Honey Badger the Y60

[mudnut]

That is a great colour and the finish is excellent.

[BrazilianY60]

All the door hinges had some severe play on it. And I really mean ALL the 12 hinges!

Someone suggested me to take them to a certain shop specialized in in door adjustments. I took only the second row hinges (4) for a service test, as I was a bit skeptical about the shop appearance not inspiring me much. They worked the hinges and returned them on the next day.

What they have done: they POORLY grinded down (as can be seen in the pictures) an old hinge pin they had laying around to match the worn bushing and tacked it to the hinge "C channel". Then, to take out the extra play of the worn bushing height, they added a copper washer. I must admit it does work, no play at all right now, but damm it, what a dirty work! That is light years away from my OCD demanded quality control levels! I decided to use them for the time they last and control the impulse of having it redone.

20200912_203217.jpg 20200912_203220.jpg 20200912_203242.jpg


Front row hinges were a different story. Took them to the machinist that did all the suspension poly bushings and there the job was executed like a piece of art. The hinges were taken apart, the parts that were clearly bent were flattened, new bronze bushings were turned. And instead of making the bushings ID to match the original pins, he even made new pins to the precise measure of the old one taken at a section not driven by the bushes, so "his work is not influenced by any worn part". What a pro. Here you can see the result of his work.

20200912_202945.jpg

20200912_203027.jpg

20200912_202925.jpg


For the rear/barn doors hinges it was a no brainer. Left them on the machinist as well. Here you can see how bad the play was between pin and bushing when the hinges were disassembled:





And here is the final result for the barn doors hinges.
20201216_184244.jpg


The front row hinges were also missing their springs. I used the same technique I used to make the parking brake cable: printed a picture of an OEM hinge unit and compared the measurements with my real one to come up with a scale factor, and from there, I took the closest assumption I could take about the number of turns, wire diameter, etc. Found a local spring factory and ordered some made to my numbers.

20201203_114754(1).jpg

20201203_114812(1).jpg

20201203_114839.jpg

Here you can see the new springs working. I am pretty happy with the result.

[BrazilianY60]

Wheel wells were somewhat in good condition. Front-left side had a crack that was nicely welded and sanded down but that's all.

20200718_134042.jpg 20200718_134105.jpg

20200815_183726.jpg

20200815_183554.jpg


Cleaned them all, applied some wash prime on any exposed metal part and then coated them all with a product called Siltex 400. It is a rubberized/urethane thick coating that both protects the sheet metal from rocks and debris and sound deaden the wheel well. It is marketed as "body protector" and you use a plastic disposable paint gun to apply it, because it will clog the gun if you left it dry for a few minutes. My gun is still good to use as I have cleaned it good right after applying the product, but the idea with the disposable one is not to risk a good paint gun with it.

20210522_153315.jpg

20210522_153305.jpg

20210522_164521.jpg

20210522_164535.jpg

20210522_151117.jpg 20210522_151032.jpg

[BrazilianY60]

Front fenders required some beating to get into shape. One of them wasn't the car original anymore and curiously it was from a Patrol without the corner light, and the hole for it was clearly hand cut.

Weekend arrives, sand, prime, store, repeat...

20200718_124921.jpg

20200718_124942.jpg

20210116_094936.jpg


Weekend arrives, sand, prime, store, repeat...

20210123_193552.jpg

20210123_193618.jpg

20210123_195444.jpg


Weekend arrives, sand, prime, store, repeat...

20210424_172343.jpg

20210424_172348.jpg

20210529_184658.jpg


Applied that same Siltex 400 used on the wheel wells to the fenders, despite them being protected by the OEM plastic wheel well covers and not being supposed to be exposed to rocks and debris. I had product left over, and it does sound deaden the panel, so why not...

20210522_164108.jpg

20210522_164115.jpg

20210522_164121.jpg 20210522_164130.jpg

[BrazilianY60]

All doors had some kind of bend or kink from the outside. From the inside, all passenger's doors were OK, driver's door was broken in a couple of places, small barn door was OK, tire carrier barn door was damaged in more then one way, with cracked spot welds, with a thick but totally crooked reinforcement plate torch welded to the inside.

Passenger's doors
20190411_184519.jpg

20190419_153833.jpg

Driver's door
20190411_181309.jpg


Took off all the doors for the necessary panel beating everywhere. The driver's door was welded on the inside panel where needed and here one comment: what a surprisingly thin sheet metal! The tire carrier barn door had the crooked reinforcement removed, panels were beaten back to place until they properly seat on the internal OEM reinforcements. Everything was squared/aligned before remaking the spot welds everywhere and some extra weld beads were laid on the sheet to internal structure places that hold the spare tire weight.

Than it was the "new weekend, sand, prime, store, repeat" all over...

20200912_163745.jpg

20200926_184140.jpg

20200926_184148.jpg

20201010_190934.jpg


New weekend, sand, prime, store, repeat...

20201114_145517.jpg

20201114_145526.jpg

20201114_155316.jpg 20201212_173551.jpg


New weekend, sand, prime, store, repeat... x1000 LOL!

20210123_160453.jpg

20210123_195451.jpg

20210821_181950.jpg

20210821_182007.jpg

20210821_183444.jpg


We have also sprayed the inside of the doors with Siltex 400 for some level of sound deadening, but I have plans since the beginning of this restoration to do proper sound deadening techniques to the doors, like stuffing butyl rope between the safety crash bars and the sheet metal, applying butyl metallic tiles to the sheet metal, etc. That will come at the proper time.

