My Swiss 1972 S30 240Z rebuild project

[Eagle_Adam]

step by step!!!! 

[w_datsun_a]

Well started to remove the front axle stuff today. can't show you a lot of progress because due to a lot of rusty bolts i wasn't able to complete it yet. still soaking stuff in WD40 :)

 

1) Completed the garage-cleanup and sorted all the tools and labelled the drawers. Much easier to find stuff now :)

 

 

I see the problem!  Everything is labeled in a strange language!  ;-)  Seriously though, this is a fun thread to read.  Keep it up!

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Haha :rofl:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Got some stuff done again:
Started with the removal of the tierod-end links. one worked fine, the other one destroyed my splitting-tool. ok, have to find another solution :P


removed those side-skid panels within the fender-housings:


and out they are. one seems to have a custom-made rubber extension :)


also removed those water-drip hoses inside the car:


both out:


and while working i found an old wrench inside the space where the wiper motor usually sits. someone must be missing this one for ages :)

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

After vacation, a few crazy weeks at my job, a rusted-through exhaust system on my daily car and a lot of other stuff going on, im happy to have some good news. I finally found some time for the fairlady again and i have a big Package of JDM-parts for the Zed coming in the next days. So be sure to watch this thread here next week :)

Nothing big today, just wanted to thank my mate Nils for his input. Thanks to heat and a copper hammer my stuck-for-weeks tierod end links came apart pretty easy and next step will be to rebuild the entire steering rack :)




Oh and then i got a TODA Racing flag from japan (you might know my EK9 is running Toda parts) so i decided to hang it in my garage :)




This is how it currently looks in my shed :)

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Whoohoow! After some delay by the postal service i finally picked up a BIG Package today. So what was inside? A bunch uf nice JDM goodies and parts:
1) A Bunch of Kameari Racing Goodies like reinforced Transmission mounts, engine mounts, Engine Brackets, Steering damper deleter, and a NISMO Differential Mount :)


2) A set of ENDLESS Reservoir tank covers (Just for fun :P)


3) A Set of Autorefine ARC Stabilizer bars (For Cars with Differentials), including bushings and stuff...


4) A set of IPF H4 Headlight conversion kits, including the High-power relay


5) And last but not least i bought a Poster from 7tune.com which is from the Famous Starroad Fairlady Z. THe poster is limited to 50, numbered and signed by Inoue-San from Starroad himself :)


I Hope to get back to work on the car soon but because i'm so busy it's hard to find time.. On sunday i have another Datsun guy visiting me and I then i just have to annaunce another great buy for a big, rare part in Japan, which will hopefully arrive here within 2 weeks :D

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Found a few spare minutes today, so i decided to jump into the workshop suit and get something done. well my progress wasn't that big, but at least i got something done :)
Steering rack before:


Found these nice Genuine Nissan stickers underneath the steering rack boots:


And that's what it looked like after an hour. Was quite a task to remove the sticky busihngs and stuff, but the rest shouldn't be that difficult after i'm soaking it heavily in WD40 now :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Had some free time so i decided to uninstall the gauges from the dash, to do a few measurements and thoughts about the future installation of some oldschool aftermarket gauges.
Before:


From behind:


Removed :)


Out they are :)


And that's how they look from behind:


I always thought 52mm gauges will fit plug & play but the holes seem to be much bigger (like 80mm's) does anybody know how to install 52mm gauges in a nice way? or does everybody use 60mm? I'm a bit confused... Thanks for any input and / or advice :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Is it Christmas already? Well, feels so, because today i got a nice delivery with some super-rare parts from the land of the rising Sun again:
Forst the least important part: Some Oldschool Falcon racing stickers from RS Watanabe which will perfectly Fit my Falcon steering wheel :D


Then i Got a NOS Fuel 52mm gauge from the now out-of-business Omori Meter company. With the right resistance for S30Z Fuel sensor. Will use this one to figure out if it will fit into the Center gaues. if yes i'll buy two others :D


Like the Patina / wear on the original packaging :D


And now the Highlight :D A Brand new NOS BRIDE Histrix seat. they're so super rare that i've been looking for one since over two years and now found one on an occasion :D Brilliant quality. great design. just perfect. Maybe not really oldschool with that carbon shell but most people won't even recognise and honestly it's just the pure style and JDM-ness that made me want one of these for many years now :D Anyway, still need a second one :

 

[anth]

that seat, WOW!

