Reds and Blues

It’s 6:00PM… the afternoon sun blazes low in the sky as we release the jacks and set down the front end of my ’73 240. We are 10 hours into a 6 hour suspension job. We are tired, but excited to see what we’ve accomplished.

The rear of my car had a questionable disc conversion that would work much better on one of Ian’s racecars than my street machine, so we dropped the entire rear subframe and made a straight swap. Consequently we had to bleed the entire hydraulic system, but it was worth it.

Meanwhile, the shock absorbers on my front end were so shot that the damper rod sunk straight into the tube when we freed it from the top hat and released the spring. The blown cartridges were permanently rusted into the spindle housings. We tried penetrating oil, old-fashioned elbow grease, and even the fiery persuasion of a propane torch… to no avail. Ian kindly offered me a set of 260Z strut housings from his collection of spares with the intention of turning my rusted units into welded coil-overs for the aforementioned racecar. We thought we had overcome all the major obstacles and were ready to drop the car, give it a quick driveway wheel alignment, and send me off on a 45-minute shakedown ride home.

As the front fenders settled, the car took on a noticeable rake… our intention was to lower it, but this is a bit extreme. The front fenders are literally resting on the top of the wheels – something is definitely wrong here.

One of my favorite qualities about Ian was that he exuded a quiet confidence; an infectious sense of calm. A mindset that, no matter how complex, every problem has a solution, and while it might take some time, some hard work, some pain, and some reflection – the answer IS out there, and we WILL find it. In life I’ve met just a small handful of people with this superpower, and Ian was one.

We had heard stories that there was an issue with the “Tokico Red” suspension for the 240 but it seemed like forum noise and old wives’ tales. Tokico is a reputable company that makes quality brake and suspension components, but the set of “Reds” for this particular car was a notable and regrettable exception. The rears were fine but the front springs were either too short or too lightly sprung, and the evidence was right in front of us – an undriveable car.

It was dinner time, the sun was getting low in the sky, and I felt some guilt (that persists to this day) for keeping Ian from his wife and the boys, but the fact was I physically could not leave until we got the car sorted.

In his usual placid style, Ian took stock of the situation, his formidable catalog of spares, and our best options. He had a partial set of old MSA “blues” that should be a similar spring rate to the Tokico “reds” we put on the rear of my car. We did a quick spring rate test on his homemade tester and found that they were right around 175 lbs/in. We got the car back in the air, released the struts, replaced the ill-fated “reds” with the orphaned “blues”, and got the new-to-me McPhersons back in the car. We torqued down the various bolts with our finely-calibrated right arms, and dropped the Z back to earth.

This time, she looked right. We turned the wheel left and right, did a quick clearance check, and then a homebrew, driveway wheel-alignment with a very clever set of laser-cut aluminum plates and a tape measure.

By now it was just about 10:00pm. We buttoned up the car, put away the tools, went upstairs, and opened a couple celebratory Heinekens to collect ourselves. We chatted about the finer points of racing suspension, recent developments at Ian’s company Rail Propulsion Systems, his boys’ experience in Scouts (I too am an Eagle Scout and shared that foundational experience) and life in general. I admired his mid-century Mille Miglia poster and ruminated on the lives of the men that took part in that particular contest as we headed downstairs to shut the garage doors.

I first learned how to work on cars by holding the flashlight for my dad. We did oil changes, brake jobs, and basic tune ups to keep the family cars running, safe, and reliable. This planted the seed that grew into my love of cars, but we had never done anything this ambitious. With floor jacks, jack stands, and a few specialized homemade tools in the driveway, we had transformed my car.

That homebrew, tape-measure 1/8th inch toe-out alignment was so good that I tracked the car for several years at Willow Springs and Laguna Seca with only minor adjustments. I could chuck the reborn Z into a four-wheel slide and with its forgiving grace, plot my way cleanly out of a corner. We had built a car that was more than a match for my meager skills as a driver, and a grin-inducing companion at that.

Below are photos of Ian driving my car on a hot lap at Laguna in 2019, with me in the passenger seat, and of me solo, divebombing the infamous corkscrew.