20210529_125451.jpg

We then had the doors installed and adjusted/aligned to prepare for the final sanding and get ready for all the masking required for a two color job. I was pretty excited with the way the alignment came out.

20210626_170825.jpg

20210626_162526.jpg

20210626_162511.jpg

[MB]

Fair Dinkum (Great Aussie Gold) you are an absolute Meticulous Champion BZ Mate


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BrazilianY60]

...when I saw the car, I noticed the brake booster/master cylinder were adapted from another truck available in Brazil.

The booster is still a bit of a mystery. It does look equal to Y60 brake booster pictures I see online, but it has a part number that I checked and belongs to a Nissan Frontier truck (which is available in Brazil, BTW). On Partsouq they are not the same part number though. Maybe it was already adapted on the wrecked car? Who knows... Maybe you good fellows can tell me about you being using Frontier boosters on Patrols...

Time to do some body work on the firewall, so it was time to access the brake booster situation again. The car came with an adapted brake booster from a local Chevy C10 truck from the 80's. The booster seemed to be somehow shorter and then the lip of where the firewall upper and lower sheet metal sections meet was hammered to make it fit. Time for a fix...

This is the booster that came out. Note the stack of washers used to do spacing to some degree. What a rattling can of loosen parts, LOL. I can only imagine how silent my Patrol will be when I sort out all the crap stuff that has been done to it. Also note the weld at the tip of the shaft. It seems to have been shortened. Can´t complain about the brake pedal position though, it was spot on when driving.
20210918_161520.jpg

20210918_161533.jpg


This was the firewall situation. The goal was to fix that lip on the sheet metal but I was surprised to realize that the firewall booster holes were also fckd-up to fit the adapted booster, something that honestly never occurred me. I was naively thinking boosters bolt pattern were somewhat of an industry standard.
20210918_161542.jpg 20210918_161545.jpg

But wait... the firewall is sandwiched between the booster and the brake pedal bracket... if it is like this on the engine bay side, the cab side must have been fckd-up as well, right?
20210918_161552.jpg 20211002_110014.jpg

Here is an OEM pedal side by side with the "creative people" pedal.
20210925_124948.jpg

20210925_125013.jpg

20210925_124941.jpg

The lip and the sheet metal with the offending holes were beaten back to place.
20211002_115429.jpg 20211002_115438.jpg

[BrazilianY60]

Here you can see a comparison between the adapted booster with an OEM unit. The adapted one is quite smaller in diameter (and so in effective diaphragm area which is what provides the force factor) and smaller in volume (which influences in the "amount of vacuum" available for consecutive brake pedal pressings. The pedal was hard before, but not as hard as if there wasn't any servo assistance. With the OEM unit being such a larger area as it is, I have high hopes for the car breaking behavior after I am done with this.
20211216_093752.jpg


The OEM booster also has this aluminum spacer to space it from the firewall. Remember the hammered sheet metal lip? I guess that happened with Nissan engineers as well, LOL. It was very handy, being a removable part, to be used as a template for creating an adapter plate to fix the booster mounting holes on the firewall.
20211216_093909.jpg

20211216_093911.jpg

20211002_122142.jpg 20211002_123824.jpg

20211002_125814.jpg


Now, comparing the OEM Nissan Patrol booster with the OEM Nissan Frontier booster I got from Paraguay back in 2019. Exacly the same diameter, exactly the same volume, should provide the same braking experience as the Patrol unit. Note that the booster to firewall studs are more then double the length on the Patrol unit to account for the spacer. Also, note the pedal pressing shaft on the Frontier unit being fairly longer.
20211216_093857.jpg

Trying to understand the reasons behind such differences, I started searching online for pictures of the Frontier unit. It turned out, that the unit I got from Paraguay back in the day, was not complete. The Frontier unit actually uses an spacer as well, much longer, with its own mounting studs on the firewall facing side. That was the reason for the shorter studs on the booster unit, as they didn't need to reach the firewall but rather, just reach the spacer. Also, note that there are no threads left on the booster studs once the spacer is in, so there was no way for me to use my Paraguay unit with the OEM Patrol spacer.
20211001_132937.jpg

20211216_093932.jpg


I ended up buying another used Nissan Frontier booster, this time locally and complete with the spacer.

It turns out that the mounting face to pedal clevis pin distance of the Patrol and the Frontier units are exactly the same, with the same amount of adjustment threads on the shaft still available for fine tuning.
20211216_094113.jpg

20211216_094227.jpg


And this is how the Nissan Frontier booster looks on the Patrol firewall, with its larger spacer. Good enough for me and now I am confident that it is an easy fix whenever I need (I also have an spare booster from Paraguay )
20211002_113223.jpg 20211002_113215.jpg


Now back to the firewall fix. I have drilled 4 more holes to the adapter plate for plug welds. Aligned the plate with some screws, welded, primed and seam sealed it all.
20211002_141527.jpg 20211002_144551.jpg

20211002_144604.jpg 20211002_173114.jpg

20211002_173123.jpg

[BrazilianY60]

BTW, I am going to change my signature to Booster Collector, LOL.

20211216_093734.jpg

[BrazilianY60]

The OEM Patrol brake booster had this bracket highlighted on the pictures. It was bolt to the booster-to-master studs and has a tab with a captive nut to hold something.

Anyone know what it is supposed to hold?

20211216_094852.jpg 20211216_094852b.jpg