Ivy Tech Graduate (x2)

(Repost from my personal blog)

Introducing, Sam Centellas, certified in Automotive Service Technology AND Maintenance and Light Engine Repair. 

Me and My Degrees

A few years ago I wrote about being a college dropout (blog)... I had started my Autotech Certificate in 2012 when I worked at Ivy Tech... I left the college in 2013 and stopped taking classes. I started back at it in 2020, I figured no time like the pandemic to get back at it.

I learned A LOT. 

The biggest thing I learned... is how hard it is being an adult going back to school. WOW. Most semesters I took one class, some semester I took two, all while working a full time job, sometimes while working more than one full-time job... and the whole time being a parent, running my side hustle, trying to stay healthy and trying to stay sane. 

I'll be honest, it was harder than when I got my master's degree. Yeah for real, the time in the shop you can't BS like I could writing papers in grad school. You also have to commit the time, once you tear the brakes down on a car, you can't just shelf it for later, you got to get it done. When you break something, you have to fix it, when you don't know how to do something, just googling it doesn't fix it... you need to tell someone you can't figure it out and ask them to show you how to do it. Then you have to try it yourself, and prove you learned it. 

I also learned about not solving problems with what you think, but with what you know. Car repair isn't about guessing, if that was the case your mechanic would do the wrong repair at least 50% of the time. If when I was 99% sure I knew what was wrong, you still have to test to be sure, and yep, that 1% makes a difference. It made me think a lot about my work, we often trying to solve problems that don't actually exist and then wonder why we didn't solve the problem. We didn't actually test to see what the problem actually was... 

I got a lot of work done on the my Z which was nice... but also did brakes on the family van, my MKZ hybrid, Juan's Z, and lots of other student and school cars (changed the oil on the chancellor's car!). Link below to my Z blog with lots of the cool projects but here is a direct link to my favorite one was all the suspension work I did to get her ready for the 2022 Race Season (which then I barely raced the car...): Here Comes 2022. 

I met more great people... students who were trying to improve their life through technical skills. Students who didn't know what they wanted in life but just liked cars. I connected with former colleagues or friends in different ways... I remember when a top community leader came into the shop on a tour and couldn't believe it was me covered in brake dust tearing up a Toyota Solara with some students. He asked if I was the teacher... nope, here to learn. 

I also learned again, and was reminded how those in trades get treated. Wearing dirty jeans and my Dickies work shirt... means I got treated differently stopping at the store after class. I wrote a blog about that a few years ago (can't find link)... interestingly I thought pandemic taught us how important essential workers are, but I realized that was a lesson quickly forgotten by our country. Also a reminder to many, that an entry auto mechanic actually makes more per hour than I did with my master's degree... 

Lastly... this was a little in honor of my grandpa. He owned a garage, and always wanted his grandkids to be "smarter" than him and make more money. I remember he laughed when I told him I had started an auto tech degree all those years ago... he told me something like you are an engineer what are you going to do with that? I told him, to try to be as smart as you and open a garage (I have a dream of opening a non-profit garage some day). 

I had a lot of stories and posts about my classes, especially on my other blog (Me and My Z). I am actually really proud of these TWO certificates, yeah I started so long ago that my credit tracking was off, and while I planned one certificate, I ended up getting two, and one semester earlier than planned. 

Now debating if I sign up to walk at commencement... 

Fairlady's New Shoes

DONE. Well kinda, still need some center caps and I will need to either clear the wheels or ceramic coat them to protect them... but they are on the car! 

What are they? 

Well these are a vintage Shelby Viper wheel... the style is most well known as American Racing Equipment (ARE) Libre Wheels and very popular in late 1960s and early 1970s and were run on Alpha Romeos, Datsun 510s and of course Datsun/Nissan Z race cars (240, 260, 280). 

Why am I so excited? 

I got these wheels from a couple that was parting out a 1973 Datsun 240z up in Grand Rapids, MI. I got them for a steal cause they were in fairly bad shape. Well, good enough shape that in my first year I threw a set of Falken Azenis tires on them and used them for racing... they held air, but didn't look 100%. 

Original Look

Sanding and sanding 

So over winter I moved the Azenis tires to my Shelby Cal 500 wheels... which meant it was time to restore these wheels... and man it was a project! I want to thank everyone who gave some advice, encouragement, or helped along the way. 

To Pilo over at Pilo's Body Shop for sandblasting them for me, to Jason at Luxe AutoSpa in Niles as an expert at finishing wheels for the tips and pointers on materials to buy and grits to use, my Hot Wheels customizing friend Diego for tips of polishing them, and Braxton over at Discount Tire for the deal on tires and understanding why I wanted to mount and balance them myself. 

This whole project was a labor of love... it also took team work, as I might have quit on them several times, and I think the color I planned to paint them (satin black) would have been a mistake. So what all did it take? 

