Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

I was planning to return this NSX to the owner this Sunday and I wanted to take off both drive shaft and even paint them by the end of last night.


So, started to disassemble the suspension area.


I always use torque wrench to loosen the bolt at the toe control arm where it connects to the rear cross beam.


I learnt this from my master when working on the NSX kept close to the seacoast in Japan.


If you can’t loosen it by using about 120Nm (torque spec 93Nm for this bolt), it’s best to detach the toe control arm at the ball joint side.


This is especially important for the UK based NSX.


I think it’s due to the salt/moisture in the air that sometimes, the bolt could seize at the bush collar of the toe control arm.


If you apply too much torque, you could damage the thread at the beam but this can be repaired using Helicoil or similar products.


However, on several UK based NSX, I saw this bolt being cross threaded due to the damaged thread not being repaired.


I even saw this bolt being seared off on a few NSX and repaired with cowboy method as well as some acceptable clever method for the street driving only.


On one NSX, as it was heavily modified, I couldn’t accept the state of the bolt and requested the owner to replace the cross beam.


So, checked both bolts at the R & L toe control arm and although the left one was bit tight, they came off without any issues.


The owner worked on the right side area recently so I was expecting the bolts and nuts to come off with ease.


Well, it did except for one bolt.


After marking the current alignment position, I started to remove the RR Camber alignment bolt and nut.


Normally, I had to hold the bolt head with high force because the nut is a self-locking type but on this NSX, I only had to hold it with minimum force and the nut came off with ease.


Straight away, I knew what I would be facing because I experienced this on several other NSX in the past…


The RR alignment bolt was seized inside the metal bush collar and thus, it would not even rotate.


Once the corrosion starts, it will fatten the bolt body and bites into the metal collar.


Because of the rubber bush, any rotational torque applied to the bolt will be simply absorbed by the bush and thus, won’t be easy to break the seizure.


You can’t apply too much torque as it can damage the bush.




After removing the adjuster Cam, I found this.


There were lots of white oxide corrosion completely filling up the bolt hole around the lower A-arm.


This means it would be a big job to take this bolt out.


The owner told me that due to the low annual mileage, the alignment was not done for a long time that made the things even worse.


This issue is not just specific to NSX but can be seen on other Honda models and I know several owners are having big issues as they can’t achieve the desired alignment figure.


I hope the method we use among the NSX specialist in Japan will free this bolt…


Interesting enough, I only touched on this subject two days ago in a different post at the Technical section.


I wrote, ‘I’ll touch on this at some point.’


Well, looks like, I’ll be taking the photos for this subject later today…




At the RL side, the alignment bolt was also seized but not as bad as the RR one and managed to push it out.

The bolt body should be very clean with just a touch of green colour and nothing like black or white things on it.... They are from the seizure and oxidation.


I’ll smooth the corrosion out and apply silicone grease to prevent future issue as well as avoid direct contact to different metal material.


However, there was one issue with this side.


The alignment adjuster Cam was installed inside out (wrong side out).




Normally, the marker side of the Cam should be facing outward.


However, on this NSX, you can see the trace of the flange nut at the wrong side of the Cam as in the photo.


While I can install it in the correct orientation, it will change the alignment setup so recommended the owner to fix this issue just before going to the alignment place next time.


It’s going to be a long weekend….


Kaz