushing cups in front (they're welded into the frame). You only need to slot the bottom and then make a turnbuckle and get rid of the stock link. Here are some examples of different implementations: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=89111

A friend of mine was in college and went to a party where the "door charge" was the cheesiest pick up line you had. These were a few of them. I've forgotten probably 50 more but it has been 15 years or so. What has two thumbs and likes a BJ? [snap and point at yourself with thumbs] THIS GUY!!! Nice dress. It would look great on the floor next to my bed. Nice shoes. Wanna f#!@? If your left leg was Easter and your right leg was Christmas, would you mind if I spent a little time between the holidays? I wish we could rearrange the alphabet so that I could be next to U.

Mine never had that wire on it, seems odd to ground the distributor since it's bolted to the block, which should be grounded. I'd forget about that little one and put a big ground strap between the engine block and chassis. In fact I had one in the back off of one of the bell housing bolts and another closer to the front.

ezzzzz was talking about his LSD from back in the day, and how it went bad and caused all kinds of slop in the differential. Then he was advising you based on that experience. That experience doesn't relate to your open differential very well. I'm still not 100% convinced you've done your U/Joint check correctly. I worked as a mechanic for probably 10 years and there was no way I could test them accurately in a Z without taking them out of the car, unless they were obviously broken. Worst thing that happens is you don't need U/Joints and you waste some money, so do what you have to do. The part of your diagnosis that doesn't make sense is that you tested the U-joints with both wheels on the ground and the halfshaft moved. If the halfshaft moved at all the wheel MUST have moved too, since they're bolted together. The only way I can see this happening is if the stub axles are destroyed and the diff is destroyed. I don't think that is the case since the car drives with only a whine in the diff. EDIT--Actually in thinking about this if the outside u/joint was bad it might allow just a bit of movement, but it would typically be just a tiny bit, and it would in my experience usually require more than a jiggle to get it to move. Maybe the outside joint is bad... I suppose we'll see. As far as the Chinese u/joints go, if you're not drag racing or drifting I doubt you'll have trouble, but if you are then I think you'll likely be using that warranty. Again, I think the Nissan u/joints were particularly strong.

Your LSD is not really comparable to the stock open diff. The side gears move laterally in your LSD, and when the clutches wear that allows for a lot more movement. If you were to take the clutches out of an LSD and put the gears back in, they'd probably move 1/2" per side. This movement would allow the cross pin to move diagonally in between the two pressure rings. Basically worn clutches, especially in a 2 pinion LSD, allows for all kinds of motion you can't get in a regular diff. In an open differential, the only movement that should be available to the side gears is dictated by the slop in the spider gears and the case and the tiny amount of clearance between the gear and the cross pin shaft it rides in. Probably 1/8" total slop or so. If you jack up the back end of the car and twist one wheel on an open diff the spider gears will twist but nothing will happen to the ring and pinion, so she won't be feeling backlash in the diff at all. She's just feeling u/joints, splines for the stub shafts, and the play in the spider gears. To even feel the backlash on an open diffyou would have to move both shafts at the same time, or hold one still. To measure backlash really requires using a dial indicator on the ring gear, as previously measured trying to measure through the pinion is pretty much futile. Doing so by twisting the halfshafts or stub shafts is also a bad idea because it's so easy to introduce the slop from the spiders into what you think is the backlash. Having worked as a mechanic and done more than my share of diff oil changes, I've seen chunks of metal as big as those described in her original post with no ill effects in the diff. I'm not saying her diff isn't damaged, I'm just saying that her description doesn't have me worried. Maybe if she drove for 1000 miles and drained it again and it was full of metal I'd be concerned, but these diffs are just noisy IME and the clunks are usually from something else other than the gears in the diff.

I think you're feeling the slop in the spider gears, not the joints, and this is totally normal. This is a really common pitfall where people misdiagnose joints. The other one that catches people out is when they crawl underneath and turn the driveshaft and are amazed that the driveshaft turns 1/4" before the gears lock up inside, so they think that the gear backspacing is off on the ring and pinion. Not so, it's just that measuring the backspacing off of the pinion is not easy to do and the measurement at the pinion is much larger than the measurement at the ring gear. Again, I'd suggest you take the shaft out and test it out of the car, otherwise you'll probably spend money that doesn't need spending.