First step was I clean them up. I did a light hand sanding on them, used a palm sander and realized these were going to need a little to clean up. So I had them sandblaster, in retrospect I should of only sand blasted the backs... but hey you live and learn. 

Second step was sanding... I originally started with 320 grit... and realized I had to start back at 150 grit... I used some grinding wheels to start. Then by hand at 150, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and finished with 2000 grit... sounds like a lot of steps and it was. The first few grits I was doing about 20-30 minutes per wheel... and it got less and less and ultimately yhe 2000 grit was maybe 2-3 minutes per wheels just cleaning them up and getting them ready for polish. 

In the middle of that, at about the 400 grit mark (about 50% of sanding complete) I painted the backs of the wheels flat black. I did this on previous wheels, they look sharper longer like that and clean up from brake dust and track rubber sling easier. 

Picking Colors... Silver or Gray?

I then sanded the lips of the wheels to 2000 grit. Once I felt it was ready for polish and buffing, I taped off the lips, and painted the center of the front of the wheels. After much deliberating and advice, I settled on rattle cans from Rustoleum of a color called "Black Stainless Steel"... which is really more of a metallic dark gray and really made a nice contract with my body color and flat black bumpers. 

Then I pealed the tape and buffed the lips of the wheels... they looked great, and at that point I estimated I spent about 2.5 hours on each wheel. It was time to shop for rubber, get valve stems, and mount/balance them. I wanted to do this myself, mostly cause I didn't want the wheels scratched up on install (I ended up scratching them myself anyways...). 

Well there is the finished product... 14x5.5 Shelby Viper vintage wheels for Me and My Z. It was a labor of love, and there has been a cool sense of pride as a drive around town on my Fairladys new shoes. 

 

Bumpers, Fender Mirrors and Painting

Well, not a planned update for this year... as I wrote before my passenger side fender got all banged up in the garage over the winter. Originally I was just going to leave it, didn't want to waste fun summer driving time and potentially miss any races. Well with work, family and travel schedules... a 3-4 week window appeared and I decided to let Pilo over at Pilo's Body Shop have a crack at her. 

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...

If you don't know the story.. google it. If you know me well, thats how I live my life... while I am doing something, might as well do it right and get some other items done as well. So a quick fender paint turned into... 

Sandblasted my Shelby Libre vintage wheels (still working on refinishing them)
New rear bumper (Skillard)
Got a new Xenon front air damn from a car club member (thats Kurt!)
Fender Mirrors (Z Car Depot)
Also painted rear deck lid, so of course also got a new deck lid cover (Skillard)

Since I didn't find a new front air damn until we had nearly finished... I splurged and ordered the Skillard.com front Type 1 Air Splitter... it was originally to help off set the sagging front spoiler (from going off at the track two years ago) and gave me an excuse to splurge. I still haven't mounted that as it is fairly extensive... 

Anyhow... the paint match on the fender, deck lid and front spoiler is awesome. Not perfect, it never is on spot repair (I skipped on blending since I want to fully rep
aint the car someday), but man its so good I bet hardly anyone will be able to tell. The best part is that Pilo let me work on the car a little, I learned some painting tips and helped with the front spoiler. 

I made some good decisions on parts, and some bad ones, let's break it down. 

Fender Mirrors - I got the grey plastic ones, they were on clearance (still are if you want a set) and I figured for the savings I can paint them black quick. However, the black ones are also now on sale, and I spent more in paint, sand paper, and time than I saved. I mean it was fun sanding, and I went above and beyond and since I had to paint, I sanded off the flashing lines (plastic mold lines) so I feel like they look more high end... but I know they are cheap, and I shoulda of just bought black ones. 

Rear Bumper - they sell it in raw aluminum, or black powder coat. I am glad I went cheaper here, cause it was easy to paint, and we ended up custom cutting a notch in the bumper near my tow hook. That would of ruined the finish on the powder coat. The real mistake here though was not buying a bumper in the first place, and trying to jury rig an old bumper that was in terrible shape to the car... that was last year and now my rear fenders look like swiss cheese. Fix that another day... the new bumper looks nice and I need to adjust them a bit but looking good. 

Okay so what is next? Well I have some autocross events, a track night at Gingerman Raceway and lots of other projects around the house and garage to get done. I need to find time to finish the rims, no real priority on that, but man I can't wait to see how she looks on vintage rims to complete the look. 

August 6th Cars and Coffee, August 11th Gingerman, then September and October autocross events... maybe sneak in a Z car show and a track day with the Corvette club... who knows. Glad to have my baby back! 

Here comes 2022

Well the 2022 season started... I got the suspension installed in the car and done barely a week before the first race. It was a labor of love... and a longer blog will be coming on what all it took to get it all installed and the work we did, but for now I wanted to note all the work that was done to the car and how she is riding. 