[RandyWanger]

I've just read this thread from the beginning, impressive stuff :) Love the build. Where in Switzerland are you? I notice a lot of JDM cars, usually Subaru when I pop over the boarder (Live in Chamonix, France) and sold my JDM V2 WRX STI to a Swiss man.

 

Love that Histrix seat, but for the money, I would have got 2X Kameari seats.

And if you want to sell the Capella RE grille, let me know, I come from a rotary family and can take it off your hands.

 

Keep up the good work, looking forward to progress.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Thanks guys.R

RandyWanger you've got a PM

And honestly this build was never about money, it was to fulfill a dream, and i don't care how long it takes. at the end it will tick all the right boxes for me and be an unique bild ;)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Here we go, finally some updates again :-) Even if i'm moving my home currently i found some spare time. So i headed to the garage :D
Wanted to complete the dismantling of my steering rack:
Before:


A bit later:


And done :-)


Made this little picture to remind me in which order which part belongs where :)


After that i wanted to testfit a set of seatrails i got with the first Chassis when i bought it. They came with a set of 80ies König seats which i sold meanwhile. Looks like the pattern fits the holes which is good because this way i have at least a base to create some seatrails for the Bride seat :)


This was marked on one of the seatrails but have no idea if it's also from König or some other manufacturer :)


Next on my plan is to get some parts (like the Steering rack housing front subframe and transmission mounting brackets etc..) powdercoeated. once this is done i can start reassemble the Steering rack and other stuff which is the first serious step into the other direction. Not only disassembling all the time but finally some (Re-)ASSEMBLING :)

 

[Nite_Grind]

Loving this build. Having a honda background myself, I see a lot of the same guidance for your s30 build. Great original hard to find products. Great build, keep up the good work.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

thanks mate, always appreciate some feedback :thumbup:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Nice saturday is always perfect for some off-time in the garage, so that's exactly what i did today:
1) Removed the front brake lines as well as the clutch slave cylinder first:


2) Next i used my high-tech solution to remove the Bushings from the transmission (or any other, i don't remember where it came from exactly *lol*) mount:


After a while it looked pretty nice :)


So here we have another sets of parts ready for powdercoating: Seatrails, engine support brace with accessories, different mounts and the steering rack housing. will be done soon hopefully so i'm at least ready to assemble the steering rack-and-pinion system at least :)

[jvillarreal]

great s30 build, :thumbup:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Thanks mate :D at this part of the project it's still more a dsimantling than a build :rofl:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

You might remember my second Zedd came with a big pile of spare parts. Some of them which even where from a different car. Anyway i decided to get an overwiew of which parts i have twice or more and throw the parts away which dont belong to any of my cars:
Some of the spare parts pile laying around in the garage:


Found multiple Room mirrors, different sized door handles, about three sets of steering wheel switches (they tend to blow up if you fit a H4 conversion without a relay what someone probably did...), multiple side markers and ashtrays, starter motors and more stuff...


