first rollings and third brakes

Ouch.

The rear tires were attacked by the rear fenders. Eaten, one might venture to say. A friend of a friend had a eastwood rolling kit, not to mention a free afternoon. Thanks Vergil.

It took a while to adjust the roller correctly, everything set to minimum. It even required special spacers on the hub in order to push the roller out a bit to get the right starting angles.

You can see the under lip that cut into the tires. The goal is to bend this upward, as flush with the inner metal as possible.

The passenger fender cracked from bottoming out on the tire on the ride over. This was a bit worrying, not because it cracked, but what it potentially implied. Unlike purists, I don't care if the previous owner used body work prior to paint, but if it was to fill rust or repair an accident, that's entirely different. I'm not going to start stressing now as every other panel on the car is clean. This will be sorted out during paint and body work, but doesn't affect the need for rollings now. Did you see those tires?!

I'll have more closeup shots later of the final results. The driverside was easier to roll than the passenger and Vergil did a great job, but both needed a bit more after one afternoon.

Some engine shots.

Rolling in the shop.

This is where it gets mildly entertaining. After rolling the fenders I took it out for a test drive to the ATM about 3 blocks away. No less than three separate people rolled down their windows and commented on the 24o. This was great, but not as notable as the brakes getting VERY squishy at the cash box, and disappearing entirely on my way back. I entered the shop parking lot way too hot, ripping the ebrake, skidding sideways, hopping onto the inclined driveway.

As it turned out, the front master reservoir emptied completely, and there was a loose joint between the caliper hardline and the stainless steel connection on the passenger side. WOW.

This was more frustrating than anything. I had already bleed the brakes once myself with Haydn, and then paid for it to be done a second time at mieneke of simpsonville, sc. They charged me 25o$ to pull the wheels off, flip flop the front calipers, pull the master and booster off, adjust the push rod, reinstall everything, and re-bleed with my fluid.

I had to take the car in because I was moving that day and simply out of time. I actually ran out of gas on the way home and Deepak showed up, bailing me out with a few gallons of 93. Either way, I spent the entire week getting the car road legal and safe, pulled the car out of the garage, and the brakes didn't work. Apparently the calipers were upside down (ie on the wrong side). The system would have never bleed with the bleeders on the low side of the calipers.  

This was a big help, but I would have appreciated re-connecting the brake line to reduce my chances of killing small babies, not to mention myself.

I called mieneke to let them know what happened, and the manager proceeded to inform me how it wasn't their fault and how I must be lying about what happened, even though they swapped the very calipers that leaked and I had pictures of it leeking all over the parking lot. Whatever happened to customer service, let alone the customer being right? They wouldn't tow it to the shop to inspect, they wouldn't even cover it if it turned out to be their fault, and by the end of the conversation, the manager was actually yelling at me.

I'm always very straight forward about these things, and this isn't the first time it seems to have actually backfired and pissed off the recipient even more. It's like they want to fight because they feel personally offended, and get even more angry when I'm calm and logical. It really doesn't matter to me, I'm safe and alive. I just wanted him to make it right. Instead, he hung up the phone on me, slamming it down while he was in the middle of yelling, which is actually impressive, all after I politely informed him that I was not going to give his shop a good recommendation.

Vergil was a great help, running to the store as I watched the shop to pick up some dot4 synthetic. We pulled both front wheels, tightened the passenger side line, filled the fluid, and attempted to bleed the brakes for the third time. It was still very squishy, but stopped with the pedal on the floor as the car was coasting down the driveway. That was enough for me and I rushed home before it got dark.

DO NOT GO TO MEINEKE OF SIMPSONVILLE, SC. THEY MAY KILL YOU.

hydraulics

To keep things rolling, here's the late night story of most of the hydraulics on my car. To start, the clutch master that was on the 24o when bought seemed to be brand new, as well as the brake master for that matter. I had issues with the oem clutch master though on the 28o when it was used with the rb25 transmission and nismo slave cylinder. To be frank, I lost second gear entirely, resulting in an interesting ride home and a replacement neo transmission swap the following weekend.

I obviously didn't want to go through that again, even through the master looked nice and pretty, but I wanted to install the larger one with all the recommended parts which it was designed for.  When I installed it in the 28o, I swapped out the push rod so that it would be compatible with the metric thread on the pedal. It was shorter though and I always thought it could use to be longer for adjustability and mechanical advantage. I actually have a larger master than slave to help reduce the pedal pressure required for the 4 puck clutch. It is sprung but that doesn't seem to help much in stop and go traffic. ON .... OFF.

