My two swiss S30Z Fairlady Restoration build thread

[HS30-H]

3 hours ago, JDMjunkies.ch said:

At the end it's a super detailed model car of a Japanese Fairlady Z (with L20 engine).

In fact the model represents a 1971 Fairlady 240Z-L 'Deluxe' variant (factory code 'HS30-D') with its stock L24 engine.   

[JDMjunkies.ch]

48 minutes ago, HS30-H said:

In fact the model represents a 1971 Fairlady 240Z-L 'Deluxe' variant (factory code 'HS30-D') with its stock L24 engine.   

Hmm You're right, of course. I don't know why i had the L20 on my mind all the time. The model guide clearly shows L24 and the mentioned model:

[JDMjunkies.ch]

 

Regular readers may have noticed that i haven't actually restored anything from my 240Z in a while. Well the reasons were various, but it's time to change that again. I thought i start with a simple part which i had prepared to get done since a while. The interieur dome light:

From the outside it was mainly dirty and scratched, and on the backside you could see the contacts and the bulb metal parts were corroded:

So first i took it apart

The bulb fell apart immdiately without even touching it:

First i gave everything a gentle clean in warm soap-water and tried to avoud water coming close to the switch:

Next it was time to pull out me secret weapons. I've got an electronics repair background and over the years i've gained a lot of experience which tools and fluids work the best.
Here are a selection of my all-time favourites. Which i all used for this project:
- Kontakt 60: Contact cleaning solvent (I used it a bit on the switch)
- Metarex. Some kind of wool fabric soaked in a metal polish fluid. You rip off a piece and clean your metal surfaces without scratches.
- Contact cleaning strips: Perfect to clean corroded electronic contacts (after corrosion is removed with a brush)
- Novus plastic cleaning and polish kit. Removes larger and smaller scratches from plastic surfaces and lets you get it back nice and glossy again.

After i cleaned and polished everything and had removed the corrosion with a wire brush, i checked the switch, just to ensure it works fine. Which it luckily did. Probably i should test it BEFORE i do all the work, next time.

And then assembled it all back together. IKI Japan Dome light switch from the 240Z in all it's glory. Btw. Also found a production date stamp (i guess?) of 3 / 71  on the lamp housing. So it was produced almost a year befor the car got registered in switzerland. While most of the other parts in the car have a production date from end of 1971. It seems like those dome lights were produced in larger batches and then stored before being used.

And here the backside with the fresh cleaned contacts. Now i only need to get myself a new bulb. which shouldn't be a big problem.

Now i need to find my next project. I missed actually "finishing" something 🙂

[Patcon]

Did those contacts come that clean with just the contact cleaner spray??

[JDMjunkies.ch]

11 hours ago, Patcon said:

Did those contacts come that clean with just the contact cleaner spray??

No, the contact cleaner spray was only used for the switch and not on the wire connecting contacts.

To clean the wire connector contacts, i used
1. A brass wire brush to get rid of the worst surface rust and corrosion,
2. Then used the "Metarex" Metal clean and polish wool to get rid of the remaining dirt (this stuff is incredible!).
3. Towel to clean of the dirt and dust from 1. and 2.
4: Contact cleaning strips to get rid of the remaining fluids and stuff from 1-3 and give it a protecive layer with low electric contact resistance.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

After the successful restauration of the dome light, i thought i need another project. I opened a random storage bn and the first thing that fell into my hands was the Airbox.
I'm not even sure if i'm going to use the OEM airbox on the finished car. but i thought it's going to be a fun project anyway. This is how it started:

Afte disassembling it, i quickly went through my various parts collection boxes and found a NOS filter (still in box) and a NOS rubber seal for the airbox.

The original SU / Hitachi Carb insulators were quite brittly and disappeared once you touched them:

At first glance i thought it was just dirty, so i gave it a quick wash.  Then i quickly realized that there are many black dots on the "snorkel" that are baked in. Not sure if this is tar from the road, oil stains or some attemt of a "on-the-car" spray paint job. I also ralized that there are some corroded areas, but nothing that can't be fixed.

While it was drying, i went through my collection of re-plated fasteners and found some of the fasteners in a nicer, shinier version. It's damn handy to have boxes full of Z-bolts which have been replated.

Aside from the corrosion, there was a damage to the snorkel. Not sure when or how that happened. but aside from looking ugly, it also didn't allow the flap to close completely or evenly.

So i used my very limited metal hammering skills to get it straight again. Not this is a mid-process photo, that dent on the bottom right side got corrected later too.

Now the flaps closes nicely again (tent still not fixed).

After realizing that the rubbers are all toast, and the housing needs a repaint / powdercoat anyway, i decided to remove everything and then get some replacement.

This is it for part one. More updates will follow. meanwhile i wait for the delivery of some parts Since i need to take it to the paintshop, i will probably postpone the rest of the project a bit until it fits the timeline with other parts that need to be painted.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Over the past few weeks, i collected random parts from various sellers, which were up for sale cheap or which i was looking for specifically for my build. Let's have a closer look.

First of all, Some nice parts for the airbox restauration (Stickers and SU-carb insulators):

Then also got a bunch of OEM Bulbs for the dome light:


Had to test if my restored dome light works nicely with the new bulb, which it does. Excellent.

