Z-Focused shop in Midwest?

[derk]

Steve.... This is a car I found ina storage locker, parked for more than 20 years. (The holy grail of Zs?) I had it trailered to my garage but I have been working on my Triumph convertible instead. I am looking for someone to take her lovingly from me and get her running again (replacing a lot of rubber it looks like) then I can move on to body work. One place that can do both would be nice but not required.

[madkaw]

Derk,

check your pm

[derk]

Called ZCar Source per McKrack... agreed looks like a great place for a full frame off resto but 2 years out at $30 to $40K per car. That's a tad rich for my blood.

[jmark]

These guys seem to know Z cars.

http://www.hotrodbuilders.com/

[madkaw]

Well I dug this thread up just to get a grip on time and to revisit when I first made contact with Jim derk. I took delivery of Jim's car on July 4th ,2007, after working out some details on the work he wanted done to his car. It was a long road, but what a great guy to work with. I tried to keep Jim up to date to the minute of the progress on his car and sent him probably a 100 digital pics so he could visualize everything I was doing on his car(since he was too far away to just drop in).

After the car had sat for 20 years, I was able to get his engine going again-strong as ever. It started out with 2 dead cylinders and low CRs,but after getting some valves back on track, we came up with 6 strong cylinders close to 170crs. The engine showed NO leaks when it left and I did NOT change any gaskets-amazing. I proceeded onto changing out all the worn out suspension bits and powder coating all the suspension parts. Next I fixed the rusted out stuff-there was very little of that-nice solid car. Then the car went to my buddies house for paint. For a low budget resto, I think Jim was happy. The car is far from a total restoration, but Jim has a good looking Z and hopefully a reliable ride.

By the way, the shop will open for business after the New Year-I can't get enough of this Z stuff:classic:

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Are those ANSA tips mnadkaw, how do they sound???

[Carl Beck]

Steve:

Details, details - how many miles were on the car to start with? How many dollars is "low budget"? How much was the paint/body work? How many hours did you spend on the car? Was he missing the stainless around the hatch glass?....

The two pictures look like the car came out fine..

FWIW,

Carl B.

[madkaw]

First off, I believe those are Ansa knock offs, but they do sound great. The car is loud because there is no insulation or carpet in the car, in fact when i drove last it had no seals either.

I went to Evansville to see the car(about a 3 hour drive) before i made a deal with Jim. A great guy with a car that I thought had significant potential because it was so solid. I felt the need to go down there to see him before he brought the car to me ,since he and I were committing to a long expensive project. After meeting Jim ,and seeing in person a car nut, I decided that this would be a good customer. I actaully felt more obligated for him to meet me then the other way around since he was going to paying me via the mail. I wanted Jim to trust me and I told him I would send many pics.

There are so many details I know i can never cover them all. The car came on a trailer on July 4th and it wouldn't even roll. It was a bitch pushing it UP my driveway. The car had never run since Derk had bought it and the registration was dated 1989. The body was dinged and dented at every corrner. but no collision damage. The body lines gaps were all good. The car was a Texas and CA car, so the under carriage was as solid as could be. The body panels had some kind of battery type corrosion that had eaten thru the paint and started on the metal. The engine turned over but no way it was going to start. The compression test showed bad news and you could imagine what the carbs were like. The suspension and anything rubber was dry rotted. I was suprised the tires held air as dry rotted as they were. The interior was amazingly original with the ashtray(this is a 8/71) in perfect condition. The glove box had all the original warrant stuff with a Datsun warranty card.

I started with the engine because there had to be a starting point. Plus Jim was concerned we would have to rebuild.I told him that we should give her a go and see what we turn up. I was told that there had been some oil put in the cylinders and it was turned over every once in a while. I squirted her down some more and after buying a battery I spun her up and she turned over easy. Time for a CR test. 2 cylinder showed 0-no good. I took the valve cover off and just what i suspected, the valve stuch and the lash pad was off center. So i put the 2 that came off back on and retried the the CR.

This post is gona get big so i'm going to break it up with all the details, to be continued......by the way, the speedo is 85k

Edited November 26, 2008 by madkaw

[Carl Beck]

Great story Steve - keep it coming.... doglegs and corrosion holes on the rear threshold above the tail pipe is typical, even for almost rust free 240-Z's

FWIW,

Carl B.

