DrewZee87T's M30 Convertible
1991 M30 convertible - project turbo M
Links:
The definitive source of all things F31 M30
Leopard - F31 Club!!
I
purchased this car off of eBay for $810. It's Infiniti's first attempt at a
When
I got the car it had 153k on the clock. Like all M30's it came with VG30E na V6
motor and auto trans (yuck) with a RWD configuration using the R200
differential. It is rumoured to be a viscous LSD but I cannot verify this. The
car runs perfect, doesn't burn or leak oil and basically is clean under the
hood. The previous owner had receipts for all of the major services (timing
belt, water pump, etc.). It passed
Major
areas with problems when I got it, everything else was well maintained:
·
Automatic top didn't work
·
Power steering out
·
Top in poor condition and rear window is opaque
·
Driver side parking lense broken
·
Both front seats heavily worn (destroyed)
·
DIRTY INTERIOR - and I mean dirty
·
All speakers blown
·
Boots on steering rack torn
·
Trunk release broken
·
Trunk struts worn out
·
Rear passenger strut blown
·
Non functioning antenna
Let
the project begin……
If
you are interested in future plans, check this link Project
Turbo M30. For basic stuff that I have done since getting the car, see
below:
Project
clean the damn car:
·
OMFG…that's a lot of dirt. Removed front seats, shampooed
and cleaned up carpet and floormats as well as possible without industrial
steam equipment. This is the filthiest interior I have ever seen, the owner had
the top down all the time and the fallout of our
·
Clean and wax. No problem. Still needs someone to buff out
the pollution in some areas and a good detailing, but looks really clean, pearl
paint is in very good condition. Car has no evidence of any significant body
work every being performed. It's a clean rust free body with a few very minor
dings. The frames and underbody are perfect.
Project
get the tops working again:
·
Roger posted this up on F31Club: go here to see - Maintenance of convertible
top motor
Project
put a stereo and some speakers in:
Other than
the take off the door panel thing, it was really easy. The speakers were some
I ran the fronts through
the stock headunit non bose this week and it was AWFUL. The stock unit does not
allow you to fully fade to the front, the blown up rear speakers were buzzing
along with the fronts.
I pulled the head out this
afternoon and replaced. Very very easy...easiest install I have ever done in
fact. Three screws one by the lighter, and two in the cubby and the front cover
is off, pull 4 screws and the whole thing pops out. Replace with head of your
choice. I used the manual and just hacked into the harness where I needed
stuff, leaving enough room to unhack if necessary. Very straightforward.
I did have a problem with
one of the
Speakers look like this:
head:
Project
Fix the Power Steering:
·
I went in to determine the cause of the no power steering,
it’s a leaky high pressure hose. Since I am going to be installing the Z31
crossmember and it already has a rack with good hoses on it, I am not going to
bother fixing this until the turbo motor install and tranny swap.
Project
get some new seats in that thing, completed
·
I had a set of Recaro SE from the overboost car sitting
here with z31 rails. The z31 rails don't fit the car and the only resources I
could locate (F31club, again) told me to get R31 skyline rails. Well they don't
exactly sell those stateside and I don't know how to use Rinkya and Yahoo.jp. I
contacted a great shop called Wedge Engineering in
·
Next part of this effort will be to find some Recaro
material that matches and have the rear seats upholstered using that material.
While I am at it, I plan to get rid of the White leather on the Door panels in
exchange for black vinyl or some other black or grey. You cannot touch the door
panel with any amount of dirt on your hands without leaving your mark. This
might take a while.
·
Seats, installed -
Project
S13 Coilovers - completed
Having
a crappy suspension with 15 year old shocks is not good. The OEM replacement
sonar suspension shocks are about $2500 a set and really aren't that good
anyway. A nice set of coilovers can be had for about $1,000. I opted for that.
In order to get coilovers in your M30 you need to do a few tricks. For the
fronts, you need to obtain the inner and outer tie rods, lower control arm and
spindles/hubs assembly from a S13 240sx (89-94?). The rest of your M30 stuff
can be used and its quite a simple swap, just requires some time and patience.
Installing the rear coilovers requires some minor customization and is also
quite simple. Getting to the rear shocks on a convertible, well that’s a bit
more tricky but we will cover that.
