UNORTHODOX RACING ULTRA SS Underdrive Pulley Kit installation

This is a more in depth step by step do-it-yourself page for an UNORTHODOX RACING ULTRA SS underdrive pulley kit installation for the NISSAN 300ZX TWIN TURBO. I hope this comes in handy for the Z freaks out there who are planning to save money by installing the kit themselves instead of having a garage do it for hundreds of dollars after they have just spent $500 for the kit itself.

Here are some tools and materials that are either required or will help greatly to do the swap:

-Phillips and Standard screwdrivers
-Metric wrenches from at least 8mm to 20mm(ratchet wrenches in addition will help greatly!)
-Metric socket/ratchet set from at least 8mm to 27mm(crankshaft bolt size)from 1/8" drive to 1/2" drives
-Regular hammer and a rubber mallet
-2 to 3 vice grips(to help hold old pulleys in place)
-An OEM brand 3 jaw, 5 ton puller(to pull the crank pulley)
-1/2 in drive torque wrench that exceeds 170ft/lbs(clicker type is preferred)
-A jack and 2 jack stands
-At least one friend for help(best get two)
-A flashlight and a hand held mirror
-WD-40/penetrating oil
-A small wire brush(toothbrush style)
-Anti seize compound with old tooth brush
-X-Acto knife
-Cardboard box material
-New belts(sizes on end of page)

___This swap was done on a 1990 NISSAN 300ZX twin turbo. Because of the fact that you may have a different year, non-turbo, automatic transmission, etc., nut and bolt sizes and configurations may differ from my information but this should definitely give you a good view on what to expect.

TO START:
___Open your hood and prop it up. Jack up one side of your car's front end and position the jack stand underneath the vehicle and likewise for the other side. The front end of the car should be up high enough that you can crawl underneath. This is where the work is done, not from the top. Remove the black fiberboard splash guard under body engine compartment shroud(don't lose ANY screws, bolts or nuts!!). With the shroud removed, you should notice that on the passenger side of the lower end of the radiator, there is a plug. Open the plug and drain the coolant into a bucket. Inspect a sample of your coolant to see what condition it is in. If you notice in this picture, my coolant was dark with a hint of oil. Not a good sign but not as bad as coolant in the oil. But as of now, my engine is in good shape. Remove the radiator cap and remove the coolant hoses from the engine compartment. Unscrew the holding brackets that hold the radiator from the frame(there are only 2). From underneath, remove the bottom half of the fan shroud(this could be a bitch to do). These are pictures above and below the car with the radiator removed. Look at all the room there is to work with now! I bet you were wondering why I was removing the radiator, didn't you?! CONVENIENCE!

___After the radiator is disconnected and the lower half of the fan shroud is removed, pull the radiator up gently so the fan does not damage the radiator. Make sure the rubber pads that the radiator rests on stay in the little holes in the car's frame and not stuck on the radiator. This keeps you from losing them. After the radiator is out, with an 8mm wrench or ratchet wrench, remove the little nuts and washers that connect the fan assembly to the water pump pulley and put them in a cup so you don't lose them. The spaces between the fan blades are staggered so work between the larger space of the blades for convenience. After the fan assembly is out, re-install the 8mm nuts with washers on to the water pump to maintain the belt's tension.

___Get underneath the car and clamp vice grips to the belts and have a friend from above the car hold the water pump pulley firmly in place. This minimizes turnage of the pulley assembly when you are trying to loosen the alternator nut. Loosen the alternator pulley nut but don't remove.NOTE: ALL OF THE BOLTS AND NUTS ARE NORMAL THREAD, NOT REVERSED Loosen the alternator bolt and the alternator tension bolt to swing the alternator towards the crankshaft loosening the belt. Remove the alternator belt.

___Get your friend to get inside the car, make sure the transmission is in REVERSE, parking brake fully up, and step firmly on the brake while you take a 1/2" drive ratchet with a 3 to 4 inch extension, and a 27mm socket and try your hardest to break loose the crank bolt. The reason for the transmission being in reverse, parking brake full up, and the depressing on the brake is because the torquing of the crank bolt removal will turn the engine instead of the bolt if left in neutral, or sending the car pushing itself off the jack stands and on top of you ruining you whole day! Loosen the crank bolt but don't remove. ///--using an impact wrench(air gun) is an easier means of loosening the crank bolt, but not everyone has access to that kind of tool--\\\ From above the car, looking in the engine bay, the power steering pulley is to the left. Rotate the pulley so that you can see the power steering pump bolt "lower right" through one of the holes in the pulley(the bolt is behind the pulley). Loosen it enough to loosen the pump, but not too far so the pulley can't rotate. Then get back under the car and loosen the adjuster bolt to swing the pump down to remove the p/s belt.

___Locate the idler pulley for the air conditioning and loosen the shaft nut and then the adjuster bolt and push it up as far as it will go and remove the belt.

___Now remove the Alternator, Power steering, and water pump pulleys. Put the pulley nuts and crank pulley bolt in separate little cups or baggies or something so you won't loose them.

___Okay. here's the hard part. The crank. Save yourself some energy and plan this out to be a 2 day job. On the first day, from the top, rotate the crank so that the timing notch is about an inch and a half past top dead center. Take your hand held mirror in one hand and a can of WD-40 in the other while your friend can point the flashlight at the mirror and hold the mirror in front of the crank pulley showing the crank face. If you look towards the top of the crank shaft, there is a "tongue and groove" holding the pulley in a fixed position on the crank. There should be a hole just big enough to fit your red WD-40 hose inside it. Give it a good spraying inside that little hole about every once in a while because the WD-40 needs to set in over night to give it time to penetrate between the crankshaft and the pulley for a MUCH easier removal, plus making it less likely to damage the crankshaft upon removal of the pulley. In the mean time while you are waiting for the WD-40 to do its job, take the small wire brush and scrape off the rusty crap from the alternator, power steering shafts, and the water pump threads, and wipe them off with a damp paper towel or cloth. Then lightly coat the alternator and power steering shafts with anti seize compound using an old tooth brush.

