dimlight65 Posted May 24 Report Posted May 24 (edited) So I was thinking about that front sway bar I made (I made/I had made... to-may-to/to-mah-to), specifically this picture... and I says to myself, "Self, we could 'Colin Chapman' this thing by making that sway bar do the job of the T/C rods too." A pair of sleeves to thread the non-Heim joint Heim joint thingies onto the ends of the bar, and then mount the bar to the frame normally. Then I remembered that I HATE when the sway bar doubles as the T/C rods. AND it would eliminate one of the "Cool Features" (AKA "Bullshit Excuses") of this design: being able to "easily" remove it for articulation. So, yeah... we won't be doing that. Edited May 24 by dimlight65 2 Quote
dimlight65 Posted May 24 Report Posted May 24 On 5/16/2026 at 3:25 PM, dimlight65 said: I am 99.28734165% sure it is centered and that is a camera artifact. No, it was about 1/2" off somehow. John elongated the holes while I removed the front sway bar for paint. With the spoiler centered better, we started discussing end plates. What began as a joke, turned into a CAD template... which we liked enough to temporarily install the trunk lid... and see how it looked in situ... another copy of the CAD file was made... Oh yeah, I really like this. We're trying to decide on material now, fiberglass, carbon fiber, Lexan, or that black plastic we use for damned near everything at our shop. Stay tuned! 2 Quote
dimlight65 Posted May 30 Report Posted May 30 On 5/9/2026 at 4:21 PM, dimlight65 said: We're going to paint it and the rear bar gold to "match" the T/C rods and rear control arms Which is what we did today. Front bar... and rear bar... New hardware for the mounts should arrive Monday, so they'll go back on the car next Saturday. 1 Quote
Guest Posted May 31 Report Posted May 31 I gotta say, those arm rests look pretty nice in gold, too! 🙂 Nice job! Quote
dimlight65 Posted May 31 Report Posted May 31 I've had a couple pairs of 620(?) mud flaps kicking around the shop for several years... So I gave them a test tickle to see if they might work on here... Hmm... promising. Ah, but there's a problem... The mounting holes are about 4" away from any metal of the car. Ok, a quick trip to the Home Depots got me a hunk 'o metal... off of which I cut a smaller hunk... only gashing my hand a little bit... That smaller bit 'o metal was bent... and drilled... to mount the flap... a couple more holes were drilled... and bolts were zooked in to make it a "One Me" installation... With the flap bolted back in place... I stepped back for a look-see... Ok, it's a little crooked, I think I can fix that. Let's pop the wheel back on... Kinda close, but doable. Oh, wait... Yeah, that's just not going to work, is it? I forgot that we widened the track that much. John and I will grok it some more next weekend but I'm afeared this was a waste of time. We'll see. 1 Quote
Guest Posted May 31 Report Posted May 31 Those flaps are pretty cool, either way. I never seen those before.. Quote
iceman510 Posted June 1 Report Posted June 1 If those fit a 620, I'll buy them from you...pretty please. Quote
dimlight65 Posted June 6 Report Posted June 6 We remounted the freshly gold painted sway bars today. Front... and rear... The rear fought us pretty hard because of the way all of the bushings and brackets had to align at weird angles... Oh, and someone had to go and buy some sort of "Super Kryptonian" nylock nuts and really long bolts which were a real PITA. Then we had a look at how to mount the high lift jack... After a test tickle, we decided we liked this spot. Two of the "roofies" were removed from the roof rack and marked for holes... Those were drilled out... to look like this... I know y'all are never going to believe me (because I wouldn't believe me either), but they are off center to align the brackets with the holes in the jack. Said brackets went on and the "Roofies" were reinstalled... The jack then goes on thusly... And I think it turned out pretty nice... We have a plan for fixing the mud flaps. So apologies to Iceman510, as it looks like we'll be using them after all. 4 Quote
Dguy210 Posted June 7 Report Posted June 7 Hmm, I hadn't actually known you could mount the swaybar to the strut rods in the front. This gives me some ideas to solve some engine swap issues with the sway bar I had. 3 Quote
dimlight65 Posted June 7 Report Posted June 7 21 minutes ago, Dguy210 said: Hmm, I hadn't actually known you could mount the swaybar to the strut rods in the front. This gives me some ideas to solve some engine swap issues with the sway bar I had. We just replicated what the factory did on the rear of the S110 200SX. We don't actually know if it is going to work... it should, but we don't know for a fact yet. 2 Quote
iceman510 Posted June 8 Report Posted June 8 On 6/6/2026 at 4:05 PM, dimlight65 said: So apologies to Iceman510, as it looks like we'll be using them after all. No worries guys. 😉 1 Quote
datsunfreak Posted June 8 Author Report Posted June 8 On 6/6/2026 at 9:49 PM, dimlight65 said: We just replicated what the factory did on the rear of the S110 200SX. We don't actually know if it is going to work... it should, but we don't know for a fact yet. I have the utmost confidence due to the fact that we are basically using attachment points that are extremely close to the factory attachment points. If anything, this should/could make the bar stiffer since we have moved said points slightly closer to each other. And like he said, this is how the factory rear bar works for the S110. And the scientifically accurate "see how easy it is to rock the car from side to side" test proved fruitful. 😁 2 Quote