Found a set of Print "Cliches"- Those are basically negatives used in a print-press back in the days: Will also work nicely as stamps, if you want so 🙂

Also got this OEM NOS Brake repair kit. It only list Skylines and the Laurel C130 on the mark, but i double checked th enumber and it should also fit the S30:

Then i got two steelies, which were almost for free. I probably won't use them on my car, but since i already had two, i have a full set now, which makes it easier to sell them, and or use them.

The Production date also fits, so that's a pro. You can see the on ein the picture is slightly dented, but easy to repair.

Then: Got this super-wobbly OEM front spoiler. It was only 20 bucks and not sure if it is salvageble.

But i think a pro might maybe fix it with some warm temperature and bending, but let's see. The reason why i bought it, is because it's probably the only one which i've ever seen where the mounts are not Corroded (yet) inside the rubber and has bloated it up. I'm not sure yet what i've going to do with this, but i thought i better secure it, as those original lips have become rare. Even if i don't need it, it makes a funky looking moustache at my garage wall 🙂

Oh and also got these books. The left one from ebay (which cought my interest because of the euro spec Z on the cover), and the right one from my Mate Florian.

While flipping through the book on the left (which came from america), had this photo inside from the previous owner of the book. On the back it was noted that it was taken at Christmas 1998 🙂

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Last week i got a blurry photo from my Panelbeater, asking me to visit them again, since they had revamped work in my Car. I thought the probably had done a few welds and wanted to discuss the next steps.
I couldn't have been more wrong. When i turned up, i quickly realized they had been quitely working on the car for the last few weeks and made huge progress! The car even got it's own dedicated workspace now in another building, which they set up only to finish the project without having to move stuff around all the time. They have increased the manpower and got a new teamleader and they seem to push things a bit now. Which i'm more than happy to see.
So today i realized they had completely replaced the outer and inner side steps on the RH side. The previous Bodyshop already did this once, but he made all the panels himself since no good replacements were available back then. Since the new green KVF panels are much closer to the original ones (and strangely fit much better on this side than they did on the other side), they replaced it all again and improvad a few areas.

On the RH side, the floorpans were finished and the seat rails installed back. They also installed the Japanese Footrest, which is designed for RHD cars, but also fits nice on LHD ones.

On my input they also installed the OEM-style "reinforcement-cups" (thanks for showing me these, guys!), on the opposing side of the floorpan. The marked area got fixed later. The previous bodyshop had cut it for whatever reason (probably to install the floorpans) and never fnished it properly.

The original battery tray was not too bad, but a bit messed up to be fair, so they replaced this one too. (picture still shows the old one):

They also realized that the previous panelbeater has done a bad job around the Fuel filler area, so they reconstructed everything from scratch. You can tell quite a bit of work went into this. (and they also re-did the whole inner part from scratch!). The cas filler door now closes very flush:

Aside from a dozen of small areas (which are super time consuming), they also prepared my replacement NOS rear quarter panel, as the original one had a ton of bondo and filler on it from pevious rust repairs. They fixed a transport-damage dent, closed the US-spec rear side-marker hole and modified the C-pillar Vent / logo area from "Series 1" to the newer version.

Here is the C-pillar air vent outlet which they removed from the original rear quarter (see hole and bondo on the original rear quarter in the background) and installed on the new quarter panel:

The new taillight cover clips and mounts got installed:

Then the big work began: The roof skin transplantation. Since the original frame was quite good, they just sanded it down and painted it with rust protection and went for a skin-only replacement, which makes sense. I think one should only cut down the original structure if absolutely necessary.

Then they went to work at the rear quarter. It was in quite good shape underneath, so they just cleaned it, removed some surface rust and painted it with rust-protection as well.

The Outer wheel arch however was a different story. You can see how many repairs happened here in the history of the car. Almost like the rings on a tree...

This is the master at Work when i just arrived. you can see the roof is ready to get welded back in, and the rear quarter subframe has also been prepared. Next up is the replacement of the wheel arch before the quarter panel goes back in.

After that it looks "finished" but then the Rollcage needs to go in and all the small cosmetic details and gaps need to be aligned and fixed so it will take some time Also the original bodylines, which a previous owner "cleaned" need to be hammered back in. All these little details require a lot of work and skilled masters of their craft. but will be well worth the result. Maybe not financially. but the fact i am "saving" a messed up car and bring it back to original glory is worth more to me.
I'm super excited about the progress and really looking forward to my next visit mid march after they return back from their well deserved skiing-holidays. Oh and i have some exciting news from my side too. so stay tuned for another nice update this week.

Edited February 14 by JDMjunkies.ch
typo correction and added context

[Namerow]

8 hours ago, JDMjunkies.ch said:

The Outer wheel arch however was a different story. You can see how many repairs happened here in the history of the car:

Great photo. One of the best I've seen to demonstrate what happens to cars like ours over the years as they're victimized by PO's and bodyshops. 

[siteunseen]

I would be calling them "auto-body shapers" or artist of their trade. Wifebeaters is a little harsh and cars are our wives right? We wish.

Congratulations on the progress.

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

17 hours ago, Namerow said:

Great photo. One of the best I've seen to demonstrate what happens to cars like ours over the years as they're victimized by PO's and bodyshops. 

Indeed. Nowadays they're sought after cars, but back then they were just cheap and fun sports cars. So most youngsters who got one of those secondhand didn't invest much for repairs and had it done cheaply.
If you look closesly at the rear quarter in the background on this photo, you also see the approx 2cm thick layer of Bondo that was applied on the outside of the rear quarter after a repair:

[grannyknot]

You have found a great shop, they're doing excellent work, congratulations.