1973 240Z Refreshtoration – 901 Silver

[motorman7]

I was not going to start a thread on this but changed my mind as the information may help those who are thinking of buying a Z just to do some minor clean-ups and flip it. What I thought would be a quick 3 month ‘clean-up’ and sale has now turned into a well over 5 month ‘Refreshtoration’. I don’t really call it a restoration as I am not doing a complete 100% strip of the body and undercarriage. And my original intention was just a simple re-fresh. So, I am now in the middle of these two with what I am calling a ‘Refreshtoration’.

Part of the problem in cleaning up a vehicle is you can’t just strip a car, put a nice paint job on it, put it back together and sell it. The paint may look great but the surrounding parts do not match. So now the paint looks good, but the bumpers that looked fine on an oxidized car now look lousy on a freshly painted car. So we add re-chromed bumpers to the cost. Now that the bumpers are re-chromed, the old door handles look bad. You get the picture. One improvement eventually leads to another. As a result, my initial refresh budget of $2500 has now ballooned to over $4000 (so far). That is a huge increase. And, that price does not include labor as I do most of the work myself.

And for those of us who are ‘anal retentive’, like myself, flipping cars is not your calling. The issue is that there is a lot of time in the details. I am talking about rust abatement here. I can’t for the life of me put a rusty nut or bolt back onto a car. It has to be either wire wheeled and zinc plated, or wire wheeled and sprayed (paint or clear coat for metal). Of course thread anti-seize also has to be used. And, any form of rust on the body needs to be treated and Por-15’d or at least passivated and sprayed. This all takes quite a bit of time.

Now, let’s throw ‘attachment’ into the picture. Of course when I bought the car and told my wife of my plans, she said, ”You won’t be able to sell that car because you will be too attached to it”. I said, “No problem for me, I can sell it in a heartbeat”. That was easy to say when I first bought the car. Now, after many hours of labor on this car, I find myself re-considering. “Maybe, I can finish it and drive it up to my parents’ barn and leave it there for a while”, I tell myself. I think I’d like to enter it in some of the local shows here soon. Maybe I keep this one, give my son the yellow Z and sell his T-bird. Oh how my wife knows me too well.

So this is where I am at right now. I will re-post some of the original pictures and then show the progress. I will also add more info on this as I get some time. The PO was pretty interesting so I want to add that as well.

[cozye]

interesting thread. I'll be keeping an eye on this one as I'm doing a "refreshstoration" now myself.

[motorman7]

I love Craigslist for buying cars. Nice selection and in my opinion, some great deals. You also get quite a few dreamers on there as well. Anyway, when I saw the ad on Craigslist for the ’73, I was very impressed by the original look and the motor pics that looked to be untouched. All that funky insulation was intact as was the smog and the flat top carbs. The owner wanted $1300 for it. I called the owner to see the car, at which point he mentioned he could no longer start the car. I told him that was fine, I would still like to see it.

When I arrived, the owner was still trying to start the car. I did a quick inspect and tried to help him start it but no luck (later found out it was a bad fuel pump). Since he couldn’t start it, he on the spot lowered the price to $900. That was nice, no need to haggle down the price. I checked the car over and was thrilled. There were two minor rust spots behind the rear wheels, not bad. Radiator, radio and seats were not original, otherwise it was not too ‘molested’. The seats were a nice pair of Recaro’s which are now in my sport yellow Z. The owner had bought the car for his son to ‘fix-up’, but the son lost interest. The seats were as far as he got, fortunately.

The owner was very excited to show me the blue carpet that he had bought to ‘re-do’ the complete interior.:sick: He was insistent that I take it to complete the car by gluing the carpet over the vinyl black diamond interior. The funny thing about this is that the original vinyl inside is nearly flawless as are the door panels-better than my ’70 even. Makes me cringe to think he would have tossed that to put in the horrendous blue carpet.

The owner was really quite cool, though. He is the author of a very popular robotics book and he gave me a free copy. I helped with my sons’ robotics team at school, so we had a lot to talk about. Anyway, I got my wife to agree to car number 6 and paid cash for it the next day as I picked it up with the u-haul trailer. Now the fun begins

[cygnusx1]

Oh the deals you guys find for clean cars on the left coast makes me cringe. Good luck and I eagerly await updates!

