blue72's $200 '70 510 Project

[blue72]

I'll definitely look into re-jiggering that wiring again, thanks Hainz! Even the DQ article didn't have that particular piece of info about the +12 wiring.

 

May 24^th I bolted the front seats down to the floor, installed my spare 240Z choke cable (the car starts up so much nicer now), replaced a broken interior door handle, test fit some 280Z window channel felt and installed a new low-beam halogen headlight. After fishing out some giant (thankfully unoccupied) hornet nests inside the inner rocker I finally began welding again.

 

 

Had to re-adjust one bend (I was about 1/4” off) in this piece, and add the very bottom bend, so three total in this one panel. Sadly I only got some spot welds in place before running out of wire.

 

 

Seems plenty of wildlife wants to call my 510 home, because two winters ago a cat tried taking up residency before I served it a rude eviction notice. Around this time I also bought new windshield wipers, three fuel filters, MOOG HD sway bar ends and a new water temperature sensor. I also ordered the correct PCV hose from Courtesy Nissan and its currently on backorder. Replacing the coolant temperature sensor didn't solve the problem of my gauge not registering anything (even though the fuel gauge works fine and the wires are hooked up), so I'll be looking into that one further. I did check all the lights, and the only ones that don't currently work are the brake lights because the switch disintegrated some time ago.

 

I discovered a slow coolant leak at the water pump weep hole, so that'll need attention. Struggling with the decision on whether or not I should just swap it all out to a Z car water pump, pulley and fan. I actually have an early ZX water pump and pulley with a late ZX clutch fan all ready to go. While I'd been taking care of that coolant leak at the thermostat housing, it turned out that I broke the lower t-stat housing by simply tightening one of the bolts. I'll need a picture to show how that happened. Turns out that particular piece is NLA from Nissan.

 

A local guy I know here has a turbo S130 he's parting out and I'd been eyeballing it for a number of months now, but when I finally had the cash to approach him about buying some suspension bits he'd already sold the front spindles to someone out of Vegas. He's also planning on using the rear disc brakes on his 240Z. I never did go back and get the spindles from that '79 ZX in the junkyard back in 2009 and it has long ago been crushed. I just kept being foiled in my search for ZX strut swap stuff.

 

May 31^st I had to get some more welding wire. I also took the driver's side door off and pounded the hinge area out a little straighter than it had been but still far from perfect. Then I ran new washer fluid hose on the Z and the 510.

 

The photo doesn't show it well, but this was before all the hammer work:

 

On the 8^th of June I bought a car. A 1983 280ZX to be specific. It was a little less than two hours away, so I hooked up the car hauling trailer to my Suburban and we got on the road.

 

On the way back:

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It didn't have an engine, hood or windshield (the no windshield thing made it act like a giant air brake on the freeway). I couldn't have cared less about those things though. I wanted me some front spindles and rear disc brakes, plus, the no-name 14” aluminum slot wheels will probably wind up on one of my Dattos. I'm always getting foiled on finding matching sets of wheels for my 510 though. I have ten 13” steel wheels and I think two of them might match each other. I only have one of the original steelies that my dogdish hubcaps fit. I have a pair of iron cross wheels with 205/70-14 tires, so they don't fit the 510 and are currently on the rear of my 240Z (which is how the wheels and tires from my Z wound up on the 510 for now). I was kinda excited to finally have a matching set of wheels for it when I bought the 280ZX. Then, when pulling them off I noticed that three of them are 14x6 from an unknown manufacturer and one is a 14x5.5 Western wheel. Aaaarrrgggg.

 

Two weeks later and the ZX was starting to look pretty well stripped:

 

And I had extracted my prize:

 

Amazingly, one side still has Nissan brake pads. Its the corner with the mismatched wheel and tire, so I wonder if something happened that necessitated replacement of some components. I'll clean and rebuild these puppies, replace the lower spring perches and slap them on my 510 soon. Then it'll be time to look into making a bracket for those rear disc brakes.

 

[blue72]

I knew there was a wheel hiding somewhere under all that grime and corrosion.

 

 

This is a seriously tedious and time consuming operation. Using steel wool, two grits of sandpaper (320 and 600) and some Brasso together with about 3 hours of elbow grease got me one polished wheel. If the end result wasn't so shiny I'd consider putting off doing the others until I forgot just how much work it takes.

 

Also got my SU specific PCV hose today.  On the left we have 11828-23002 for the original downdraft carb and on the right is 11828-22001 for the SSS carbs:

[Mirrorimg]

That wheel looks great all cleaned up!

