mikey

Yikes, over a year since I've done anything on this! That's mostly because I have *no* garage which is a very sad state of affairs. Well, I have just done a little something, and I'm quite happy with it thanks. And also, working outside in the sunshine is actually awesome. I've never loved the factory rear drum brakes; I could never adjust them properly so the handbrake would work, but not drag. So I decided to do something about and do it for basically nothing. I was given some EL Falcon single-piston callipers, rotors and backing plates years ago. The backing plates were drilled out to the 240z bolt pattern, but I still had the rotors to drill. I didn't want to drive all around the place looking for a friendly engineer so I decided to do something really stupid... which worked surprisingly well. I cad'd up a template with the Ford and Datsun stud pattern, taped it to the rotor, centre punched and drilled. Came out radical. Started bolting everything up. The EL Falcon backing plate & rotor work perfectly with the backspacing from the 240z hub face, so the calliper simply bolts to the Falcon backing plate as normal. Then I pinched some longer flexible brake lines from Pick-a-part and made a bracket for the line. Neat! The handbrake bracket required some fiddle to bring it closer to the drum lever. Piece of piss man.

Such purdy weldings!

Dat bay. Oh my... Edit: accidental double post but yeah, tres bon innit

Dat bay. Oh my...

Heyo Fred, it is quite good fun scaring the bejezus out of people in the car. Glad you enjoyed it! I've not had any more thoughts re DIYEFI; life has been getting in the way of projects. And now we're moving house and I have no garage! Also you can get the relevant part of the 350z manual here: https://files.ignitiondigital.co.nz/owncloud/index.php/s/3sJVnH7GynHomRH The password is your OS username.

Well that worked out well! I've just been for the first ever hoon in this car with NO driveline vibration. Like ZOMG stoked. 240z's are renowned for vibrations as the diff is set too far forward in the car so the axles have to bend in two axes; up-down and front-back. Datsun fixed this in the 260z by moving the diff farther back. So no amount of replacing UJs or making new diff mounts ever seemed to help. Until now! And I hate replacing UJs anyhow so it's great to get rid of them, and get a much stronger axle. The axles all clipped together and went for a burn out west and it mostly went sweet. There's a couple of little niggles; one of the old Commie CV's is leaking and a steel band popped off another. Also hard on the gas in tight left-handers I think something is interfering with the axle.

I've been researching a new axle conversion, and have been collecting some parts. I've heard of people using these axles but not this combination before. This is where I'm at: On the right is the stock 240z axle with the twisted Wolf Creek R180 side axles. And on the left is the 4 cylinder D21 axle with factory inner CV and a VX Holden Commodore outer CV. The side axle is from an S14 I think and plugs straight into my R180 diff. If I measure the length from the side axle circlip groove to the outer face of the CV/UJ flange the stock axle is 489mm and the Terrano one is 458mm which means I have 31mm to play with without being any worse off. I had no binding issues in the past - i think, guys running R200 diffs might struggle thou. The Commodore CV is a knock off of a 108mm Porsche 930 CV, and they use it on the big heavy V8s so it must be solid. So now all I need to do is mate the Commodore CV to the 240z companion flange. There're two options: These adapters which are a measly $92USD Or these replacement companion flanges which are a whopping $700USD I'm trying to do this on the cheap so I'm going to order the adapters. I have the 240z 25-spline stub axles anyhow so the companion flange wont work, but if in future I upgrade to the 280z stub axles then it's an option. If this works out I've managed to convert to CVs for really cheaps: D21 Axles: $200 Commodore CVs: $60 Adapters: $200-ish YAY

After swapping in my new axle I was getting hella shakes around 70kph, so on Sunday I went in search of the cause and found I had two twisted side axles Butts. I'm not 100% sure if it's the cause but it can't be good and I'm not gonna piss about with it. So now I'm gonna convert to CVs and rear disc brakes while I'm at it. I have a plan for the discs but not so much for the CVs, I'm gonna track down some OEM side axles that're compatible with my diff and then some short axles and will have to make an adapter for my companion flanges. Here's a few radical photos MichaelJFox took from the drag day:

So yeah, the Oldschool drag day today was dope! I didn't do great times; worse than last year. But the LSD was sweet and I did 2nd gear skidz up the strip which was awesome. I was having so much fun I monged out and snapped an axle during my staging skid trying to grab 2nd gear. But as luck would have it I had some similar Datsun axles in my shed and managed to cobble together a complete axle, so I'm back up and running, JEAH! The one in the middle is the one I made out of the broken one and one similar to the bottom one.

I AM JUST SO PUMPED. GIZ

Super excited about the ECU man. I've been poking around the DYIEFI site on and off for ages keeping an eye on things. YAY

Loving your work! Geez I love watching people replace rust. Oh aaaand, regarding sealing that patina, I use this http://www.bunnings.com.au/flood-4l-penetrol-paint-additive-_p1566568 I know it says it's a paint additive but if you brush it over your rusty bits it dries hard and clear and seals the paint, it is a little shiny thou. It's often used as a rust sealer but doesn't actually treat the rust, just seals it. I believe it's better than clear coat because supposedly the rust fucks the clear coat. I've used it on industrial firniture and old bikes.

WHY NO UPDATE

You're welcome to the axles, they're just taking up valuable space. And gimme ya email and I can send you the drawings I have for the brake brackets. Keep in mind I've not actually used the drawings to make any brackets from. This chap used it as a starting point and CNC'd some thou: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/43593-datsun280zs-datsun-280z/?p=1323846

Sweet, I have some supposedly shortened S15 axles if they're any use to you? They're 27 spline I assume? I was gonna do something with them but they look too long too me and it all got too hard. I even designed some 3x2 CV to 4x1 adapters I was gonna get CNCd. Yeah, my rear end makes some pretty funny noises too. I kinda hoped swapping the diff mount etc would sort them all out but there's still the occasional clunk when going from standstill. Just another thing on the very long list!