[madkaw]

After getting the valve train in it's proper place the compression reading were from 90 to 140 and anywhere in between. I figured that wasn't too bad considering the 20 years idle. Well I needed to get this thing running to improve that situation. I had already ordered a SU carb kit from Z therapy and a video on 'everything you wanted know about SU's and were afraid to ask'. The carbs had come off and went to the carb solution, but what about the tank. Years of solidified gas in that tank along with the rust-I didn't even want to know.... WHAT, someone had thought enough to drain the tank-bone dry.:surprised It still needed to be cleaned , but the tank was very usable and it could have been much worse. Now onto the exhaust for an inspection there. Well the down pipe is shot and the rest behind that is... well ..kind of gone. Actually Jim had given me a bucket of parts with the car, along with a complete exhaust-minus the down pipe, that he had bought but never put on. Since the down pipe had to be replaced, it was time to strip everything off the head and replace that gasket to. I wasn't going to fight those rusted down pipe bolts on the car ,when I can pull it out where I can see it. Of course this meant some broken studs, and a little drilling and banging and a lot of PB blaster penetrant. As I was pulling that off, I noticed the bad corrosion around the thermostat housing, so it came off too, and more broken bolt removal.

A side note: I told Jim that I was restoring my Z at the same time and that I would be modifying some items and upgrading others. I told him that some of my used was better then his stuff and I would sell those items to him cheap. Such as the down pipe, which was perfect on my car, but i was going with a header. In this way we helped each other out a little. Jim wanted to save where he could, he didn't necessarily want new.

After getting the head stripped it was time to clean up things up a little. For 30+ years the engine was pretty clean, but I wanted it squeaky clean so I could trouble shoot any leaks-plus I don't like dirty engines After cleaning things up and fighting the old down pipe off the manifold, it was time to fit the exhaust. The exhaust wasn't to bad of a fit but did need modifying for a good fit. A cut here, a weld there and more fitting and what do you know, a slick little Ansa looking system.

[madkaw]

Carl,

As far as "how much" is a low budget, I charge strictly on the hour to hour basis, so every job is different. Eventually I will show everything I did to his car in this thread, which involved about 100 hour worth of work. I only charge 25$ an hour, so even if I was slow, the customer still does alright. I only use this money for my car, not to make bills, so I'm not interested in braking my back or anyones bank. Hell, I have a daughter in college now, I don't have any extra money anymore:cry:, so I have to earn it.

The exhaust was good to go , now rebuilding the carbs and cleaning the tank. The Z therapy video is a great tool to set up the carbs before installation. After i put the carbs on and put the gas tank back in and checked for fuel pressure, I attampted to start the car. The fired off so fast and easy it blew me away. I sent the video you see here right after that. That video was only the second time I started the car, notice the smoke. It started out as a blue smoke ,which was all the oil in the cylinders getting burned out, then it turned to a white smoke as time went on. I ran the car for a while to get some heat in the engine to hopefully get some better numbers on the next compression test, plus I planned to change the oil again to play it safe incase to many things loosened up after sitting so long. Fortunetly for Jim, the numbers did come up and got better after every run.

Now it was time to see her roll down the road. I went thru the brakes from from front to back. I replaced the MC and the front calipers and brake lines and wheel cylinders and brake drums-the whole deal. I was able to sell Jim everything from my car which was in great shape since I was upgrading to Wildwoods all around. I couldn't even salvage the drums because someone had beat them(probaly trying to get them off) to the point they were unsafe. The car rolled fine , but the obviuos was true that the suspension was shot.

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/_mad_kaw_/?action=view&current=JimDerksZ072.flv

[madkaw]

The stage was the suspension and steering. I put the car up as high as I could and started ripping everything out . meanwhile the owner ordered me an urethane kit and some KYB's. I told Jim that I could refinish the suspension bits in POR-15 or have the parts powder coated for a bit more. We decided to have the parts all powder coated. The guy that runs the powder coating shop has a 350z, so he really takes care of me. I replaced all the bushings, even the steering coupler with urethane. The rubber option was there, but was on back order so we decided not to wait. I believe I also changed out the ball joints and tie rod ends. My logic was that if the suspension is that far apart, I feel the ball joints should be replaced and also the rod ends. I also told the owner that if he sprung for the undercoating I would spray the underneath of the car while everything was out of the way. When it was all said and done, the car looked better from underneath then it did on top.

What a difference once I got to drive it with the new suspension bits. I even got the front end aligned pretty close:classic:

Now on to the body work. i needed to replace the the dog legs and the rear valence panel, and fix some rust damage under the hatch before it went to the painter. No real story here, but I will say the MSA rear valence panel was junk!! Unless you have an english wheel to finish out the curves on the panel, you are in for a lot of work. I would recommend a stock one cut off of another car if you can find a straight one.

I had the car for about an year working on it part time. I was pretty proud of the amount of work I got done in that time for just hitting it when I had a few days or hours. I am fortunate that my job sometimes affords me blocks of time to do this. I can't imagine a more fun part time job! I would love to do this all the time- too bad most of the decent cars are out there on the west coast.