My two swiss S30Z Fairlady Restoration build thread

[JDMjunkies.ch]

While i consider the 240Z quite a common classic (compared to other cars) around the world, it can get hard to find good quality spare-parts - especially for the parts that where installed in markets outside america only. As it is the case with the 5-speed transmission (only optional and rare in the USA). And then even more specially in the case of the early FS5C71A transmission, which i happen to have.

 

This means a lot of reasearch and sometimes going to the other side of the world and as far as Australia to find some quality parts.

 

In this case i have to thank the guys at www.SWMotorsport.com.au for providing me with the right parts for my Transmission.

 

Today i finally got a delivery of:
- Bearing kit
- Front Seal
- Rear Seal
- 1x Front & 2x Center gaskets
- Gear lever Pin & Clip
- Roll Pin
- Speedo drive Seal
- Striker shaft seal

 

And all for a decent price and fast shippin too! Thank you so much for the great service. Nice to still have those small shops able to provide the market with the stuff we need

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Nothing big, but at the recent Japanclassic.ch show i met my buddy Stefan who had a little gift for me: A NOS Air filter complete with factory boxing. I love this kind of stuff and another piece in the puzzle

[JDMjunkies.ch]

It has been a while, since i updated the 240Z project here. It's not dead at all, i'm just super busy with some once-in-a-lifetime projects that have to be adressed first.
I was a bit bummed that my bodyshop guy was so busy as well and couldn't work on it either. However yesterday and today i got some updates totally unexpected and was more than happy
1) Tabco rear inner wheel well was finally welded in and painted in some protective paint:

 

The wheel arches are coming along nicely...

 

Todays update contained the rear lower piece of the RH side lower door sill area. Before:


After:

Let's see what's up next

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Today is a short update with a single pic, but a big Impact on the overall appearance of the car: The RH Tabco rear quarter panel is welded in place. I guess there is still a lot of work to make the fitment perfect and all, but at least there isn't a big hole anymore

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Today finally some progress on the Z from my side as well
After removing the Breather vent:


I had serious trouble to get out the speedo pinion carrier from the transmission. Thanks to my close friend Stefan and some brute force, it finally gave up and came out nicely:

He also managed to move the "tube" that holds the gear selector in place, intwards the transmissino housing:

So i was able to remove the gear selector.

It's currently at my other buddy Stefan for some rework (more on that soon)

After i finally have disassembled the transmission as far as i want to go myself, i had to make an "exploded" view shot, just for fun's sake

Next step was masking the transmission housing parts with duct tape for glass-bead-blasting and to prevent glass beads ending up in the transmission..

The previous owner once decided to paint it all in silver, but i will get rid of the peeling-off paint again and have it back in all it's original aluminum glory. Now only waiting for that one part back from rework, then will have it all blasted. All the other parts are ready

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

In my last post about the 240Z you could easy see how the gear selector was worn out and had some concave marks where the balls meet the selector.
Since it's a Cast iron item it's a bit tricky to weld. And if you've been following me for a while you know there's only one superhero for me when it comes to metal and welding:
My buddy Stefan Schär - who own's an awesome little collection of beautiful Nissan's and Datsun's by the way - So i sent him that thing to fix it:
Before (Clearly some "holes" visible):


 

After some pre-treatment and cleaning the holes got welded up:

 

and then ground back to originale flatness:

Surface is way smoother than it was from factory. Now those shifts should be direct as New again. Maybe even better  

Next it's going off to Glass-bead blasting, then the transmission is ready for assembly again

For Stefan, he opened up his own business "Cagedude" lately, specializing in rollcages, but doin' basically anything that involves some metal and welding (and cars maybe)
Check out his facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/cagedude/ for some examples.
His stuff is really work of art, and i have the highest praises for all the stuff he's done for me so far. And he's a super nice guy too, with a lovely little family. Check it out and support Stefan / Cagedude, you won't regret it

[JDMjunkies.ch]

 

Last week i brought my transmission housing parts and some smaller bits to the local blasting company. The guy made a serious appearance and explained how Aluminum parts like these normally will be treated with class-triangles to break-up old paint and remove it. and then treated with glass-beads (pearls) to increase the surface density. He even told me  he's gonna paint the cast-iron parts with a clearcoat to prevent it from rust...
This is how it looked before:

Clearly old silver paint peeling off is visible:

Today i picked it up. and the first thing i noticed how "raw" and rough everything looked. It reminded me of sandblasted items. Sand-blasting is corrosive and will remove small spots in the surface of aluminum (like the transmission part) and give it a rough feel.
While the aluminum is thick enough to handle it, it just doesn't look as smooth as a factory-fresh unpainted transmission should look in my opinion:

But since i don't have a lot of experience, i returned home. What made me even more curious was the fact that sand came out of various spots of the transmission. Its clearly not glass-bead, nor is it any other glassy. I guess this is the "sand" they use for sand-blasting..
The guy even told me how hard it was to remove the paint from the previous owner. so i guess they switched to sand at some point.

