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Funny thing is, once the wheels are on and it's back on the ground, no one will be able to see any of it! Only I will know it's there! No big deal, I just want certain areas of this car to stay clean for servicing, like the engine bay. I've got some 3M undercoat stuff and some resto products to clean up the wheel wells a bit. I'll get good photos of the work before I put it back on the ground never to be seen again.
We have red! Had a grounding issue with the knuckles as the first coat acts as an insulator and I didn't have a good perch for the ground clip so I didn't get the coverage I wanted. They're not too bad though and I am done with this. I knew I should have sanded a small area on the caliper bolt hole but I was in a hurry and just didn't bother. Oh well. The only other person that will see this stuff is my alignment guy anyway
Didn't make much progress beyond this as I ran into a bit of an issue pressing the bearings and hubs. I need to get to my metal shop and dig through the scrap room and find some decent blocks to use in order to get the bearings and hubs pressed in. I bought a 12 Ton press and a spacer kit to do it myself and I don't want to screw it up. Only get one chance at it!
Better shot of the knuckles. Not as bright and lustrous as I was looking for. Still not too bad for first time powder coating with cheap ebay equipment!
Rockauto SE refurbs and fresh Conti rubber arrived yesterday. Stock 225/50R-17's with 98V and the OEM refurbs look absolutely beautiful. No blemishes whatsoever. I was surprised by the quality when the wheels arrived. Great price too!
Dropped off today for mount and road-force balance. Will pick up tomorrow. Tire monkeys better not scratch my $hit! I work ER tomorrow night so I'll get the remaining knuckle assembled tomorrow, pick up the wheels and tires, go to work, sleep Sunday morning, and get the suspension and brake components installed to completion Sunday evening. At this point it's a matter of unbolt the old junk and bolt in the new stuff! So excited! I have been babying this thing. REALLY looking forward to being able to drive it with suspension travel.
Got a lot of work to do this weekend. Still have a few parts I'm waiting for from the dealership. I may even go to an LKQ tomorrow and pull a set of hubs to have blasted and powdercoated then build them up and just install them rather than rebuild mine. Those Brembos are nice. They have a nice coating of some sort on the hat and exposed area. Should keep rust away for quite a while. I gotta pick up a 12 ton Harbor Freight press tomorrow to do the bearing work. SO glad I did inner and outer tie rods while the engine was out. Inners would have been a pain. Driver side was tight. I imagine I could have done some damage to the rack trying to get that one off with the engine in.
Where the hell did you find new dust shield, i think the last time i looked at rock auto they were out. EDIT: WOW oem A Arms, i took a gamble on a chinese kit $125 for all the stuff in the front end W/ greaserts. probably not top tier stuff, hope i don't die.
All four dust shields/baffle plates are brand new OEM purchased on ebay. Ebay for new OEM control arms as well. I saved between a hundred and two hundred dollars on these parts vs stealership prices (free powder coat system!).
If the engineers wanted the K member bolted directly to the body, they would have done so, rather than let it float on bushings.
Question is, at what point is this fabrication or "mod", in forum slang, superior to new K member bushings? Why would I want to bolt my sub frame directly to the body, ignoring and bypassing the engineering theory behind the bushings?
If the engineers wanted the K member bolted directly to the body, they would have done so, rather than let it float on bushings.
Question is, at what point is this fabrication or "mod", in forum slang, superior to new K member bushings? Why would I want to bolt my sub frame directly to the body, ignoring and bypassing the engineering theory behind the bushings?
Different priorities. Nissan wanted a comfy sedan that could be sporty. The average person here wants a sporty sedan that could be comfy. Car companies have to make compromises on “performance” to meet other goals such as emissions, comfort, noise, etc. while forum goers tend to throw all that fuss out the window to maximize performance. What could be seen as an upgrade for is might not be an upgrade to an old guy with a bad back who wants less road feel, not more.