[fisch]

This is a great thread. Has a bit of everything for us including sheet metal repair, which I love to see.

[whitedatsun]

nice proyect!! more pics!!!

[blue72]

It turns out both sides still had their original Sumitomo pads. The ZX I bought had been driven until nothing was left of the front brake linings. At least the rear pads still have a decent amount of friction material left and their rotors aren't gouged out like the fronts were.

 

 

So I now needed to buy some new front rotors and pads. I also ordered some 2” ID split collars and shock oil so that as soon as the parts arrived it would be time to slap a few things together. Follow along as I break down the basic (non coilover) ZX strut swap step by step.

 

Step 1: Remove the strut / spindle assemblies from both cars. Did the ZX in my last post. I elected to use my pickle fork to separate the ball joints and tie-rod ends while everything was still bolted to the car.

 

Step 2: Unbolt the ball joints and steering arms (AKA steering knuckles) if you haven't already. The ZX arms are shorter and therefore have a quicker steering ratio. Rumors I didn't bother to verify say that they don't have the right taper to mate exactly with the 14mm style 510 ball joints even though they do fit in the hole and seat just fine. The ZX ball joint is physically taller than the 510 one so mounting a ZX arm on a 510 ball joint squashes the dust boot down flat and leaves very little clearance between the two. The ZX steering arms put the steering tie rod connection at a different angle as well. Another thing they do is decrease the track width by 3/8” each because the strut mount is shifted slightly inboard of the ball joint, whereas the 510 arms have it offset to the outside of the car. What I'm saying is that reusing the stock 510 steering arms is probably better. The ZX ball joints have a three hole bolt pattern and aren't compatible with 4 bolt pattern 510 lower control arms, so it doesn't really work out to try it that way either.

The 510 arms in those two photos are the 11mm early style ones.

 

Step 3: Remove the upper spring perches, springs, bearings and top-hats. I use a cheap spring compressor from Harbor freight that I threw some upgraded hardness nuts on because the originals stripped out after only four uses. They were only used to change the rear strut inserts on my 240Z and put new springs on my brother-in-law's Pontiac, but that's all the life they had to give. Not that I'm surprised. Anyway, with the spring compressed, loosen the top nut with a 17mm socket and the whole assembly will pull right off.

 

Step 4: Remove the gland nuts, o-rings and strut cartridges. I used a big pair of pliers to grip the gland nut while holding the strut housing solidly in place with a pry-bar.

Pour old oil out of strut housing if necessary.

 

Step 5: Using a hacksaw or angle grinder with a cut-off wheel, slice through the bottom of the lower spring perches. Be very, very careful that you only penetrate through the stamped piece of sheetmetal that makes up the spring perch. Do not cut into the strut housing. The perches should only need some gentle taps from a hammer to remove.

 

Step 6: Grind down the leftover weld bead so that the 510 lower spring perch can slide down the strut housing once it is removed from the 510 strut housing.

 

Step 7: Throw or trade away the ZX lower & upper spring perches and springs. Keep the top-hats. The ZX strut top bearings can be kept too if the original 510 bearings aren't any good.

 

Step 8: Cut down the outer circumference of the ZX top-hats so that they'll fit inside the 510 strut towers. This will get the car 1/2” lower to the ground compared to re-using the 510 top-hats.

 

Step 9: Clean up and paint the ZX strut housings. Its nice to have some shiny parts.

 

Step 10: Inspect, clean and repack the wheel bearings. If worn, pitted or chipped then replace them. This is also where I threw on my new brake rotors.

 

Step 11: Attach the 510 lower spring perches to the ZX struts. Welding is a permanent and sturdy option, but if some height adjustability is wanted then buy a pair of 2” inside diameter two-piece split collars. These particular ones are rated to hold 6,200 lbs each when the recessed bolts are properly torqued to 340 in/lbs. Also be aware that a decently long hex socket is needed to reach deeply recessed bolts like the ones on the split collars I bought.

 

Step 12: After sliding the 510 lower spring perches onto the 280ZX strut housings, replace the strut inserts, o-rings and gland nuts. Now is a good time to switch to stiffer motorcycle shock oil (275 ml each side) if keeping the 280ZX's Tokico originals or just go ahead and buy some outright replacements.

 

Step 13: Compress the 510 springs and mount them. Top with the 510 upper spring perches, bearings and ZX top hats then tighten the nut to the recommended torque. Go ahead and double check to make sure everything so far is torqued properly.