While i'm all fine with that, i guess they didn't glass-bead blast if after that. Somehow it gets a bit more shiny / glossy after glassbead-treatment and this sure looks like just sandblasted to me.

Also the cast-iron small pieces didn't get the promised clearcoat...


Not sure yet. Don't want to blamy anybody and it would clearly do the job. but i want to have it perfect. Either i bring it back or i bring it to another company to have it checked and re-done... have to think about it.
Or maybe it's just me and the "gloss" will come back once it's slightly corroded? not sure...

 

[240260280]

You need  vapour blasting. Talk to motorcycle resto guys.

DCOE L to R:

Original                 Glass                     Vapour

[JDMjunkies.ch]

thanks for thie input.. already heard about it. but so far only got recommanded glass bead blasting, as it would improve the surface density of aluminum.. But the vapour/hydro does clearly look more like OEM finish...

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

In my last post, i wrote about the fact that the transmission looked wrong after the "glass bead blasting". Many readers pointed out it seems to have been just sandblasted. I contacted the blasting company again and asked what happened. He excused himself a hundred times and told me that his guy somhow missunderstoud somthing and that it was only blasted. but not sand blasted as you thought, but blasted with "broken glass". this is softer and won't attack the surface of the Aluminum. It's less corrosive than regular silicat-sand used for blasting. At least that was good news. He promised me to immediately fix that. Today i was able to pick it up again:

They glass-bead blasted everything and the surface now looks and feels a lot smoother and got this slight "satin gloss" finish. just as it should be. The sense of Glass bead blasting is to improve the surface density of aluminium. Like that it's much stronger and will keep the appearance for a longer time when used unpainted in a car.

While it doesn't have the super-glossy OEM-like finish it's what i was aiming for. I got told for the glossy finish it should be soda/vapour/fluid blasted. But for me it's perfect as it is. it's not going to be a concours build anyway and it seems much fresher again. Also they clearcoated the cast-iron bits as promised, to protect it from corrosion:

This is how the gear selector looks after the protective tape was removed. Still needs a bit of cleaning though but looks perfect. just as i wanted it

Super happy with the result. and while it took me a few extra hours to bring it back again and pick it up. the good thing is they felt so sorry that the extra-work was for free. They only charged me for the first part of the work. which is awesome and came out on a budget

 

 

Edited October 15, 2017 by JDMjunkies.ch

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Nothing big here. just spent two hours cleaning all the transmission parts after the glass bead blasting. Removed some leftovers from the masking tape and blew away all the leftovers from the blasting from all the small corners, etc. Since i forgot my cam at home you only get some crappy mobile-phone shots:

When done i started going through the small parts and decided i could clean them too. so the trusty green scotch-n-brite came in handy again to clean all the small pieces:

Then decided to make a little test-assembly with the new PU shifter bushings (red), since the old ones were quite worn-out (black):

This is how it all goes together:

And this is the result. quite happy. Will remove it all again, grease the rubber with some bushing-grease from the energy-bushings kit and have the washers and nuts zinc-plated alongside all the other nuts and bolts from the transmission before the final assembly:

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Had a bit of spare-time today and decided it's time to get some stuff done for the car once again. Wanted to have some parts replated (yellow zinc) so i grabbed everything that seemed to be worth replating. Here are all the small transmission parst that will go for replating (not all of them)


And than i found some other stuff that had to be disassembled first like the side marker / Turn signal lights:


Engine compartment repair light (Early version with the toggle type switch). before:


After ( I cut the wires since i will replaced them with new cables. the old ones are quite brittly and Nissan had a person with bad soldeirng skills for their soldeirng work *lol*):


Then the hood stay / lock mechanics:


So here are all the parts ready for replating. Still need to remove old paint (will do that tomorrow) before sending them. In case if you wonder how i remember where all the parts belong - What you see on this blog is actually just a small fraction of the pictures i make. I like to make all kind of "exploded view" shots like the ones above to remember the order they came in (FSM is wrong sometimes, or a bit unclear). And i also mark my pictures as seen here. When the parts return i will put them in the boxes again which belong to each part of the car