Justin Bailey

I'm draining the tank, planning on dropping it and prepping for some kind of bed liner.



Went in trough the filler tube, got 5 gal so far, this is a 2nd bucket we use strictly for gas. I'll go in through the evap entrance to empty from the driver side saddle next. I am not sure but I had somewhere between 15 and 20 gal in there, I have another five gal jug after this to get 15 out.



Was buying all kinds of touch up samples like audi nardo grey, lotus vortex grey, porsche chalk, nissan silver moss, and infiniti mountain sage to see what I might want to paint over the underbody, they were all too dark. I found this 2020 corvette ceramic matrix grey, (the smaller painted area of the card), and the larger part of the card is some off white rust seal with a touch of black, and some of they cotton candy blue pearl pigment. This closely matches the paint color but the vette paint has some green, but it's close enough, going to buy some of that also in 2k spray to overcoat the rust seal. I also got some upol tiger seal urethane sealant to better hit some areas that were either missed or could be better from the factory, I realize there may be designed drainage areas that need to be open, but there are some of the seams I'd like to address or smoothen.

There really is no rust just some starting under where the rear sub frame mounts up, but I was looking at the front strut red gaskets that are like 1/32" thick, and may get some chemical resistant and non compressible material and gasket other areas to stop this. There is some abraded area in front of the rear wheels on the underbody where rust is starting to be able to grow that I touched up with rust seal earlier.

Justin Bailey

Couldn't get the hose in any other way than the filler entrance, but got it maybe only 40 or 50 lb total, then wriggled it out and wagoned it over onto this pallet table and could tip the contents all to that side to get the rest.



Had to jack up and move the blocks away a tiny bit for the tank to drop and get past them.

dirtnapper56

hey Justin, I have a g37x here and I was wondering, do you have measurements of the transmission mount? You have the 7at, right? Would that be the same mount? Pretty please??

Justin Bailey

I'm sure they're the same for the 37x and a '14-'15 Q60 AWD, not sure about RWD autos, theirs are different. No idea about what the earlier 5AT's had.





The bolt spacing for the (mine is painted blue) larger part that bolts to the trans is 30 x 120 on center. The two studs are 107 apart on center. Hope that helps.

To find center-to-center bolt holes or stud spacing I just measure and add the inner and outer distances and divide by 2 (average them), another way is to take the outer minus - one fastener's width, or the inner plus + one fastener width, but unthreaded holes are oversized for bolts, so the 1st method is better than using a fastener width for unthreaded and oversized holes.

Justin Bailey

Washed the tank with hot water and some kbs kleen cleaner. Photographed all the rubber pads' positions on the tank.



Peeled them off. There are part #'s for these new, but will re glue them down with something, there are 6 square, 5 rectangle and 2 narrower rectangle pads. They look like they just had a contact cement like glue.



There is also 2 of these plastic spacer pieces on the tops of the front corners, I think they clamp against the body, but not sure if they really do touch or not when installed.
They had a foam adhesive strip holding them on, could just use a 3M type to replace.



In prepping the tank I found some of the factory coating chipped in a few small bit, but also an adhesion problem on this one bigger area, so sanded it all over with 100 grit on a 5" random orbital to just knock down the texture and feather out the chipping areas.



Washed again after all done sanding, I removed some heavy texture so I can just have the bedliner texture show alone mostly.



Used some of that rust seal I mixed to match the corvette grey paint, brushed it on for a good 'worked in' and sealing base for the bedliner.

I found some tiny rust sign pinpoints like it was coming through where the straps run along the bottom but didn't want to scrape all the coating to fully investigate, also found there were stones lodged in the end where the strap passes away from the tank and has rubbed or embedded themselves down to the metal there and also found the coating to be kind of soft in those spots, but just sanded it a little and cleaned it all enough to coat over it.



The holes in the corners were very useful to hang this up, at first I had it on sawhorses. Almost done, thought there was some drying out needed where the straps run, so waited to do them and the edges last. Had it about 55 degrees to do this.



Just one brushed on coat is all I did of the rust seal.





Got a Custom Coat one Quart kit, with an Air Force Grey federal color, and some green in case I needed it, but went with just the grey only to be as close to the other greys as possible. This is the same thing as Upol Raptor I think, but it comes in more colors you can choose from.



This is the gun you get with the kit. I was unsure if I wanted to get this kit of the roller kit, they are the same price, but was glad I got it. It also came with a regulator but used the one on the compressor, I did need to supply my own 1/4" air quick fitting to the end and just wrapped some teflon tape first. After the rust seal dries for at least an hour, it can be top coated with anything, and it will stick well, so spraying was great for this.



There was a small corroded looking copper washer in the nozzle tip that screws off, tried it with it in and out it worked better without it so just got rid of it.

