My two swiss S30Z Fairlady Restoration build thread

[JDMjunkies.ch]

2 hours ago, HS30-H said:

I've seen the occasional example of user/owner-added single or twin bolts through the baseplate and inner wheelarch. A kind of belt-and-braces approach that certainly would help when the baseplate 'floats' slightly above the inner wheelarch.

They could also have been added at the request of scrutineers/safety inspectors. Pretty soon they were mandating welded-in cage mounts for certain race classes and this prompted some car owners to weld in sections of the factory safety bar, like this rough and ready period example:

Very interesting photo. thanks for sharing. I've never seen such an installation before. It also seems that in your case the bar itself has been welded to the bracket, which is obviously more rigid comparded to the original detachable design.

17 hours ago, xs10shl said:

That is a really nice replica comp roll bar.  I have one myself, and it is very true to original, as far as I can tell.  Just for the sake of discussion:  I have not seen the three through-bolts on the wheel well actually appearing on original units.  Of the few pictures that I have, I don't see any with this particular feature.  That said, I'm confident it will improve safety and utility that way.  The hardware is also a bit different from original on the kit I have - I believe the original units were fastened using JIS bolts labeled "9".

I'll defer to others with better knowledge.

Thanks for your inputs, i appreciate a lot.

Here is the example i took for reference. Rear installation plates are welded in, upper ones are only "laid on" (No visible welds or bolts):

The Mizukami rollbar claims that it's close to the original design but has some modifications for easier installation and better fitment.
The upper side mounting brackets come with the three holes for the inner wheel well bolts you mention. and including the three bolts on each side:

This (terribly google translated) installation manual from the Factory race and rallye preparation "yellow book" shows that the also the upper mounts should get welded, if i get that right. As shown in the Photo by Alan.
Unfortunately it is not very well visible in the upper left (black) picture how it is installed, but if i look at the picture in the original Print, it seems to be welded, as in Alans photo.
Anyway, as Alan mentioned, i think there were different ways to install those and everybody came up with their own solution. Many probably never had or didn't read the intsallation manual either.

Overall the fitment of the Mizukami rollbar is very nice, and i like the way they designed it. I guess it's close enough to the original design to convice the MoT guy to approve it as an original rollbar. Otherwise it can be quickly removed by it's smart design. Overall i like it a lot. If you want to have it closer to the original design you can of course close the three holes and weld the bottom plate to the inner wheel well, that should fix the main difference.

Edited April 17 by JDMjunkies.ch

[xs10shl]

Great info, thx.  Also of note, the original examples shown have a trunkbed plate with welded nuts in place of the provided plate, with welded studs- likely also for ease of installation.  The original nut-plate solution is also how the roll bar was installed on my Works car.  i can certainly understand why Mizukami went with the latter stud system, as the original welded-nut-plate solution requires 4 large holes to be drilled into the floorboard.  A very subtle difference that 99.5% of enthusiasts would probably not recognize. (thatsa lotta nuts & studs talk)

Edited April 18 by xs10shl

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So since i'm working on the R180 diff, a some nice people here pointed out that there's a special Service manual for this. Luckily one was available for sale just that time, along with another book which i saw recently and was missing in my 240Z reading collection:

The differential service guide is an Datsun USA made service manual for various R- and H- Differentials by Datsun and is brilliant. It explains the working priciple, the differences of the manuals and obviously, the service. it comes with calculation tables for settings and a lot of background information about the various diff.

It's basically an englisih translation of the original Nissan JP factory differential service manual.  But it being english makes it much more convenient to understand 🙂

Registered ClassicZcar users can download a digital copy of the english version for free here: https://www.classiczcars.com/articles/engine/differntial-manual-r115/

The second book which i bought, was a Z-book i haven't seen before. The "Dastsun Z Series - the Complete story" by David G Styles.
It made me especially curious because the writer was an Englishman, and the cover features an Euro-Spec Z, so my hope was that there was a bit of a focus on the european cars and market, compared to the usual American / Japanese focus.
Well i was wrong. It's honestly pretty much bull****. A LOT of the usual (false) Goertz praise for his achievments, a lot of design comparison to Jaguars and Ferraris 250 GTO and really nothing new or interesting when it came to the design, development, production or testing of the cars.
Even though the writer mentions a lot of japanese sources on the first pages, it seems that the Japanese had no big influence on this book and rarely (if at all) a japanese name gets dropped.
I didn't expect much, but at the end it wasn't even able to fullfill that. Nevertheless, one more for the "nonsense" section of books in my shelve.

