Spannerhead Dot Com

No pics, but I got the master cylinder in and the system bled without too much drama. It initially felt like there was less room to access the inner 12mm bolt than on Megumi, but I think I just wasn’t using the right socket/extension combo (it takes a very specific one). Everything buttoned up and leak-free, and engagement is butter smooth and exactly where I would want it to be in the pedal’s travel. Not opposed to getting a clutch stop to help protect the carpet in that area though.

I also swapped over Megumi’s trunk lock cylinder—took me all of 15 minutes total—so that leaves one more lock (driver’s door) to be swapped before the car is totally re-keyed.

Next order of business: Getting Megumi’s engine cleaned up and serviced in preparation for the swap.

About halfway through swapping over clutch hydraulics: Megumi’s nearly-new master cylinder & hose, and a new slave cylinder since the rubber boots for both of mine (Megumi’s and Nori’s) were torn.

Although 90% of the fittings came loose, despite my best efforts with heat & penetrant, the fitting into the slave cylinder was fused to the line, so any attempt to loosen it twisted the line, and, well:

Nearly snap. Needless to say, that wasn’t going back on the car, and Megumi’s got crunched in the accident since it was in the impact area (left front).

Luckily, since I had to rebuild the rear brake hardlines on my Datsun 240Z last year, I had all the supplies on hand to fabricate a new hardline:

Tubing, fittings, bender, de-burring tool, cutting tool, flaring tool, heat-shrink tubing, etc. It’s not perfect, but I think I did OK, and most importantly, it fits perfectly.

Here’s the old slave cylinder. Looks like it’s been swimming with the wreck of the Titanic for the past 50 years…

Master cylinder & bleed tomorrow. I would swap in Megumi’s master-to-hose hardline, but that runs under the motor mount bracket, etc, so that’ll have to wait for the engine swap. It’ll be fine for now.

From the other night.

I swear I took a “before” photo but now I can’t find it…

Used my whole bag o’ rust-busting tricks (heat, penetrant, Dremel, vise grips, EZ-out, etc) to remove the 3 bolts that secured the battery tray. The heads of 2 were rounded, and the head of the 3rd was snapped clean off.

I had to remove the splash shield and of the horns to be able to get the propane torch on the nut for the right-most bolt. I had to Dremel the plastic around the rear bolt, remove the tray and THEN extract the bolt (that was the one with no head). And the left bolt (the one on the bracket) snapped, even with heat, but fortunately I had Megumi’s rust-free bracket on hand as a replacement.

Scrubbed some rust and more Canadian Slime off and hit the area with POR-15:

I also reconditioned the tray itself:

Very satisfying to know I won’t ever have to fight it again to access that area.

I knew it was going to be a fight, so I developed a strategy and blocked off a few hours yesterday afternoon for it. I plan to swap over clutch hydraulics (master, slave & hose) soon and this was prep for that job.

…early and often.

The MX-6’s alternator & A/C belt disintegrated and several of the shards lodged in the A/C clutch, partially jamming it.

Fortunately, I caught it in time, and after removing the shards, the clutch spins freely again. And (of course) I installed a new belt. P/S + WP belt is nearly new.

Not a whole lot of work on him lately. He’s just been on daily driver duty, performing admirably. About due for his first regularly scheduled oil change though.

I did do my wet-sanding experiment on the trim, though, since I had 15 spare minutes and was about to wash the car.

320 –> 600 –> 1200. I probably need to spend a little more time with the 320 (and a good couple hours to do all the rough spots), but I’m encouraged by the first pass.

Some minor tinkering:

• Re-calibrated the TPS, and fiddled with the idle speed screw (2.5 turns up from bottom), trying to address a slightly high idle when the car is hot.
• TN doesn’t require a front plate, but Canada (Nori’s previous home) does, so there were screw holes in the front bumper. I found some little glossy black screw head covers at Home Depot and epoxied them on:

You can barely see them—perfect. As much as I may not like the black, it is pretty nice for stuff like that, small cosmetic touchups and the like.

Random snap of “the office:”

That’s the Z in the top part of the shot. I have a 2×4 across the garage floor to make sure I stop at just the right spot when I pull in.

On a warm, humid evening in Megumi’s recently-vacated spot…

And an interior snap. Not a blessed screen in sight. It’s a nice place to spend time.

One more thing: This car’s A/C works really freaking well. Better than my old E46’s, actually. I had the blower on “2” with recirc on and I was quite comfortable in my black car in the 95° heat and crushing humidity.

And with the installation of the 8th and last seat rail bolt cover, my set is complete. All bolts covered with their proper plastic pieces. A big thanks to another member of the community for keeping an eye out at junkyards and finding the last one I needed.