I split the kit into 2 halves, it has an hour pot life and also an hour recoat time, and wanted to use two light coats instead of one heavy one. Just had to clean the gun twice but could wipe most of it off then only a few oz of acetone shot through it cleaned it pretty well.

I used 55-60 psi, any more and I found it to go through the product too quickly, and I had to kind of manage my use of it, the quart kit turned out to be a good amount. As I ran out on the first coat mix, I was little light in places I focused on more in the second coat. Also built it up to what I thought was even on the part that was just down to bare metal starting out.



It was good to not get too close with the gun, it gives larger splotched spatters when too close.



Some edges had a gap that could be filled in well with both the rust seal first and then better with the bedliner.



A pair of butter containers cut down on the edge snapped right in to mask these 2 areas.



Then they popped out easily. I ordered some M5 sems screws that have a captive flat and a lock washer in stainless on ebay I will await using, but finished around them for the time being, probably totally unnecessary, but we'll see. I flattened down a lot of the factory sealant that covered everything to make room for these products.



I am happy how it turned out, the color in the container looked too green, but it dried lighter and more like what I was expecting later.



I don't know if I am going to make stainless support straps or not, I have the welder now to weld a rod on some stripping to make the 'T' end then all it takes is some careful bending a drilled hole, that is something I could do years later anyway if I decide to. I would use the original rubber liner and make the metal the same width and thickness as original. I may need to brush some of the colored rust seal over the holes the hooks are hanging on if there are bare spots there later.

dirtnapper56

This is exactly what I needed! I'm going to try and match up an energy suspension transmission mount and see what I come up with. So bummed that there's no polyurethane bushings for the 7atx.

edit: the measurements for the trans mount**

slartibartfast

iTrader: (7)

The RWD 7AT has a couple of options for urethane, but they don't look anything like Justin's pictures.

Justin Bailey

I have been developing a wood lathe xy table to mount a tool post to turn metal.



It's a grizzly rotary xy table about 7" high but built a 1" thick base plate that clamps and can slide in the bed. It is plenty rigid, but need to get a threaded chuck because the morse taper chuck falls out too easily. Tried to cut a slot in the bolt for the cam washer but it came out of the taper and ruined the slot or just made it too wide.



One of the quick change tool holders is for a 5/8" boring bar, but had a 5/8 threaded rod that I cut a flat onto to mount a knurling wheel and tried one of the ARP bolts right up the the shoulder, but it was really tough to get a nice formed pattern, may need to upgrade it to a dual or 3 wheel adjuatable clamping type knurling approch to put more pressure without abusing the spindle bearings so much.

This was called 'bump' knurling with one wheel, which did not really work well. The bolt is too hard to just use one wheel and takes a long time and stresses the spindle bearing like mad, so not good enough. Going to have to get a cheap scissor knurling tool and modify it to hold 2 shoulder knurls and clamp down on the bolt. I am using a 20 thread per inch wheel 1/2" diameter that makes 32 teeth on the 1/2" bolt, but I need to reduce it to .493 first because some metal will erupt from it to form the peaks while the knurl forms it. There is a formula and a chart I found where there are numerous tpi's and diameters that correspond but you really are only 7 thousandth from where it needs to be to do any knurl, mostly for harder metal. I think the starting OD of softer metal is less of an issue but I'm dealing with a harder metal being a high strength stainless bolt.

Justin Bailey

This is a cheap scissor knurl but the wheels didn't match. I found the first one (bottom) on ebay and it had a square cutting edge and was cobalt, the second I got has a champhered edge and is more durable and high speed steel, the problem here is the ultra low head shoulder bolts I threaded to hold this had a knurled edge and that made them not great as a bearing surface along with the knurling tool was weak and twisted having the wheels out on the side like that. The cobalt one being more brittle, cracked. I ordered another HSS wheel to match the other. It formed a better knurl that the single wheel but still not great enough. I'm not sure how a champhered knurl wheel will work trying to broach a washer. It will feed in better but may get stuck and not cut it, or it might work fine IDK.



Here is the bump knurled bolt and the washer that I 'broached' as well using the wheel in a vise. I held the washer in the vise and tested it and it failed at 115 ft lb. Sheared free from the washer that is. Anything over 100 is kind of OK but I imagine a perfect knurl and broached and pressed joint will take over 125 like the original with no weld nor brazing needed.

Justin Bailey

Now I cut off the fingers that were designed to hold a wheel in between them and drilled and half threaded new holes closer to the scissor fulcrum, making a stiffer tool, and you can see those narrow head bolts for the wheels had a toothed edge- no good. See the new shoulder bolt setting there has a smooth edge, but it has to be modified to recess completely to the wheel to knurl up to a shoulder, I have to wait like three weeks for the new 2nd wheel so I have to prepare new screws in the meantime. Btw most good USA made scissor knurling tools are from $500 and up and I am only doing 4 bolts so this $50 import is my experimental job. The wheels are $40 a peice. I am hoping that this will run stiffer and smoother when I get there and will form a good knurl. We'll see.