This does mean bleeding can be entertaining as the master is large enough and able to actually push the rod out of the slave entirely. No, there is no lock pin. Ask me how I know that.

I kept the aftermarket push rod, and after all this time, at least 5 moves and 3 states, I was able to locate it in a bin in my garage. Amazing.

I swapped out the new one and got a standard sized threaded nut for it to lock to the pedal threading with, as well as a tap in order to open up the pedal side fork. Sorry I didn't get any before pic's, but the oem rod that I removed is the same diameter, about 1/2 shorter than the one designed for use with the 7/8's clutch master. They swap out easily. These were the after shots, and the threads are close enough that a matched tap will mate them perfectly, using a nut to lock the push rod to the fork which pin's to the pedal.

Here's the oem, new looking master still in the car before swapping it out. Note how the clutch line runs.

Pulled the clutch master cylinder and clutch fork and pin. It's a 5/8's diameter that I'll be replacing with the 7/8's above.

Tap out the threads of the oem clutch fork using a matching tap for the new clutch push rod. The fork is threaded metric, same diameter as the new one, so it's not that drastic, just enough for the rod to be able to thread in and for the nut to lock against the fork.

The boot is a bit torn from being clamped down and cut by the 28o firewall hole, but still attached. The master is still very new and the boot not sealing any fluid, not that it was designed for that in the first place, only protecting from dust entering the chamber. Once it is installed it will be sealed against the firewall anyways and isn't going anywhere.

I was careful and used a true tube bender to orient the line so that it would attach to the back end of the wilwood master, instead of the side as oem.

Installed, the first time of the day.

Taking a break from the front, I inspected the back as I saw a quarter sized spot of fluid on the ground in the vicinity. It turned out to be fresh differential fluid leaking from the driverside cv halfshaft input. I'll keep an eye on it, but it's almost like it's just leaking excess. Hopefully I don't have to go back and replace a seal in this area as it took a long time to get the entire rear suspension installed and something like this may warrant pulling it all back out again.

To report back, after driving the car for about 2oo miles or so, it's not leaking.

Back to the front of the car, I tried out this fluid pump with discouraging results. Don't bother, it was easier to bleed the clutch the normal way, and it's cheaper for a six pack of beer for your friend than it is to make a mess AND try using a 6o$ contraption. Good thing it was a rental.

As it turns out, the joint between the master and brake line leaked significantly. I tried tightening it down and ended up stripping the brake line side of the fitting. It ended up completely seizing to the wilwood side as well, and I could not detach it, not even with vice grips.

I cut the fitting in two with a dremel cutoff wheel. This was frustrating as it meant that i would have to buy a new wilwood fitting, somewhere, a new brake line side fitting, and rent a flaring tool to cut and re-flare the end of the line itself, assuming it wasn't too short already.

Wow. That's mildly impressive. At first I thought it may have been cross-threaded, but looking back on it, just like the clutch fork instance, I've concluded that the brake line fitting was metric and the wilwood side standard.

After a few trips to various auto parts sorts, I finally found the correct threaded adapter (3/8-24 M to 3/8-24 F inverted F, which is not the box above in case anyone's wondering). Like I said, it took a few trips. On the first trip, I also picked up a standard double flaring tool kit.

Back in the garage, I took the dremel and cleaned up the end of the brake line, also uninstalling the master cylinder again to make room to flare the brake line and clean out the entire area.

It was a mess.

All cleaned, and now I have a half metric, half standard clutch master hard line, routed with all the oem mounts, adapting a wilwood 7/8" master with the correct push rod, to a nismo 3/4" slave. Bam.

I had to straighten out the tube, with the bender, in order to be able to flare it and install the new, standard (?!?) fitting. It was pretty difficult to be able to flare the end, bend it back to the same position, and be able to push the fitting into place over the new radius. It was a combination of bending over the fitting, and pulling it towards the flare all at the same time.

Take my word for it, it installed just as it did above, just without leaking this time. And watch out for the wolf spiders.

Fluid seems to always everywhere no matter how careful you are during bleedings, but pulling out a full master cylinder after pulling all the lines is never a good thing.