My Swiss 1972 S30 240Z rebuild project

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Honestly i would like to show you some assembly progress here but unfortunately im still in need to get all the small bits and fasteners cleaned and zinc-plated before i can continue. Also I have a bunch of parts that need to be powedercoated so i decided to spend time with this task first:
1) On my way home from work i stopped by the garage because i had a good idea during work. I Finally found a solution to remove those rear subframe bolts from the chassis (the ones that bolt to the moustache bar):


The wheel-torque wrench with a long shaft and a metal-tube extension finally got them out. Thesre are pretty special so no possibility to get those new. I had to get them out for zinc plating. They have a conical shape with both threads on the top- and lower end.


2) Before i went home i made sure to pack up all the parts i need at my home-workshop during the next days. because my garage is a few minutes away from home...


3) Decided i need some parts zinc-plated from the pedalbox as well and all the bigger bits need a sandblast and powdercoat so i started the dismantling. Before:




And after:




Still need to dismantle the steering column and safety-harness mounts and some other parts before sandblasting / Powdercoating and Zinc-plating all the bits. THEN finally i will hopefully be able to move fast forward with assembly of many small things...

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So here we go. Started preparing stuff for getting it zinc-plated / Replated. The company that does the work told me they can only remove slight surface rust and old zinc so i had to remove the thicker rust spots and old paint, grease and rubber:
Started like this: 60 pieces total (Note the Snow in my Garden :D)


Gave all the pieces a treatment with paint-stripper. just to make sure everything is gone:


After letting it soak for a while and then cleaning it with water. it looked like this - much better already :)


Spent another hour or so cleaning all the bits with a dremel and a mini wire-wheel. Much better. Now ill ship it to the zinc-plating company and hope to get the bits back soon :D   

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Time for another update:
1) While still waiting for the parts to return from the zinc-plating shop i ordered and got some fasteners and small OEM Bits from nissan for the Pedal box. nothing spectacular:


2) Also my Bodyshop guy constantly keeps sending my updates andi hope i can visit him once again next week. Hower his work looks very promising and his fabrikation skills are stunning:


During work (Area below the battery tray):


The finished, hand-crafted product. Absolutely great in my opinion!


Today he started with the floorpans and rocker-panels:




Current state of the car. Not much original Metal left. but the work is just brilliant!


3) While waiting for parts and work i decided to disassemble the Steering column. Before:


Almost finished. If someone can tell me how the bearings are mounted into the housing and how i can remove them, this would be very helpful. Will get the housings sandblasted and powdercoated and don't think the bearings like to have sand and heat inside. also the service manual, haynes and other books only mention "replace bearings if worn" but not how to... Any advice i'm very thankful for :)


Hope the zinc-plating parts will return early next week and another delivery goes to the powdercoating company ;) 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Thanks to a steel tube, a Hammer and the Torch i somehow managed to remove the steering column bearings which are only press fit. However it seems like i damaged the Plastic spacer and i'm still not sure how to remove the bearing on the lower part of the steering column Jacket.


And on we go with the updates from the bodyshop. Yves at MUC is currently replacing the Floorpans, seat mounts, and rocker panels and installing the NOS Framerails:






Thats it for now. More to come soon.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Today i have some nice news: Got back my first load of parts from the Zinc plating and yellow-passivating (which makes it look "golden" and also secures it better from corroding:


Honestly this was my first attemt ever in doing something like this. so not all parts ended up perfect as i hoped, but however most of them are usable and some of them were for trying anyway only because anything up t 39 kilograms was the same price so i put whatever part i wanted to have replated into the box anyway. Here's a closer look at the colour:


So while i was looking at all the nice parts i got a bit motivated and decided to complete at least the fuel cap :) So i started with cleaning the still nice and soft rubber seal and adding a bit of Vasiline (Petroleum lube / Jelly) Just to make it last a bit longer.


After done i put it back to the cap


And installed all back together. Yay - first part complete :)


But not only me was productive today, also Yves over at MUC is working hard at the moment and welded back some hand-crafted rocker panels: Still needs a few touches but it looks brilliant compared to what it looked before :)     


Here's another view:


With the zinc-plating delivery today i got a lot of parts back which i was waiting for to complete the steering rack assembly and the Front subframe parts. So Expect to see a lot of these parts assembled soon :)

[Draker]

Damn.. very nice! Lots of detail going into this build.

[skyblue]

That's some great progress!!