___On day 2, cut out a circular piece of cardboard with a diameter of 7". Make sure it is perfectly round!!! This is the same size around as the crank pulley and will be an important tool for adjusting the puller correctly. Take the puller and cardboard template and have your friend hold the puller by the bolt with the jaws pointing down. Place the template within the jaws and screw the driver bolt down so it just holds the cardboard template in place. IMPORTANT!! Adjust the jaws evenly so the point of the driver bolt is in the very center of the template and the driver bolt is perfectly straight up and down! This is so that the puller will pull straight out. If the alignment is off you could damage the crankshaft, puller, pulley keyway, and or the crank pulley and it will never be able to pull the crank pulley out. So make sure the puller is properly aligned!! I purchased the OEM brand puller, part# 25919 from Advance auto. with this puller I had to set the jaws to their short settings so I could have room to work between the crank pulley and the a/c condenser. Make sure that the settings on the puller are tight without dis-aligning the puller. From underneath, set the crank bolt in the hole of the crankshaft but do not thread. Hang the puller onto the pulley so the puller is at a "Y" configuration and the bottom jaw is not clamped to the pulley. Loosen the bottom jaw nut just enough so you can open the jaw and clamp it by the rim of the pulley. Have your friend from above reach down and hold the puller while you re-tighten the bottom jaw nut. Once the puller is on the pulley, it should freely rotate around on the pulley. It should not be so tight that it will not slide, but tight enough so the puller will stay on and straight. While rotating the puller, look at the wrench end of the driver bolt on the puller and see if it is moving in a circular motion "wobbling", or if is straight. It should not wobble and should be straight as an arrow during rotation. With your hand, screw the driver bolt in until it comes in contact with the crank bolt. Make sure the crank bolt is straight and being held up by the driver bolt making sure the crank bolt is not threaded in because the tip of the driver bolt will turn the crank bolt back inside the crankshaft making the pushing effect against the crank bolt useless. The bolt has to stay put.
Now take a wrench and from above, turn left to right making 180 degrees(half a turn) of rotation each turn of the wrench. What this does is relieve the uneven pressure from turning the wrench and allowing the pulley to slide forward slightly making a "CLUNK" sound(tapping lightly with a hammer will loosen the pulley a little). If there is no clunk and the tension from turning the wrench isn't somewhat strong, the crank bolt has threaded itself in and you will have to back out the driver and crank bolts and start over.

__By this time the crank pulley should be coming out nicely. With the old pulleys out, compare the difference in weight and size of new and old. Just look at this picture of my old and new pulleys. I think the old crank was about 18lbs and the new one is about 1 1/2 pounds and the size difference is like black and white (get it?;). Clean off the crankshaft with the wire brush and wipe off with a damp towel. Coat the inside of the UR pulley lightly with anti seize compound and the same with the crankshaft. Do the same with the other pulleys. Install the alternator, water pump and power steering pulleys. The Crank Pulley will have to be installed by using a rubber mallet. Tap the face of the pulley so the pulley will set onto the crankshaft. If you don't have a rubber mallet, you could use a couple layers of cardboard or some wood to cover the face of the pulley to protect it and tap gently with a hammer. The crank bolt needs to be torqued between 159 to 173 ft-lbs. I could only go to the 160 ft-lbs max on my torque wrench but that'll suffice.

___With the pulleys installed, install your new belts in reverse order in which they were removed. Do not tighten the alternator/water pump belt yet but do tighten the rest of the belts. Remove the nuts and washers from the water pump pulley and re-install the fan to the pulley. This again will be a bitch due to limited hand space. What I did was I took a small 8mm socket, packed it half way with some masking tape so the nut would not get pushed in or fall out while trying to thread the nut on the little bolts. With my fingers(no ratchet), I squeezed my hand through the lager fan blade gap and threaded the nuts on one by one and tightened them with a wrench. After the fan is tightened on, tighten the alternator/ water belt. Now I that I have the new UR pulleys installed with new belts, its all down hill from here. During this swap I also flushed my coolant, cleaned my radiator from sediment and bugs, and changed my oil using a K&N #2008 oil filter. Might as well since I'm down here. If you plan on flushing the coolant to, its best to put in a 50/50 mixture of water and coolant into your radiator. Re-install the radiator and hoses and don't forget to re-install the lower half of the fan shroud. Re-install the lower engine shroud and you're done!

___The swap is done. I got new pulleys, new belts, new oil and oil filter, and fresh coolant. I treated my new oil with Z-Max treatment and in the fuel to.

PARTS AND SPECIAL TOOLS

UNORTHODOX RACING ultra SS underdrive pulley kit part#041001602

UR's installation instructions state that they recommend GATES brand belts #K040390 water/alternator belt, #K040365 air conditioning belt, #K040355 power steering belt. Gates brand belts are not available around here so I opted to go with a better grade GOODYEAR Gatorback brand belt #4040390 alternator/water belt, #4040355 power steering belt, #4040365 air conditioning belt. These belts don't squeal like regular belts do.

OEM brand 5 ton 3 jaw puller #25919 to pull crank pulley

CRAFTSMAN brand 20 to 150 ft-lbs(can click to 160ft-lbs) 1/2" drive, microtork Torque Wrench #9-44595

Any type of anti seize compound

WD-40

Any questions, just ask through my guest book.