Project THESEUS: A '74 260z

[EDM620]

That's looking good, and I'll bet it feels good to have reached that stage.

 

Here's an odd tip for you and anyone else - bar soap rubbed onto a leaking gas tank will stop the leak and lasts as long as you don't wash it off. I can speak from experience

[Noll]

On 4/7/2021 at 11:06 PM, EDM620 said:

That's looking good, and I'll bet it feels good to have reached that stage.

 

Here's an odd tip for you and anyone else - bar soap rubbed onto a leaking gas tank will stop the leak and lasts as long as you don't wash it off. I can speak from experience

 

Indeed it does, it's been a long time coming. That's good to know in a pinch haha.

 

------------------

 

After letting the epoxy cure for a few days, I put the rubber floor plugs in and sprayed a bunch of stonechip protection/sound deadening on today:











It's not a perfect, run-free, exactly-as-factory finish, but looks half decent and a hell of a lot better than before:






The brake/fuel lines and some other misc stuff should show up next week, so that will be the next job. In the meantime I'm going to design/3d-print a bunch of the transmission-tunnel mounts that go in the body brackets in flexible rubber filament.

[Noll]

Started on the designing/printing today, made up a mount block for the feed/return lines from ABS:

[Noll]

More little stuff today.

Technoversions diff mount arrived, and test fitted. Had to do a little hammering because the exhaust-tubing bracket's thickness was enough to push the opposite edge of the mount out and cause it to hit the transmission tunnel before the bolt holes lined up. All fits nicely now though, I suppose that's a 260/280z specific issue due to the hangar location.






The 3/8 tubing also showed up (the 5/16 and 3/16 will be here tomorrow despite being shipped from the same place), so I ran that. I'm currently printing V2 of my ABS mount, the curves in the tube overlapped with the mount and caused the halves to be forced apart a bit when it was bolted up with the tube in it. v2 will be a bit thinner (~8mm) on that axis to avoid that.

I also came to the conclusion that the cheap bubble flare tool I got for flaring the fuel line ends for the softlines is not up to the task for the 3/8 stuff at least- it just kept pushing the tube out instead of flaring it. My local Napa is going to kitbash some compression-fitting-to-hose-barb fittings, they had to order a bit in but they'll be ready tomorrow. I've also decided to end these lines right at the end of the transmission tunnel before the engine bay - once the car is the right way up (and the engine bay is painted) I'll run a hardline the rest of the way and join them with compression fittings.
This will save me a lot of aggravation trying to get all the front bends right in a long-ass bit of tube, and will mean less masking off required for painting the engine bay. Will do the same with the brake line with a basic brake line union etc.

[Skib]

bottom is looking good, satisfying isnt it lol 

[Noll]

2 hours ago, Skib said:

bottom is looking good, satisfying isnt it lol 

 

Thanks! Is sure is lol, I didn't do a perfect job by any means, but compared to how the car was when I started... It'll do a good job of protecting from rust with any luck 🙂 .

 

-------------------------------------

 

Printed the revised rear fuel line bracket:




And designed and am in the process of printing the transmission-tunnel mounts:



I had to change plans a bit with these, the flexible filament I got ended up being TOO flexible for my printer to print even with modifications. I could get some less flexible stuff and try again, but that's 50$ and a bunch of waiting.
Instead, I opened the holes up on the mounts by about 1.6mm bigger than they need to be, and plan to use multiple layers of heat-shrink tubing over the hardline at every junction where it clamps into the mounts. I think this should do just fine for the purpose of vibration damping and making sure no stress fractures develop over time, but if someone has good evidence to the contrary let me know, like most people I much prefer not being on fire.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Noll

[Skib]

What printer and filament are you using?

[Noll]

6 minutes ago, Skib said:

What printer and filament are you using?

 

An older Robo 3D R1+, and was trying to print with 1.75mm ninjaflex for the rubber bits. Too much of a gap between the extruder gear and the hotend, even with a bit of brass tube I put in to try to act as a guide. It just wrapped around everything inside and got jammed up in the gears.

 

For the abs stuff, just some cheap AMZ3D filament off Amazon, hasn't let me down yet.

[MikeRL411]

On 4/7/2021 at 8:06 PM, EDM620 said:

That's looking good, and I'll bet it feels good to have reached that stage.

 

Here's an odd tip for you and anyone else - bar soap rubbed onto a leaking gas tank will stop the leak and lasts as long as you don't wash it off. I can speak from experience

 

And a toothpick will get you to a repair shop if nothing else is available.

[Noll]

bits printed successfully:




Fitment is good, I did (after the pic) put a bit of adhesive on to ensure that these inner halves can't eventually slide forward or backwards, although I don't think this would be an issue.




Sadly the rest of the hardline didn't show up today, but I was able to go get the barb fittings. This pic is a bit of a weird angle, the fitting isn't as close to the subframe rail as it may look (aka no danger of it rattling) and there's plenty of clearance after the barb before the spare tire well.
That said, once I get the tank in and decide on how I want to mount the electric fuel pump I might change that straight barb fitting on the feed line to a 90 that points towards the pump bracket on the p/s of the car. The return line will stay a straight fitting, no reason for that one to be angled.

[Noll]

Rockauto order of the rest of the hardlines still hasn't showed up, so some more misc. stuff today.

Made a basic fuel pump mount plate:




It's nothing fancy, but will do the job and not flex.

I opted to have the outlet be facing away from the hardlines, one way or another one end would have to make that bend by the inner wheelarch and this seemed the cleanest way (and lets me avoid putting a 90 in in place of the straight barb on the feed line). This is the rough line routing plan as of current, with an approximation of the tank, and a fuel filter (purple):


 

[EDM620]

If the split holes are slightly undersized for your tubing, shouldn't have any issues with tube creeping or rattles - I think you had mentioned applying some heat shrink layers where the tubing will fit into the clamps??

[Noll]

17 minutes ago, EDM620 said:

If the split holes are slightly undersized for your tubing, shouldn't have any issues with tube creeping or rattles - I think you had mentioned applying some heat shrink layers where the tubing will fit into the clamps??

 

Yeah, that's how I had it initially when I was going to print with the flexible filament, I oversized them slightly in the current iteration so that with heatshrink on the tube it'll be a tight clamp and have the bonus of a bit of deflection in the rubber of the heatshrink if needed.

[Skib]

I love having a 3D printer for that kind of stuff.

 

Iv got a filament for using in lost wax casting as well.

[Noll]

39 minutes ago, Skib said:

I love having a 3D printer for that kind of stuff.

 

Iv got a filament for using in lost wax casting as well.

 

Oh yeah, it has proved super handy over the years for all sorts of things. I'll be making all sorts of interior bits too when that time comes I'm sure. Hmm, I'll have to look into the lost-wax  filament, that also seems really useful.

 

 

---------------------------------

 

Rest of the brake/fuel stuff finally showed up, so got all the hardlines complete up to the rear of the engine bay.








Got the handbrake stuff all bolted on too, as well as the front diff mount:






Looks a whole lot better than not that long ago!

[Skib]

22 minutes ago, Noll said:

 

Oh yeah, it has proved super handy over the years for all sorts of things. I'll be making all sorts of interior bits too when that time comes I'm sure. Hmm, I'll have to look into the lost-wax  filament, that also seems really useful.

 

Iv got a forge and stuff but I haven't had time to try casting with it yet. Prints just like PLA though.

 

Underside is looking good.

[Noll]

11 minutes ago, Skib said:

 

Iv got a forge and stuff but I haven't had time to try casting with it yet. Prints just like PLA though.

 

Underside is looking good.

 

Seems like it would be super handy for casting small batches of stuff that needs to be strong. For any individual bits like that (where ABS isn't strong enough) I've had stuff printed in sintered nylon through Shapeways; super tough but takes a bit to ship.

 

Thanks! It's not perfect by any means but way better than before and super satisfying to look at. Now I need to deal with the gas tank and run all the softlines before then finally flipping it back the right way up.

 

I do have a potential lead on a tank that's in decent shape, waiting for the guy to have a look thru his parts stash (he literally has 2 barns full of Z stuff) to see if he still has the tank he's thinking about. If not, well, time to cut my tank in half and clean it I suppose (still haven't heard from the rad shop, need to call them monday).

[Noll]

I'm pretty much stuck until I get the tank in good shape and on the car, so spent some time today stripping the rest of the rubber coating off of it.




Ripped the old patch off, nothing untoward underneath so I guess there were just some pinholes or something?




Other than some dents the bottom is in pretty good shape, there is one corner that seems to have some pinholes but that's not a big deal. The flange between the tank halves also has some rust, but it's all outside of the crimped join so it's just cosmetic.

[EDM620]

On 4/16/2021 at 5:57 PM, Skib said:

Underside is looking good

That Nickle-copper tubing is nice to work with, I did a buddy's Deuce with that, but chose coated steel lines for my build, was much harder to work with, had some regrets. 

Now the fun really begins, bolting up to a nice clean base.👍👍

[Noll]

51 minutes ago, EDM620 said:

That Nickle-copper tubing is nice to work with, I did a buddy's Deuce with that, but chose coated steel lines for my build, was much harder to work with, had some regrets. 

Now the fun really begins, bolting up to a nice clean base.👍👍

Indeed it is, did all the bends other than the 2 tight ones on the fuel lines where the barbs are by hand. it work hardens a bit if you need to adjust a bend substantially, but nothing unworkable.

