Talking of simplest tasks taking forever , a few pages back I showed a pic of my lathe with a bar of Techtron mounted in the chuck. I finished the parts tonight - took 3 hours of machining to get the pieces i wanted to spec. There are 6 halves of the spring retainer bushings that needed to be replaced.
Measuring the ITB housings i noticed how random the size of the outer casings were. They averaged around 3.4cm +/- .03mm .
I was intending to make a set of bushings to friction fit with a tolerance of .002 mm but i had to widen the gap to make sure they fitted on each casting with no problem. The factory units are a sloppy fit but i wanted to do a better job.
I ended up making 3 sets , the raised lip ended up being around .2mm thicker , and the OD of the main cylinder was around .3mm thicker. The spring seems to sit and rotate on this size alot happier and it stops the spring from distorting sideways when the throttle is activated.
Here is a comparison shot of the old 17 yr old units that are falling apart compared to the new ones...
Here is the ITB with the parts located into position , not finally installed yet because i have yet to replace the seals on the shafts . Thats the next thing to make once the material gets here ..
and another shot just for the hell of it ...
I spent ages trying to find these pieces . No luck from Nissan - or from places like RHD japan etc . You actually have to buy the whole ITB fully assembled . And they arn't cheap ..
The material for this set was around $30 and maybe 3 hours of machine work to make them . It would take alot less time if they were not made of plastic. I had to run the lathe very slowly or the cutting edge heats so quickly that it just melts the piece. Still cheaper than a new set from nissan And the material is far superior .
Maybe I should tool myself up and sell some rebuild kits lol .
The shaft seal replacements are next. I have a 1ft bar of flurosint 500 bar on order ( it's $97 per ft 1 inch diam ) . Its an exotic plastic that is based on PTFE (teflon to the uninitiated of you) that is partially filled (plastic alloyed) with Mica. This makes it less likely to deform under stress , it has excellent heat resistance characteristics and has a very low friction coeficient thanks to it's self lubricating nature. This means I will be able to machine the shaft to bushing clearance of aorund .0001 thou , which will be enough for free rotating movement of the shaft and a small enough gap to stop vaccum leaks altogether . Another great property is that it's thermal expansion rate is nearly identical to aluminium meaning that the close tolerances will remain under normal running conditions.
I am seriously considering buying a tiny cnc mill so that i can cut out some thermal barrier gasket to go between the ITB's and the inlet manifold , these would stop the conduction of heat from the culinder head to the intake assembly and help keep things a bit cooler.
Measuring the ITB housings i noticed how random the size of the outer casings were. They averaged around 3.4cm +/- .03mm .
I was intending to make a set of bushings to friction fit with a tolerance of .002 mm but i had to widen the gap to make sure they fitted on each casting with no problem. The factory units are a sloppy fit but i wanted to do a better job.
I ended up making 3 sets , the raised lip ended up being around .2mm thicker , and the OD of the main cylinder was around .3mm thicker. The spring seems to sit and rotate on this size alot happier and it stops the spring from distorting sideways when the throttle is activated.
Here is a comparison shot of the old 17 yr old units that are falling apart compared to the new ones...
Here is the ITB with the parts located into position , not finally installed yet because i have yet to replace the seals on the shafts . Thats the next thing to make once the material gets here ..
and another shot just for the hell of it ...
I spent ages trying to find these pieces . No luck from Nissan - or from places like RHD japan etc . You actually have to buy the whole ITB fully assembled . And they arn't cheap ..
The material for this set was around $30 and maybe 3 hours of machine work to make them . It would take alot less time if they were not made of plastic. I had to run the lathe very slowly or the cutting edge heats so quickly that it just melts the piece. Still cheaper than a new set from nissan And the material is far superior .
Maybe I should tool myself up and sell some rebuild kits lol .
The shaft seal replacements are next. I have a 1ft bar of flurosint 500 bar on order ( it's $97 per ft 1 inch diam ) . Its an exotic plastic that is based on PTFE (teflon to the uninitiated of you) that is partially filled (plastic alloyed) with Mica. This makes it less likely to deform under stress , it has excellent heat resistance characteristics and has a very low friction coeficient thanks to it's self lubricating nature. This means I will be able to machine the shaft to bushing clearance of aorund .0001 thou , which will be enough for free rotating movement of the shaft and a small enough gap to stop vaccum leaks altogether . Another great property is that it's thermal expansion rate is nearly identical to aluminium meaning that the close tolerances will remain under normal running conditions.
I am seriously considering buying a tiny cnc mill so that i can cut out some thermal barrier gasket to go between the ITB's and the inlet manifold , these would stop the conduction of heat from the culinder head to the intake assembly and help keep things a bit cooler.
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