My Swiss 1972 S30 240Z rebuild project

[skyblue]

awesome progress. cant wait for reassembly of one.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

took apart a few more things this week and hopefully will have better progress tomorrow:

1) Started with the taillights, which were installed with about 5 different types of screws :P

 

and out they are:

 

2) removed the interieur cover around the inner light (Above c-pillar)

 

3) Next on the list was the dashboard front piece thingy:

 

 

At one point i was curious about how bad the paintjob is so i started chipping the paint of wih a small spatula. it was so much fun and easy, spent about 1,5 hours just chipping of old paint with a spatula - here we go :D

 

 

well, hopefully i'll be more productive next time and get some more serious stuff done *lol*

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Just a short update:

1) Pulled out the roof liner:

 

looks ok underneath:

 

2) I love the fact the new car came with alle the stuff like OEM-seats, and seatbelts. even if the need quite a bit of love to look shiny and work properly again :D

 

and out they are:

 

3) while cleaning the car a bit i found this wasp's nest inside the drivers door :D

[JDMjunkies.ch]

awesome progress. cant wait for reassembly of one.

thanks mate! can't wait either, hahaha :D

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Just a nice B/W shot to start with:

 

Removed the spare-tools lids. was quite tricky because i had to cut new Slots to get the screws out:

 

and out they are:

 

Removed a bit of those insulation mats with a rubber hammer on the driver side in the trunk. benefits of having a unheated (read: Freezy) garage is that tar-mats tend to get brittly :)

 

Next up was some interieur stuff behind the rear seat:

 

 

and at this point i found my first serious rust-hole:

 

at this point i decided to spend the rest of my time removing the brittly old bad paintjob with a spatula. Totally useless becase car will get a sandblast / Sanding anyway if i decide to use this shell, but just so much fun:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Long time no update. I‘ve been busy making some extra space in the garage and clean up the mess there :D Also I removed a lot of paint and thought it wouldn’t make sense to post pictures of every bit of junk I removed so far :D

This is how it looks on the outside currently, lot of paint removed just for fun:

 

Lots of surface rust underneath. anyway i continued with removing some of the insulation in the trunk:

 

next on the list was get out the interieur behind the seats and look how the structure is underneath:

 

 

 

 

Found a big hole on the passenger side rear inner wheel well:

 

Now after i've seen a few things on the black car i feel like i have a plan again:

The white (first car) seems to have better base structures, so at the moment i think i'll go with the white car. If the front end of the black one is good (on the white it isn't, also due to a lot of bad repair-attempts) i'll use the entire front-end of the black car. So Disassembly of the black car's front end is what's up next:

 

more to come on the front-end :)

In the meanwhile it got pretty freezy in the garage again and i feel a bit sorry for the white shell sitting outside in the cold, will put it back into the garage soon, or find another home while i work on the black car:

 

Then i had a few dollars left on my paypal account last month so i thought this is a good excuse to buy some small parts from MSA (zcarparts): Got a set of NOS rear pillar emblems as well as a hood emblem:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

It's currently -3°C in the garage (26.6°F) in the garage, but some good work keeps me warm :D Started disassembly of the front end today, t his will alow me to remove the fenders to check the structure of the chassis in the front.

1) Removed the front-bumper with the swiss-spec Corner lights. It's slightly dented but repairable.

 

here it's gone:

 

2) next was the front lower panel, it's quite bent but usable:

 

next on the list was the grille, but i wasn't able to remove all the screws so i let them soak in some WD40 for a while :) While working i found the VIN-tag plate:

 

and noticed a weird thing: Even if both cars are 1972 Swiss-spec cars they have different oil filler caps. here's the one i found in the black car:

 

and here the "elephant" type oil filler cap from the white one. Of course i'll go with this one :)

[akumazedex]

Got the last one upside down. That's a "710" cap :P

[JDMjunkies.ch]

:rofl: :thumbup:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Pre-christmas stuff keeps me busy currently, but soon Christmas holiday is coming so i hope to be able to get a few things sorted.
Compared the damage on my two chassis today. Still need to check a few things but this is what i saw so far:


So my plan is to do the same as Torby from Latenightgarage to his Z. Swap the entire front end from my black car to the white one, as well as the taillight surrounding. still need to study a lot of things but this seems a pretty nice way to make one good Chassis out of two rusty ones as the front is pretty well on the black one but the restunusable and the front-end is the biggest problem (with a lot of cheap repair patches) on the white one

 

[I'm BLUE]

This thread = :cool:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Spent another hour at the new (black) Z and "freed" the front end to have a closer look:
1) Grille off:


2) Fenders off:




3) Hood off:




Good news: I found what i was looking for: A pretty solid, straight and not-too-rusty Front end. Perfect for swapping it over to the white chassis :D

[72240z]

Kudos on getting as much done as you are in that weather. Its only 30-40F here and I'm stuck in lazy cold mode. 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

haha yeah, thanks! Same temperatures here too and no heater in the garage, but i just had to do something. It makes me crazy to have two Z's standing around and no work going on :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

You remember the "Datsun parts heaven" i wrote about a while ago? Today i visited this place again, because i wanted to pick up a set of pretty damn rare NOS OEM Frame rails for the 240Z. I've never seen them for sale so they must be something really sought after and i wanted to secure them for my project. here they are, can't get any better :)


Then my mate stefan and i Checked out a nice Z which is for sale and a few friends of us are interrested in:


And Stefan took a closer look at a Datsun 180B Triple S, a seriously rare car over here!  He might be buying it soon, at least i hope so :)


And last but not least i edited an Image of my second's Z engine bay, just because it looked so nice and i loved the picture with the lens flare :)

More updates to come soon :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Nothing big, just started removing random bits in the engine bay of chassis Nr II:
1) Air Filter:




2) Air vent pipes (totally brittly):


3) Hood rod:


4) Service Lamp


4) VIN Tag Plate:


Then found this guy helping me out in the Garage :)


5) Collection of random removed pieces:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Well haha, a Picture uf my Zed's glovebox i made at the beginning of my project was featured in the #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER Programme Detail theme on www.Speedhunters.com and i'm very proud of it, beeing a daily Speedhunters reader :)

[mantas]

Love this thread, can't wait to see more. Keep up the good work, what color is the Z going to be? That white looks really nice, is it pearl white or something?

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Thanks mate! Comments like yours keep me motivated :) Hope to get some work done today again, so watch out for the next update :)

The Z is going to be genuine Datsun white. Chassis #1 now has some pear white (or what the previous owner proudly called "sperm-white" :D) anyway it looks terrible in real life. The colour is way to modern and blingy for such an old car i believe so i definitly will go for a more classic white and i prefer OEM colours :) We'll see - still a lot of work needs to be done before it will be painted :)

[BRE510]

:thumbup:

[mantas]

Thanks mate! Comments like yours keep me motivated :) Hope to get some work done today again, so watch out for the next update :)

 

The Z is going to be genuine Datsun white. Chassis #1 now has some pear white (or what the previous owner proudly called "sperm-white" :D) anyway it looks terrible in real life. The colour is way to modern and blingy for such an old car i believe so i definitly will go for a more classic white and i prefer OEM colours :) We'll see - still a lot of work needs to be done before it will be painted :)

 

Yeah pearl white is a bit much on a classic car. I love this thread because i'm from Lithuania and i know how tough it is for car guys out there in Europe. It seems like the scene is not that big and most people don't have the funds to do a restore like yours. Keep up the good work!

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Removed some random bits in the engine bay again :)
1) Ignition coil bracket & Resistor:


2) Front bumper support brackets and Radiator:




3) Ignition wires and Distributor cap:


4) Started removing the carbs and other stuff but then a friend showed up and we started to chat so i left it like this:

Hope to get more done soon - want to have the white chassis out of the rain and back in the garage :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Someone asked me about the wheels on the black z, and i've never really cared about them because the previous owner wanted them back but i thought i'd investigate a bit. Brand name says MELBER and googling tells me that that brand has been OEM Options wheels on several european cars.


According to the Center cap which says "Melber Datsun" it seems to be some kind of OEM option here to and i remember the previous owner told me something like that.


Here a better view of the brand name. Ignore the terrible paintjob which is peeling off.. :)


Also spent a lot of time with the car today but pictures don't make a lot of sense, because i just removed a lot of hoses, wires and pipes for easier carebutor removal next time :)
Oh and i also have a big package from Japan on the way and some plans for next month :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

I've been thinking about the possibility to lower my Z on adjustable coilovers but all the options i found where somewhat expensive JDM-stuff without documents for swiss street-legalization or either cheap US-crap self-welding solutions. So when i picked up my Tein coilovers for my EK9 i reminded myself that there was the opportunity to get custom TEIN Coilovers made out of the standard coilovers. And the best thing they'd come with swiss documents if i handle it together with the swiss tein importing company.
Only one problem: They cost almost as much as i paid for the entire car :)
Here are some pics from the TEIN japan Homepage:

[72240z]

Its way cheaper to either fab your own or have someone do it for you