[HS30-H]

51 minutes ago, JDMjunkies.ch said:

The second book which i bought, was a Z-book i haven't seen before. The "Dastsun Z Series - the Complete story" by David G Styles.
It made me especially curious because the writer was an Englishman, and the cover features an Euro-Spec Z, so my hope was that there was a bit of a focus on the european cars and market, compared to the usual American / Japanese focus.
Well i was wrong. It's honestly pretty much bull****. A LOT of the usual (false) Goertz praise for his achievments, a lot of design comparison to Jaguars and Ferraris 250 GTO and really nothing new or interesting when it came to the design, development, production or testing of the cars.
Even though the writer mentions a lot of japanese sources on the first pages, it seems that the Japanese had no big influence on this book and rarely (if at all) a japanese name gets dropped.
I didn't expect much, but at the end it wasn't even able to fullfill that. Nevertheless, one more for the "nonsense" section of books in my shelve.

I wholeheartedly concur. It was another stinker.

Unfortunately my stack of poor, bad or total garbage books on the subject of 'our' cars is so tall that it I had to apply for planning permission from my local council.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Those who follow my Instagram already might have noted that the 240Z ist back at my home. The bodyshop have speed up things to "finish" phase 1 of the bodywork.
As far as my limited knowledge goes, i have to say they did an excellent job. They spent quite some time getting everything right, finding the required information and aligning with me, whenever needed.

Here are some random photos of the process, which i haven't shown you yet:
Floorpan replacement passenger side (2nd time, after the first bodyshop messed it up and with the new KFV panels):

Done, with footrest installed:

Roof installed and dents removed:

New fuel lid flap surrounding area  (the old lid would not line up with the body, since the previous bodyshop messed something up):

US rear side marker holes closed for correct euro-spec look:

One of the many random small areas which they had to fix..

Lower door area got a rust repair:

Overall all these small little areas took up 600 hours of work. The project is far beyond reasonable, but i still like the idea to properly safe and restore a "rare" euro spec car back to former glory.
This is the current state at the Bodyshop: you can see the side bodyline is still missing in the fender and door (previous owner thought it was nice to "clean" it. But

Front end body assembled:

Yesterday i got it delivered back in a nice closed trailer:

Now it's finally back in my workshop

Just in case you wonder: These are all (except the rear end and Passenger side front end) Parts that got replaced on the car. So it's safe to say that aroun 50% of the body has been replaced within the last 5 years. But that was worth it. Now the body is almost back to factory spec.

May task is now to install all the rubbers, bumpers, spacers, hinges, remaining panels etc, to bring it back to the bodyshop to have the panel gaps adjusted, the side bodyline hammered back in and maybe fix some areas which don't fit.
I'll do a walkaround of the car in the coming days and post it here. and i've already started installing some items. so expect some updates soon.

[grannyknot]

Your shop is doing beautiful work, very interested to see how they're going to re establish the bodyline on the door, not the easiest piece to work with.

[Namerow]

6 hours ago, JDMjunkies.ch said:

These are all (except the rear end and Passenger side front end) Parts that got replaced on the car

Interesting photo, to say the least!