Different priorities. Nissan wanted a comfy sedan that could be sporty. The average person here wants a sporty sedan that could be comfy. Car companies have to make compromises on “performance” to meet other goals such as emissions, comfort, noise, etc. while forum goers tend to throw all that fuss out the window to maximize performance. What could be seen as an upgrade for is might not be an upgrade to an old guy with a bad back who wants less road feel, not more.
Understood. My main concern is long-term stress to the unibody. I don't need glue joints and fastened connection points loosening up. Surprisingly, my bushings still look great. So I'll consider it some more and maybe get the parts on the way just to have on hand. I'm under the car now installing all the front end components. Got a little break because Florida decided to rain on my one night off I have a week to get all this $hit done. Hoping it passes over soon.
The more I read through threads and see the poor, worn, rusted condition of others' vehicles, the more I'm pleasantly surprised that although I have 125k mi on the body, my car is absolutely rust free and abnormally clean! Luck of the draw as I bought this car sight unseen from a Craigslist ad and had it picked up and towed to my house by a family member while I was at work. There were about 5 pics in the ad, and it looked ok, but man, I am frequently reminded of how lucky I was with this car! It has been a dream to work on. Haven't had to fight with a single component.
Well, rain sucks. Had intermittent moments to work on this job. Got the front end finished in between showers and that's it so far. So much for having it completed today. I still have to adjust the ride height and I ran into an issue with the rotors. I had my machinist mill 2mm from the circumference of each rotor. This was to clear the caliper bracket and hardware. What I didn't do, was mount the caliper body to check for clearance while I was measuring for the caliper bracket. Got the car on the ground this evening and a horrible, but drive-able grinding noise was immediately noted. Initially, I thought this to be the pads bedding in, as the Brembo rotor surface had a textured surface I'd never seen before on a new rotor. So I gave it a go for about 2.5 miles, getting up to about 50 and slowing, the whole pad bed routine, but the grinding, albeit slightly less severe, persisted. I pulled into a gas station and noticed freshly ground outside rotor surface and took it home and parked it. I'm going to have to pull the rotors and have them cut another 2mm. I'll do that tomorrow. I'll throw some red nail polish on the caliper bodies where the rotors made contact just to keep the rust at bay. Other than that minor inconvenience, the front end is done, and I'll have the rear end finished tomorrow. We will be complete and tuned on Wednesday. I've been working towards this job for a couple months now.
Below are some random snaps from yesterday. I have more I'll put up as soon as I unfcuk myself with the rotors and get things a bit more orderly. Right now I'm even sitting lopsided cuz I ran out the lower mounts on the coilovers to make installation easier. I have no idea what ride height is right now but it doesn't matter. I know they can be turned while fastened to the knuckles, but I think for sanity sake I will remove them from the knuckles and spin them till I'm sitting near the 25.25 height I want a little quicker than 1/4 turns with a spanner wrench over two hours. Screw that nonsense.
All pressed up and ready to install:
New wheels and rubber mounted and ready to go:
Out with the old, in with the new:
Anyone want a free set of S Techs???????? I'll send them out for shipping. The Teins go in the garbage where they belong with all this other junk after one week unless claimed. Springs have 5k miles on them. Maybe you can make lamps out of them or something.
Making progress. Was so nice to actually see some of this stuff going in! Was going to clean and shine the plastic liner and undercoat everything else but the rain had me about to start murdering people and I just wanted to get it in while I could. I can pretty it all up later. Hell, I still have factory stickers on my splash guards.
The S Techs were ok for about 2500 miles then the ride just turned south. The fronts were bottomed out. They were installed on the stock struts that came with the car. I didn't really care about ride quality, performance, anything else really because I knew they were going to be temporary and I wasn't going to ride at stock height. I'm not new to riding low, and even really low, so it didn't really concern me until the last 1k miles or so when I had everything I needed except time to complete the entire suspension and brake overhaul. It sucked staring at all this stuff day after day and not having any time to do anything with it.
