This morning I began the process of converting the 350z
back to stock, or close to stock. Mike Lane over on the
east coast requested the control arms/custom bushings that
I have on the car, so he sent me his original OEM set. A
couple of months ago I actually tried to remove the arms
on my car so I could lube them up and try to get rid of
some of the excess noise in the car, but I wasn’t able to.
One of the nuts on the upper strut mount was stuck and no
matter what I tried I wasn’t able to get the nut removed.
I picked up some tools from the local Ace Hardware in Half
Moon Bay to get that pesky nut off, and this morning when
I got started, things didn’t go well. I managed to break
an extension I was trying to use, then I managed to break
the bolt extractor as well! I was not a happy camper,
though I decided to try one more thing, a better quality
extension and turning it by hand. After that nut was
removed replacing the control arms was nice and easy.
So the first parts of the car are back to stock, I’m shipping out Mike’s new control arms early next week, and hopefully they will see some autocross action soon!