Project THESEUS: A '74 260z

[Noll]

10 hours ago, Homeboyx said:

Probably a dumb question but where do you get the replacement metal you’re welding on? Always a metal yard or do you salavge it? Thicknesses?

 

No worries! The main stuff I use (20 and 22ga sheet) I get from a couple local places - Princess Auto being one (our version of harbour freight). A 2x4ft sheet is usually 30-50$ (CAD) and lasts a decent while.

 

5 hours ago, WAGON JON said:

This is by far the most impressive, jaw-dropping, fantastic, enthusiastic, mind-blowing, pile of junk to mountain of glory car builds I have ever witnessed! My hat is off to you and many accolades!!! Keep on going and don't stop until your done!! This is fully a grass-roots build. 😎

 

Thanks man, it really means a lot! I've learned a hell of a lot working on this thing, and it's fun to look back at the early pages of the thread to see just how little I knew then.

 

No plans on stopping now. Finally getting close to being done with the rust (well, in a couple months), so it will be super nice to move onto other aspects of the build.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Noll

[Noll]

Got the wiring harness out:




Which revealed this. Pretty expected:




Cut out the bad:




Removed the battery tray and cleaned it up. It's in pretty perfect shape.




The usual rust:




Got the rocker tacked in too. Man, I had forgotten how much of a pain this was to get just right. I also managed to mess up the cuts slightly and leave too big of a gap at the front, so need to weld in a ~6mm strip. I'll aim to get that all done on Saturday, so I can move onto the a-pillar repair.







The reason it looks like the door gap at the bottom is too small is because it is. For some reason when the door was originally patched, they got the shape wrong here, and raising the door to where it should be (it's sitting ~5mm low in relation to bodylines) means it hits the a-pillar. Why they decided to bondo the door up instead of doing this properly I have no idea. I'm not using these doors anyway, so will just cut off the offending section to adjust the hinges.

 

[Homeboyx]

I’m a little surprised the battery tray area isn’t worse to be honest. Lol This build thread seriously has me checking in here for updates every day. Awesome work!

[Noll]

20 hours ago, Homeboyx said:

I’m a little surprised the battery tray area isn’t worse to be honest. Lol This build thread seriously has me checking in here for updates every day. Awesome work!

 

Yeah, Seems like the rust crept up from below/the outside as opposed to being caused by battery acid. Who knows with this thing lol, the rust spots are very odd in some places.

 

Thanks! It's nice to get feedback on here too, and show others that anything can be fixed with enough sheet metal haha.

 

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Rocker is on for good! Still need to clean up all the welds and get a couple small bits I missed. Pretty good milestone to have complete; it's a pretty major part of the car's structure, and needed to get it in before I could do much else on this side.











next up, a-pillar and seatbelt mount repair.

 

[Spoona_Jay21]

Dude, You are a Machine! Keep it up!

[Noll]

2 hours ago, Spoona_Jay21 said:

Dude, You are a Machine! Keep it up!

 

Thanks! Not always easy to get motivation some days, but I REALLY want to get this damn car done, so I try to push past that and at least get some stuff done most of the time, even if it's not as much as I'd like.

 

I called it quits once the rocker was tacked on a couple days ago as It was getting really annoying to get it in the right place, and figured I'd do a better job finishing that all up the next day when I wasn't tired and annoyed at the car.

 

 

[Spoona_Jay21]

15 hours ago, Noll said:

 

Thanks! Not always easy to get motivation some days, but I REALLY want to get this damn car done, so I try to push past that and at least get some stuff done most of the time, even if it's not as much as I'd like.

 

I called it quits once the rocker was tacked on a couple days ago as It was getting really annoying to get it in the right place, and figured I'd do a better job finishing that all up the next day when I wasn't tired and annoyed at the car.

 

 

 

This is EXACTLY where I am at with the 720. Finding Motivation is hard, But I really want to start driving It and not my POS Lexus. and I'll be able to move onto my next project once the Truck is drive-able, So I try to push Myself to work on it a little. 

[Noll]

10 hours ago, Spoona_Jay21 said:

 

This is EXACTLY where I am at with the 720. Finding Motivation is hard, But I really want to start driving It and not my POS Lexus. and I'll be able to move onto my next project once the Truck is drive-able, So I try to push Myself to work on it a little. 

 

Yep! Not always easy, but totally worth it.

 

 

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

 

 

Started on replacing the section of a-pillar that had a lot of holes.




All exposed:




I replaced this section, but didn't get an "after" pic for some reason. Will do tomorrow.






New bit mocked up. That big gap at the top will close up once I grind a flange off the replacement part that I still need to do, to bring it all in closer to the center of the car and have the drip rail line up as it should.



 

Edited December 22, 2019 by Noll

[73240z]

All this work is making me feel lazy! I have way less rust on my Z, but it sits untouched in the garage. Need to get my act together. Great work BTW!

[Bleach]

3 hours ago, 73240z said:

All this work is making me feel lazy! I have way less rust on my Z, but it sits untouched in the garage. Need to get my act together. Great work BTW!

I feel tired after reading this thread each day!

[Noll]

Thanks as always guys! Trust me, it's not always anywhere near easy to get out there and work on it, but I am committed to getting this on the road 2020. Getting close to done with rust; have engine frame rails and the top of the rad support cut off a car for me today, and they'll be shipped soon. Just a couple more bits left to get after that (rear valence/taillight panel being the big one).

 

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

Christmas today so was spending time with family, but I did get some horns for the Z which is very nice 🙂 . Will be painting them black.





Merry Christmas everyone!

[Noll]

Finished trimming the new section of a-pillar, and test-fit the windscreen. All is well on this side:





Other side will need some work though, as I thought it might. Guess I'll either need to learn to use lead as filler, or do a little bit of creative cutting and welding, which won't be difficult.




