GTSBoy

Yes, but no. You need to keep the mating surfaces bare (ie the flat faces where the caliper and upright pads touch the dogbone) and also the internal threads will remain bare (unless there are no internal threads - do they use nuts on all the bolts?). So you can slow down obvious external corrosion, but not all of it. Anodising would be required to provide decent protection to the alloy, but I'm not actually sure if you should anodise something that is all about the strength. Anodising does reduce strength significantly. Like, up to 50% on some alloys for high thickness coating.

'Sgot nothing to do with them being Japanese. The climate in the north of Japan has similarities to the UK - the cars are made in the knowledge that they have snow and salt, and they rot there. Cars made in the US rot like buggery in the US. British cars have always rotted regardless of the weather. They will rot indoors in a climate controlled bubble! The brackets are not unsafe yet, but they will get that way. They may well corrode where the bolt threads are in contact and the bolts could just jump out without warning.

Dissimilar metal corrosion. Aluminium is less noble than steel/iron, and will corrode preferentially when in contact with it and a conductive solution (ie, wet road salt). Tends to suggest that those brackets should be made in steel for a shitty climate like the UK.

I've not looked at a GTR without the booster there. Is the hole and mount on the firewall not just the same as GTSt? I would have expected it to be. Nissan don't change panel stampings if they don't have to, and you'd think they'd just order/design the booster to mount to the same place.

They have all sorts of "failure" modes. When they are brand new, the can either be very very tight, or reasonably mobile. If they are reasonably mobile, you'll probably have a good start. If they are very tight, then they can catch/grab at every little motion, and they mark the ball or the outer race, tearing off whatever teflon lining is in the outer race, then they can rapidly degenerate from there. If they get wet, they can just rust. They are just steel and will turn red pretty quickly. Water can get in behind them and sit and cause them to become crunchy and then proceed to tear themselves up, as above. Same with grit and dirt. Manufacturers and OEMs of the arms that use them will tell you that because they are teflon lined (well, the good ones, anyway), you shouldn't grease them. If you do grease them, then the grease will catch any passing grit and dirt and hold it in place where it can cause damage. Race teams that have them will lubricate them thoroughly. They will also inspect them every 5 minutes and replace them every 10 minutes, if need be. Some manufacturers of arms will provide dust boots. These can help, but they are seldom perfect, and sometime just make the situation worse, being a place where crap can collect. I have made nappies for some of mine with PVC sheet and race tape, to try to minimise the access of crap. When they wear, you can get a tiny tiny amount of movement between the ball and the outer race. This will make clicking noises. It will also make the arm have "slop" in that the tiny amount of movement available at the inner end of an arm can cause a lot of movement out at the outer end. 0.05mm at 5mm from the pivot becomes 4mm 400mm away from the pivot. If they are too tight and binding, they impede the proper motion of the suspension arm and put loads into it and the rest of the suspension that are not supposed to be there, and can cause failure. Think broken welds, broken threaded sections on the adjustable parts, mounts ripped off the chassis, etc. All of these are possible, which is the main reason why they are essentially illegal on the road in Australia.

Well, they really shouldn't rot like that. Have you been driving over spilled caustic soda or something?

What drama? The only drama you're going to have is the near constant work to maintain all those sphericals. I only have sphericals in my front caster rods and front upper CAs (because both of these are near compulsory in an R32). I have had the front arms out of my car 34 times already this month, and if the new replacements arrive today, I will have them out and apart again tomorrow. Chasing clicking and clunking that comes from sphericals being a.....poor choice for a road car. Moisture and dirt are not their friends. I have been contemplating a change to my rear subframe that would require me to use sphericals in my lower CAs. And.....I don't want to have them that close to the road.

Um...self respect?

Um...that thing looks terrible. I'd be looking for replacements tout de suite. WTF is it made of? Die cast cardboard?

Even GKTech's short nuts are only intended for 15mm spacers, and the OP's look like they might be only 10mm. So he'd have to rely on pockets in the wheel hub face to accept what sticks out past the spacer's face.