I wouldn't go buying $140 worth of halfshafts right off the bat. I'd take them out and feel the U-joints first. There are only 8 bolts on each halfshaft, and 4 on the driveshaft. Some people can check the U-joints with the shaft installed, I never could. With them out though you just grab the shaft in the middle and the flange on the far end of the U/J and wiggle them back and forth and feel for slop. Any slop = bad U/J. Factory Nissan joints seem to be better than the replacements you can buy, so if you don't need them I wouldn't buy them. My first suspect for a clunk would be front diff mount/strap. The stock mount goes underneath the diff so when the nose lifts it tries to pull the mount apart, which is a really bad idea. I think this is possibly the worst aspect of the Z's design (could be a tie with the way the back of the rear suspension is hung from the two uprights back there). There are many different solutions to a bad front mount from replacing the mount and strap with factory new parts to making your own mount. I like Ron Tyler's mount, which I think can still be purchased from Roostmonkey on hybridz.org. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=127993 It goes over the diff, so when the front of the diff lifts up it compresses into the mount. There is also the "clamshell" design which can be fabricated quite easily with some materials from the hardware store: http://album.hybridz.org/showphoto.php?photo=2501 Second suspect would be mustache bar bushings. Third I'd probably go u/joints, 4th might be worn splines on the stub axles, which I think is more common than people realize. I think there are more possibilities than that, but those are the ones coming to me right off the top of my head.

They put the magnet on the plug for a reason, to pull the larger chunks of metal out of the oil. It's normal for them to be a bit fuzzy when you pull them out, and I think it's normal to have a little bit of metal in the oil. A lot of metal in the oil or big chunks of metal are a different story. But by her description it didn't sound too extreme to me. It's tough to diagnose over the internet, but based on the description I'd change the oil and look for some other culprit for the noise. As far as your experience goes, LSD's have clutches that wear, and the R180 LSDs from back in the day were mostly 2 pinion units. Both of the people that I know that had 2 pinion LSD's broke them. The later ones were 4 pinion units and much stronger (at least judging by the anecdotal evidence). The spider gears in an open diff really don't wear at an appreciable rate if the lube is kept full and in good shape. The thing that does wear out spider gears is burn outs and drag racing starts (again from the anecdotal evidence).

Clunking is almost never a sign of differential damage in a Z. It has to do with mounts, U-joints-, mustache bar bushings, etc, but almost never the diff itself. Search "differential clunk" and you'll find tons of info on that problem, which is very common in these cars. Whining to some extent is normal too, and more pronounced with poly mustache bar bushings and stiffer diff mounts, etc. I'd say that what you describe sounds relatively normal, especially if the gear oil hasn't been changed in a long time. Used gear oil often smells burnt IME, and even new stuff never smells good. Gear oil just stinks. If you do decide to try and fix your diff, I'd suggest that you forget about actually fixing that one and just buy another good used one and swap it in. Rebuilding one of these is expensive and ring and pinions and other parts like spider gears are practically impossible to come by separately, but a good used diff should run you $100 or $150.

That is a TC rod that doesn't have a bushing at all. It has a rod end, which is a metal to metal bearing instead. Transmits more noise into the car, but has no flex like the bushing to cause instability under braking, and yet moves freely, and you get adjustable caster out of the deal. Arizona Z Car has one on their suspension kit, Techno Toy Tuning sells one as well. I made my own. http://www.technotoytuning.com/productdetail.php?p=668 http://www.arizonazcar.com/lowarms.html

I think you're more likely to see TC rod failure due to stiff bushings with soft springs than with hard springs. The issue is that the bushings don't compress, so it puts a lot of bending load on the rod right where it has a turned down shoulder where the bushings sit. Bending load and square shoulder = bad. But the softer the springs, the more the suspension moves when it hits bumps, the more the TC rod gets worked. For example, if you had really really stiff springs and the suspension only moved 1", then the side forces on the TC rod would be a lot less than a stocker which can fairly easily blow through 5" of travel on one bump. One option here is to put the urethane bushing in the front and a stock rubber bushing in the rear. The front one takes the braking loads, the rear is really just along for the ride, so putting the rubber in the rear increases the flexibility without affecting the performance under braking. The best solution for the TC rods is a rod end in my opinion, because it allows free motion with very little resistance.

I'm on the team where when you see something that doesn't make sense, you say "Hey, that doesn't make sense." It may be that we're not on the same team. If Mazda guys use arguments that make sense, then I'm on that team. ;-) I don't race in IT and I have rear disk brakes on my car. It's pretty tough to argue that the rear drums aren't safe after 40 years of continuous track time though. I agree 100% with the bolded part of your last statement, but saying that is a lot different than saying that the rear drums aren't safe. FWIW, there was some debate about the steel vs aluminum a while back. I never paid much attention as I don't run drums, but I think the idea was that some Z racers were going to iron drums because they stayed rounder under extreme conditions, and that was more advantageous than reducing unsprung weight by running the aluminum drums. Like I said though, I didn't pay that much attention so you'd have to dig around to find more info than that if you're so inclined...