I figured I would have the coilovers in by my first oil change on the swap and that's pretty much what happened, so we're good. I've been busting my *** on this car for the last couple of months on top of 52-60hr work weeks night shifts. It's all coming together just not as quickly as I would like. I don't sleep much a lot of the time so I was able to get a bunch done in the last month with the AC system, brakes and suspension. I just want to get all this mechanical crap done so I can start working on the interior, electrical components I'll be installing, and of course, the crazy stereo I have in the works. Remember, I've only been driving this car full time since February 1st.
Got the rotors cut again 0.020 and the front end buttoned up today. Riding at 25.375". Have pics but haven't had time. Will update with some finished front end stuff tomorrow. Getting it aligned and hopefully enough time to complete the rear tomorrow.
Where did you get rims that look so new? I am looking for a set.
I was pretty proud of them too, even though they didn't turn out as good as they should have I'm going to rebuild and refinish the knuckles they replaced and make them perfect. Keep them as spares.
Guess I should bring some closure to this. Finished everything last week while battling the just-arrived rainy season. The job was cake other than the weather, rip old stuff out, bolt in new stuff. Just that easy. I'm still amazed at how clean this car is. The rear wheel bearings slid right off. The spindle area cleaned up with a spritz of Brakleen and a rag and looked like it had never seen weather. Works for me!
Old rear rotors were re-used with new pads. Rear rotors that were purchased 28 February and were not removed from boxes til I went to reach for one to replace the old ones were the wrong rotors. Had to battle with Amazon and the seller a bit as purchase was outside 60 day return window but I managed a refund directly from the seller and got the wrong rotors dropped off at FedEx yesterday. I found correct rotors on ebay and those arrived Saturday and yet another new set of rear pads arrived Monday. I'll get the rotors and pads done this week sometime.
I'm sitting at setting 6/32 in the front and 10/32 in the rear on the coilovers and that's all I've driven so far. I'll experiment with damping later. Ride is much, much better than old setup though. I was almost ready to park the car were I not able to get this job done.
350Z brakes add notable braking improvement. Less force on the pedal necessary to scrub speed. New wheels and tires were mounted and road-force balanced and I now have zero vibration at any speed (up to 100mph so far) attributable to them. Slight, transient axle vibration same as before, but that's just life at this ride height. I picked up a couple more sets of the axles I bought on Amazon because these are actually holding up nicely and the vibration can actually be controlled depending on how the car is driven and only exists between 40-45 anyway. If I get 20k out of them I'll be happy.
Again, didn't get all the photos I wanted but here's a few in final form and I do still plan on undercoating and restoring the wheel wells soon and will get better pictures of all the hardware and cleanliness and add them to this thread after I finish that job hopefully sometime next week.
Car was aligned Friday, camber was left untouched on the BC's and is sitting at 0.6 on both sides post alignment.
Headlight resto will be next but won't take long and I'll start another thread on that just to add to the few that already exist so go ahead and talk smack about them now while you still can.
Not sure if miscommunication with my machinist or what, but final conclusion when fitting 2009 350Z rotors: REDUCE ROTOR DIAMETER 6mm. There's still like, 12mm til pad anyway. This cleaned up nice and no one will ever see it. Sucks I had to remove everything and do it twice, but c'est la vie. This was after about a mile and a half of me initially thinking "man, this Brembo rotor surface is taking FOREVER to grind down!" Driver caliper:
Pass caliper:
Nice and clean:
Pass side. Spindle is spotless, rear end was a joy to work on. Took 3.5hrs total WITH smoke breaks to completely replace all rear end components:
Driver side before:
Inside of bearing and hub. Still can't believe they just slid off. 30mm socket and impact zipped the axle nuts right off.
7th gen upper oil pan came in handy. Guess I'm glad I haven't tossed it yet. May keep it around just for rear end work!