 

Step 14: Throw those puppies in the car! Just remember to switch them from right to left so that the calipers are now facing the front of the vehicle. This way the calipers won't hit the outer steering tie-rod ends. 510 flexible brake hoses thread right into the ZX calipers, so no worries there.

 

43 year old original hardware:

 

Newer ZX hardware.  The whole assembly looked to be sitting up higher in the chassis.

 

That's it. Now I've swapped for 0.8” larger, vented brake discs and bigger pads together with larger spindles / wheel bearings and some height adjustability built in. Remember that this modification pulls the wheels inward by 3/4” on each side (or 1 1/8” each if the decision was made to use the 280ZX steering arms). Also, the 280ZX strut inserts are 1.5” shorter than 510 parts. Together with using the trimmed down ZX top-hats, and based on everything I read before doing this swap, I figured that the front of my 510 should be 2” closer to the ground than when I started. I was anticipating doing some research into RCAs or a repositioning of the LCA mount on the crossmember to keep the geometry happy.

 

I had to put my 14” wheels on the front of the car now because the 13s I'd been using as placeholders were nowhere near close to fitting post ZX swap. The difference in diameter between 155/78-13 and 195/60-14 is only 0.4” inches, so I was ready to notice a significant drop on the front. I lowered the car down and pushed it back and forth a few times down the driveway as well as bouncing the suspension up and down a bit to level things out. Hmmm... it sure didn't look any lower in front.

 

Before:

After:

 

I had positioned my shaft collars so that the lower spring perches sat at the exact same height they had before being switched around. My measurements (from concrete to lower seam on rocker) before the swap were 7 15/16” on the driver side with +0.8º camber and 8 5/8” on the passenger side with -0.6º camber. After the swap, the car leveled out a bit from right to left, but still sat with over 8” of air under the front of the rocker seams and about +1º of camber on each side. Looks like those lower spring perches need to come down a bit.

 

After sorting out the front ride height, I'll need to save some funds to lower the rear of my 510 cheaply yet properly. I'm thinking D50 springs with Camaro shocks and some slotting of the crossmember. Should do the trick nicely.

 

I also replaced all the steering tie-rod ends while in the middle of having everything apart and inspected my lower control arm bushings.

 

 

In all, the 510 had one ball joint and one tie-rod end that were completely shot. None of the original joints had rubber boots left at all, so it was only a matter of time before the others lunched themselves too.

 

 

I'll still need some new T/C rod bushings and steering idler bushings too eventually.  While inspecting and touching things I found out that the steering box bolts aren't tight and the whole thing can wiggle around.  Good thing I was underneath looking around.

[blue72]

The ride height had to come down. I wound up lowering the front spring perches by 1.5” which shouldn't present any problems when combined with the 1.5” shorter ZX strut inserts.

 

 

The distance now from the pavement to the lower rocker seam in front is exactly 7” on each side while the camber has been reduced to +0.3º. I'll either need to buy some camber plates or offset control arm bushings and then I can set the toe. Last week I installed some front LCA camber bushings on my 240Z and for the first time used the parallel string and jackstands method to set the toe on it. Took me two whole hours to figure it out after second guessing myself repeatedly. Doing it again for the 510 should go much faster. Today I also had the crusty old tires removed from those ZX slot mag wheels to be ready to swap the tires from my Z onto them.

 

 

These 14x6 no-name aluminum wheels weigh a whopping 13 lbs. each. Hopefully sometime next week I can stop holding up my dime with 13” steel wheels and ancient tires that barely hold air.

 

The other thing I did recently was to measure how much room I had between the engine block and radiator. Since my original L16 water pump needs replacement, I had figured I could switch the whole pump/pulley/fan assembly for an L28 setup (pump/pulley/clutch fan) I happen to have laying around. Turns out the L28 assembly is nearly 1.5” too long to fit in that space. Time to try and find a Paraut pump with cast impeller for my L16 it looks like.

 

[blue72]

Aha! Now I have two of the tires mounted & balanced.  I bought a pair of 205-70/R14s for the Z, so now the 195/60/R14s from it can live out the remainder of their days on my 510.

 

 

It does a much better impression of a functional vehicle with the right wheels and tires on. The rears could use a better offset (these are 0) but they won't rub on the fender lips no matter how much I smash the rear suspension down.  Might be a different story when I lower the rear to match the front, but I hope not.

 

Got started on roughing out my rear disc brake brackets too. Happened to have an old 1/4” thick transfer case skidplate just laying around outside.

 

[blue72]

Well now, woujalookithat.