All welded in. I'll do the proper cleanup of the welds next time.

[Noll]

Well, the new year is upon us. Here's to another spin around the solar system on this tumultuous planet we all live on.

 

I don't have many concrete goals this year, but, come hell or high water, I will be driving this thing to the 50th anniversary Zcon this September, even if the car is still thirteen different colours.

[DADZSUN]

On 1/1/2020 at 12:26 AM, Noll said:

 I will be driving this thing to the 50th anniversary Zcon this September, even if the car is still thirteen different colours.

 

Maybe we can caravan. I'll be making the trek from Ottawa.

 

Love your build, keep at it! My 280z had very similar rust, both floors, entire engine rails, both rear arches/drops/valence.

 

Here's my build thread in case you want to see how I approached my challenges. As FYI, Metal Supermarket has good prices for 18ga metal.

[Noll]

16 hours ago, DADZSUN said:

 

Maybe we can caravan. I'll be making the trek from Ottawa.

 

Love your build, keep at it! My 280z had very similar rust, both floors, entire engine rails, both rear arches/drops/valence.

 

Here's my build thread in case you want to see how I approached my challenges. As FYI, Metal Supermarket has good prices for 18ga metal.

 

Oh nice, that sounds like a fun plan! What route were you thinking? I was considering ogdensburg border crossing, should be way quicker than Detroit etc.

 

Much appreciated! Just looked through your thread, very nice work! Seems like we're at a roughly similar point currently.

 

Yeah, metal supermarket is good, unfortunately they're in the east end and I'm west of kanata, so a bit of a haul. Ive had good luck with princess auto when they have a sale on metal.

[Noll]

Custom plates arrived today!




Threw on the rear valence to mock up





Started the work of cleaning this section up to weld in:




All done, other than one small patch by the reinforcing plate. I won't be using all of this section, so next will be to measure to figure out the minimum I'll need.




This has been bugging me since I welded in the little patch section slightly off a couple months ago:




So a bit of slicing, prying, welding, and grinding happened:






I deliberately left it slightly too short as I need to adjust the hatch anyway, and would rather ad a skim of filler to the rear versus cut metal off if I extended the bit too much.


This needed fixing too:



Much better:





Also finished cleaning up the welds from the last few sections I did:






The focus now is to get the seatbelt bits welded in, and get the firewall fixed, so I can then get the floorpan attached for good.

[Noll]

Fixed the rusty area on the replacement section:




Next up, this. Left over from when it was cut out of the parts-car and sent to me a few months back:




Sorted:





And in! Next up will be to weld the bits back in that I cut out for welding access on the inside of the subframe. I also need to take off the rear wheel so I can hammer the wheelarch from the other side then plug weld it from there.



After that, I just need to bridge the gap between the new section and the rocker, and then I can move onto the firewall. I ran out of welding gas as I finished the above, so need to get some more this week.

[grannyknot]

It's a steel quilt!

[Noll]

On 1/11/2020 at 5:59 PM, grannyknot said:

It's a steel quilt!

 

Yeah, at this point I've lost count of the number of patches that have gone into this thing.

 

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

 

Drove down to the USA and picked up some parts I had shipped near the border to save me $$ on shipping to Canada.

First round of  coilover bits (still need camberplates and new shorter inserts):




280z backing plates that use the more conventional style of brake cylinder (those need replacing,but this type is way cheaper):




A bunch of metal for the front end of the car. Will need some changing ( larger hole for the EFI intake needs to be reduced for the 240/260 cabin air intake L-pieces that go there, etc), but I save a bunch of $$ vs buying reproduction bits, and my sheet metal brake couldn't have done the frame rail sections anyway.



Also got another pair of 225/50/15's to complete my setup, but no pics of them.
 

[grannyknot]

Noll, you might be interested in a brake package I just put on kijiji, https://www.kijiji.ca/v-other-auto-parts-and-accessories/mississauga-peel-region/datsun-240z-280z-upgrade-brake-package/1483141128

[Noll]

16 hours ago, grannyknot said:

Noll, you might be interested in a brake package I just put on kijiji, https://www.kijiji.ca/v-other-auto-parts-and-accessories/mississauga-peel-region/datsun-240z-280z-upgrade-brake-package/1483141128

 

 

Thanks for the info! Would be a really nice setup to have, but I don't think it'd work out in terms of $$ for me currently. Driving to Florida and back next month and have a bunch more Z parts lined up to buy (taillight panel, doors, front valence, etc) that will be eating all my money.

 

If you still had it in a couple months though...

[Noll]

Got the rear 'shelf' all buttoned up. All that's left now before the floor can go in is the firewall repair and a couple of misc. spots.





I probably should clean this up a little more, although the undercoating/bedliner will probably hide it all anyway:

[Noll]

Finished cleaning off the transmission tunnel, and discovered some more 'lovely' workmanship:






Soon sorted though:




No idea how this happened, but it seems like they removed the original floor with an air chisel, so it doesn't surprise me too much.



Fixed:



And a super-rough mockup of the floor. Didn't get as far as I'd planned today due to all the little patches i had to do, but no matter. Firewall will be wednesday, then floor in next sat hopefully.


 

[Noll]

Realized that to do it all properly (and in the easiest manner), there was more work to be done before I patched the firewall. Cue the angle grinder.




Need to remake the bottom of the bit I cut out, but that's not a difficult part.


 

[Noll]

Got the majority of the firewall/battery area fixed today.







Mocked up the battery tray. Lots of weld cleanup to do here. I'm half tempted to do a battery relocation to the back, thoughts?




And replaced the bottom third of the frame horn section. One more patch to do then it can go back on.