 

Zinc plating looks really good

[JDMjunkies.ch]

That's some great progress!!

 

Zinc plating looks really good

Thanks a lot - i absolutely agree. and the company was super-cheap compared to all the other companies i asked so i'm really happy with the "bang-for-the-buck" i got. Will definitly send more parts to get replated in near future :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Since i got the Zinc plated parts back i'm trying to push the assembly of parts. Just because it's so much fun to finally see the puzzle-pieces come together to bigger pieces :D
Started with the installation of the lately returned Zinc plated bolt and lock-nut:


Then felt like it makes sense to clean a lot of small bits before putting it together. I mean wile i'm at it.. Dentist tools...


And and old toothbrush came in handy and worked fine:


The result. Well i even cleaned them another 30minutes more after this picture:


Then started with the installation of the rest of the parts. like the steering boot clamp / Dust ring and the tierod-link stop nut:


So next step will be the installation of the NAMS / Nagisa Auto Motor sports (Japan) adjustable Tierod endlinks (now discontinued :D) and the steering rack boots.


Takes a lot of time to figure out how all belongs together and to clean all the small bits. but honestly it's so much fun :D   

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So everyday i try to spend at least 30minutes in the basment in my little Home-workshop assembling parts. But honestly progress is allways slower then i was hoping for, because it needs just so much time figuring out all the bolts, nuts and how everything belongs together. But better do it only once, but slow istead of rushing and messing everything up :)
1) Yesterday i got som industrial grade Superglue from the office to glue that rubber-stopper that is mounted on the steering rack Assembly. Before:


And after glueing it back (I reused the old rubber piece because it's not available anymore and after a bit of cleaning it looked nice). Should be bulletproof now :)


2) Had some sparetime after t hat so i decided to use it and prepare the Seatbelt-mounts for sandblasting and powedercoating. Before:


And after. Mounts removed. Note sure about this seatbelts. it's a swedish brand so definitly not Genuine Nissan. Probably installed by nissan switzerland upon import due to different safety regulations here. But they looked like a nice solution so i think i keep them if i don't find any better thing :)


3) Today i started with the Front subframe. Started like this:  


Then after a few small fitting-works installed the Front Lower control arms (LCA's).
Click here for a great writeup about how to install them! This was very useful!


Here we go! Front LCA's temorarly installed. Haven't tightened the nuts yet because i want to be sure everything alignts befor tightening stuff...


4) Then installed that rubber-stopper-thingy on the Steering rack:


And then couldn't help myself but had to install the steering rack to the front assembly temporarly just to get me the feeling about how it will look soon. Somehow satisfying seeing all these puzzle-parts come together:


5) And of course, Yves my bodyshop guy keeps me updated almost daily about progress. But i will visit him and my fairlady again tomorrow so expect some nice fotos :)
Note these are work-in-progress Fotos of the front Firewall / Battery tray area (which is usually rusty from leaked battery-acid). So the final result will look better ;) 

[anth]

I love how much care you're taking with every individual piece!

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Have wanted to visit my Fairlady and Yves at the Bodyshop for a while, but sadly i never really found time. That until last thursday. Just wanted to talk about the "Master plan" regarding the chassis and see the work he did so far. As usual great work from what i can say. But i'll let the pictures talk:










So Far the front-right Corner almost is done...
- Battery-tray area fixed (battery tray will be sandblasted, primered and welded back in soon)
- New Rocker panels created from sheetmetal and replaced old ones.
- Inner side sills repaired
- Frame rail rebuilt and partially replaced with the NOS one i brought him.
- Complete front inner wheel well repaired
- Front air channel repaired and rebuilt from sheet metal
- Firewall below Battery tray replaced (Work in progress)

Next steps will be replacing the floorpanels with replacement panels i brought him, as well as completing the firewall on the passenger side. Then the work will move to the passenger-backend of the car.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Currently i'm working in my little-basement-workshop almost daily trying to get all the small details right. So here's an update on all the small things i did lately:
1) Zcarnut over at the JNC Forums pointed out that my Steering rack spacer was mounted the wrong way. After checking a few pictures i could confirm. Why you wonder? Because the drawing in the exploded-view and Manual is wrong. Damnit :P However i've corrected that now:


2) Added those washers that are mentioned in the manual as well but did not fit properly and were not installed on both cars originally. But somehow i like the look of these and think it's better to not have the nut directly on the rack so i like this solution and had them reworked to fit my needs :) (Not torqued in the pictures so thats why it looks loose :P)


