Goonfan's 72' 240Z Resurrection build

[goonfan]

So I'm gonna do this lazy style and C/P a few things from my frame advice thread, here, I'll add in a few things too. Like this coolness.... I just opened a bottle of Stone's Old Guardian barley wine I've been saving since 2009 and it's AWESOME! I love beer...

 

Here's some background, this car used t be totally BA. It has a N42/E88, head is shaved and ported big time, I wanna say 1.8" intake ports, 11.7-1 CR, bronze bushed polished rods, domed pistons, huge ass cam at 306 advertised 286 @ .050", .512" lift, 106 LSA, tripple 40 webbers w/ 32mm chokes, 6-2 header etc etc.... It got hit a long time ago and I had a local shop do the repair work, they completely sucked but in my arrogance/stupidity whatever I didn't really take notice until a couple years later. It's been sitting for a loooong time, shit kept happening and I never got around to it seriously until this spring.

 

A few pics from the other thread. Basically my passenger side got smashed up and it pushed my strut tower over. The lower frame rail is good and so is teh lower core support. I've already cut out most of the stuff I'll be replacing in these pics.

 

Jacked up upper rail, I think it pushed up a bit, mostly it's pushed in towards the motor. To fit the fender on I've been pulling the rail out and slightly down using a come along tied off to my truck, that's what that big hole is for towards the front of the rail.

 

 

 

You can see how mangled the upper rail is here.

 

 

In this shot you can just make out the crack where it's all bent and fatigued.

 

 

 

It starts getting complicated here. The piece that the fender mounts to was from my car so I left that in place, look at the giant ass holes I had to make to get the tacks out in the one area where I could actually drill them out.

 

 

 

 

 

Lower frame area is not going to be much of a challenge, still needs to be preped a bit more though.

 

 

It's a little ugly here, I can work this out though.

 

 

Here are some shots of what i cut of of a 260Z, late model.... I'll need to cut out some of the extra bracing but that won't be too hard. What I'm a little worried about is the pitting on what would be the inside of the frame rail. This IS the best patch panel I could find, I've been at all the local JY's over and over for months.

 

 

 

Cross section of upper rail from the donor car.

 

 

Top view with fender mounting tabs.

[goonfan]

Here is where I'm at now.... BARLEY WINE..... 11.3% ABV FTW!!!

 

Back on topic.

 

I'm really thinking what I'll do is cut out everything that's just in front of the strut tower and patch in the new section.

 

Here are some shots of the parts that I took form he 260z, spot weld cutters kick ass!

 

 

 

The upper core... I won't be using this anymore.

 

 

Instead I've decided to go with this upper core that has the webbing still attached.... This was from a 240Z, the inner fender and upper rail of the 240Z were no good. Big thanks to TristinGrind for helping me pull this part!

 

 

 

I have very little time I can dedicate to her but today I got things a little further along and pulled out the upper core and webbing that was still there.

 

 

 

[Tristin]

Its about time you created a fucking build thread Goon. Dont forget to tell everyone about the hour and a half junkyard trip that lasted five hours... which was ended with two minutes worth of sawzall.

[goonfan]

Its about time you created a fucking build thread Goon. Dont forget to tell everyone about the hour and a half junkyard trip that lasted five hours... which was ended with two minutes worth of sawzall.

 

Yeah....

 

Hey I thank you in my edit!

 

That was bogus though.... I was trying to be all mister nice guy and not cut the car up to shit, lesson learned. At least you got to see my mad skills with a sawzall first hand, lol.

 

Seriously though, thanks! If you need a hand with the tuck swing by (or I can roll out) for a few hours and I can help you out.

[Tristin]

No worries on helping you out... thats what Ratsuners are for.

[goonfan]

Son of a bitch! My big ass progress post got erased, arghhh.

 

I'll pull the front suspension tomorrow to take some weight off the front and make it easier to get in and do work. The next step is to drop her back on the ground. Hopefully be enough friction to keep the car from dragging when I pull the upper frame rail over, I'd say it needs to come over 1/8-1/4". If the car does drag then I'll go with plan B and park my 5,000lb pick up in the side yard to act as an anchor.

 

Before I weld in the new sections and after I pull it in place and mock up the fenders and hood (I'll have to use a scrap hood, you'll see why in a few days) I'll weld in a strut brace to keep things square. Because I don't have stock strut towers and my camber plates are aluminum I had to fab up a plate to weld the strut brace too. I'm going to sandwich my strut tower between the plate I made and the camber plates that are installed.

 

Once I've welded in the strut brace I can tack in the patch sections. I'll measure, measure, measure and then finish weld. At that point I'll put the lights back on drop the motor in and take her for a test drive. I don't have a bumper, air dam, valance, or side valance extensions.... but you know.

 

There is still alot of work to do even after I get the car on the road again but that is a huge mile stone I hope to get to this weekend.

[goonfan]

No worries on helping you out... thats what Ratsuners are for.

 

Cool! LMK if you need a hand, we can talk about this mystery L16 you got a line on.