Yes, an R34 workshop manual is downloadable. The R32 GTR one which is findable everywhere would also do the job, seeing as almost all those bolts are same-same enough.

Obviously you need shorter studs (don't just cut the original studs off!) and really short nuts that will fit in the spacer. Thus exposing the problems with thinner bolt on spacers.

Nah. There's not shit tonnes of pressure in there. Just drill with a 1.5mm drill or something equally tiny. When the drill goes all the way through thee gas will start to come out, but with such tiny path through the flutes of the drill bit, it won't be at all dangerous. You can be as paranoid as you like from then on. I'd just pull the drill out while keeping my face out of the line of fire. But then, I spend half my time looking into pressurised furnaces. So my risk acceptance is somewhat higher than most!

Drill hole to release pressure. Draw circle around hole with pink paint pen. Put in scrap metal bin/take to scrappy's. Walk away.

Let's just fix the problem by f**king the rest of the gearbox.

Unlikely, as per Greg's post. This is not helical diff behaviour unless one wheel is up off the ground. Shimming what? You don't "shim" a mechanical LSD. Probably not in the sense that you have heard of people "shimming" a diff. And the process that Nissan f**kwits call "shimming" a diff involves super-preloading a VLSD cartridge against the side of the diff to create a friction/wear point (in a place that it wasn't supposed to have one) to make the sloppy, useless, viscous diff into a hybrid viscous/mech abortion. In case it isn't clear, I consider the process to be stupid. Nike.

No. Well, some people "seem to use redline shockproof in the diff". Most do not. I would only contemplate it if you have badly worn CW&P gears. And no. No-one in their right mind has ever put ATF into a diff. Any normal diff/gear oil of the right viscosity will do. Whatever takes your fancy. Castrol, Nulon, Penrite, Redline MT range. Whatever. It's just gears. 75W-90 or 80W-90 is typical. I think that GL-5 is hard to avoid these days, although I think that a GL-4 is probably preferred, given the vintage of the equipment. At least Redline offer a number of GL-4 oils. If you have a clutch type LSD instead of the VLSD, then of course you need a proper LSD oil. Anything from any of the same names above. If you have a helical LSD, then it does not require LSD oil, and the recco is the same as for the VLSD. You don't want the LSD friction modifiers in the oil for a non-clutch type LSD if you can avoid it.

I don't, and I wouldn't.

Yeah, there's a bit of a density and friability difference between pebbles and any of those other things. Silicone will definitely float in oil and so will be mobile enough to move around. Although, again, if it is upstream of the filter it really shouldn't go any further. I would only ever worry about silicone when it is in places downstream of the filter. Upstream of the pickup is a whole 'nother matter. We've all seen what that does. I have seen the most abominable crap settled out in industrial gearboxes, trunnion lube systems and the like, without any sign that any of it has touched anything in the machine. Just chilling in the bottom, waiting for the inevitable operator error that causes the whole machine to need to be dismantled for repairs.

Bah. You could literally throw a handful of gravel into the sump with the fresh oil and that is where it will stay. Screen on pump inlet, filter on pump outlet. No grit is getting to the rubby bits. Not saying to try it, but paranoia is unjustified.

Take it from a Chemical Engineer. It will be just fine.

Yeah, even here in SA they used to not allow coilovers if they could be adjusted (down) after they'd been inspected and "passed" at Regency, because....you could just drive away and lower it. But now they take the view that they may as well just pass them, and if you lower it below the limit then it's on you when you get defected and they will make your life harder on the subsequent clearance inspection.

Meh. Every single gear in my gearbox will crunch. I've been treating it nicely for >12 years now.

Why would you ever need to "hard change down" from 5th to 4th? Any time you're in 5th and need serious accel, you're looking to go down to 3rd or maybe even 2nd, anyway. Just treat your 30 year old gearbox with some respect.

I'd say if you put the cap on loosely and left it there for, say, 10 years, it would still be fine.