snwbrderphat540

well, i started an awesome project. NOT. my arms are bruised and torn and so are my hands. this is a day by day update on the overhauling of the rear subframe.

this, is day one:

well, i need to undercoat my car. right? wrong. i need to do alot more. the frame is in good shape, but i think it could use a better job. i will probably also replace the engine cradle and steering rack with one i refurbished. soon. not now though. but, first things first. your day one, isnt going to get you much. just do this. order poly urethane bushings and if your lucky like me, get the parts you want to fix so you can take your time on them and do it right. this is what i have to work with, my canvas if you will. you will also need to drop the axle back section of your exhaust. mine actually came off very easily. if only my axles were as stubborn as the exhaust. aka easy! dont forget to take all nuts and bolts and clearly label them in a plastic baggy or by sticking them in a piece of cardboard, OR by butting them back into their original spot with out obviously the piece the held mounted in place attatched.





not pretty i know. day one you can drop soem stuff, but if your life lieks to kick you in the ***** like me, you'll bust your sway bar endlinks! hurray!!! you also my axle nuts are frozen in place. remove your wheels and all other pieces you can easily unbolt. your best bet then is to blast everything with PB blaster let if sit till morning. blast them again, and try to work on it when your back from your day at work or school, or w/e you do. (mike) this is as far as i was able to get



however i am very resourceful. i picked up low mileage parts, and did them up right. sandblasted and painted and my poly bushings. this is what i have to work with once i drop the 90k rust bucket ****.





ohhh yeah... this is going to look sweet. tune in next time for hopefully, an empty rear end with a nice coat of sealer on it all.

snwbrderphat540

DAY 2:

well i couldnt get quite as far as i wanted. but still. good progress. my nuts (lol) connecting the drive shaft to diff were siezed. so i droped everything around it and am working on them. turns out i had shock towers with the pins already removed. so the only original part going back up will be the short cross member and drive shaft. but today i dropped everything but the strut towers (since the brake line is also siezed to the brakes) and cleaned and prepped my other parts for paint. this is how everything stands now

prepped for paint strut tower and all:




prepped for paint swing arms, one already in primer:



this one only ground down and sprayed to with the GREAT rust converter stuff that also preps for paint at teh same time:


Junk parts, GOOD RIDDENS:




and how the rear sits as of this moment, not to bad once all those parts have been removed:

snwbrderphat540

Day 3

soo, today i was able to drop the rest. and got jsut about all my parts painted and teh half shafts and drive shaft off teh diff. it was one hellofa project. im beat to ****. but i have ALL new bushings except for the sway bars, but that will be a B-day or X-mas present since they are 21 days apart lol. but its all looking good. and im gonna get me sum SS brake lines since my rubber ones are seperating


just like before, out with the old:





and.... in with, nothing? thats right its just stripped only brake lines and fuel lines left up there:





and since all of you RAVE over rustoleum paint jobs, i did a rustoleum paint job..... here:







got rustoleum reduced it and sprayed. tommorow i sand blast and paint... well, maybe... i forgot its a friday. lol. man, i cant WAIT to drive this thing, all new rear bushings. soo nice. then ima pull the motor, power wash it paint the engine bay replace the engine cradle with my "new" one and steering rack. ahhh, all this stuff has only 60k. soo nice

snwbrderphat540

day 4

this day was full of sand blasting followed by power washing the underneath. then i went to undercoating.

i seemed to have lost my day 3 pictures though.... well, most of themthis is how the under neath stands now





now for th etricky part, even thoguh you dont have to, i wanted polyurethane bushings ALL around. even where the A arms meet the strut towers. to do this you need to remove teh pins. very very hard to do right. there is a pin in the middle that you take the nut off of and then tap it out. TAP. then loosin the nuts on both ends of the rods holding the A arms to the towers. then tap those out, use a punch if you have one in the center cause you dont want to ruin the threads my hitting directly on the ends of the rods. they should come out far enough to get a vice grip on and tist it and pull or tap the vice. it will come out, eventually. now press in your bushing, i was able to get them in with C clamps. now for the hard part. getting the rods back in. if you notice (which i didnt) the rods NEED to go in a certain way, the notches in them for the pins are off center. illustrated in this picture:

where the pin goes



wrong way to put the pin in. notice how if held evenly at both ends the notche and pin hole doesnt line up


the right way


now grease up EVERYTHING. the rod inside the hole for the rod and bushing. now for a little trick. stick the rod in the freezer. and let it sit in there for at least 20 mins. mean while, slowly heat with a torch (move it around so dont just heat one spot) around the casting the rods goes in



do this for 10 mins it should get pretty damn hot but not hot enough to melt the bushing. now take the rod out of the freezer, stick multiple washers on one end and twist the nut on, not you have a secure surface you can hit on to pound the pin in without fear of ruining the threads. it will take some good hitting (dont slam them just be forgive yet stern) and they will go right in. i vouched for not using those pins to hold the rods in cause quite frankly, they dont really do squat. the nuts will never back off cause they go on tight, and even if they did, that pin isnt going to just work its way out. they are reletivly pointless.