[goonfan]

So here is a quick little run down of how I made the plates. Not much in the way of anything new or fantastic info but it gives me a way to show off some of the tools I have access to, lol..... :( access doesn't mean ownership.

 

To make the plates for the strut brace I first had to pull one camber plate to use as template

 

 

 

Next step is to clamp it down to some scrap 1/4" plate and scribe out layout marks. I just traced out it's circumference and used a center punch to mark the 6 mounting holes every 60*. It's hard to see in the pictures, oh I also scribed in some cut lines to trim he pieces.

 

 

 

Punched out the holes on the drill press. It's equipped with a rotary table so it makes this sort of thing 10x faster then clamping it down 14 times and re-centering each time. These aren't perfectly center, one of the holes is off by 0.015" from center, I over sized the holes so it should be fine. The center holes are so I can back purge when I weld in the strut brace, they are stainless and as such need back purging.

 

 

 

On to the green monster! I refurbbed this 60's era band saw a couple months ago

 

 

 

This thing is BA, it has a transmission and the speed is easily adjustable on the fly. Well there is a trick to shifting, one of those only I can shift it sort of deals, love it.

 

 

 

All that and I cut these nasty ass lines?!.... I was in a hurry and didn't adjust any settings before I kicked her on. Still, I was sloppy..... In any case here are the finished parts.

 

 

 

 

That's all the updates for tonight. I'll patch up the pitted section from my donor 260z and get started on the straightening shortly after that. I'll post up some more progress tomorrow night.

[goonfan]

Jack all for progress so far... My compressor motor fried so I've been getting my back up and running. Thought i was good to go buying some extra parts but I'm not. Now I have to head back out to the store, argh.

[Tristin]

Well at least youre getting something going. I decided to call a mulligan on working on the car today... Ill start tomorrow.

[goonfan]

Third time was a charm! It's charging now.

[goonfan]

Well at least youre getting something going. I decided to call a mulligan on working on the car today... Ill start tomorrow.

 

I fell ya, it's been a struggle, super long last couple of weeks. When I woke up this morning I could barley get down the stairs and my hands felt like swollen meat bags.

 

With all those crazy hours you put it in a work you owe to yourself to take a lazy day.

[goonfan]

Got that hand numbing feeling going on from constant tool use. Figured I'd post an update while I take a break.

 

Now that I'm using a single stage 60 gal compressor that doesn't keep up with constant angle grinder usage I have to take little breaks while the compressor catches up.

 

I got started before snapping any pics but you can see in this picture some of the little circles the spot weld bit leaves behind. I've taken to grinding them down with the 90* angle grinder and a 3" wheel so I can get more control.

 

 

 

Here's the lower core support ground down.

 

 

 

In this area there was a ton of weld from the body shop. Something like 2x1 3/8" tall, there was even some mig wire that punched through and was just hanging in there inside the frame rail. i had to use my big grinder and got a little too aggressive. I'll need to fill in the areas that are too thin or that I punched through.

 

 

 

After I ground down the spot weld remnants I used the wire wheel to clean up around them. I'll need to fill in a few that punched all the way through and some others will need a little filler where the bit left some score marks.

 

 

 

I cleaned this area up but before I do any welding on it I'll need to straighten it out. Pic is hard to make out but look close and you'll see it.

 

 

 

There are a few areas my wire wheel couldn't reach so i'll take the smaller drill mounted one to those before I weld up any weak spots. After I had filler I'll most likely have to knock it back down. I've also got to go through the same process on all of my patch panels before I can do any fitment tests.

[goonfan]

So I got started on the same process of knocking down the high spots on the patch panels. No pics of the part just yet.

 

After knocking them down I started to prep the holes with the wire wheel. But I was not liking how much surface rust I was finding and with the wire wheel being a little aggressive I tied some BKF.

 

It's basically an acid that removes oxidation. I use this stuff on all my stainless pans and my fancy kitchen knives, JDM knives yo!

 

 

 

Then add some water to scrub away the rust.

 

 

 

Uuurch, hands are covered in this stuff so no pics.

 

 

After rinsing I'm still not satisfied. So one more trip to Lowes later. Electrolysis.

 

 

 

You can see the bubbles here.

 

 

 

This was the biggest container they had, I looked at garbage cans too. I only have a 12v 6amp charger, wish I had something with more amps. After being in there for one night it's coming along but I need to go bigger, headed out for a kiddy pool in a little bit. I'll shoot some progress pictures when I transfer over the parts.

 

In any case this won;t be done today so I'll work on cleaning up the engine and welding up the low spots.

[goonfan]

So today I just messed around building the bigger electrolysis tank. Spent forever getting my rigged up POS pump for my tig torch to work, cost me a LOT of time.

 

Still forgot to take pics of the part before I loaded it into the new tank, some of the paint is even peeling. I'm hoping to really get a lot of the rust off with the new setup, you'll see why below.

 

 

I'll be using my Everlast 250EX tig welder, I took a chance to some degree in buying an off shore brand but I love this baby so far.

