My island '74 710

[Will]

I went through few more tries, but I couldn't get the color to match - I tried with a different 710 picture too. I think the problem is that there is so much contrast in that Challenger picture - the green on the hood looks so bright and light compared to the way that the green appears much darker on the lower half of the body. The 710 pictures that I could find either wound up looking too bright (If I changed the color to match the hood) or too dark (If I changed the color to match the body side.)

 

I'll look through my folder of Datsun pictures again to see if I can find a close match of a 710 with a solid-colored paint with similar highlights, but first it's time to do my taxes!!

[datzenmike]

Thanks for the effort will. Maybe I'm just trying to capture something from my youth. It was a knockout color and really worked with the flat black hood, black vinyl roof, black tail stripe and the black with white raised letter Goodyears.

 

Will this page has examples and paint codes. Apparently Go Green was the same and used by Dodge (including my Dart) I saw it on another car and asked the guy what it was called. He said Sassy Grass Green which is the Chrysler/Plymoth name for the same color.

 

 

http://maxwedge.com/articles/highimpact.php

[datzenmike]

Well Canby's over so no money but long days and plenty of time for working on the girls. (and ratsun down) Mrs. d loves the ride and handling of my goon. It's lowered on Maxima struts, not that they handle any better, but I kept the 710 spring on them and I cut one coil off which raised the spring rate from around 100 lbs per inch to near 150. To increase the damping I replaced the strut oil, which looks like water it's so thin, to 20W motorcycle fork oil. The parts goon I have is a '77 with the newer brakes than the wedge shaped pads on the '74 so I'll mod these struts and keep the newer '77 calipers. Then just swap them in already prepared.

 

The sedan is very high in the front... looks like someone has taken the motor out. Perhaps the back has settled slightly and made it look worse but at any rate the front wheels are cambered out at the top and are noticeable to look at. Lowering a few inches should bring them in slightly too. As with the goon I will add an extra leaf at the back to firm the rear to match.

 

So... stock length struts and brakes, (although '77 instead of the '74s) adjustable ride height, increase spring rate, increased dampening... and I hope to do this for under $30.

 

 

My contraption for compressing the spring... Somewhat easier if you remove the caliper.

 

 

Pail of dirt and water for counter weight...

 

 

 

 

Loosen and remove the gland nut..

 

 

 

Slide the gland nut up and off. Be sure the strut is clean and free of burrs as there is a seal on the underside.

 

 

The insides will not come out easily unless you remove the O ring just below the threads inside the tube. I use a dental pick for this. Go easy on it and you can re-use it.

 

 

 

Gland nut underside and O ring.

 

 

Have a container handy to catch any oil. Only this much came out of two struts. I used about 2/3 liter to refill the Maxima struts. The FSM suggests about 325cc to fill one, so this seemed like quite a bit less to me. One of the struts could easily be compressed with light pressure before I took it apart. Maybe it was low. I do know that with 20W oil in them they were extremely firm to compress and open by hand requiring a minute or more to do so.

 

 

 

 

Lift the strut damper assy up and out. It looks like this..

 

 

Insides pulled out. Store all internal parts carefully in a clean place.

 

 

 

Trim around the top of the weld holding the lower spring perch.

 

 

Hammer loose and slip off the end of the strut.

 

 

I used a 6" angle grinder to remove the weld.

 

 

When smoothed down it should look like this and will allow the lower spring perch to slide lower down the strut tube.

 

 

As noted, the calipers should be removed first to make handling easier. I removed them last and polished the rotors, they are in good shape but the pads are really well worn and need replacing.

 

Here are the finished 710 struts needing only new oil. Instead of $17 Bellray fork oil I'm going with cheaper ATF to try it. It's also full of anti foam and rust inhibitors and somewhere between 15 and 20 weight I think. The last item are a set of $20 split collars to make these struts fully height adjustable.

 

 

As this car will be driven by my wife and she is unlikely to be using the full suspension travel and because the spring rate will be increased by 50% and the damping returned to like new, (or firmer) it's unlikely that lowering it 2-3" is going to bottom out the strut.

 

More as I continue.

.

