nissangirl74 wrote:I love this thread. OK, so it's going to paint. Any clue what that color is gonna be or are you gonna let the painter pick it?

*I can't wait until you get a weight on yours. I want to get mine weighed as well so we can compare at the end.*

Also, next time you come to AZ, stop by. Bella is done. We can take her for a spin.

Jim (the painter) and I are going over the paint chips now . I might get out your way this winter, and a spin in Bella would be awesome . Hopefully, I can return the favor in Carlisle and you can have your way with Betzy.

Update

Got Betzy dropped off at Jim's place. It was pouring down rain and she got a wash on the way. I guess it beats snow. What a way to end the year.

It's hard to take pictures as Jim had all the lights on. We went over a bunch of details and he has a pretty good idea of what I want.







Ever notice that the fridges in paint shops always have flame jobs



That's it for now. They are starting on it tomorrow.

Gord

I stopped by to get the front bumper. I have to ship it out to get it restored. The car is pretty well stripped down to nothing.



Jim is really happy about how solid the body is. Making progress.

Gord

Chrome bumpers?

Hes just doing the front bumper, shaved rear. He just said the front.

Looking good gordon! I can't wait to see it all finished. I told you to call me when you needed to move betzy. I owe you!

~Alex

nissangirl74 wrote:Chrome bumpers?

Just the front bumper. It looked really horrible. I am going for the same "Euro look" that you have. I sent mine off today to Advanced Plating in Tennessee for a quote to fill the holes and repair the damage. I ran into these guys a few years back at one of the Goodguys shows and the had some remarkable restored bumpers on display. I hope it turns out as nice as Bella's bumper.

RustspecS13 wrote: Looking good gordon! I can't wait to see it all finished. I told you to call me when you needed to move betzy. I owe you!

~Alex

OK cool. I just ordered a bunch of stuff for the RB. Head gaskets and ARP studs...rear main seal. Going to see if I can find the oil leak. Your hired!

Gord

Just LMK. I'll be busy working on my new daily too. Also, I have lots of free time now. Or at least, a very flexible schedual.

rustspecs13-s-2-tone-coupe-daily-build-t549213.html

~Alex

Three weeks without an update... WE NEED UPDATES!

Gordy, did you have any trouble with your clutch? Mine slips sometimes. I adjusted it a few times, Im pretty sure its right. I cant imagine paying this much for a clutch that slips every now and then. Its loud as s*** too.

boostedh23a1 wrote:Gordy, did you have any trouble with your clutch? Mine slips sometimes. I adjusted it a few times, Im pretty sure its right. I cant imagine paying this much for a clutch that slips every now and then. Its loud as s*** too.

I think you need to warm it up for hard launches. I was getting some slippage and read about the warming up. It appears that the hotter the carbon gets, the better it grabs. Page 12 recommends 1/2 clutch @ 2K RPM for 3 sec, disengage 20-30 seconds, repeat 5-10 times. I tried it and it launches HARD. Really hard. I kind of like it being a little softer when street driving and biting hard on the track after it gets warmed up. Power shifting at the track is the same. I used to get some slip from 3-4 gear. After it warms up you will just spin the tires instead of slipping the clutch.

I agree with you about the noise. It is a little noisy with the clutch depressed. Nature of the beast with a multi stack clutch.

Gord

Even carbon disc brakes needs to warm up before they can be used effectively. Funny to watch the race teams roll their cars out of the trailer only to be reminded that the brakes don't work.

I have been really busy around here but...

Time for an update!

Here are a few pictures of Betzy I took over the past couple weeks.

Shaving the lights, rear bumper.



shaving the fuel cap door



shaving antenna and de-badging.



back end is a mess of Bondo. This required replacing rear valance.



Teeny little spot of rust on lower right rocker in front of rear wheel



Lots of sanding




Rear valance almost done




40 years of door dings




getting closer...I think



Back at home I started on the hood.

I made the front hood brackets out of aluminum. I positioned them identical to the original ones.



Clecos came in handy.



I used a Uni-bit for drilling all of the holes. Here I located an access hole on the back side for access to install the nuts. I will plug hole later with plastic plug.




The inner frame is reinforced where the hinge brackets attach. Its very thick and I am pretty impressed with how secure the brackets are.



And now for the hood latch. I opted for using the old latch instead of hood pins. I kind of like the clean look. I can always get pins later, if needed.



Pretty straight forward install. Same little access hole to install the nuts.



Looks good




I used shouldered nuts for all the locations. I am really impressed with the hood. Good quality.

One other thing...

One of my engine mounts had separated on the left side of the engine.



I called Mac at McKinny and he shipped me a free set of the newer ones. He said they had some troubles with a vendor a while back and I needed the newer ones. The older yellow ones should be exchanged out for the newer red ones.



And....The bumper. Advanced Plating quoted me over $1K to repair and refurb my old front bumper. I asked them to send it back. More on the bumper at a later time.

I have a whole box of parts for the RB that I am going to start on a little oil leak tomorrow.

gord

Also ran accross these photo's from last summer at National Trails raceway.







I miss the summer.

Gord

amazing

Update

I have had this little oil leak since day one. It hasn't been really big. One or two drops every now and then. It only showed up on the garage floor after a few days of driving. I looked everything over and it appeared that the oil was coming off the back of the engine, above the bell housing and below the head. It looked like the head gasket was leaking, but that did not make sense. It must be the rocker or something else. I figured I would figure it out after the engine was removed for the paint. Well...here we are



I ordered new head gasket and rocker gaskets from Ricky at Raw Brokerage. I also got a set of new ARP head studs and a rear main seal. Figured I would knock out all the possibilities and have a good engine going back together.

