My Swiss 1972 S30 240Z rebuild project

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Im in love...

With my brand new NOS (New old stock) Watanabe-RS (Japan) "Falcon" steering wheel.

It's kind of the "holy grail" of vintage japanese sports steering wheels:

 

A little investigation at rs-watanabe and i figured out only 250 of these were ever made by watanabe around 1985 - so awesome i found a unused one :)

[Rustbucket]

Dude! VERY jealous of that wheel. Good lookin' out!

[JDMjunkies.ch]

@ Rustbucket! thanks mate, just had to have it when i saw it :)

 

After another 1,5h sanding by hand out in the cold garage finally the wing has no mor old rattle-can paint left :-)

 

Also got those old emblem-pins out. Now only need to replace the broken screws then it's done :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Can't be happier! Usually good and simple plans never work as i thought, but this time it worked very well. istead of sourcing some new JDM Fairlady fender mirrors i decided to buy sume used ones, but these were too damaged, so i bought a set of New 510Mirrors which seemed to be actually the same, just with a shorter base-mount. i decided to swap the old 240Z base to the new 510 Mirrors to have some kind of new 240Z mirrors:

1) before - you can see how the 240Z base is longer compared to the 510 (left)

 

2) Disasembled everything:

 

3) and interchanged the two base mounts:

 

5) Fits perfectly!! even the 510 Plastic piece on the bottom-end fits perfect to the 240Z Base mount:

 

So these parts will get a proper sandblast and black powdercoating soon (And also will have to swap over that base mounting screw...)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Nothing big today, just removed those ball joint mounts so i can get them sandblasted and powdercoated soon:

before:

 

After:

 

And cleaned the engine mount bracket (That big front bar..) for easier sandblasting as well:

[hang_510]

7) Extra tip: be sure to not run the process in a garage with -15° Celsius. this will make the water freeze even when the machine is running :)

at least the beer is cold

[JDMjunkies.ch]

at least the beer is cold

:thumbup:

[DARIN 510]

Are you willing to sell the 510 bluebird base mount. If so how much. I know Troy ermish needs some

[screamer510]

Nice work on those bolts. I've seen a tumbler like that at Harbor Freight (USA), but didn't think to use it for that!

 

Keep workin' away.

 

Dan

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Still nothing big. working hard on my home, but hope to get seriously back to work on the car in april agian. Anyway, had a few spare-minutes so i spent them at the garage:

Uninstalling the stabilizer-bar stuff

 

So i have them ready now for the Sandblaster and powdercoater :)

 

Also installed a nice fujitsubo calendar i got with some delivery from japan:

 

Well and then our local carneval started in front of my home, so i had to take a look and a few (or maybe more..) Beers over there:

 

They even had a wagon in the vintage "Jägermeister racing" livery, hahahaha :-)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Has been way too long since the last update, but finally i got back to work:

1) Got a new shelve and cleaned up the mess in the garage:

 

2) decided to get some work done on the Engine - started to remove the valve cover and gasket:

 

Love the oldschool mechanics:

 

 

3) wanted to remove the cylinder head then but found out i need to read a bit before i start with that so i tried to turn the engine manually and it cranks smoothly with a torque-wrench, at least i know it turns - good to know:

 

that's it for today, more stuff and work to come soon :D

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Decided to give the engine dissasembly another attempt today, so started with removing the water pump:

 

Well looked quite messy inside. with some probably 10 year old water inside...

 

But after a quick cleanup it looked way better:

 

2) Next was the water pipe (not sure if this is the inlet or outlet pipe..)

 

3) and third that "chain cover" (not sure what it's really called :D):

 

4) then off with the engine mounts:

 

5) Next was the Crank pulley which reffering to the manual just have to bee pulled of using a special tool.

 

... So i thought it also might work with a ball joint / Bearing removal tool.. but then i only broke the pulley.. doesn't matter because i want to replace it anyway. But now i have no idea how to remove it without that special tool. anyone has a Hint or Idea?

