New World Datsuns...

Jig

Yeah, I woke up this morning and thought about the predicament. Makes sense the left upper arm is farther out if the axle is shifted right. Fuck all. Haven't measured the lower mounts yet, but either way the axle has to come back out and I'll have to redo one or all mounting points.

Dammit. Confirmed. Lower mounts are an 1/8 off to the left, which forces the axle right. Time to put the wagon outside after I order a car cover and build a jig.

Got the jig all done and loaded the 8.8 into the truck by myself. That took about all I had to muscle it up on the tailgate. Interestingly, the pinion is offset by a lot on the original axle. I think that may have been some of the issue. Anyway, hopefully tomorrow I'll drop it off at the Datsun gurus and the next go round will actually work.

I started up the wagon and ran it for 15 minutes today, all seemed good.

Well, I figured out how the axle mounts got screwed up. Apparently when the Datsun guru cut and welded my axle tube, he allowed it to rotate 2 degrees. I figured this out today after noticing the left side caliper is at a slightly high position than the right side caliper. Fortunately the rotor shouldn't care where it's grabbed. The other thing is the axle does measure out to be square. I'm going to re-check everything after I get the car situated.

I did take the whole mess by the shop and I think he was more angry at himself than me, but I was told to take off all the mounts and clean the axle and he'd weld them back on. This was after he said it's 5 3/4" each side, and I said, put the tape measure up, it's 5 7/8 on this side. Basically, he doesn't want to fix it and argued with me that it wasn't that far off and I want things too perfect and it took him 10 hours to get the project done. Sigh. Being I've had a good working relationship with him, I didn't burn the bridge, but I loaded up my axles and I doubt I will be going back. I've known Joe a lot of years, but this is pretty much my end point for personal large pieces. Especially since I offered to pay him more than our initial amount. I may still use him for small welding projects for the shop however, hence not wanting to burn bridges. Plus, it's just not good to burn bridges in general I've found. Even when someone has screwed you. He has done a lot of very nice work for me, so I'll give him the 99%, this is just the 1% that pisses me off. And to be fair, I'm certain if I dropped this project off at Hazzard Fab Works to get done, it would have cost me $1000-1500 in labor.

Talked to my dad who is an excellent welder/fabricator, we discussed multiple options. At the moment, the plan is to strip the bottom mounts on the 8.8, then stick it back in the car with the upper control arms equal length and driveshaft attached. I'll hold the diff with my tranny jack so I can position it how I want. That will allow me to see if the upper mounts are in the correct position. If they are, then I'm leaving those as they're the trickiest and I'll just re-center and weld the bottom mounts for the trailing arms while the axle is in the car. I'm hoping the top is correct. That would save a boatload of time.

The good news about all this is it's making me realize I need to become my own welder/fabricator. I've been getting more and more confident with my abilities as of late. I have some new equipment, I know way more than I used to. And being I do want things absolutely "perfect", unless it's the same old thing people have done a hundred times before, I'll always be dealing with one-off crazy Datsun projects. And most people aren't as OCD as I am. I'm just going to have to start doing more and working through any setbacks I have. Twenty years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of tackling this project. Now, I'm starting to get a good feel for it. And I've screwed up enough stuff through trial and error. Next step is a mini-lathe for making bushings and stuff. Eventually I'll inherit dad's big lathe, but I sure hope that's not soon.

Anyway, I'll update this as I get time, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully my driveshaft will be done this week and this weekend I'll make a day of it and get it done.

Got the garage mostly prepped tomorrow for the axle job. Got some 6 ton jack stands to get the car a bit higher so I can use the transmission jack to get the axle situated where I want it. While I drug the axle out of the back of the truck, I decided to weigh it too. A narrowed Ford 8.8 for a 910 wagon weighs 216 pounds with 2 quarts of oil in, allegedly it takes 4. I'm not sure. I'll wait until it's mounted to put more in until it dribbles out the fill hole. I was wondering why it was such a pain in the ass to move the thing around. Sadly I didn't measure the factory axle. I'm betting it's more like 160-170.