Z Car Depot: www.zcardepot.com
Adjustable Lower Control Arms - 800-890
Bump steering spacers - 650-259
Stainless Steel Brake Lines - 800-193

The Z Store - Motorsport Auto (MSA)
Front Street camber kit from MSA - 23-4188 
Rear Camber Adjustment Kit - 23-4171
Koni Yellow Adjustable struts - 23-1032/33
Eibach progressive springs - 23-4042
Steering Rack Bushings - 23-4151 
Steering Shaft Coupler -  23-4160

Apex Engineering - Quick Steering Knuckles - S30 280z

Techno Toy Tuning - Custom Control Arm Bolts - S30

Also new inner and outer tie rods, new lower ball joints, and tons of new bushings and new rear bearings, mostly from Z Car Depot. I did 90% of the work myself with other students at Ivy Tech Community College. I am two classes away (I think) from earning my technical certificate. 

Lot's of special thank you's to people for the help. Special thanks for all the members from the South Bend Region SCCA (SBR) who help with leads on parts, experts to help, and general encouragement. I have struck up a great new shop relationship with Direct Performance Solutions and hoping to find some time at Pilo's Body Shop to get my fender repaired... see my previous post on that poor fender. 

Want to see my baby on the track? Check the SBR Facebook page for events, hopefully I will be at most of those (fingers crossed). 

There Goes 2021

 Well... I guess I was worse at writing on this blog as I was on my personal blog. So let's see what did we miss since Feb 2021. 

Autocross - The Z did nearly a monthly autocross this year! Well I think I only actually got to 4 or 5 events but I felt like I was regular out there with the car! I started the year on my stock suspension and crappy tired but ended up upgrading to my Falken Azenis and dropped in a used set of Tokicos/KYB suspension. 

Track Days - we did three! I feel good abut that, I did two last year and this year more. So she is getting her workouts. We chewed up the Azenis pretty good, and luckily no major issues this year on track. I did have one big spin out in the middle of the track and luckily everyone dodged my car and we stayed safe. If you want to get out on track... following the SCCA Track Night in America program, great price and great way to get safely on track. 

Wrenching - well we were less than productive in the wrenching department this year. Installing my rear bumper the fuel tank neck got drilled into... nearly sidelined me from an event. Luckily the part was $65, unluckily it took way more labor than I care to admit dropping the tank, putting it back in, dropping it again (long story) and re-installing again. Whew. Also, the used set of shocks/struts I put in... one strut straight up blew out at my track day, and one was leaking pretty badly so I bit the bullet and bought all new (more on that later). 

Scarwars - I wrote a blog (One More Scar) about my new scars... new knee surgery, eye lid surgery, and a big scar to the Z. When I took my Z up to Ivy Tech (I am working on my auto tech degree) I was quickly backing out to pull into another lift and BANG CRUNNNNNCHHHHHH.... I hit my passenger side fender into a big commercial truck. Luckily no damage to the truck, luckily I have a spare fender already, but unluckily really no time/money to do body work on her right now so it will have to wait. 

So what is next? Well this 6 month recap will hopefully not be the last post for 2021. The Z is on a lift now and I am working on putting in new Eibach progressive rate springs and new adjustable Koni Yellow struts. This upgrade is considered way easier than the challenging coilover install on these... but man this "easier" job is proving very challenging. Wish me luck... and if you follow this and I haven't posted about the suspension being done... HMU. I need to update the page more. 

Glove Boxes, Tow Hooks and AFM

Well as usual... long time between posts, and this blog will end with a promise to post more... but hey we all know how this will go by now. If not, welcome to "Me and My Z"... a now quarterly blog about my 280Z. I do have a few more months before April and when I need her back on the road, back to autocrossing, and back on the track. 

Recap - I started classes again at Ivy Tech, partially so I am no longer a college drop out (Blog - College Drop Out), but also for some shop time, access to a lift, a warm spot for working on my car, and the chance to learn more skills as a mechanic. 

 

We finished the fall semester with the car in parts. We did finish the valve stem seals, and adjusted the lash while in there and worked on timing and ignition but the Air Fuel Meter (AFM) was completely taken apart. The lock screw was stripped and we couldn't get it back together. So January couldn't come soon enough to get back in the garage and finish it. We have to jury rig it but we got it all together, tuned, and even took a very cold January drive (with a driver side window, and no heat).

New Items - over the holiday break I ordered some Skillard tow hooks, and I worked on a custom mount of the radio bracket into the glovebox. I snagged a cheap deal on a Bluetooth radio, so I figured while we are re-wiring things lets put the radio in the glove box to free up space for more gauges in the dash. I also thought, hey lets fix the horns, it can be that hard... typical Datsun owner, who hasn't learned that nothing is easy... like trying to fix the map light switch to work... another story for another day. 