[RedBanner]

Woot, I dropped my zx struts 2 inches, still have alittle ossitive camber, and the top hats dont allow room for slotting like the b's and dimes do, so camber plates or adj lca's It is,.

Id much rather get the top in than the bottom out.

 

[datzenmike]

My goon came with Moog camber plates. Someone told me that 710 were a PITA for camber problems from the factory and alignment shops hated them. The only answer were to add camber plates. When I installed the Maxima struts I used the 710 lower spring perch and top hats. Even jammed inward as far as possible the camber is just barely ok. Oh yeah any lowering will affect toe, so check it.

[RedBanner]

Thanks, toed out nearly a centameter? Huh.

[datzenmike]

OK, update for today. Assembled the modified struts with ATF and bled them. First few tries didn't work so well. It was stiff to extend yet easy to collapse the strut. Gave up on it and swapped in the strut contents from my old goon struts. Worked first try. The second one wouldn't work right as well, so I swapped the other stock goon guts in and eventually got it firm in both directions. The rotors are in great shape on these modified struts but the pads are the thickness of a dime. I'm swapping my old stock goon calipers and pads on. The '74 has the beveled (wedge) shaped pads like the 510??? The later '76s are more like the 620 for looks. My wife won't be driving that fast so all I want is a couple of inches lower and a firmer strut.

 

Springs. Well I looked at the old pieces I cut from my goon springs and looks like I may have cut more like 1 1/2 coils instead of 1 coil. I don't want the sedan to be as firm/stiff as the goon so ONE coil only cut off. Waiting for the split collars to come in and will try to do the swap this holiday weekend. I suspect that the front will be firmer more stable when done and the back springs too soft for them. Like the goon, I will modify and add an extra leaf.

 

The piece of spring on the left is how much I cut from my goon springs. The two on the right is what I now believe to be one coil.

 

 

This is the 710 top hat (upside down) with bottom finger pointing to where I should have used as the place where the spring begins to touch the top hat. One coil would be directly above this point where top finger is pointing. As you can see I cut the goon spring about 1/2 coil further around.

 

 

 

Using a spring rate formula I work out the stock spring to be 104 lbs / inch. My shortened goon springs are 135 lbs. / inch and my wife's sedan will be 123 lbs. / inch.

[datzenmike]

Well cleaned the '77 struts and painted them and the coils black. Swapped the calipers on after dismantling the pads and cleaning everything including the surface rust from the rotors. Now have to find my pickle fork.

 

[datzenmike]

Holy shit Haven't posted about my baby in 9 mos??? Well my wife drove her every day this past summer and we parked it before Christmas and put the Sundance on the road. I guess I did an oil change because I just checked and it's clear as honey. These cars never fail to amaze me....

 

I put the battery in and pumped the gas 3 times turned the key and half a turn... varoooom!!! Bloody hell!!! The driver's mirror glass fell out a week before it was due off the road so it's in being replaced. Had to wipe the fuzzy mold off the steering wheel from the dampness out here but other than that... ready to drive.

 

 

Oh yeah I have those rebuilt struts to swap in. I told Mrs D that when my goon is on the road she can drive it while I change them and lower the front. This will ensure it gets done in a timely matter because the last time I let her drive my car it was this one and I never got it back!!!!

[metalmonkey47]

Awesome to hear she's still rollin around Mike  :thumbup:

[datzenmike]

Oh hell yeah. Wife loves the attention she gets in it. Waves and thumbs up makes her day. It'll look so much better with the front down at least level. Hell you can see the slight positive camber on it.... lowering can only be good for it.

 

Wasn't anything to say about it all last summer... always started, always ran, always stopped, always uneventful. Oh, the muffler had a dime hole in it and I couldn't do a good job and rather than patching things on rusty pipes it went into a shop for a custom system. Did you know that was the original 39 year old muffler?

[Grahem]

good to hear its treating you well.

[datzenmike]

Grahem it just runs so well. I would drive it across Canada this afternoon.

[datzenmike]

Well I went to Canby and stopped off in Langley on the way through. Picked up some sweet rims and tires from a Realm member.

 

 

 

Look familiar? They should. You can see the same ones on my goon reflection. Good tires and balanced and new proper lug nuts. Woot!