I
purchased a set of KTS coilovers for an S13. They are pretty reputable, have
good support in the
For
the fronts, the parts list from Dorislut on www.f31club.com
is perfect. I had everything I needed.
Remove
the stock parts - easiest way is to remove the two nuts for the sway bar end
link, remove the two nuts to the tension rod, remove the INNER control arm from
the rack (don't bother with the outer link, you won't be using any of this so
remove as an assembly), remove the ABS sensor from the M30 spindle assembly and
get it out of the way. You won't have antilock brakes anymore. Remove the brake
caliper and hang out of the way with
wire, remove the rotor, remove the bolt for the lower control arm, remove the
three nuts under the hood holding the top of the strut, stand back as it is
going to all drop at once. Throw this shit out.
This
is the S13 lower control arm, tension rod (I used the M30 tension rods) and
spindle/hub assembly. Install this.
The
coilover will pop right in and bolt up to the s13 parts. Reinstall the caliper
and disk, note that the caliper will be on the opposite side of the wheel now.
No problems, just bolt it on. 
Fronts
took about 6 hours, including pulling the parts at the junkyard. I think I
could probably do it in half that time now that I have done it once. Not easy,
but not really hard either. I had problems with some bolts on the M being very
difficult to remove. The rest was straightforward.
For
the rears - the convertible M30 is not so clean when it comes to accessing the
rear struts. This will get it done:
First,
put the top down. Remove the bottom of the rear seat, just pull on it and it
pops out. Now put the top up, and remove the four nuts that hold that back seat
in. You will need a long extension and a u-joint adaptor to reach the ones on
the bottom. You will need to crawl into the trunk like a dead guy in
Remove
these screws from the plastic cover:
Now
go crawl back into the trunk and remove the same screws from the other side.
The plastic piece should come loose and you can slide it down the seatbelts out
of the way. You could remove it entirely by removing the seat belts, but I
didn't bother. Just get it out of the way.
Now
you can access the struts - there is some funky rubber foam covering them up -
move it out of the way:
Remove
the screws from the actuator and remove the actuator.
At
this point you can work with the top up or down. It's easier with the top down
for me. Just tuck the headliner out of the way around the strut tower. See the
ears that the actuator was screwed to - if you want to reuse the struts, you
need to remove the nut and pull this off in order to get the strut out. If you
don't care, just take vice grips and bend them up.
Now
you want to jack up the rear of the car and put it on jack stands, remove the
rear wheels. Undo the lower strut (17mm one bolt). Remove the three nuts up top
and remove the strut.
Here
is the side by side on your new v. old:
As
you see, the s13 strut uses only two bolts. Also, the bolts are smaller for the
s13 so your M30 nuts won't fit. I used 4 nissan 12MM nuts that I found lying
around in my box of bolts.
Measuring
the new strut, you will find that bolt center to bolt center is about 3
1/8". You need to make the new holes to meet with this width.
Use
one of the existing holes, and drill a new hole on the other side. You can see
where I marked it up.
Use
a round bastard file to slot the existing hole towards the other hole until it
meets with your mark. You can now install the strut. I removed the lower strut mount
from each of the struts and measured two inches up to the locknut, so that both
struts would be at the same height relative to eachother. Then tighten the
lower locknut. Jack up the control arm and install the strut bolt, complete
torquing the top nuts. You are done. Put the wheels back on and go about
adjusting your ride height.
Slamola!
Now
you get to put all the interior back together, go for it. I did a lot of
cleaning while in there and fixed yet another hydraulic leak that I found. I am
just leaving the back seats out for now since I am going to get them sent to an
upholsterer for a redo with black cloth.
Project
New Convertible Top - under construction - check back
Project
Steering Wheel - This will have to wait. I kind of like the idea of airbags,
and the car is very difficult to steer right now, so the big truck wheel that
the M30 comes with is useful until I get things fixed.
Project
Front Bumper Cover - I need a new bumper cover, but I need to wait to see what
kind of configuration the FMIC requires before I do anything on this. Also want
to get some side skirts of some kind. This is future stuff.
More
to come, stay tuned.