My supervisor/QA inspector:
Driver side after. I did not adjust ride height from factory on the rear coilovers. I checked preload, installed them, locked everything down and have been riding like that since:
Less than 2mi after job completed:
Sitting at 25.375" all the way around. Mind you, front fender arch apex sits higher on the car than rear. The FSM indicates and diagrams this in the suspension section. Looks pretty flat from the rear. Slightly more gap in the front vs rear:
I'll get close-ups of wheel well hardware with wheels removed after I tidy them up. Front calipers and rotors fill stock SE wheels nicely with room to spare:
Headlights soon (like, within days) complete restoration and bulb replacements, then front bumper cover comes off and goes into the trash to be replaced with a new one, then I will rent a booth and paint either the front clip for now, or the whole car, not sure yet, still processing that one. Probably just mix up a bunch of KT3 and get the whole thing over with at once.
very nice work man ! props for doing it all on your own ! hope the org helped you make the right choices and learn somethings ! i would look into some rear spacers to make that nice and flush, what height did you go with on the coils? if you get rubbing in the back look at the area in the rear wheel well where the bumper meets the quarter panel, you can shave down some of that plastic there to get clearance.
Had the page bookmarked just in case I'd need it after everything was finished. I haven't taken any lateral measurements yet but I'll get it on order and installed. I'll post to this thread.
very nice work man ! props for doing it all on your own ! hope the org helped you make the right choices and learn somethings ! i would look into some rear spacers to make that nice and flush, what height did you go with on the coils? if you get rubbing in the back look at the area in the rear wheel well where the bumper meets the quarter panel, you can shave down some of that plastic there to get clearance.
Thanks! It has been a lot of work. Not a fan of wheel spacers at all. I don't rub anywhere at my current ride height even over long dips at speed where I can feel a good amount of travel occurring in each corner. Despite the difference in gap between front and rear, I think I like the way it looks just as it is. I am very happy with the ride quality, and having 4" travel vs little to none is always a plus.
Was going to get rear rotors and pads on today after I woke up but the rain is relentless now. I just want to get them on so I don't have to hear pads rubbing on old rotors anymore. Been dealing with that faint dragging sound since I started driving the car. I'm working on replacing rear calipers (I ended up with two sets of refurbs for the price of one from Brakemotive on ebay) and tuning them to slide properly on the brackets to eliminate any sound at all. I replaced again the rear passenger but need to replace the driver rear again which I'll do when I can get to pads and rotors. Just a commonality with these rear calipers, I think, for them to bind. I found a ton of old threads on just this same issue. I'll get it all smoothed out soon.
Looks great, and definitely a fun project to tackle! I'd be paranoid to drive it and get all those pretty shiny parts dirty haha. And I know you touched on this subject already, but just FYI those axles won't last for crap at that ride height... I was considerably higher up than you on H-techs and my axles would last a couple thousand miles before vibrating like crazy. I have coilovers now and raised it about a finger width above the H-tech's ride height and all is well. In addition, your LCA angle will cause bump steer, which ultimately decreases handling ability on regular roads. Food for thought!
Looks great, and definitely a fun project to tackle! I'd be paranoid to drive it and get all those pretty shiny parts dirty haha. And I know you touched on this subject already, but just FYI those axles won't last for crap at that ride height... I was considerably higher up than you on H-techs and my axles would last a couple thousand miles before vibrating like crazy. I have coilovers now and raised it about a finger width above the H-tech's ride height and all is well. In addition, your LCA angle will cause bump steer, which ultimately decreases handling ability on regular roads. Food for thought!
Thanks for the heads up! The thing about these parts is just that, they'll stay clean! I'll pull wheels once in a while and give everything a once-over and be good to go til next time! Regarding vibration and bump steer: I haven't noticed any adverse handling issues (other than the harsh ride with the S Techs and old struts) since I started driving the car 6k miles ago. I went for my first long drive yesterday morning from Tampa to up north on Hwy 589 which is a relatively new, smooth surface express tollway. Lots of bridge transitions and swoops. The car handled beautifully ticking along at about 80mph the whole way. I was ecstatic! I took the tollway once in one direction 2 months ago when I had the S Techs and vowed never again until the coilovers were in. As far as vibration, I have little to no perceivable vibration with these axles which have 6k mi on them now, so we'll see. I'll update when the time comes and see how far we get with them. I have two spare sets ready to go as well, so if I get 20k mi out of them, I'll be happy. Can't say I'll leave the car at this ride height forever, either. Just having fun with it right now.