One of the more interresting finds was this "Melber Datsun" Center cap, because the car came with some melber wheels but i thought they where some aftermarket parts, but because of this center cap i now have the feeling this was some swiss dealer or even a factory option:


These are the Melber wheels the car came with:


I Also found multiple emblems and exterieur door handles. maybe i can reuse some of these:


Just wanted to prepare some stuff to bring it to the powdercoater this week until i figured out the company is defunct now and i have to search another company close enough doing proper sandblasting and powdercoating. Argh!! :)

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

I'm really busy right now moving my house but somehow i'm also very motivated in getting the fairlady back on the road :D
1) I brought a load of parts for powdercoating today, should be done by the end of next week, and if everything is done right this means i can start assembly of some parts again :)
2) Brought some small parts to an industrial paintshop and if it's done right this means i can start assembly of some other parts (you'll see :D) soon as well :)
3) My swiss Fairlady-owners-mate (whom i will meet at the japanese old-and youngtimer meet this sunday)  just sent me a shot of an old (and still used) swiss 240Z homologation fiche. It's not that interresting or useful (and written in french too), but always fun to have som information and official documents:


I think it's interresting to see that the Cars where homologated once with KOITO sealed beam headlights, but now all of mine have some H4 Halogen conversions :)

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Despite the fact i'm currently just moving my home, which means a lot of work i still found some time to get a bit of stuff done here and there..
1) Just picked up a box full of finished parts at the powdercoating company yesterday. They sandblasted, degreased and powdercoated the parts in RAL9005 Satin black. I love the result :)


Somehow they missed to coat a few smaller spots at the hard to reach point so i covered them with some satin black rattle-can car paint to prevent them from rust:


2) I also started restoring some smaller parts just to get some stuff done. In this case the ashtray. I use some swiss-brand "metarex" metal polishing wool with integrated polishing fluid which works great on slightly corroded surfaces. Before:


After....


Sadly i had to figure out some spots are corroded (aka rusted) too much to handle with just some metarex so i bought this Dremel polishing kit and will give it a try as soon as time allows. This will for sure also come handy at some other points i think :)


And then i moved my EK9 into it's new home. Finally i have it directly in my garage and not at an external garage. This makes it alot easier to get some small stuff and general maintenance done compared to how it was until now when the car was stored in a garage a few blocks away from my workshop :)


Also i decided (due to some extra space) to create a dedicated workspace for soldering and small restoration works at my new home  which allows me to get some stuff done i usually would have done at my company. Like creating a new wire loom etc :D realyl happy with the progress and still have some other parts at another paintshop to pick up next week :)

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Another little update as promised: I picked up the mirrors from the paintshop today:


The result turned out really greatand i'm super happy :D I wasn't really sure what colour the original JDM fender mirrors have. Heard a lot of things like flat black, glossy black, chrome and Charcoal. I decided to use the same colour as the rear taillight covers, so that's what i gave them as reference and it turned out really great.


The colour is a custom mixed Flat charcoal black or whatever you want to call it. Maybe not 100% the original colour but i don't care because that's exactly how i wanted it to look :)


Even got the screw-heads coloured to be sure there won't be shiny dot's on the end of the mirrors once assembled :D Assembly well be done as soon as i get the bottom end of the mirror bases fixed and when i have some time after moving my home :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Well yeah, sorry for the lack of updates, but i've almost completed my home-moving. Still a few small things to complete, but i'm really looking forward to getting stuff done on the Z again soon. However there is a small update thanks to my car-loving mate Manuel. I sent him a few homologation documents i had laying around for his future AE86 project and for thanks he brought me a little gift from his recent japan trip:
A genuine japanese Fairlady Z S30 Owners bible:


Think of a Hardcover HyperRev type of magazine dedicated to the car we love:


Including a lot of examples of modified Z's, A list of Tuners, Detailed Information about maintenance, Engine assembly, Body repair and everything as well as a selection of aftermarket parts and so on.


Really love the book even if i don't understand a lot of that japanese stuff. Allways love collecting stuff like this and even the pictures help a lot :D Big thanks to you, Manuel! :)

[freb_mc]

the detail in this is just amazing, great work man! keep it up,i want to see finished product!

[JDMjunkies.ch]

thanks a lot mate, unfortunately ther'se still a TON of work to be done and definitly still need a few years to get it completed...