one man. two cars.

zero cash.

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Easter 2019 project - Pt 1

Apr
14

So, a few weeks before the Easter break I set myself a deadline. Like most of the deadlines I set, I love the "whooshing" sound they make as they fly by, but my hopes were ambitious. May aim: to get the running gear and rear suspension removed, pulled down, reconditioned, and fitted back on the car. 

So I sat down and opened a new Google Sheet™ and crunched the numbers. I broke it all down into small, meal sized chunks - remove differential, remove moustache bar and control arms, remove struts, dismantle brakes etcetera, etcetera... and assigned time estimates to each task. I then tallied them up and I concluded that yes, techincally, it was achievable. In the back of my mind there were a few concerns, not least of all my exposure to four repair tasks that s30 owners fear and loathe more than just about anything. They are, in ascending order of peril:

  1. undoing and removing the staked nut on each stub axle
  2. pressing out the stub axles
  3. removing the spindle pins
  4. getting the spindle pin bushes out of the control arms

But there was one other potential fly in the proverbial: the need for cash.

That being said, there was a load of work I could get done without spending a cent, so that's where I began. I yanked the drums off and gave them a blast with some black sand, and a light coat of VHT Aluminium brake paint and clear over. I also pulled out the struts, lower control arms, moustache bar & mounts, and the differential unit. The diff had been quiet and smooth in the car, and I believed it to be in good order - but I did have a couiple of concerns. The main one was that as a factory automatic, the ratio was probably one of the high ones - probably a 3.54. The first bit of good news was that I confirmed it was an original R180 at least, and pulling the rear case off revealed a 39 tooth crownwheel. When I finally got access to the pinion, I counted ten teeth. So I counted again. And again. And again. Still ten. So I have a 3.9 R180. 

Happy days!

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