Project THESEUS: A '74 260z

[Noll]

Did some work on the transmission tunnel today:

One big patch:



and a smaller one:





Removed the front seat mount from the cutoff section of floor it was still welded to. this took a solid amount of grinding from underneath to get off the spot welds without damage to the important bit:





And plopped it all in to test the seat. First time in over 2 years that I've been able to actually sit in the car 🙂 .






Next order of business will be to finish the rest of the patches at the rear of the floorpan so I can then weld in the seat mounts for good.

[Spoona_Jay21]

Lookin good dude!

[Noll]

Sourced some basically new (800km on 'em) Falken 225/50/15's, and mocked up. Still need 2 more at some point, but this will work well for figuring out suspension stuff.





Man it's going to look goooood once my wheels arrive and I lower the car to this height.

[Noll]

Been a little busy the past couple weeks, but got back to welding bits on the car today.

Started with this:





Spent half an hour carefully making the mother of all cardboard templates:





transferred to metal:





Welded in, and also made and welded a couple small rectangular bits to finish the lower section:





With that bit finally done, on to the other back corner:





cut out the corner to simplify patch-making:





and all patched. The lower bit was interesting to make (it bends on 3 axis'), but I managed.





And all together. Great bit to have done, as now I can get on to the seat mounts.

[Spoona_Jay21]

Any plans to flatten these welds out with a flapdisk? I know it will be hidden under the carpet, just curious.

 

Either Way, keep it up! Looking great!

 

[Noll]

2 hours ago, Spoona_Jay21 said:

Any plans to flatten these welds out with a flapdisk? I know it will be hidden under the carpet, just curious.

 

Either Way, keep it up! Looking great!

 

 

Yep, was just waiting to have all the rear welding complete 1st so I can do it all in one go. Need to get all that done next before I weld in the seat mounts as it will be harder to get at some of it after they are in.

Still unsure if I want to run carpet or just bedliner the floorpans, so that will determine just how perfectly I'll want to clean the welds up. Some bits will be more of a pain (that cornet by the seatbelt mount especially).

 

Thanks! It is super nice to be able to look back there and no longer see any ground through the holes.

[Noll]

Floor welds all ground down, and front seat mount welded in. Welds still a little visible, but way cleaner than before. i got measurements from someone as to the correct place to weld the front mount in (holes 32" from the firewall) and put it 1/2" farther back than that as I have really long legs.







Need to grind down the welds on the seat mount next too. Had to widen it a little on the trans-tunnel side (as the tunnel was a slightly different angle due to the patch), and create a 1.5" section where it meets the rocker due to where it was sawzall'd out of the car it was in.





Rear mounts dropped in to test. I'll need to remove the old floor bits from them so I can weld them in next.





Stuck the seat and steering column in to check legroom/fitment. The holes at the front visible here and the rear mounts are all that's left till the floor is done.





Feels good to finally be able to sit in the car again after ~3 years!



Next up is the aforementioned floor patches, and on to pulling the engine and trans!

Edited March 17, 2022 by Noll

[Noll]

Finally got around to moving the z to the other side of the garage, and spun it 180deg to make it easier to pull the engine.






This also provided a good opportunity to take a picture of the passenger side, as it was briefly not right next to a wall:





Got some better pics of the engine bay rust too. driver's side isn't too bad:



The passenger side will need some more work though:




Next order of business will be to pull the engine/trans to get that all de-greased before the snow, then I think I'm going to get the hood welded up so I can put it in storage and free up some space.

[banzai510(hainz)]

There was a nice Z car for sell in Seattle for like 10k no rust all done yellow one

[Bleach]

ya, there is a lot of great work going into this Z. I feel bad when I see better cars in our local wrecking yards...

[Noll]

Thanks guys! Yeah, probably more work than is warranted given its initial condition, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to get it roadworthy after all this.

 

Acquired the first of a few new-to-me panels. Will also be getting doors and front valence from the same guy.

 

New hatch:

 

 

 

You can see that it's been repaired (well) at some point. The pitting looks worse in the photo than in person, a little bit of wire-wheeling and some high-build primer and it'll be mint.

