Superduner

O i got the 71's shocks removed and they worked fine thing was. that they HIT the bottom of the cartridge so all i did was cut a round piece of rubber fro a tire then take it to the bottom of the shock so it whont hit. and it worked. but ok... this is the NEW probllem

sicne the day i bought it i notices a SLIGHT look on the car when u see thecar from the back.. there is a slight SLANT look on it. the car is 1 1/2 lower than in the rear left. in other words the tire is about an inch from the rear quarter frame LOWER on the right side than on the LEFT... now.. my dad sayd that either the springs or shocks were uneave or one was worn out or something... could it be that the FRAME is bent ?....... cuz damn thats not good..... it lookd sorta weird.

bjhines

Didn't you tell us that the springs were cut????

Obviously the job was not the most well thought out...

The description of the rubber shim you installed makes no sense... The cartridges fit INSIDE the strut tubes... putting a rubber spacer inside the strut tube and then installing the shock would almost certainly make it impossible to screw the packing in correctly... and this is not a fix for anything... If the strut is bottoming then the whole set up is ****...

You need to quit looking for new things to do to that car and get it's wheels back under it correctly...

I would strongly suggest you start with 15" x 7" wheels... there are a whole range of issues with using 18" wheels... until you understand just how the suspension and clearances work you better not get too far ahead of yourself...

If you do decide to put monster wheels under it you need to realize that sets of custom 5" backspacing wheels are $2000-$4000...

Then you need to understand that the Z car was designed for 14" wheels... 18" wheels will make ti nearly impossible to actually lower the car...

Mounting race wheels involves a whole range of modifications... the very first step is to decide exactly what you are going to run and order them.. you will need the wheels mounted on the car to accomplish several steps in the modification process...

1. get wheels

2. shorten strut housing to accept 2" shorter cartridges and coilover perches...

3. decide on extent of lowering and necessary alignment modifications...

4. modify front crossmember to relocate lower front control arms...

5. purchase and install custom lower control arms to allow camber and caster change front and rear...

6. set rough suspension alignments to get wheels in correct location and range of travel...

7. cut wheel wells and mount flares... fairly involved process... requires mocking up wheel and tire on springless strut to find limits of travel and cut accordingly... then reweld inner to outer fender... then install flares...


bythis point you will be close to completing your oversize wheel install... of course you will need some time on a test track to properly align and corner weight your new custom wheel set up... usually you can get it sorted out after a few events... one season at worst.... remember you are chucking all of the facotry alignment info out the window when you do this... do not expect to get good tire wear on the car...

Superduner

hmm i think u misunderstood my problem...i dotn have 18in rims i got 14's. i have tokico shocks all around and have arizona springs. the springs are'nt cur their actually made shorterto give car a drop as well as stability. BUT! my problem is that when you see the car form the BACK.. the rear right seems lower than the rear LEFT.. in other words it looks like the car is crokked. NOW... i got under the car and it seemd that the lower arm on the left side was pplace upside down. form the previous owner perhaps. but im pretty shure that might be it.i have'nt gotten to it but i certainly will take pictures of the under car angles so you have a better undersandin gof my problem. THANKS TOUGH

besides.... who in their right mind would put 18's on a datsun... THIS AINT NO GAME.... :P lmao

skittle

don't let Rod hear ya ...... shhh he has 18's

bjhines

The arms are the SAME STAMPING... one is placed upside down to make it a mirror of the other... this has been done on ALL s-30s from 1970-1978... that does not affect the level of the car...

What can happen is that the sway bar can be bent.. it can load up the suspension causing it to lean slightly.... loosen up the swaybar end links... free them up and then look at spacing left and right... add a shim to the side that natually wants to be longer... that will get the swaybar set correctly when you tighten it all back down...

Superduner

hmmm last time i checked i dont think i had a sway bar on the back or front of the Car ......

entropy31

bleach too.

bjhines

Whaaaa??? no sway bars at all...???... cmon... that is pretty hard to miss...

No swaybar on the front is 4ucked up... it really sounds like you need to completely replace springs, struts, have the chassis checked, add missing parts.... replace all bushings, etc., etc...

18" wheels on an S-30 are a big mistake.. unless you are just rolling it around to shine shows...

there are quite a few who run 17" wheels on track and the cars have been so highly modified that you simply cannot run on city streets... I run 15" wheels on my car and I have barely 4.5" of frame clearance... I don't run over speed bumps...

If you up the wheel size by 3" you automaticly get an additional 1.5" of lift off the ground... you can only lower the tire profile so much... you end up cutting struts and mounting shorter cartridges just to get the car back down to a reasonable height... and you still have loads of ground clearance and no suspension travel left... not to mention all of the other modifications that are required to get the car back into proper alignment throughout it's suspension travel...

I find it funny that racers.. especially autocrossers used to drop the wheel size to 13" to get the most possible drop without compromizing suspension travel...

Superduner

true true. but hmm i got undet my cousints 71 240z and it seems he does'nt havve a sway bar in the back either soooo idk. OH and YES i checked HIS lower arms as well and they were reversed so my conclution is that thats how they were meant to be. WHY ? i have no clue but as to why my car is lower on the rar right than the rear left... i might have to take the springs and shocks off and measure them maybe the left shock's longer than the right who knows right? what could be another posibility

Vintage

Did you even read his explanation?

"The arms are the SAME STAMPING... one is placed upside down to make it a mirror of the other... this has been done on ALL s-30s from 1970-1978... that does not affect the level of the car..."

Superduner

yeah i read it i just double checked on my cousin's car that was it