By the way, there's a nice, long, smooth stretch on this tollway where there's no place for cops to hide and you can see a good mile or two to scan for them, so I put the pedal down briefly and got up to 125mph before I shut it down. The car felt beautiful! No odd noises, vibrations or harshness. Just a smooth, quiet ride! With the AC blasting! Anyone know what these things are limited to? What kinda top speeds have you all seen?
why r you not a fan of spacers? more a purist? they still have some function to them you can def "feel" them, im sure bearings get a little more wear on them but nothing crazy, i will admit I probably got my rear bearing issues earlier than normal from spacers but only 120k miles later. again 120k miles later most people don't even hold onto one car that long.
and take note one LA02MAX's advice on the axles ! you might wanna raise that thing soon before many more miles. but on the other hand it looks like you don't mind working on these things =)
why r you not a fan of spacers? more a purist? they still have some function to them you can def "feel" them, im sure bearings get a little more wear on them but nothing crazy, i will admit I probably got my rear bearing issues earlier than normal from spacers but only 120k miles later. again 120k miles later most people don't even hold onto one car that long.
and take note one LA02MAX's advice on the axles ! you might wanna raise that thing soon before many more miles. but on the other hand it looks like you don't mind working on these things =)
Spacers serve no purpose for me. They are illogical to me in any aesthetic or practical application. I have taken note of LA02MAX's advice. I'm 6700mi on these axles on both S Techs and now BC coilovers and little to no vibration and no bump steer. Crossing my fingers it stays this way for a while
took payment right away then sat on my order for a week and a half. I contacted them this morning asking for tracking info. Their response was that they were in contact with one of their dealers who has them and it would ship out today and that they were sorry but they were all sold out. Well I've been around long enough to know that's a bunch of BS, so I insisted they immediately refund me, then gave them a couple of tips on how to run a business, like indicating whether or not your product is in stock on your website before accepting orders and taking people's money. They refunded me through PayPal, so god knows how long that will take to hit my account.
So does anyone know where I can get the QT adjustable link for the Maxima? Better yet, but highly doubtful anyone did the leg work even after 16 years, does anyone have schematics for or blueprints for a home-made control rod before I remove mine and build one myself in the event I can't just order it? Control rod bolt center to center is indicated in the FSM, so all I really need is bolt hole diameter and thread pitch if anyone has that. I'd rather build one I can adjust without having to remove anyway.
there was one other guy who made them, i gotta look for you he was around here. he made them for sentra's or something but they worked on our solid rear axle beam. but really i don't think its that important man ! i have been lowered for 11 years and never re-centered my beam. the difference is about 5mm side to side (i use spacers and can guess its around there from experimenting)
ultra racing makes a bar for that area too and i am tempted to try it but at this point in the game i don't mind leaving it alone, i still have my rear trailing arm poly bushings sitting around 3 years now because that is a pain in the but to swap out too.
Thanks for all the info! I got an email from TDMimports today informing me that they now have the QT link in stock. I haven't ordered it yet. Not sure what I'm going to do at this point.
As far as the panhard bar, that is a step backwards from our stock design. I understand the excitement, ingenuity and accomplishment of designing and building something, but a panhard bar is ancient tech and does not function as effectively as the control rod system on our cars.
I remember browsing through the ultraracing website a while ago but was never able to figure out how to order any of that stuff?
Thanks for all the info! I got an email from TDMimports today informing me that they now have the QT link in stock. I haven't ordered it yet. Not sure what I'm going to do at this point.
As far as the panhard bar, that is a step backwards from our stock design. I understand the excitement, ingenuity and accomplishment of designing and building something, but a panhard bar is ancient tech and does not function as effectively as the control rod system on our cars.
I remember browsing through the ultraracing website a while ago but was never able to figure out how to order any of that stuff?
ebay retailers, i have the side lower bars and absolutely love them ! whats weird in hindsight is after i put them on the back actually became more alive, i think because they are more connected to the front now in a way.
