Another part of the intrepid quest to restore the 240Z.
Video description:
In this video I'm fully restoring the complete front axle with all the suspension components and the steering rack. I took the full assembly off the car in the tear-down in episode 1.
At first it looked like a quick and easy job, but after seeing all the parts after disassembly I knew this might take a little longer. I decided to go with a classic finish and paint them all in matte black. Almost all parts made of steel have been yellow zinc plated by a local company. This is a very good rust protection. On top of that Mister Patina powder coated the parts, this is a double protection and these parts should never ever rust again.
I took the original ball joints apart and realized that both studs are bent. I decided to make new ones. These are tricky parts, not just because of the precise sphere and the oil grooves, also because they're case hardened. Means only the surface of the ball is hard and the rest of the part is soft. I had to run some test pieces to figure out if I can do it, and they were all successful. The ball was machined on the milling machine with a boring head, the oil grooves were done on the lathe in a special jig and I was able to case harden the pieces in the kiln. First I had to enrich the surface of the ball with carbon. I placed the part in a sealed container filled with crushed charcoal. At 930°C carbon will get absorbed around 0.1mm deep into the part per hour, so I left it in for around 5h and ended up with 0.5mm thick carbon layer. They rest of the part didn't absorb any carbon, because the surface was covered by a sleeve. Now I just needed to harden and temper it. I measured 52-58 HRC on the ball surface, the rest was still soft and the sphere was round within 0.01mm. I also was able to restore the other ball joints.
As I want to lower the car, I decided to install adjustable coil-overs by „KW suspension“. For this upgrade you need to cut and weld the original struts. I didn't want to loose the ability to build it back to original, so I bought a set of struts from „DCW Classic“. Currently the springs and other parts are in the KW colors yellow and purple, to have them more blending in I'm going to swap these with black parts.
This was so much work in the end, I've spent 51 days in the workshop on this axle. But the result speaks for itself. It all looks like straight out of the factory.
Another part of the intrepid quest to restore the 240Z.
Video description:
>In this video I'm fully restoring the complete front axle with all the suspension components and the steering rack. I took the full assembly off the car in the tear-down in episode 1.
>
At first it looked like a quick and easy job, but after seeing all the parts after disassembly I knew this might take a little longer. I decided to go with a classic finish and paint them all in matte black. Almost all parts made of steel have been yellow zinc plated by a local company. This is a very good rust protection. On top of that Mister Patina powder coated the parts, this is a double protection and these parts should never ever rust again.
>
I took the original ball joints apart and realized that both studs are bent. I decided to make new ones. These are tricky parts, not just because of the precise sphere and the oil grooves, also because they're case hardened. Means only the surface of the ball is hard and the rest of the part is soft. I had to run some test pieces to figure out if I can do it, and they were all successful. The ball was machined on the milling machine with a boring head, the oil grooves were done on the lathe in a special jig and I was able to case harden the pieces in the kiln. First I had to enrich the surface of the ball with carbon. I placed the part in a sealed container filled with crushed charcoal. At 930°C carbon will get absorbed around 0.1mm deep into the part per hour, so I left it in for around 5h and ended up with 0.5mm thick carbon layer. They rest of the part didn't absorb any carbon, because the surface was covered by a sleeve. Now I just needed to harden and temper it. I measured 52-58 HRC on the ball surface, the rest was still soft and the sphere was round within 0.01mm. I also was able to restore the other ball joints.
>
As I want to lower the car, I decided to install adjustable coil-overs by „KW suspension“. For this upgrade you need to cut and weld the original struts. I didn't want to loose the ability to build it back to original, so I bought a set of struts from „DCW Classic“. Currently the springs and other parts are in the KW colors yellow and purple, to have them more blending in I'm going to swap these with black parts.
This was so much work in the end, I've spent 51 days in the workshop on this axle. But the result speaks for itself. It all looks like straight out of the factory.
(post is archived)