ProwlerGT's 3000GT Revival Thread - Start Up

[Alex3000GT]

Correct me if I'm wrong, were you trying to crank the engine over but not *start* it by disconnecting the CAS?

I don't know how big of a pain in the ass that is, but you could just disconnect the plugs from the coil pack.

Maybe I have to reread these last few pages again. I tend to skip lines sometimes.

[ProwlerGT]

Yes.

Dammit, why didn't I think of that. Thats right.... disconnecting the wires at the coilpack would do it too. I think I like the disconnecting of the CAS better though. Its still 1 wire/plug than 6 and I don't like handling the spark plug wires if I don't have to.

Its all explained in the thread I link to in post 98 1 page back.

[Alex3000GT]

haha, I know, I just don't want to let this thread die

[ProwlerGT]

Originally Posted by Alex3000GT

haha, I know, I just don't want to let this thread die

I don't think theres a way that'll happen even if I don't feel like anyone is reading. lol

A1 CARDONE reman CALIPER UPDATE: My 1995 NA had 7mm bleeder valve bolts. The A1's came with 10mm bleeder valve bolts. I had purchased 3SX's speed bleeders before I started all this and I had to send them back for a swap out. No biggie, but something to note for others ordering from RockAuto.com.

CONSUMER PRICING UPDATE: I ordered all my calipers from RockAuto.com and they are A1 Cardone's with a lifetime warranty (one which I bet they believe no one will ever use or rarely use). However one of the rear calipers came with a wrong sleeve bushing and I had to send it back leaving me to go (at RockAuto's direction) to Autozone to get a new one through a special order or RockAuto wouldn't honor the warranty on that caliper for not using a new sleeve bushing over the rear slider bolt. I also had to repack 3 boxes and ship them back to 3 different RockAuto shipping centers, with 3 different packing slips, and 3 different TO: labels for the core charges. Sooooo what I'm getting at is after all that mess, extra time, going to the post office, getting a sleeve due to the wrong one sent, etc... it would've been way more worth it to go to Autozone or Advance Auto because in the end the $$$ were nearly exactly the same yet up front online it looked like I was saving a bundle, except with the ordering stuff I was out my time and effort that I could've been spending on the car instead. Autozone has a LLT on certain parts, but honestly I'm not really worried about a lifetime warranty on a caliper. Only other thing to note is that RockAuto charged less of a core charge than Autozone does for these particular parts.

CALIPER PREVENTATIVE WEAR & MAINTENANCE IDEA I am still going to seal all the entry points on the calipers to protect from air, water, dirt, etc.. with high temp blue rtv silicone sealant. This includes the rims of the metal caps at the ends of where the slider bolts go in and out of the rear calipers, side of edges of the pistons where piston meets the piston boot on all calipers, the edges of the slider bolt rubber boots on all calipers, and around the edges of where the bolt heads meet up with the caliper holes. I say all this because even though I hope the new A1's have fixed slight design flaws in case they haven't I did notice water deposits on the rear slider bolts, of course lots of dirt around the pistons, and lots of gunk funk mixed with the grease in the slider bolt holes. It wasn't even like grease anymore, it was like a more loosey silly putty needless to say doesn't help the caliper spread out when it should which is probably very much the reason why I always used to hear scraping sounds from underneath when idling through parking lots. I realize after all this that ultimately what will keep the braking system from getting funked again is a flushing of the lines maybe every 10 to 20k depending on how anal you are.

[ProwlerGT]

Cannot get myself motivated to do the suspension and steering cause of how deep I know it will put me into doing hours of back breaking work. ugg.... instead I took advantage of a fairly low humidity cool clear day and did part 2 of the painting stuff. Meanwhile I've been doing a lot of reading and researching on the suspension installation.

pix:
Recoated again with duplicolor silver metallic flake. Another pic below shows it in low light and it shines a bit then too. Mind you my rims are chipped, jagged edged, and dented in some spots, but this coat of silver sure does make me feel better.

As the sun went down the onset of twilight humidity caught up with me and as I started to lay the blue coat down it started to slither off so I figured I better wait again for another low humidity moment.

Pic 1 of the finished rotors.

[ProwlerGT]

Pic 2 of the finished rotors

Wowee look at that caliper !

Caliper bracket

[ProwlerGT]

Shiny wheel in low light

Center caps low light

Center caps high flash - OK, so I realize the center caps didn't come out perfect, but I plan to fix this by hand. Using a stencil wouldn't work unless it was taped down or unless I taped around the edges of the diamonds. I'm starting to think that doing it by hand may come out nicer anyway and afterwards I'll coat'em with duplicolor wheel paint clear coat as I did the rims. Still though I'm liking the effect. Its gonna look cool on the days people can notice the diamond color matching the calipers/rotors.

[ProwlerGT]

DupliColor Metalcast Paint System - I am VERY satisfied with the results. There is a lesson I learned with all this. Remember: Clean Clean Clean surfaces (preferably wheel wire acid sprayed on or maybe dipped in a bucket of it) > dry > prep > 2 Adhesion Coats 3 minutes apart > Your judgement of coverage satisfying Ground coat > 1 hour wait till color > Color coat

The lesson here is that I observed no matter how well I shook all the cans before spraying that there is considerable metal flake in the Ground Coat paint can and it does not come out liberally until you are at half or lower of the can's volume so my later parts got more flake as a result. I would think if you stored the cans upside down for a day or two before painting this may help spread the flake better when you go to shaking them up and spraying.

Another thing to note is how I laid the parts on the table; naturally the areas on the parts that aren't going to be so visible are facing down...... and if I didn't get that right in my head.... well POOP.

[Alex3000GT]

I painted stock 94 3000GT rims white. I used 2 cans of primer, 2 cans of white, and 1 can of clear coat.

I pretty much did everything you did, and they turned out very nicely. I even left the silver lip.

245/50/16 Yokohama Avid V4s. Very very nice tires.

The center caps are hard as hell to paint, I ended up painting them white, then hand brushing the red mitsu logo in. Taping out the logo was just too time consuming for my patience.

[ProwlerGT]

Originally Posted by Alex3000GT

I painted stock 94 3000GT rims white. I used 2 cans of primer, 2 cans of white, and 1 can of clear coat.

I pretty much did everything you did, and they turned out very nicely. I even left the silver lip.

245/50/16 Yokohama Avid V4s. Very very nice tires.

The center caps are hard as hell to paint, I ended up painting them white, then hand brushing the red mitsu logo in. Taping out the logo was just too time consuming for my patience.

Precisely. When you are doing stuff like this you eventually get to the point where you are constantly asking yourself, "How can I do this the fastest and least amount of work?" and taping for paint prep usually is one of the slower things to do. I'll be doing some brushing as well.

EDIT: LOL - I'm not going all this way into this car to be beaten by some damn center wheel caps. I'm going to do it RIGHT (the very long and tedious way) after the car is ready to be put back on the road. I tried the brush technique today and it was going good till I laid it on a lil thick and then the surface just isn't smooth anymore and that won't jive with me.