Thanks for the heads up! The thing about these parts is just that, they'll stay clean! I'll pull wheels once in a while and give everything a once-over and be good to go til next time! Regarding vibration and bump steer: I haven't noticed any adverse handling issues (other than the harsh ride with the S Techs and old struts) since I started driving the car 6k miles ago. I went for my first long drive yesterday morning from Tampa to up north on Hwy 589 which is a relatively new, smooth surface express tollway. Lots of bridge transitions and swoops. The car handled beautifully ticking along at about 80mph the whole way. I was ecstatic! I took the tollway once in one direction 2 months ago when I had the S Techs and vowed never again until the coilovers were in. As far as vibration, I have little to no perceivable vibration with these axles which have 6k mi on them now, so we'll see. I'll update when the time comes and see how far we get with them. I have two spare sets ready to go as well, so if I get 20k mi out of them, I'll be happy. Can't say I'll leave the car at this ride height forever, either. Just having fun with it right now.
By the way, there's a nice, long, smooth stretch on this tollway where there's no place for cops to hide and you can see a good mile or two to scan for them, so I put the pedal down briefly and got up to 125mph before I shut it down. The car felt beautiful! No odd noises, vibrations or harshness. Just a smooth, quiet ride! With the AC blasting! Anyone know what these things are limited to? What kinda top speeds have you all seen?
**I have had S-Techs on this 4th gen that was given to me back in 2011...And They ride great on the Texas highways in which I usually drive about 1000 miles a week if not more...I've always used AGX strut/shocks with this combo...and these struts were installed back in 2015 after running the original AGX's til the adjustment were nearly non functional...So I'm thinking it's has to do with you using weak *** factory struts/shock assemblies... My car is pushing 380K, I just installed ES poly LCA, sway bars, and end link bushing...I've never found the car to ride with any vibration, harshness (except Cold weather it a little firm), noises, the drop doesn't destroy my front wheel drive axles. They usually last 5-plus years. I'm running the Q45 dual piston front brakes assemblies, in which I chose the grind the torque members, and calipers for clearance, instead of machine the OD of the rotors! Everytime you change rotors they have to be machined, that's BS!!! You would enjoy a wider tire such as 235/45/17 on that stock rim, giving a even better tire contact patch...Nice work on the suspension pieces it'll give any shop a dropped jaw.**
**I have had S-Techs on this 4th gen that was given to me back in 2011...And They ride great on the Texas highways in which I usually drive about 1000 miles a week if not more...I've always used AGX strut/shocks with this combo...and these struts were installed back in 2015 after running the original AGX's til the adjustment were nearly non functional...So I'm thinking it's has to do with you using weak *** factory struts/shock assemblies... My car is pushing 380K, I just installed ES poly LCA, sway bars, and end link bushing...I've never found the car to ride with any vibration, harshness (except Cold weather it a little firm), noises, the drop doesn't destroy my front wheel drive axles. They usually last 5-plus years. I'm running the Q45 dual piston front brakes assemblies, in which I chose the grind the torque members, and calipers for clearance, instead of machine the OD of the rotors! Everytime you change rotors they have to be machined, that's BS!!! You would enjoy a wider tire such as 235/45/17 on that stock rim, giving a even better tire contact patch...Nice work on the suspension pieces it'll give any shop a dropped jaw.**
No doubt the stock struts were the culprit for the harsh ride. The fronts were just about bottomed out. It was only a temporary setup though, so no big deal. I'm a bit low, and do have an axle vibration, albeit faint and does not exist all the time. Hoping to get 10k out of them before I have to replace them. Interesting that you chose to grind the calipers and brackets. Would you happen to have any pictures of that work? What year Q45 and what rotors are you using? I opted to not go that route for structural reasons, even though it probably would not have been an issue. My machinist cut the rotors for $40 bucks, so I'm not really worried about cost. I do like the way it stops now though. Glass smooth and very easily.
05-31-2019, 09:36 PM