 

[blue72]

Over the last two weeks I've finished trimming down and mocking up the brake brackets and finally got them bolted in their ultimate positions on the car. The final picture of my last post was only a mockup with the passenger side bracket tacked together. I had to thin the spacer between the two plates down and double check that the bracket angles were good and the calipers sat in juuuuuuust the right spots. The edges where each piece met were ground at 45 degree angles to aid with weld penetration and then thoroughly wire-wheeled for maximum cleanliness. Then I made a few passes with my welder on its highest power setting.

 

 

I found four high strength, longer than stock matching bolts to secure the brackets while digging through my bucket-o-random-clean-metric-hardware. The ZX backing plates required some steady handed trimming to not interfere with either the calipers or brackets.

 

 

They are secured at the bottom with two of the original drum backing plate retaining bolts. Of course, in order to remove the old drum backing plates I had to pull the stub axles (remove nut with the biggest 1/2” impact gun I own, drive out axle with brass punch) and then reinstall them and tighten the nuts to 200 ft-lbs and re-stake them in place. Because the ZX backing plates were modified to fit, they can now be removed without pulling the stub axles. That alone made mockup go quite a bit quicker.

The calipers were switched from right to left because the DQ article says that this will help the parking brake hardware more easily clear other components. I painted my new brackets after the final welds had cooled. When the paint dried they went on the car.

 

 

Then on went the rotor, which turned out to be a tight interference fit.

 

 

And finally the caliper itself.

 

 

I removed the original rear hardlines and substituted the ZX ones instead. They were factory coated and the existing curves were straightened and then re-contoured easily by hand.

 

 

Next will be to transplant the ZX parking brake cables and plumb in the ZX proportioning valve so that everything works in harmony. I also want to add some sort of extra bracket to help hold up those hardlines.  Then I'll be swapping out the early ZX master cylinder for a late ZX master cylinder for reasons which will hopefully make some sense in the future. I also bought the Experimental Engineering ilder arm Delrin/stainless kit because my original rubber bushings were fairly gone. Since my idler is still OEM it should go together easily.

[blue72]

Unbolted the brake hose holders from the ZX rear trailing arms, cut them in half and welded them to the backs of the shock mounts on my 510 trailing arms.

 

 

Should keep them from wiggling around and getting caught up in the halfshafts. After that I tightened all the rear lines and moved on to the engine bay. It was time to test out a theory.

 

I knew that the disc/disc ZX setup necessitated a 15/16” master cylinder. In fact, I already had one on the car, a rebuilt early ZX Nabco unit with the vertical bolt pattern that I used to replace the worn stock 3/4” unit. That much worked fine already, until I installed the SSS carbs and bought the matching air cleaner housing to go with it. Suddenly, my perfectly functional BMC didn't jive with the air cleaner. When I bought the '83 ZX for parts, I noticed that its master cylinder, aside from also being a 15/16” size, had the bleed ports pointing away from the engine. I figured that every last little bit of extra clearance would help. I bought a whole new late ZX master, just to get a reservoir that wasn't sun damaged. The main difficulty, however, was going to be overcoming the horizontal mounting pattern.

 

I pulled the early ZX master and the 510 mounting bracket. After some careful measuring I punched a couple of new holes in it with the drill press then pounded the special knurled bolts through them from the backside.

 

 

Back on the car, I learned that the bolt heads made the plate sit proud of the firewall instead of flush. I didn't want to have to drill huge holes in the space behind the plate to clear the bolt heads (especially because the holes would have gone straight through the back of the pedal box). Instead I cut down a different pair of bolts that were the same thread pitch, then carefully welded them on the backsides so that the plate could rest flat against the firewall. This simultaneously solved one problem whilst revealing another. Turns out that the two top mounting holes for the plate itself interfered with the body of the master cylinder.

 

 

After a little quality time spent making friends with the die grinder, we were in business.

 

 

As far as I know, this car is now part of a very exclusive group. A left hand drive, US market 510 with SSS carbs, unmolested OEM air cleaner housing and a dual circuit brake master cylinder. And all I had to do was swap over the entire braking system from a 280ZX to make it work!

No really, that is a big part of the reason for all this ZX swapping nonsense, just to fit a $20 air cleaner I bought from another Ratsun member instead of letting it take up space on my shelf.

It has decent clearance, but is completely ridiculous because both the BMC and the ignition coil have to be unbolted and pushed out of the way just to remove or replace the filter. Still, it works for now so I don't see any reason to change anything for the time being. Next week I'll bench bleed the master, swap out the proportioning valve and hopefully purge all the air from the rest of the system.