[motorman7]

I will try and keep the thread focused on the ‘Refreshtoration’ costs.

The first thing to do was get the car running. Once home, this wasn’t all that hard to do. I checked spark and rough timing- that looked good. Pulled a carb fuel hose and turned the engine over-no fuel. That was easy. Since the car has an electric near the tank and a mechanical on the engine, I started with bypassing the mechanical and just running with the electrical. Still no fuel. Went and bought a new ‘Nippondenso’ mechanical pump for $53, bypassed the electrical pump and got fuel to come out the carb hose. Perfect. Hooked up the hose and the car started right up. All I needed was a new set of tires, $380 for Michelins at Costco and I am now using the car as my daily driver. Add $70 for new title and registration, $50 for the fore mentioned u-haul trailer and we are now at $1453. It adds up fast.

[MK1888]

Oh the deals you guys find for clean cars on the left coast makes me cringe.

Amen to that. And they're scooped up before us East Coasters have a chance.

[motorman7]

Got the front bumper in. This was one of the items I did not intend to 'upgrade', but closer inspection said they needed help. Thus the re-chrome and new front bumber strips. This is $800 that I did not budget in originally(both bumpers chromed, towel bar holes welded up, 2 new front rubber strips). I do love the look though. I painted the grill with the same paint I used for the back panel. Also completed the brake and fuel line clean-up. Dropped the flywheel off to get surfaced at the machine shop. If I can get the time, will get the motor in next week. Here are the progress pics. Also threw in a before picture.

[Mike B]

I think flipping anything is a risky business, whether it is a car or a house, especially if you are refreshing it to a level that you would want if you were keeping it. If flipping it for a profit was your sole goal, you probably would have done better by just reselling it after you got if running again. I think the level of attachment to the car will be proportional to what someone offers you for it. If they offer what you have in it or less, you are more attached, if it is a decent profit (to cover some of your labor) then you will probably be less attached.

So where are you at now with the total cost, after the paint, bumpers, etc? It would be a good reference to post the total "investment" to date as you post updates. Another expense to a repaint is the cost of all the new seals, etc. Even with an aftermarket kit, that adds several hundred dollars.

I guess if you are able to use it as a daily driver for awhile you should also factor that benefit in when you add up the costs. Anyway, it looks great and I'm curious to see where you end up with it when it is all said and done.

-Mike

[cozye]

what do you use to recoat the bare metal hardware to get that original yellowish gold look ?

[motorman7]

Hi Mike,

Detailed Costs (so far)

Car: $ 900

Trailer home: $ 50

Title and Reg: $ 70

New Michelins $ 380

Fuel Pump: $ 52

Zinc kit cost (partial) $ 50

Body work supplies $ 40

Paint at Maaco $1680

Bumpers, handles $ 750

Bumber Rubber $ 65

BD Weatherstrip kit $ 220

Mirror, Fierwall Rubber $ 150

Dash Cap $ 100

Mag center caps $ 40

Engine bay light $ 25

Motor gasket kit $ 150

Panel and motor paint $ 45

Flywheel surface $ 36

Paint polish kit $ 120

Looks like the total is $4923 so far. I still need a carpet kit,some of the emblems, and some engine hoses. And I am sure there will be more. So looks like we will fly past $5K. Hopefully stopping short of $5.5K. I will keep everyone posted.

Definitely a learning experience here. And I think you are right, would have been better off financially selling it once I got it running. Although, I really love doing the work. I find it very satisfying and theraputic. Would go crazy if I couldn't work on the car.

[motorman7]

what do you use to recoat the bare metal hardware to get that original yellowish gold look ?

I use the Caswell zinc plating kit.

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/zinc.htm

I like doing the plating myself because it is convenient and I can get the exact finish I want. I can control the brightness, rainbow, and color darkness ...for the most part. Some metal types are harder than others.

[cozye]

I use the Caswell zinc plating kit.

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/zinc.htm

I like doing the plating myself because it is convenient and I can get the exact finish I want. I can control the brightness, rainbow, and color darkness ...for the most part. Some metal types are harder than others.

Thanks for the link. I've been wondering about this.