max head room

It was another great day at "the office" :) Finally had the opportunity to put my new 60 cm scissors jack and taller jack stands into use. The Z stood twice as high as last week! Last week i felt like I was working in a coffin. This time it felt like camping in the great outdoors :) I can sit straight up underneath the fuel tank.

Time to remove the tranny. Drained the oil first. Looked like there was a lot of metal particles (like filing) around the plug. Good that I bought the 5spd. Supported the oil pan with a jack stand and manoeuvred my other jack underneath the tranny. After I lowered the jack, it was a matter of tugging and twisting and making sure that the tranny didn't fall off the jack. It worked, but next time I'll make sure I have a proper cart to move and jack up the tranny. The clutch and clutch plate indeed look pretty new (as the ebay ad said). Here's a comparison between the bell housings of the original 4-spd and FS5W71C's from the 240SX:

F4W71B	FS5W71C

After that was done, it was time to drop the rear suspension. Removed the bolts from the underside, making sure to support the assy. Then I removed the 3 nuts at the top of the struts on each side, only to notice that I'd forgotten to remove the flexible brake lines on each side :/ But that was fixed quickly.
Up next was removal of a spindle pin. I chose to try the LH side. Removing the locking pin in the centre wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. Driving the pin out was a different story. Using lots of penetrating oil, I just started pounding away. The first part was reasonably do-able, but after the exposed part of the pin was inside, use of a punch was necessary. Unfortunately I didn't have one thick enough; one a bit smaller than the pin itself would've been ideal. About half way the threaded end of the pin went crooked, scoring the inside :/ Damn. Ah well, I'd ordered two new control arms anyway. But still. Eventually, after hitting my thumb a few times :) the pin came out. It wasn't rusted as I thought it'd be. I decided to leave the other one in place till I have a proper sized punch to use.
With the lower control arm outta the way, it was time to work on that bitching brake drum. I'd tried all tips I could find on the web but none worked for me. With the four bolts on the floor I thought it'd be easier to deal out real hard blows. While it was on the car, the energy was used to rock the car instead of moving the drums. So using a nice sturdy block of wood, I started pounding away. Yay! after a while the bitch finally started to bodge! :)
Next week I'll work on the other leg.
Fortunately I didn't destroy the fins around the circumference of the drum, and the inner brake liner looks thick enough so after I've blasted them and given 'em a fresh coating, I might put 'em up for sale. Not going back to drum brakes anyway.
Didn't have time to remove the remaining brackets from the chassis but at least most of the nuts and bolts are loose. When forcing them loose, things got so hot that you could see vapour coming off :) Yeah, it was kind of humid inside too (water still leaking thru the roof :/ )

these mothers were also a PITA to remove