There are also other options to source drums that fit. 510 iron drums fit, and I think it's Triumph TR4 (could be wrong on the model here) guys who were stealing the aluminum drums for less unsprung weight, so whatever model it was, their iron drums should also fit. You can make an argument for being able to change them out, but I don't think safety is going to be the main point of that argument.

Search "reaction disk". By your description, that sounds like the problem. Usually if a brake master is going bad, the test is to stomp on the pedal and it will hold pressure, but if you put a light pressure on the pedal it will slowly sink to the floor.

What is the safety issue with drums? Plenty of cars on the track use/have used drums.

The ZX brakes don't bolt up on the early Z, the rotor is a smaller diameter, etc. There are many good easy brake upgrade options. 280ZX brakes are not one of them.

You might want to search "differential clunk". I think you're barking up the wrong tree trying to tighten the stub shafts. Probably a mount, a bushing, or a U-joint.

That's a Festiva. I used to autocross with a guy who ran a Fiesta. It was made by the German arm of Ford if I recall. Pretty cool little car when stripped out and made a race only machine. His was painted beige just to complete the "crappy econobox just blew your doors off" look. We did go to a track day once and I passed him on the front straight. He was going so slow I thought his car was broken. It hauled arse at the autox though... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_fiesta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Festiva

Put the timing light on the mark, rev the engine slowly. When the timing stops advancing, that's when it is all in. No idea. Depends on the amount of vacuum advance your particular distributor has. I would see if Mallory has a suggestion on that one or get advice from someone who has one. Zs-ondabrain is into them, maybe he'll have a suggestion.

Set the total advance to somewhere in the mid 30's at full mechanical advance (you'd need a dyno to really optimize, but it's probably going to do best somewhere between 34 and 38 degrees). If you can dial back the amount of mech advance, I'd set it to about 15 degrees, so that you're near 20 degrees at idle. If you can't adjust it, then just worry about the total advance and don't worry about the advance at idle. The ZX distributor has 17 or 18 degrees of mechanical advance, so it's pretty good right out of the box in that respect, but the vacuum advance mechanisms are pretty much always broken on them, so I always assume that if I pick one up it needs fixing. Best solution is crank fire ignition and there are getting to be some pretty cheap options there like mega jolt. Even an out of the box Electromotive setup compares pretty well with a brand new Unilite pricewise (vs MSA), and is way better functionally because they don't have gears driving them, 3 coils for more soak time much more adjustability in the timing curve, etc.

Search on Hybrid Z. I think there was a guy who did a KAAZ LSD swap and the groove for the retainer circlip wasn't in the right spot. That's not an insurmountable problem, a quick bit of machine work should be the fix...

I guess the point is that it could be sold to someone else and used just as is, but instead the government wants to ensure that nobody else can use it. I don't really have a problem if Joe Schmo decides "Today is the day that I will crush my 1998 Explorer" drives it to a junkyard and pays them to crush it. But when the government uses my tax dollars to pay someone else to destroy their perfectly viable engine and then crush their perfectly serviceable car, I have to disagree with it. But I have a feeling destroying usable machines/businesses/energy production methods in the name of saving the environment is going to be a pretty popular thing to do in the next few decades...

There is a good shock thread at Hybrid Z aimed more at the racey end of the spectrum: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=138601 If I were doing up a nice street machine with reasonably stiff springs, but not a full on racer, I'd go with the Bilsteins or maybe the Tokico HTS. For a stockish ride I think Arne has it right with the GR2's.

Sodium silicate, sand, whatever it's degrees of accuracy here, and I tend to simplify things. What's the main ingredient in glass? Quartz sand. Is all sand capable of making glass? No. Is sand used to make glass? Yes. The point was not that they're using sand, the point was that they're destroying a huge resource of running engines for people who might be able to use them. I just bought an engine from a junkyard a couple months ago for my Z. I wonder how many engines just like mine are having sodium silicate run through them. I remained convinced that they are purposely destroying thousands of running engines that are capable of doing productive work for no good reason. FWIW, I also recently confused my neighbor by telling him RoundUp weed killer is "salt". I don't put it on my breakfast in the morning, but when you get down to what it actually is, it's salt. He looked at me like I was crazy and changed the subject, and I didn't force the issue and show him that it is in fact salt, but it is.

Tell me where you can buy any of the top 10 trade in models for $500. I'll head there now... http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1036/top-cash-for-clunkers-trade-ins-and-new-cars/