Usual teardown stuff. Easy when the engine is out





And here is my problem. It looks like the gasket is not in the correct position on the back left side. That is the cavity that drains the head into the block and down to the oil pan. The little bolt hole is elongated and the little rubber seal going around the cavity is useless. Must have been during assembly or improper torquing. I doubt the gasket shifted. They all seemed tight when I took it apart.



Back right side is almost as bad. Starting to pull on little bolt hole.



Other than that everything is looking good. Block is good. No burnt pistons. Nice and clean.



Head looks good.




Now I just have to put everything back together...



gord

wow.. the love you showing this car! amazing work!

Just curious what head bolts were you using... Might I suggest ARP L19.

^ Hard to say. It appears to be a gasket issue than bolt. The standard bolts will do just fine, the stock rod bolts will give out before he lifts a head. Maybe if he get's forged innards.

But I would expect him to break in the car a little bit more before he plays doctor with engine.

if the head lifts, the rods have failed, maybe not broken but they are stretching if the the head lifts and that's why we use arp head studs

Are you planing to be at Trails this year for either Import Events?

glacier985 wrote:Are you planing to be at Trails this year for either Import Events?

I hope to get to as many events as my wallet will allow. I'm thinking of getting into more auto-x and track events. The 1/4 mile is definitely on at National trails. That was very intense for a few seconds. A big rush for sure. I had hoped to get more runs in that day. I am looking forward to next year with my CLSD and some new slicks, I should be able to hook up a whole lot better. U bringing your Z?

300ZXttZMAN wrote:Just curious what head bolts were you using... Might I suggest ARP L19.

Not sure if the old ones were stock or not. They were tight as hell when I removed them. The new ones are going to be
ARP Part # 202-4207 Nissan GTR RB26DETT HSK.

gmac708 wrote:U bringing your Z?

The only thing that would keep me from bringing it is if my 240sx turbo setup is finally finished.

subscribed.

Mine is leaking the the same spot as yours. Damnit I dont wanna pull the head off...

Oh, just a suggestion while you are apart. You can gasket match the rear two oil drains on the block and head. This will help with drain back issues.

Did you put oil restrictors in?

boostedh23a1 wrote:Did you put oil restrictors in?

I did not. The block still has oil restrictors installed. From what I can tell from reading, only required if you were running higher revs for a sustained period of time. I do not plan on drifting or getting into a situation where I am on the rev limiter too much. I think the stock setup will be fine for now. My main mission was to correct a neusence oil leak and figured a new set of head studs would not hurt. Never really considered the oil issue.

A little update from last weekend.

I took the pan off and checked the pickup attachment and screen. Everything looked clean.




I pulled the rear main crank seal and replaced it.




New ARP head stud kit comes with studs, washers and nuts (12 point), and thread lube.



Here are the studs inserted in block. I cleaned out the threads and ran everything together by hand.
A note about the oil restrictors. There are two oil galleries that transfer oil to the head of the RB engines. I have pointed them out in this photo with red and blue arrows. The red gallery is plugged and the blue gallery already has a restrictor in it. Correct me if I am wrong, but some engines do not have plugs/restrictors and flood the head with oil at sustained high RPM's. This could cause oil starvation issues. Options are to restrict the oil going to the head or providing alternate ways to drain the oil faster. I am electing to keep everything stock.



New stock head gasket fits perfect on the back.



Head is back on and torqued.



Timing belt on and tensioned.



Covers



ITB'sand intake




Turbos



That was about as far as I got. Going to try and make some more progress this weekend.


gord

While Betzy is getting painted I have a bunch of little projects that I needed to get done. One of them was the starter made a "squealing" kid of noise every once and a while. It happened after the engine started and the starter was spooling down. The engine started perfectly fine, only the noise a problem. I figured I would take it apart and lube it up.

So here is the starter. It looks like it is in good shape. I call the geared part on top the bendix. Not sure why, but that is what they call them on aircraft engines. It is electrically engaged to the flywheel by the starter solenoid. Once the starter solenoid has engaged the bendix, the starter motor is switched on. The bendix slides up and down the shaft shown here.



I removed the positive terminal on solenoid so I could remove the motor.



Un-bolted the motor. It is a good idea to mark everything with a sharpy. It helps speed things up on assembly.



Motor separates from the top part. There is a little ball bearing on the end of the motor shaft. There is also a planetary gear setup for gear reduction. It gives the motor more torque. Some plastic parts in here.



I remove the solenoid,the rubber cover, and the metal plate under the solenoid...



... then remove the bendix and arm as an assembly.



I cleaned everything up and lubed the shaft with a dry film graphite spray lube. Now it slides up and down the shaft really easy. The end bearing on the shaft gets a little grease.



The solenoid gets only a cleaning and dry film lube as well. Do not grease. It would end up sticking.



Don't forget the little ball and a little grease.



Now the motor. Pull the housing of by pushing the end shaft. The magnets are holding it in place. Be careful to keep the end cover on.



Now remove the end cover



Now you end up with this. This is the armature with the brushes all together. There are springs that hold the brushes tight against the armature. Be careful you can chip the brushes if you rotate it back wards.



I pulled the plate of and inspected the brushes for wear. The armature looks like it has minimal wear. No signs of overheating. This is where you could clean up the armature with a little sandpaper if you needed to.




I put the motor back together with a little bit of grease on the shaft end bearing. The brushes need to be retracted to fit over the armature. Takes a little bit of fussing around so be careful.



I lubed up the planetary gears and put everything back together in the reverse order. A quick check with a jumper battery and everything works. Nice and quiet.



So now I am on to my next project. I did check in on Betzy yesterday. Everything looking good. More updates soon.

gord

Two weeks no update! :>(