 

 

 

I'm using a CK Worldwide CK20 flex head with super flex cable and a rotary switch. the switch takes some getting use to as you'll see in a minute, started getting better towards the end.

 

 

 

Time to lay out the cut up rebar.

 

 

 

Oops I don't have mild steel filler rod that's big enough, only some Al, SS, and super tiny .025" steel spool wire. Then I remembered I picked up some "rebar" wire when I bought some more rebar.

 

 

 

It's a real PITA to weld right on the floor but hey it will work.

 

 

Other side

 

 

 

Here is a shot of one of the 6 uprights I'm using for the grid.

 

 

 

In the kiddy pool she goes after cleaning some time on the wire wheel and all the cables are tied on, perfect fit!

 

 

 

It gets suspended just above the anode with my "filler rod" and some scrap wood.

 

 

 

Kick on the new battery charger, 40 amps vs the previous 6.

 

 

 

WTF?! It's only hitting 15a! i don't know why, I tried the 200a jump start mode and it only goes up to 20ish. It may need to sense a load so I but a dad battery on it but nothing changed. I've also read that it will creep up on you, so I'm hoping it gets to 40a. I'll check it in a little while.

 

 

 

Here are some bubbles though! A ton of crap has come loose already too, this was about 5min in.

 

 

 

I hope this works and cleans this part up big time. I didn't want to risk thinking the metal down anymore than it was and since I'll be tig welding I want to be sure there are no contaminants as tig is more sensitive to them. So while it sucks that this is slowing me down in the long run I feel it was the best decision.

[goonfan]

Update w/o pics....

 

So after about 36hrs I wasn't impressed with the results. The rust is gone but it's got a shitload of "black", some kinda oxide residue. So at this point I'm a little disappointed it didn't work better and now I think I wasted all that time that I could have been welding. I'll look to see if there was some way I could have gotten better results.

 

It's final week for me so I won't have any time after work. This weekend is gonna be hard to get time for the car too. It will be a while before I can get back to the Z.

 

Maybe I'll just pick up a fuel tank and cruise the series one for a bit. At least I'll be in some kinda Z.

[Tristin]

Update w/o pics....

 

[goonfan]

 

Linky no workie

[Tristin]

It shows up for me... damn it.

 

Edit: Should be fixed now.

[goonfan]

lol,

It shows up for me... damn it.

 

Edit: Should be fixed now.

 

LOL

 

I was not happy about the whole waste of my F'n time thing and not in the mood to snap some pics.

 

I'll get some going I guess....

[I'm BLUE]

Progress looks promising and way to start a project :cool:

 

I am def curious on your front Tig front end repair.

 

"Do something everyday on your project no matter how small" (H5wagon)

 

^^ thats what I do.

[goonfan]

Yeah I've been try'n to do just that but the problem is I'll get lost in the work, next thing I know it's 10:00 and I still have 4hrs of homework to do. I've got to put the school first, although sometimes I don't know.... I'm going for an ME degree... but w/ 10 yr experience in manufacturing sprinkle in lots of design work and now I'm doing a lot more design and R/D I'm not sure it's worth it. I keep thinking if I spent money on a home/hobby machine shop I could be further along in the 5 more yr of night classes if I spent that time doing hands on design.

 

argh IDK. Just keep plugging along with life I guess.

[Tristin]

You should get a machine... then when I learn everything at TMF we can go into business together. Ill design all these sweet Datto parts and you can mill them.

[jrock4224]

inm guessing yoru bitching about rust mort or the likes.... the black oxide look means its working ....after u nuetralize it you can start your repair... water nuetralizes it....wierd i know...anyway works fine stops rust ....just need to seal it with a fiberglass reinforced filler...alhough if yoru intent was to weldpatchs in then u wasted your time...

[goonfan]

Update w/ pics, just for you Tristin!

 

So here is a few shots of the upper core support and webbing before it went into the "big" tank, it had 12-18hr on the little 6a charger at this point.

 

 

 

You can see the paint was coming off.

 

 

 

Only overall shot I took, before the anode grid was built.

 

 

 

Here is a shot of the results I'm not happy with. 36hr on the 40a charger, never got past 20a though.

 

 

 

It looks better here because I hit it with some 80 grit to knock off the oxide. better but still very black in the pitted areas.

 

 

 

Not so pitted here, this WAS painted.

 

 

 

Most of the paint has come off but not all of it. On the other side it's the opposite and most of the paint it still on, I processed it with the rusty side down. The electrolysis works on a line of sight.

 

 

 

Overall I'm not happy at all. I could have just sanded this thing down and got the same if not better results. I'll have to do some more research on the best setup for this sort of thing. Maybe my bath got more ineffective over time as the rust accumulated in the electrolyte solution. You can see how thick it is in the pics.

 

Also I'm having second thoughts about the pitting, problem is even I decide it's not going to cut it that is the BEST upper w/ webbing I can find. Maybe I'll just box in the lower core support and use the upper only, that's a good option, I'll look into that some more.

 

Bottom line: Electrolysis has been a fucking waste of time.