 

 

With luck, tomorrow I will begin swapping the spare struts with the adjustable height in. They also have a different caliper, well slightly different when the 710 went to the L20B motor.

[ProjectFeint]

That is some crazy pos camber, gonna look great evened out!

[]2eDeYe]

Looks good :D

[datzenmike]

That is some crazy pos camber, gonna look great evened out!

.

The wheels are turned so it's more caster I think. In either case it's exaggerated by the wheel being turned slightly. 710 were known to be hard to align and often Moog camber plates were added to get them close camber wise. In either case my goon was also slightly positive camber but the Maxima struts and lowering made them slightly negative and I had to adjust. The sedan (above) is somewhat positive, just barely noticeable when looking from the front, but is also monster high and lowering it should bring the camber in. My goon was also high in the front... I don't know what makes them so high. It's like the motor has been removed... lol. Maybe the rear has sagged to make it look like this???

 

Was looking at it this morning and wow those rims really work on a dark color car. They look better than the same rims on my pale yellow goon.

[Eagle_Adam]

good to see this get bumped, lots of pics mike! ive gotta drop jessi's front end too 

[datzenmike]

Her front end is just fine as is.....

[Eagle_Adam]

Her front end is just fine as is.....

 

 

 

 

yes mike..... i like her titties too :P 

 

 

 

 

but in all seriousness, the GOONS front end needs lowered so i will be watching :D 

[datzenmike]

OK start with a '74 which had front discs somewhat like the 510s with wedge or angled pads. I'm 'up-grading to '77 struts from my parts goon.  Gees I can't get over how great a shape this car is. Look at that. It still has the spring to hold the flex line away from moving things.

 

 

Remove caliper and hang out of way, remove lower strut mounting bolts, remove tension rod bolts on LCA. They aren't in the way but it allows the LCA to droop down farther so you can uncouple the strut from it much easier. Make sure both wheels are off the ground and you won't have to undo the sway bar too.

 

A gentle pry down on LCA and pop.

 

Now I undo the three nuts on the strut tower and lift out.

 

 

I thought the '75 and up with L20B were just a caliper change but no. The '74 has a smaller rotor than the '77.

 

 

The '74 pad is wider but thinner top to bottom than the '77 which is more square somewhat like my '78 620 pad. I'll post some comparative caliper pictures tomorrow. The piston may be slightly larger also... which is fine as I had trouble with the stock master and went up one size making the pedal firmer.

 

The '77 strut went right in after adjusting the split ring as high as possible to support the lower spring perch. The spring has about one coil removed to firm them and ATF replacing the watery hydraulic oil that was in them. It may be me, but I think these will be coming out later and have 20W fork oil put in. The shock was not as firm as I like but Mrs D has the last say on this.

 

Once they are in I can use a hydraulic jack to compress the spring against the car's weight and adjust the split collar up higher.  Fuck coil overs. I did these for $25 worth of split collars and $8 for ATF.

 

 

Had some small problems with the flex line that won't be a problem on later struts. Instead of a spring to hold the line out of the way, later struts have a mount and c-clip welded to the strut side. Rather than keep the spring (which usually rust away after 4-5 years) I removed and modified a rear caliper flex line from an '02 Maxima. It uses a banjo fitting. Had to shorten the bolt about 1/8" so it didn't bottom out before sealing against the copper washers.

 

 

And is almost made for this... Line looks kinked but it's just the angle.

 

 

I went into town and bought a new (lost, again) 10mm brake line wrench so I wouldn't fuck up the fittings. Anyway this side is done I think, just have to turn the wheel and make sure no hose rubbing.

 

 

 

 

.

[RedBanner]

Slot your top hat mounts while your at It. If there 76 or later top hats they will have alittle offset built into the tophat stock. Make shure you check that there oriented the correct way on intalation.

[datzenmike]

I noticed that one of the three bolts up through the strut tower are longer than the other two? I oriented them to the middle.

 

I heard that too but, alas, didn't do or notice anything else.

[RedBanner]

Yes longer ones go to the inside, if you if you measure for the center youll see there offset toward the long bolt. My long bolts are the outer rears, I sacrificed alot of extra camber for just alittle extra castor.

[datzenmike]

... just pop the plastic cover off and look down???

Well watt dya know... It is!!!