This was the 2nd attempt until the one wheel cracked, still not fantastic or anything and the under head surface got murdered since it was too close and the wheel scored it. I also only did that small area to .493 and left the rest of the bolt alone. Once I get a good knurl I can match the original rest of the bolt diameters down to 11.90mm or 15/32" for M12 thread.



This was the first bolt which I had tried the slot milling in a tool holder on the lathe but with only a morse taper holding the chuck and it came loose and the slot got ruined.



Now I made a drawbar out of a piece of 5/8" rebar, a junked torque wrench handle and one of the nissan M10 studs. I red loctighted it into the end and it goes through the headstock preventing the chuck from falling out. I turned a super hard piece of the rest of the inconel bolt I used to make the crank pulley bolt to make a threaded piece that threads into the other end of the rebar and then pinned the handle over that. It works fine and it's only for the 3" 3 jaw chuck, the other chuck I have is 6" and 4 jaw to dial in other larger things but that one threads on to the spindle.

slartibartfast

iTrader: (7)

Like, crazy, man. Out there. And any other Sixties stoner exclamation you can think of.

Justin Bailey

Lol, there is so many possibilities with a practical lathe that cuts metal, I got some laser cut 304 discs and had them predrilled in three places for some short flat head screws and some round SS bar to make stainless rear subframe spacers.



My lathe has an indexing part of the headstock that I can align to drill the holes in the round bar for the screws.

Justin Bailey

I got into takeling smoothening and eventually polishing more suspension items.



There is long heavy mold or die seams on the front control arms I blended and just at 320 grit right now. I think infiniti FSM calls them transverse links.

slartibartfast

iTrader: (7)

Not only does that look fantastic, but you made the part more reliable by removing stress risers. Practicality and esthetics meet.

Justin Bailey

I found the body holes for the front transverse links are a a bit larger than needed for the M14 bolts, they can actually fit a 5/8" bolt well. I found some more long 12 point inconel 5/8-18 bolts that I can modify for them.



All of the other 3 holes fit fine, but this one had the layers of metal slightly off from one another so a 5/8" burr reamed it better and they all fit fine, test fit the sub frame and arms and it looks good, but may meed to also enlarge the rear bushing mount slotted hole a mm or so.



Got 6 5/8"x18 tpi and 4.5 length inconel aircraft bolts, the heads are a close size to the originals. Two will be made M14, the others will be 5/8-18, M16 would be nice to keep all metric but it is slightly bigger than 5/8".



Handy now to turn things on my lathe, I have a carbide insert tool that can easily cut the tough inconel. Reducing these to M14.



Threading the front bushing bolts M14x1.5



The layout with original square nuts on this piece of grade 5 titanium, the new ones will be 28mm vs 26.75mm square in the originals, just slightly bigger and still fit loose enough for the body slots. The wall thickness of the nut is then still similar for the larger bolts as well.



The piece was very squarely milled to begin with, so instead of sawing the squares apart, I used a parting tool and spun the blank into sections more accurately.



Held the next piece and parted them in half.



14 mm drilled first.



Have a boring bar with insert to enlarge to 14.5.



Get the tap started on the lathe a few threads first. I had to turn the face down and reduce the thickness a mm or so also.



Then hand tapping in the vise. This tap is not really able to handle cutting this material, I found it to be forming the thread while hardly making any chips. It was extremely slow going, advancing only a few degrees and then turning backward with lots of oil, but may have produced stronger threads by forming.



Chased them then with a cobalt tap to make the thread smoother, it removed a minimal amount of material. It is still a close tolerance tap and kind of undersize. I only got this tap later but since I formed the first one, I did them all that way, then chased them with this one.



Stacked them on a threaded rod to round the corners a little.



At first I used a 3/32" radius round over bit but that wasn't enough for the body slots.



Went again with a 1/8" radius. I could just use a carbide wood bit to cut the titanium, went slow and it worked fine. Held the nut on a threaded rod in a boring bar holder. They have guide bearings on them so that helped. It's good to take it easy with titanium, because if it makes a spark it can ignite the shavings.



A few next to an original.



They work ok, I'm happy with that. The grade of the original nut I am not sure of but I am confident the gr5 ti is fine here, the bolt's shear strengrh is doing the work mostly.



I still have this piece I can use for the front bushing M14 nuts but the originals were distorted lock nuts and don't work very well with stainless alloys for repeated use, I may get premade M14 ti nuts and thread lock them instead, or make some flanged square nuts, the sub frame has slots to hold 19mm socket size flats. I have some M14 nuts that are 21mm flats so I could reduce the flats on them also.