[sky14]

nice bro good dedication on the project

[JDMjunkies.ch]

nice bro good dedication on the project

thanks, man :)

[Master-O-Turbonics]

Still studying the age of my car

My 260Z timing cover had month and year cast into it. ;-)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

in between i know now :) production date was stamped on some electrical parts and i got the first registration documents with date. Car was produced in late 1971 but sold in switzerland on early 1972 it's one of the first "series 2" cars i believe

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So continued the work on the engine:

1) Removed the oil pan:

 

2) then started with the crank pulley not (actually i allready did this last time..)

 

But somehow distroyed the ratchet (probably there was too much force with me :D)

 

Anyway - i got it off:

 

Then started to remove the headbults as metioned in the service manual using this "IKEA" type tool plus a rubber hammer:

 

But then figured out to reach all of the head studs i need to remove this pipe first:

 

Which had some crazy corroded stuff inside:

 

And then had all of the bolts off. Need to get a new ratched to get the cam gear off and then i s hould be able to remove the entire cylinder head:

[dennis]

Good job documenting everything.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Good job documenting everything.

somehow i need to remember how to put stuff back together :D

[dennis]

somehow i need to remember how to put stuff back together :D

 

I just take tons of pics. I also usually dont tear multiple things apart. I just work on one item then when I am done I move to the next. It is kind of hard for you to do that since you are doing a full resto.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

@ datsun200l: Thanks for your great advice and inputs, mate! :tu:

 

Today i got really a lot done within probably one hour. Despite the fact i've never touched an engine before im really happy with todays' results:

1) Removed the cam gear nut:

 

and the cam gear:

 

2) finally i was able to remove the cylinder head:

 

I'm no specialist on this, but i feel the pistons look quite a bit "burnt" but not really damaged or something. Also it doesn't look like it has been honed or something. Looks quite original inside:

 

3) Same thing on the cylinder head side:

 

 

 

4) Then removed the cylinder head gasket. all of the gaskets feel really brittly and shit:

 

also you can see more of that nasty old water-shit inside the cooling channels. need to figure out how i can clean it. maybe some ultrasonic-bath or something:

 

5) then removed what must be the oil pump:

 

6) the crank seal

 

7) and finally the timing cover:

 

8) Chain & Chain tensioner removed:

 

9) view on the bottom-end:

 

10) and finally removed that "primary oil filter" and cleand all from old gasket-pieces, grease, oil and stuff:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Had a few minutes left today so off to the garage :)

 

1) Got a pretty nice delivery from Alison at BRE (Brock racing enterprises)

one of 500 HQ prints of a classic BRE celebration poster, Hand signed by Peter brock himself - Love it! (Will post better pictures, as soon as i got a frame for it):

 

Plus a little message - thanks guys at BRE, great and fast service!!

 

2) then started work at the car - removed ignition plugs:

 

Some of them where white, others brown, others black - weird.. Added a little wood support to not bend the valves while it's sitting there:

 

3) Decided to remove that nasty rusty old water stuff that was inside the water channels..

Before:

 

and after tooling around 15 minutes with a dremel and a rubber wire wheel.. way better but still needs a lot of detailing :)

[Busta Nut]

Comin' along...Love the pix!!!

[bonvo]

the pistons are fine thats just carbon build up nothing a little seafoam cant fix keep up the good work man

[JDMjunkies.ch]

thanks for your input guys. - yeah it definitly seems to be only carbon, but quite a lot of it :P

 

Im a bit busy today so no big work this saturday, but still managed to find a few free minutes for the car:

 

1) Scraped off some old cylinder head gasket stuff with a spatula:

 

2) Measured the cylinder top bore, and largest i measured was 82,92mm. Actually i didn't find any information on the standard bore on the quick (have to search for it) and on the other hand i don't know if i even used right method and tools to measure this. probably not :P