3) Next i installed the Kameari Engine mounts. Before:


Specs from the Manual:


And done - love how everything comes together slowly :)


4) I'm currently preparing a load of parts for powdercoating so i decided while i'm at it i will also put the Diff mount baseplates into this even if i'm not sure yet if i will reuse them or replace them with something like the "technoversion Diff mount kit".  Before:


And after:


5) And last i felt like my last Steering colum disassembly somehow was a bit of a fail. Lucky me i have two sets of almost everything (the advantage of having to cars to choose parts from :D) So i repeated the whole thing with the Second steering column and this time used proper professional tools (aka the Spanner-extension-bits and a wood hammer, as seen on the Top). Worked way better this time without any damage:


6) I wanted to remove the bearings from the Lower part of the colum as well but this item is not ment to be removed i think... There is nothing mentioned in any manual about how to get this thing out.. so i tried on my own..


But ended up with a damaged bearing and cover cap. (See right). So i decided before destroying the nice one (left) as well i might get this sandblasted carefully and repained i stead of powdercoated. because powdercoating needs a lot of heat to burn the colour in and this woud destroy the bearing-rubber-seal and by using paint this probably would be possible. Have to check this but so far this is my best solution...

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Today i had a super-productive day in my opinion :) Had a day off from work so i thought i'd do as many things as possible. I have some big car related news (not this car) soon, so i want to complete a few things here. More to come.
1) However, the day started like this: Bought a cheap Jigsaw (see below) And went to the garage where Z Number one (the white one) is still standing around. The other one has a bad spare-wheel well so i wanted the bodyguy to weld this one into the other chassis:


After 30 Minutes of cutting the well as nice as possible with the new jigsaw, The dremel Tool for hard-to-reach Areas and the Angle grinder it looked like this:


Out it is:


2) After Dropping off a a few parts for the Anodizing company (parts for the EK9, will post about this soon) I Went to the powedercoating company To dropp of the battery-tray-mount which Yves (the bodyshop guy) gave me, and the Spare-wheel well To sandblast and get it primered so these parts are ready to get welded back in at the bodyshop:


3) Also had these set of parts dropped off at the powdercoating company for a sandblast and Powdercoat. (Original doglegs, Steering colum parts, Original steering knuckles, Pedalbox and Pedals, Seatbelt mounts and Differential-belt mounts):


Btw: This is how the powdercoating company looks from the inside. they're specialized in huge parts (like crane-pieces and stuff) so it's a seriously big undustrial complex and a automated powdercoating cycle:


4) And while i was on my parts-delivery tour i Visited my good friend Nadya, who works at an industrial paintshop and delivered the parts from the second steering colum for painting. The reason is powdercoating needs to be burnt-in at high temperatures but because i still have the rubber-seal and the bearing inside i wanted to have it painted without any heat. Also i know Nadya very well and was happy to explain he rin detail what i need. While the Powdercoating company works on a totally unpersonal way and i'ts hard to get special wishes done right.  


Hope to complete a lot of things as soon as these parts return from the various shops :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

I knew my Parts will be back from the paintshop and powdercoating company soon so i wanted to make sure as much as possible is ready for assembly when the parts are here.
So ever since i read about it on the internet. something i wanted to do is clean and refurbish the steering colum bearings..
Before (everything nasty and filled with old, dirty grease):


Here i have one of them pulled apart and cleaned all the balls (30 total) and shells and the securing ring. I have a total of 4 bearings because two from each Steering colum from each car, in case you're wondering.


I reworked all four of them because that gave me the opportunity to choose the best two at the end (to the right on this picture), rather than replacing the Bearing balls with some generic bearing balls as some others have done before..:


While i was at work in my basement i decided to finally hang my 1/50 limited Starroad picture with the Inoue-san (from starroad) handsign on the wall as a bit of motivation and inspiration:


And then my friend Nadya at the Industrial paintshop sent me this photo of my steering colum parts drying and told me i can pick them up on friday again. Seems like i have some work for the weekend :)

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Last few evenings i've been working on the assembly of the steering column. Started with the delivery of the freshly sandblasted and painted housing parts:


The steering colum mount still had the old glue inside so i tried a few methods to clean it but figured out the "solvent cleaner" (which is actually an industrial grade label-sticker remover) works brillant compared to the dremel-and-wire-wheel method :P


this wass the result after wiping it a few times. see before picture above:


Next was glueing the old and cleaned rubber insulators back in. they where still quite nice and soft and no new ones available so i decided to reuse them:


Put the plastic piece from the steering lock and the two bearings into the fridge to get them minimized a bit and at the same time put the housing on my radiator to warm and expand it slightly for a few hours:


After that it was quite easy to hammer the bearings and the plastic piece back into the housing carefully with a wooden hammer and the professional tool (aka the big wrench nut and expander) :D


After cleaning all the small bits and regreasing them i had them back into the housing as well (thanks to the help of my girlfriend, because it's impossible to compress the spring and at the same time install the lock-ring - trust me. i tried for about an hour :P


The result:


So  here we have the steering colum minus the mounting bracket:


but i've installed that shortly thereafter :D thats it for today. Have a last small bit of work tomorrow and hopefully more coming soon :)


In case if you've missed it, i bought a new car for replacing my daily Civic which i now drive since 12 years, but ineed something more practical so i have another project now because i'll modify it slightly. just so you're warned :D but uf course the fairlady has priority ;)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Seems like i do a little bit on my car every evening lately and that's so much fun :)
1) Went to the local hardware store and picked up a few 10.8 grade bolts for installing my JDM three-five Pillowball mounts:




Of course i had to install them directly after coming home. One more part instaleld on the front subframe :D




2) Today i went to the Sandblasting / Powedercoating company to pick up my parts. The battery-mount and the Sparewheel-well only got a sandblast and primer so the bodyshop can weld them in and the painter paint them:


The rest of them got powdercoated RAL9005, Satin black. I don't need all of the parts but i thought while i'm at it anyway why not throw in a few spare-parts? No big price difference anyway. Most important is the pedalbox and -parts. But more on that soon :)


3) And last but not least i went to the local rubber-shop and had them replicate that rubber-insulator between the steering colum and the firewall according to my shitty template i made from the old seal. howefer, the result fits niceliy and it was cheap so i'm happy :)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Spent a few hours in my Basement-workshop and at the grage yesterday. but let's begin with a parts delivery from MSA. Sadly they forgot a few small bits so i have to wait for the rest. Mainly pedal parts and aftermarket tierod-endlinks in OEM-design. Just because of the fact that my NAGISA tierod endlinks are not street legal i ordered These to install for for Registration testing purpose :)

 

Of course i had to install the Rubbers imediately to my fresh powdercoated pedals - Looks so nice :)

 

Then decided to enjoy the beautiful spring-evening in front of my Garage and disassemble the doors from Chassis Nr. 2. I plan to bring some bodypanels (Fenders, doors, hatch and Hood) for paint removal to a specialized Company next month so i want to have all the parts ready. Before:

 

And approx. an hour or so later. Second door followed. I figured out that various bolts and parts where missing on each door, so someone did a horrible Job Assembling them in the past..

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Sorry for the lack of updates lately on the 240Z project, it's not like i've been not doing any thing, just was enjoying my EK9 in the nice weather, and had a lot of other stoff going on. Here's a little teaser of an upcoming EK9 wallpaper from a recent shooting. still need to complete a few details in photoshop.


My bodyshop man has a lot of daily-business-customers wanting to have their american cars ready for summerseason so  he's busy working on small projects currently and my car is on the backburner. Also did a lot of research and ordered a lot of parts. currently i'm awaiting 2 shipments from Japan and a big one from USA and still need to order a lot of tools and small bits to complete a few things. however, let the pictures talk:

1) As mentioned before started with the assembly of the pedal box. This is just a little teaser shot as i'll go more into detail when it's completed. still need a lot of parts and tools to get it done:


2) got these mudflaps from MSA which were on backorder:


3) I'm trying to get my bodypanels ready for paint- and rust-stripping at a local specialized company soon so i'm currently stripping all my parts. Completed the second set of doors, as well as both trunks. Still need to do the service flaps, the hood cowl, the hood and two sets of fenders:






4) then made some research on rare JDM intake manifolds. Let me share my results with you. As there are many different L6 intake manifolds from japan (aside from the other brands like Cannon, etc..)
- Sanyo Kiki: Japanese brand which still exists but changed their business. Here you see an early casting version:


- SK Sports kit: Was a complete Kit sold with a later Sanyo Kiki design but also came with the carbs and everything. Quite a popular choice and i like it:


- Tomei powered. Was available until maybe 2 years ago, not now any more sadly. Design looks quite close to a lot of other Manifolds, like the datsun competition etc.