dimlight65 Posted June 13 Report Posted June 13 So, when we last left our intrepid (or is it "insipid"?) heroes, the mud flap needed to move down a bit and rotate. New bracketry was mapped out... and made... The driver's side turned out ok, so it was hit with paint... and we moved on to the passenger side. That bracket needed to be bent the opposite direction (essentially making both identical rather than mirror images)... As Juan can see, we heated and rebent it. It went in and got painted as well. The final results... and from a distance... I think they turned out ok. So, of course we're thinking of making bigger ones to actually cover the whole tire and be truly effective rather than affective... as in, just an affectation... sort of thing. We'll see. 2 Quote
dimlight65 Posted June 14 Report Posted June 14 The battery master kill switch key... has a little lanyard on it. But I don't want it just hanging... when the car is parked. So I made a little hook... on the dash... to hang it... It didn't warp up the top as bad as the pictures make it appear. I promise. Yes, the lanyard will be pinched in the weather stripping, but it was going to be tossed inside and pinched like that anyway. Now there's a dedicated location for the key. As a bonus, it will be right there in front of my face when I am all strapped in after forgetting to turn it on. Quote
dimlight65 Posted June 14 Report Posted June 14 Since I am a serial post whore, I am doing this as a separate post. Juan might recall that I made an oil sump skid plate out of the catalytic converter heat shield from the Dajiban. It can be seen here... It was designed so that removal of two wing bolts at the rear allowed it to swing down to (almost) allow access to the oil drain plug. Unfortunately, the wicked cool Dimlight Racing Patent Pending front sway bar... is in the way. So, with a heavy heart (because it meant removing the one piece of the Dajiban on this project), I decided to remove it... I sat back and had a look at the now nekkid front end... and said, "Yeah, that's just not going to work for me." I hung it back up by the rear wing bolts and determined that with a slight bend, I could re-mount it lower... and it would clear the bar... As an added bonus, it now swings down a little further and is much more... almost out of the way for oil changes! 3 Quote
dimlight65 Posted June 27 Report Posted June 27 (edited) One of these days, we will get around to finishing the paint and body work... this was not that day. The other day, John and I were discussing how the Yokohama Geolandars (I still hate how Yoko spells that, BTW) that I have are almost aggressive enough for me, and how I wish BFGoodrich made the All Terrain T/As in a size that fit. He reminded me that I have these 195/75-14 BFGs... kicking around since... well, I'm not going back in this thread to see when I bought them, but look at the cobwebs. And he has a set of 14" steelies... that might clear the calipers. So, we yanked a front wheel off and gave it a go... and the answer is, yes... They will fit and clear the calipers. So, we might stick these aged-out, but not dry-rotted (they have never been outside in sunlight) tires on these steelies for car shows, and use the 15" Yokos for real world driving. And we might not. Edited June 27 by dimlight65 3 Quote
dimlight65 Posted July 12 Report Posted July 12 I bought a pair of gas struts to supplement the springs on the trunk. Of course I just realized I never took any pictures of the struts before installing one. Oh well, here's where I installed it... and with the lid closed... But while I was trying to see if it was going to to work, this bastard... jumped me when I wasn't looking... It bled like a scalp wound does and finally stopped. I decided I'd had enough of the shop after that. 2 Quote
dimlight65 Posted July 13 Report Posted July 13 21 hours ago, Rustbin said: OW! Pad that thing with pool noodles, pain hurts. Naw, it still has to bite John at least once and me another time before we will take action. 2 Quote
dimlight65 Posted September 20 Report Posted September 20 (edited) I finally finished installing that gas strut on the deck lid. First, I had a gyro... then I drove to Lowe's to pick up some rivet nuts... Lowe's doesn't carry rivet nuts. Oh, that's right, I got them at Harbor Freight! Drove there... Harbor Freight doesn't carry replacement rivet nuts. I sat in the parking lot and googled "rivet nuts." Summit Racing has a 100 pack of 1/4-20 rivet nuts. I drove to Grand Prairie. Summit Racing doesn't have rivet nuts. Well, ok, they have one less bag of rivet nuts now... At the shop, I loaded up the nut setter with a rivet nut... jammed it into its hole... and set the rivets... Then, I performed the major faff installation of the strut... Trunk open... Trunk closed... And if it turns out that one strut isn't going to be strong enough, I have another I can install on the other hinge. Now, we just have to keep me from moving forward with putting rack and pinion steering on the Dajiban until more progress is made on this project! Edited September 20 by dimlight65 3 Quote
]2eDeYe Posted September 27 Report Posted September 27 All caught up 😄 Be careful out there 🙂 1 Quote
dimlight65 Posted September 27 Report Posted September 27 5 hours ago, ]2eDeYe said: All caught up 😄 Be careful out there 🙂 LOL, I have been laughing at all the alerts when you "Liked" a post.🤣 1 Quote
dimlight65 Posted October 4 Report Posted October 4 You might remember how the mudflaps we installed... didn't really cover the tires. So we got some bigger ones... Which I think are going to be a lot better... That was a scrap piece for tasting porpoises. The real deal will have the corners rounded off. The previously invisible metal brackets will also get trimmed to a more pleasing shape. Stay tuned. 1 Quote
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