 

That's the hope, still some messy stuff to do (fix doors, couple hood patches, and then stripping/priming/filling/painting the whole exterior), but there will be a lot of just bolting on fresh parts which is nice 🙂 . The less nice is the amount of money I'm going to need to spend on all sorts of misc. stuff, rubber door/window gaskets, etc etc, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

 

The only hurdles to getting it back on its wheels are:

- the tank (although this might be easier to bolt up the right way up?),

- tie rod ends (should be here monday),

- front hubs (as my 260 hubs are the wrong offset for the spacers for the 300zx rotors, a friend is giving me a set of 240z suspension for free which I'll use though which is amazing)

-get tires/wheels mounted + balanced (I got 2 mounted last year for fitment testing but not the other 2)

- poly bushings (also should be here monday/tues)
-and I need to eliminate the play that there currently is between the rear tophats and shock shafts (I have a bronze bushing that's almost the right size that I'm going to cut up for this)

 

Just a bunch of waiting and misc stuff mostly.

[Noll]

Decided it would be easier to mount the tank up with the car the right way up, so there was no reason not to flip it back.

A couple last pics before the flip:






And back the right way up:






Super basic strut mockup. Waiting on bushings then this can all go together for real.




And spent a bunch of hours putting sound deadening in, have about half the car done. Will be putting some in the spare tire well and probably on the rear wheelaches if I don't run out, front floor/firewall is the bigger priority.






Will aim to get the rest of the sound deadening done over the next day or two, and then it's suspension time when the remaining bits show up.

[Noll]

Rest of the sound deadening done. Ran out right after doing the firewall, will need to get more for the doors when I do them. For those that have applied this stuff in the past (Noico brand, basically the same stuff as dynamat, fatmax, etc), is it alone enough for firewall insulation or will I want another layer of heat barrier stuff on top?








Also dug out the vinyl kit I got for really cheap off a friend a while back to see what it contained, it has the transmission tunnel vinyl which is nice, I like the look of that over carpet.




Bolts and tie rod ends came today, bushings will be here tomorrow and I can start on suspension stuff.

[Noll]

Bushings still didn't show up today (grrr), so did what I could to prep by bolting the halfshafts to the diff and filling it up with 75w90 gear oil.

[Noll]

Still no bushings (maybe friday), so more misc stuff.

made a shim for both rear tophats so there's not a gap between them and the strut body:




Got the water drain tubes and air intake ducts in (don't mind the ugly paint, if it's not visible I didn't bother doing as good of a job):




And threw the main bit of body harness in. This will probably come out again at least once, I just wanted to refresh myself on how it attached and make sure all was well. the bit that runs along the rocker I'll re-tape as it's pretty gross and visible.




I've gotten lucky with the wiring so far - the only messed-with wires were a couple of cut ones in the center-console harness - come looking in the FSM showed them to be the radio power and speaker wires which makes sense for an aftermarket radio install at some point I guess. I'll re-do it all nicely whenever I put a radio in.

That said, I did some across this which has taken a bit of starting at wiring diagrams to figure out:



For a bit of background, the 260z has 2 fuel pump relays - the first is on above 400rpm (for safety if the car's in an accident), and the 2nd one acts as part of the "interlock" system (AKA car won't start if you have seats with pressure sensors and you're not buckled up) as well as (for some reason) shutting off the pump while the car is cranking. So key on pump on, cranking off, once car hits 400 rpm, pump back on.

At first glance this jumper just seemed like it was eliminating the 2nd relay (which is fine as it doesn't seem to do anything useful), but after some peering through wiring diagrams I'm pretty sure whoever did it did it wrong.

The green wire goes from the other relay to this one, and from there would go through the relay and out to the middle wire (black with white stripe, BW). As it is now, the green wire's hooked directly to ground, which wouldn't hurt anything but means that the BW wire is just dangling in the breeze not connected to anything. The BW wire is the fuel pump positive wire, so as it is now the fuel pump is totally inoperative regardless of key position or engine state.
Should be able to just jump the green wire to the BW wire instead and be good to go. I could also hook the relay back up, but it's at best useless and at worst could lead to the car not starting if the interlock stuff is acting up, so why bother (and having the pump keep running while the car is cranking seems like a good idea anyway for future EFI stuff).

Edited April 21, 2021 by Noll

[Lockleaf]

If you don't plan on using expensive harness tape, just normal electrical tape, then i suggest you do a two layer wrap.

 

Wrap the first layer inside out (sticky side out).  Then wrap the second layer normal, sticky to sticky.  It comes out super clean looking, pretty durable, wires can move inside it, and if you have to work on the harness, the wires arent covered in goo.

 

And this technique works great even with the cheapest electrical tape.