So where are we? 

Well the radio works (I need some mounts for the speakers still), the horn works, most interior lights have been converted to LED, and the AFM works. BUT, we took apart the air intake, and in mid conversion to a cold air intake style filter... ran into fitment issues. So she is filterless right now, but luckily not going anywhere so its cool. I ordered some parts so hopefully we button that back up soon. 

So what's next? 

We are going to rip out the AC parts (she doesn't need AC and none of it works anyways). Then we need to get it to the body ship. My man Pilo is going to help with getting a rear bumper mounted and we are going to tackle replacing one of the frame rails (maybe both). 

If that all goes well and doesn't total drain the car piggy bank I hope to get a new exhaust for it (I think suspension will wait until next season). Then I need to finish restoring my set of Shelby Libre Wheels... and she will be looking fresh, smelling cleaner and if I am lucky with a driver window in case it rains again while I am driving her. 

Thanks for checking in y'all. Me and My Z are nearly ready for 2021! 

Oil Caps, Connectors and Lug Nuts

Working on cars teaches you things, and recently the Z has handed down several important lessons for me. Luckily, none of them caused a critical failure or accident, but all of them could have, or at a minimum cost me time or money (or both). 

At the end of August, I invited my friend Juan to work on his Z (350Z) in my drive way while I worked on mine. I jacked it up and took off front rims to clean them up well after my track day. I was helping Juan with his install, and working on mine and got a little distracted. I didn't torque down my lug nuts. When did I find out? LUCKILY... I did a quick trip to Target, and one the way back my steering wheel was shaking bad... and it got worse as I got close to home. I decided to pull over instead of finish the drive and... WHOA. Driver side wheel was nearly off, it was missing TWO lugs (out of four) and the passenger side was missing one. I was close enough I jogged home, grabbed my tools and jack and D dropped me off at the car. Luckily I had found my extra set of lugs (Blog on my lugs issue before: Garage Lessons). I am so lucky one of the wheels didn't fly off... could of caused major damage. 

In September I had another track night up at Gingerman Raceway. It was my birthday week, and with lots of work and personal things going on I was so excited to get away for a night and race. I had a killer night, felt some decent laps, and pushed it hard at the end and actually went so fast I missed corner #11 and ended up off course in the sand. I was able to get back on track, and finish one more lap. As I left though... I slammed my car door and shattered my drive window... and then it got worse, after getting gas I went to turn on the lights and nada... I made a risky decision and I drove from South Haven, MI to South Bend without headlights. Story on fixing the headlights below. 

At the end of September, I had my final track night of the year. Made it a family trip, wanted to have the kids watch me race. Unfortunately I still had a busted window and rain was in the forecast, and a cold front moved in that was going to kill the fun level for my spectators. I was enjoying show kids around the track, and show Heather where to watch from, and show Cruz how I check fluids, tire pressure, etc... My group ran last, kids went to watch, and I started my car, and it died. Weird, started her up and she seemed fine so I drove off. In paddock lined up to go on course... she died again. Never happens. I started her again and she was fine so I hit the track... and it was 20 minutes of fun, lap after lap, couple cars I kept up with, some Corvettes kept lapping me, but man I had fun... when they called us in to pit... she stalled again. I coasted and started her back up... drove a bit, and then she stalled. All of my stuff was packed in our van, and she kept wanting to stall, so I pulled up and told Heather let's go. I didn't want her to stall again and maybe die there and I would have to worry about towing her from the track. So we went to our hotel, I was able to keep her running. I popped the hood... oil EVERYWHERE. I forgot to out the oil cap back on. Interestingly my oil pressure was fine the whole time, so I would not of guess oil issue. Well unfortunately we left the track so I gave up my second drive time, but rain moved in so maybe I saved myself. 

I finally for around to working on my headlight fix. At home I checked fuses, googled stuff, and it looked like I needed a $200 combo switch. Well since I started this Ivy Tech Class (College Drop Out) I figured lets diagnose the problem in class. We got to work, checked fuses again, took apart the combo switch, tested wires at the headlight, took apart the headlights (not easy)... and couldn't figure it out. Instructor asked, did you check grounds at the headlights, yes, the switch, er no those grounds would be fine... So we chased the ground wires back, which was through a connector of which all other items worked... so I didn't check those... pushes that in, and BAM, headlights. We spent a couple hours, I busted a few knuckles, and took apart literally everything, but that connector. 

So what is this blog about? 

Details... small details, small distractions, small connectors... they all make a difference. Following the right steps, not skipping a step, not assuming, not over thinking... I am for sure enjoying my auto tech class, reminding me the importance of process, of logical thinking, of deductive reasoning... also reminding me how much more I have to learn in life.