- FET / Far east trading / Kyoku-To
Here we have an early Kyoku-To Design Intake manifold (Kyoku-To = Far east)


- Later versions came branded as F.E.T and had the additional Balancer tube on top. My favourite design so far, will probably look brilliant together with the striped Kakimoto intake manifold:


- Mikuni
Famous Carb manufacturer (actually they built Solex carbs in licence) also had their own intake manifolds:


- Harada Shokai.
Looks pretty similar to many other designs but is still manufactured and probably the technically most advanced and best engineered design. I love it but it's probalby a bit too modern for my car and i somehow prefer a more oldschool design even if the power-gain is not the same..


Others: Well there are others like Datsun competition, Hayashi racing, Ohtsuka and so on but sadly wasn't able to find any pictures of these. if you have some, i would be very interrested!! get in contact if you have some pics :)

That's it for now.  Need to prepare a few things before recceiving my new daily car and getting rid of the old one including all the parts (already sold most of it) and so on, but i never stop thinking and researching on the Z so don't worry if updates are lacking doesn't mean i don't do anything ;)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Well yeah, had some big plans this week for the Z, but unfortunately a Flu hit me and i'm lying with a cold and fever in the bed fourth day in a row. However i got so bored of laying around all the time today i HAD to do something so i decided to finally unpack that roof that is standing in my entry hall since a few weeks. Before:


And after unbolting a couple dozens of screws:




While at it anyway i decided to strip it as well so i have that done too:


Found this old matchstick box underneath the roof skin. Always fun to find old stuff:


and also removed the "pockets" for the hinges:


As soon as i was complete my favourite guy rung the doorbell. The Postal delivery guy :D
Thanks to golden week holiday in Japan my package was slightly delayed, but however i got some stuf from japan again:
1) A Cusco ST-Type front strut tower bar. Not sure if it will clear the kakimoto valve cover and if i will use it anyway, but i thought it's never wrong to have the parts ready in stock. Like the oldschool tubular design ;)


2) A set of super rare NOS genuine Datsun Competition Short steering knuckles straight from the Datsun competition catalogue.


In case if you're wondering here's the description from the datsun competition catalogue:


And here is a comparision between the Standard knuckles (black) And the Competition knuckles (Silver):


More parts are on the way and im starting to feel better again so i hope to spend the afternoon tomorrow at the garage ;)    

[JDMjunkies.ch]

While waiting at the garage for a guy to come and pick up one of my spare-engines and a transmission i decided to get some work done. Unfortunately the guy never showed up so  i had plenty of time to get some stuff done. Mainly preparing more panels for paint stripping :)
1) The hood - before:   


Hinges removed


done


2) Completed the second pair of doors (from the white chassis):


3) Decided to also split the fenders from the second car. as you can see they're quite rusty but some stuff like the lower cowl-panels / Corners and the headlight-surroundings seemed pretty nice, so i decided to take it apart anyway and then i can choose the best from all the single-parts and scrap the rest of them :)


Before:


and after:


Meanwhile i have almost all the bodypanels ready for paint stripping:


And while at the garage anyway i removed the trunk hinge mounts and rubber-pockets from the white chassis:


And decided to do a little test-fitting of the new cusco strut tower brace i got yesterday :)

[tr8er]

I wish I could fast forward a little

[JDMjunkies.ch]

I wish I could fast forward a little

Haha yeah, me to. but on the other side it's the patience and the details that differ this project from others :D  But of course i wish i could drive the car completed to my plans already tomorrow too :P

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Not a big update, but an important one: Today i got a FedEx delivery from USA, bringing  me a nice set of Tabco Repair panels:


I decided to buy them directly at Tabco because they're the main manfucturer of these. All the companies like zcarsource and MSA only sell tabco parts so why not get them directly at the source? Service was fine after a few mails and superfast shipping i had them at the door today. They may not be OEM-quality but i guess it's the next best thing you can buy at the moment. because i tried to source OEM rear quarters first but they seem a) impossible to find and if you find them b) super expsensive. so i'm happy with this solution and i'm sure my bodyshop guy will make them look like OEM panels when installed :D More to come soon ;)

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Nothing big, since works keeps me occupied like crazy at the moment and a lot of other stuff going on. like for example got my new daily ride home:


And then got a package from japan with the seatrail for the bride histrix seat into the 240Z:


Next update this saturday i hope :)