Edited May 4 by Namerow

[Namerow]

6 hours ago, JDMjunkies.ch said:

Floorpan replacement passenger side (2nd time, after the first bodyshop messed it up and with the new KFV panels)

Looking at Photos #1 - #3, it appears that part of the shop's technique for the floor pan replacement was to first cut away a 'skirt' from the transmission tunnel and then, working off the vehicle,  fit and weld that to the KFV panel before installing the finished result in the car.  I suppose that would give a perfectly-shaped welding seam along the top of the 'skirt', but I wonder how they judged the alignment of the skirt relative to the KFV panel before joining the two pieces during the off-vehicle procedure (similar to what seems to be going on in Photo #1)?

[JDMjunkies.ch]

2 hours ago, grannyknot said:

Your shop is doing beautiful work, very interested to see how they're going to re establish the bodyline on the door, not the easiest piece to work with.

Thanks. On the other side previous panelbeater already did it by hammering it back in by hand, as far as i unerstand. I guess it's tricky to stretch shrinked metal again. probably they have to pre-heat it. We'll see when it's back at the shop 🙂

1 hour ago, Namerow said:

Interesting photo, to say the least!

I thought it was worth taking the time to lay everything on the floor for a quick snap. The car looks still more or less the same then it did a few years ago, but now all the details are better and there is no more rust. I still think it's incredible how many parts were replaced 😁

1 hour ago, Namerow said:

Looking at Photos #1 - #3, it appears that part of the shop's technique for the floor pan replacement was to first cut away a 'skirt' from the transmission tunnel and then, working off the vehicle,  fit and weld that to the KFV panel before installing the finished result in the car.  I suppose that would give a perfectly-shaped welding seam along the top of the 'skirt', but I wonder how they judged the alignment of the skirt relative to the KFV panel before joining the two pieces during the off-vehicle procedure (similar to what seems to be going on in Photo #1)?

Yeah i guess so. I think they did it this way to cover up the welds from the previous bodyshop and give it the OEM look. Honestly i don't know exactly how they did it, but the results are great. If you ask me.

[grannyknot]

5 hours ago, Namerow said:

Looking at Photos #1 - #3, it appears that part of the shop's technique for the floor pan replacement was to first cut away a 'skirt' from the transmission tunnel and then, working off the vehicle,  fit and weld that to the KFV panel before installing the finished result in the car.  I suppose that would give a perfectly-shaped welding seam along the top of the 'skirt', but I wonder how they judged the alignment of the skirt relative to the KFV panel before joining the two pieces during the off-vehicle procedure (similar to what seems to be going on in Photo #1)?

It looks like they cut close to where they have the black marker line above the previous welded seam, I can't say for sure what technique they used but it is common to fit the new pan as close as possible to the original metal as below, then with a thin cutoff disc cut through both layers of metal at the same time.  That results in a seam that is matched above and below.

 

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

11 hours ago, grannyknot said:

It looks like they cut close to where they have the black marker line above the previous welded seam, I can't say for sure what technique they used but it is common to fit the new pan as close as possible to the original metal as below, then with a thin cutoff disc cut through both layers of metal at the same time.  That results in a seam that is matched above and below.

 

 

I guess you're right, because i found thin leftovers strips of the KFV panels in the scrap metal box 🙂

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So now that the car is back at my shop. I thought i'd do a little inspection of all the details, to check if i see any need for rework in some areas.

Overall i'm super happy. they did the best, especially since they have never seen a 240Z in their shop before my project. Some areas need a bit of work, and the first task of me will be to cover all the bare-metal spaces in rust-protection primer. They wanted to do it but when the trailer was available they weren't able to finish it, so instead they left me two cans of primer to do it myself. I'm happy if i don't have to pay them for something i can easily do myself. And considering it will be a few months in my workshop before going back for the final adjustment, it's a must to protect it against new corrosion.

I don't want to describe every photo in detail, so here's just a gallery with random details.

On this side the body line has been hammered back in already by the previous bodyshop:

Optional footrest reinforcement, as on the japanese cars (that weld needs a bit of a cleanup, to satisfy my OCD). Luckily something i can easily correct)

Floorpan reinforcement brackets on the rear, as on the original cars:

That's it. I'm now in the mock-up phase of the car, where i have to prepare and test-fit everything and i'll show you some updates soon.