 

 

 

Also got a good-condition pair of turn signals. One has a missing stud, so I guess I'll be doing some DIY to fit a new one, but the rest are in ok condition. All the screws are rusted, so I think I'm just going to do it all in-situe without dismantling; the rubber still seems decently pliable anyway. May need the bulb harnesses for these as I have no idea if I still have the stock ones.

 

 

[BrothersGarage]

Coming together nicely! 

[Noll]

9 hours ago, BrothersGarage said:

Coming together nicely! 

 

 

Thanks! Getting there.

 

Seems like Rota RKRs are sold out everywhere in Canada till next spring, so am considering going with a set of Kyushas in the same specs (15x8 +0). I'm thinking I'd paint them a dark gunmetal grey or possibly a two-tone. Thoughts? I've always liked 5-spoke wheels, and I feel like these would fit a Z well with the right colour.

[BrothersGarage]

I think they would look dope

[Noll]

33 minutes ago, BrothersGarage said:

I think they would look dope

 

 

ooh, thanks for the edit! Yeah, I'm thinking that with the metallic blue I'm aiming for and gunmetal taillight surrounds should work well.

[BrothersGarage]

post a picture of the blue and i'll photoshop it up - you want the rivets to be blue too or not?

 

[Noll]

9 hours ago, BrothersGarage said:

post a picture of the blue and i'll photoshop it up - you want the rivets to be blue too or not?

 

 

 

My bad; meant that the car will be blue, plan for the wheels is a dark grey or black like you previously edited.

[BrothersGarage]

1 hour ago, Noll said:

My bad; meant that the car will be blue, plan for the wheels is a dark grey or black like you previously edited.

 

 

???

[Noll]

40 minutes ago, BrothersGarage said:

 

 

???

Oh awesome! That's pretty much the color I am going for.

 

Going off that I think they'll look pretty great, not sure if I want to paint the whole wheels vs leaving the barrels chrome or not though now. I'll order them and see what I think, easy enough to get them painted if I want the colour different.

 

Thanks again for the edits!

[BrothersGarage]

Happy to photoshop something up! 

[Noll]

Started today with the plan to get the last two stuck trans mount bolts out, and ended up pulling the engine and trans completely. Definitely a good job to have done.






Hopefully the weather warms up enough for me to wash the grime off so I don't have to wait till the spring to do so. I also snapped an exhaust stud while trying to hook up the chain for the hoist, so the header will need to come off to replace that.




So much room for activities:




Battery tray area, below the strut tower, and the front frame rail section are the main offenders here:




Other side is not as bad; just the one hole to patch, as well as the section near the firewall I already cut out:








All in all, a great milestone to have completed. Going to order some brake bits soon as I may as well replace everything that needs to come off for me to change the lug studs while I'm at it. More welding soon too once I have a tarp or similar rigged up to keep grinding dust localized to this half of the garage.

 

[Noll]

Got the rear seat mounts all cleaned up and welded in today.



and started the process of finally getting the dogleg patch done on the quarter.

[Noll]

So, to try to reduce the amount of stuff leaning against/around the car, I decided to work on my new hatch today.


Bottom lip needed a bit of work:




Mmm, crunchy.




Fixed the lower layer:




Top layer welded in:




And cleaned up. Not perfect, but decent.




Same deal on the other end; bottom layer was intact though.






Filled in all the old holes too. Probably putting a spoiler over top this, but may as well make it nice anyway.




The new hatch was off an earlier car, and didn't have the gas strut mounts on both sides. Easy fix after cutting it off the old hatch.

 

And on! Surprisingly, the hinge phillips bolts undid by hand, I was expecting them to really suck.




Also started on merging all of my rear valences into one good one. May still try to buy another complete one, we'll see

Edited November 22, 2019 by Noll

[Noll]

Just got a great deal on some coilover parts, so that's good! Now just to get camber plates, shorter inserts, and make some mounts for the threaded sleeves.

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by Noll

[Noll]

Alright, the driver's side floor is finally 100% finished! Just some grinding to clean it all up and then on to the few remaining things on this side of the car. not 100% the OEM floor shape at the front curve, but it's strong and will do the job fine.










Next up:




Parts add up pretty fast: