My two swiss S30Z Fairlady Restoration build thread

[JDMjunkies.ch]

KFVintageJDM has been pushing out new panels almost weekly. i saw they now even released a whole damn reproduction rear quarter panel! Something many people have been looking for for a long time!

One of the lately released parts are the inner rocker seatbelt mount's. I'm  not even sure if i need those, but since they were available, i added them to the package.

I got myself a partial firewall. I only need the lower section, which is quite messed up in my car, but thought it might be easier to have something to work with than make it from scratch:

As you can see on the left the part that is inside the fender is pretty messed up with various welds, rust, bondo and whatnot, so it's definitely good to have a replacement.

More news tomorrow and next week again...

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Yes! On monday the shell is going back to the bodyshop. I chose a new panelbeater with a bit more professional background. The other one was OK, but this time it goes to a specialist which is usually handling cars in a more exclusive price-range. Also he's not alone but has a hand full of people on hand and compared to my previous guy - has all the tools required in-house. Also he just seems a bit more of a "do-er" and less of a "talker" - my kind of guy. And he promised me to complete the body until the end of the year for a fair price. So let's have the fingers corssed that the project is back to 100 again now...
This means i had to prepare a few things for the bodyshop. Aside from a few drawings with measures and dimensions and other details, he asked me to prepare the passenger side. the first thing he's going to attack is fix and finalize the work of the previous guy. on the first look he told me the work was pretty good, but there are a few small details to rectify especially the rocker panel that doesn't align with the door. something the previous guy wanted to fix himself before i took the car back...
So first: there is still a lot of media from the sand blasting falling whenever you move the car...


So i took out the vacuum cleaner and tried to suck out all remaining sand wherever possible (2nd attemt, and for sure not the last one...)

The previous owner t hought it was coo to have the car "clean" and closed all the holes for the fender and hood emblems. Luckily i have a good fender with the original holes in stock. so i took measures there

...and transferred them to the other fender, to drill the holes. I'm quite satisfied with the result (only temporary mockup, emblem is not fully pushed in)

Ignore the black marks. they were wrong, but after drilling, i decided to give the holes a bit of rust protection by spraing it with some primer. i probably went a bit over board with the sprayed area 🙂

Time to put it on the car:

The panelbeater also asked me to install the doors and locks so he can align everything neatly and make sure the panel gaps are nice everywhere.

And the doors side. Feels good to "assemble" something, even though it is only a temporary mockup with some "scrap" parts. Will be nice to install the other set which is freshly zinc plated or rechromed...

While working on the doors i also realized there is some rust on the welds inside the door skin. The welds came from the previous panel-beater, who made sure the bodylines are there again. it seems the previous owner also "cleaned" those.
i cleaned the welding spots with a brush and added some rust conversion primer there (no photo of that):

While sorting through the doors parts i thought it was about time to give my "new" sandblaster a try:

Worked pretty well, except i realized my compressor is too small. Luckily i already have a deal with my father-in-law to exchange ours (he needs a smaller one, i can have his more powerful one):

If everything goes well you'll see some picturs of this car being loaded onto a trailer on monday, along with a load of parts. So happy to see the project taking up speed again...

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Finally - the day has come, where the car left the home for the second time for a visit at a bodyshop. This time a different one...


The agreed timeline is to complete the body until the end of the year (roughly). I said quality comes before a tough timeline, but also they agreed on not letting the car sit in a corner for 5 years like the previous panelbeater did...
The plan is to straighten the chassis, which needs a bit alignment, replace all rusty panels and then add the bodypanels and align all gaps, before having everything dismantled again and ready for the paintshop....

And until then i'll plan my next steps. They already took some panels with them too, but i'll visit them soon, bring the passenger side door and seat rail for test fit and have a look around their shop.
I'm as motivated as i haven't been in a long while to push this project as far as possible again...

[EuroDat]

Well Nils. All I can say is 

I don't comment much, but I do follow your thread. I hope this panelbeater pulls through without to many external issues.