Well today wasn't all that fruitful. I did confirm the upper mounts are off. One side is too far forward. I'm going to go to Coeur d'Alene metals tomorrow morning before work to try and find some appropriate tubing that I can make a 17/32 inside diameter. The bolts going through the upper control arm are .530. 17/32 is .53125. I'm going to make a front side jig so I can check the existing axle and see if one mount on the top can be used, or if I have to cut off both and reweld. Plus that way I have a jig for the front and the back so there's no possible way it could get screwed up if I have to transfer everything over to the new axle.

I tried to find some tubing today to make work and that didn't really come out. I tested the new drive shaft it seems to work just fine. It has a quarter inch of travel left on full stuff so it should be fine for the rest of range of motion.

One step closer

Yep, only a football field to go! Got the tubing I need, it's just a gnat's ass smaller than .530. I was going to work on it after work one of these nights, but I've been getting back late for one reason or another so far. Might just wait until the weekend when I can actually spend a bit of time on it.

Have you tried a bolt through it?

I have to be honest. A 17/32 bolt is the weirdest size ever to find on a car, I cant even find a result on google... M13.5 is the same size, and at least is a thread used on guns...

Yes it is! I would have thought it would have been straight metric or a normal SAE size, but all the suspension member bolts for the rear axle measure .528-.530. 17/32 is .53125. Almost exactly. Nissan does weird shit.

13.5MM is .53149. Really the only way to know would be to check the pitch. I still think its probably metric.

Oh I'm sure the bolt is metric, but the shoulder that is full face is approx 17/32. Or 13.4 mm.

Alright folks, it's 7:42am, I'm about ready to eat, have some tea, and then head to the garage! I got the absolutely sweetest tool last night! It's a Milwaukee magnetic level. But it can be indexed at any angle! I can't think of a more perfect tool for figuring out mounts.

First of four 2.355 wide. These will replicate the upper arms and lower arms. Then I'll bolt them into the front side of the old axle and weld on to them with equal length pieces and I'll have my front side jig.

So the drill press couldn't do it it kept getting stuck so then I put it in the vise in the regular jaws. That obviously spun as you can see from the striations on the sleeve. So then I checked it up in the pipe gripping side and tightened it f****** hard. Even that was a pain in the ass because it just wants to take such a big bite even if you're going really slow. Probably would have helped to have just one more size to ring this out although it's not very far off it's definitely not a big cut.

Anyway now to make the other three. The outside surface won't matter anyways, I'll be welding to that not a big deal.

The pain in the butt is you have to start it in the drill press until it starts binding up and then transfer it to the drill. if the drill press was gear driven instead of belt driven it would probably go through it but it's not.

Two things: I found one of the adjustments for the motor on the drill press was loose so I moved the motor to tighten the belts and gosh that'll be better. And the last one I was drilling through went way crooked. The drill bit also wasn't grabbing so I chucked it up in the drill doctor and got that sharp again.

Just cut two more sleeves, I'll try again. A smidge off is okay but not a mile off.

So making four bushings only took 3 hours LOL. This is why I need a mini lathe. Plus we're off by 5 or 10,000 switch isn't going to matter that much but I could have had these exactly dead on with the lathe.

For some reason the drill press is being a turd I think it's because the base is deflecting as it tries to drill. I ruined two more sleeves in the process of making these four. Apparently the first two were dumb luck because they came out just fine. Then I drilled two more that were offset and not acceptable. And finally I started doing drill press on one side and then flipping it around and doing the other side and then when that didn't finally work I had gotten enough down where I could put the drill in it and go all the way through without doing it off center.

So now it's lunch but at least I have the four things I need to start the jig.

also I should clarify the reason I'm doing this instead of just burning out the old bushings from the upper control arms is because I want to save the upper control arms because I don't have another pair. The other donor pair went to make the heim joint and on one side so it's not the same as original. if I had a third wagon to cut up or another one to go get parts off of I totally would. I would have had my bushings off in about 20 minutes of burning. But I don't so there you go!

The good news here is I broke the 17/ 32 $20 drill bit after I already completed the job. I was reaming the hole a little bit and the drill caught. why am I making two other ones you ask oh yeah because I don't need four of the same dimension up top because the bottom two are longer! Good news is these went a little better than the first few and now they're all done so I'm going to put them up on the axle and get ready to cut support legs to make the rest of the jig.