hopefully tommorow i assemble the rear and drop her back down

snwbrderphat540

final day! ( still need to toss up the way bar and change a stud on the hub, no biggie )

well, ill explaine first then post the finishing picks. this last part is best done with a buddy. because its a bitch. now that you have your A arms assembled take them out and stick them back up. (also go buy all new nuts and bolts) this is done with a buddy up top to put teh nuts on and you down lifting the heavy *** things up into the well and holding them there till he can get 2 nuts on. then tighten them up. now you can stick up your mustache bar. 2 nuts no big. then the rear carrage that goes under it. it can be done by yourself but since its kinda bulky and will move around its best with a partner. 4 bolts there and use lock washers or at least loctite. tighten those all up evenly though dont just tighten one all the way then the other. make a patern. now your ready for the rear diff. bolt the axles and front cross member to the diff. stick it on a jack and slide it under the car. now have a buddy jack it up while you hold teh nose of it. once its in place you might have to rotat it to get the studs to line up with the holes with the moustache bar. then have you buddy pull the diff and jack back until in the holes and just start teh nuts on them. now you can slip the A arm bushing into that cross member on the diff and bolt those up. use lock washers people.you can now tighten those up and remember you do them evenly not one at a time. then get the rear A arms bolted up with the bottom bracket piece that holds tehm to the carrage. now you should be able to finish up teh rest. new nuts and bolts on the axles to the stub axles. and then slide the drive shaft on and bolt. vvuwala!! your finished. now admire.

i still have yet to finish the undercoating. next time we do the front end so its poly bushings all around and a show car under carrage.

snwbrderphat540

also, feel free to quote comment and ask questions. i like when my threads get attention.

WildmaN

Looks like you are doing great work there man. Makes me think more and more, when I am ready to strip out my '82 for the resto' in the near future. Keep updating this thread, I will watch it, as it progresses.

snwbrderphat540

thanks wildman, im surprised no one else has stuff to say... its so purty

but it probably wont progress much for a while when i can pull the engine and do this to the front end as well and finish the undercoating. only half is done.

also drop the tank and clean it and paint under it and teh tank its self, i lukcily didnt have to do this since the PO was a hard core restorer so i got a mint interior other than the drivers seat, seals and glass are mint, and the tank was done. then he lost time for it. now i reap the benifits.

all that new stuff up other than the axles were from a 60k car.... so im happy as hell about that.

260zturbo

looks good...should of put a r/t diff mount you know its never to late to do it.

Sweets

Sweet job dude. Now i feel confident that I can replace my rear with ease, just as long as I refer to your thread Eric. Gracias!

snwbrderphat540

r/t diff mount? hmmm....... what? lol. ill see if i can research that but i have a feeling it will just come up with dodge crap


and thanks justin. its a bitch, but it simple. just alot of patience and grunt work. and replace ALL the bolts. though it was very hard to match the pitch on these. they were all like 10 12 and 14 mm bolts but with like a 1.75 or 1.25 pitch. it sucked finding them and when i did, there wasnt enough lol. so i had to re-used like 3 original bolts.

260zturbo

ron tyler mount. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread...ler+Diff+mount

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread...ler+Diff+mount

just sprayed mine with rustoleum black gloss.

snwbrderphat540

mhmm... its took me an hour now since all the write ups and pics are so vague on there. but i can tell you take out the strap, and mount that upside down do it forms to the tunnel. but as for mounting the diff to it... doest it sandwich it between the stock mount to? or does it turn the mounting positiion to abouve the diff alone instead of below? and what mount are they using? but also, they dont seem very benificial. they supposedly stock the diff from rocking right? i dont see how they can any ways with out shearing the bolts first they are mounted to up front there in the first place. plus, do to that, youd need massive amounts of torque... this is a stock L28E on my new 280Z that im doing a full resto on so i can sell it and finally get rid of all my Z's.... and make BANK!!! then i decide what to do. either some sort of super hybrid S30 (aka an RB motor or maybe an SR for track use cause of balance and power) or a Z32 TT.... i miss them

260zturbo

it replaces the strap(gets rid of the clunk also helps stiffen up back their) guess if your gonna sell it then no worry.

duowing

You know I've been wondering, are there any suspension parts that are interchangeable between the s30 and S130? I've been wanting to redo the suspension on my ZXT, but my ultimate goal is to move this engine over to an S30 at some point, so I didn't want to put a lot into my S130 unless it's something that could be swapped over to the S30.

snwbrderphat540

unfortunatly, no. the strut towers and springs and brakes are totally different. specially in the rear. the moustach bar might be teh same and possibly the diff mount. i know if your good enough you can swap gas tanks to. but unfortuanatly, pretty much nothing is interchangeable on the S130 to the S30 other than the driveline, and even then, sometimes you need to modify. thats why even though they are a bit heavier, i recomend getting a 280Z. you can always put sexy CF 72 style bumpers on and a Xenon front maybe a bre spoiler, and the car look gorgeous. thhen you can swap in w/e motor you want cause you have teh much stronger R200 already up in there instead of that out-dated R180. which btw i thought the swap would be easy, and it is sorta... you need to replace the stub axles and then get a 280Z (s30) rear subframe or at least the diff half shafts and moustache bar, then swap. or you can use your ZX turbo diff but then you need the 280Z stub axles still (which arent fun to change) and then flange adapters to use the CV's. its total crap basically.

and i will think about the R/T mount, is that roost guy still making them do you know even? probably a good way to make some extra $$$$$. i mean for 38 bucks why not? i plan on doing road race or auto-X with this car and if i do keep it, maybe try to build a rebello style NA motor. maybe.... still dont know if i like the whole stroker idea.