Its been 10 years. Bonus points for sticking it out.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Just a very small update. While preparing the passenger side fender for the bodyshop, i realized i dont have any nice fender emblems anymore, so i immediately ordered a set, since i saw they were still available new from Nissan:

Nothing crazy, but another little piece of the Puzzle is ready to be installed, once the shell and body panels are painted...

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Only one picture today, but an important milestone in the project: The bodywork starts again! A few hours ago, i was at the new bodyshop to discuss the first steps and bring them some parts. The car is in good company and the workshop is huge. This is just one little messy corner where it is temporary stored until work begins next week (fingers crossed). The rest of the shop is clean and busy with many people at work. I met the panel beater the first time and he seems to be a really nice dude. They promised me to send pictures every now and then, and since they're basically just a little detour on my way from work back home, i guess i will have regular visits to them too 🙂 So let's hope for some updates soon...

[JDMjunkies.ch]

When i prepared the doors for the Bodyshop, i realized that some of the hinges were worn out pretty much. So i decided to give my spare set an overhaul. it took me a while to figure out how to get the old pins out. but now i got a solution and also finally a use for my new press 🙂

The pin got a bit bent during the process, but shouldn't be a problem:

Here's a comparison of the old vs new pin you can clearly see some heavy wear on t he old pin:

The sleeve things were pretty worn out too and basicalyl fell apart once i touched it:

The inside was easy to get out with the right tools and a hammer:

Here we go, everything out and new ones ready to go in:

During the process i also wanted to snadblast the old hinges, but realized my compressor is way to small. Luckily my father-in-law offered me to swap mine with his bigger one:

Still could be bigger, but it works ok for small parts:

Here's one of the door hinge parts freshly blasted:

Next? i still need to find out how i can remove the springs on the upper hinge to get the same job done there. and if i should paint the hinges first before assembly, or do it the opposite way? no hurry 🙂

And i got an update from the bodyshop too, they got the fender and door installed for alignment. and realized that one of the previous owners had the brilliant idea of smoothing (cleaning) out the body lines in the front fender, as you can see: Sommething i didn't notice so far... damnit another thing to rectify again. well 🙂 at lest there is already a first progress.. Hope for some news again soon.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Despite work beeing a bit crazy and me don't finding a lot of time to work on the cars, i at least managed to get some parts for the next steps.
First of all a set of weld-in cable clamps for the bodyshop so they can replace the old ones which became quite brittly from the many years and have been painted over several times. Some go into the engine bay and hold the original wire harness, while some go besides the seat, to hold the internal wire harness...

Then i got a window roller repair kit all the way from australia. i was not sure what to expect when i bought it on ebay, but i have to admit it seems pretty solid:

the kit comes with replacement rollers which are not 3d-printed or something but seem to be nicely cast items.

they replace the original rollers. Now i just have to find out how to peen those new pins in nicely. As you can see i defintely need new ones...

[Patcon]

Ebay ad link?

Who supplied the harness tabs?

[JDMjunkies.ch]

2 hours ago, Patcon said:

Ebay ad link?

Who supplied the harness tabs?

Window roller kit was from this guy in Australia. He also made the door hinge repair kit shown a few posts before: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324337826467

The harness tabs / Cable clamps came from JDM-Car-parts.com.
These are rubber or Plastic dipped, vs the 240Zrubberparts.com items, which are similar, but require some kind of shrinking tube to be installed.

I went with the first option because i thought they're more OEM look-and-feel and probably lasting longer than the shrinking-tube version, which you see more often.

[RIP260Z]

Nice work, I like the window roller kit, though currently out of stock.

The tabs I have seen on Yahoo auctions, so maybe where jdm-car-parts gets them. I found 240zrubber parts wouldn't ship outside the US, so had to get them posted inside the US first before coming to me (with other parts)

[HS30-H]

51 minutes ago, RIP260Z said:

The tabs I have seen on Yahoo auctions, so maybe where jdm-car-parts gets them.

I think they are made by Nishi san at 'Revive Jalopy' in Saitama, Japan.