2 4 0 Z Uh Oh Project

[Pop's Z]

Like everyone else here, I stand in awe of your skills, determination, and abilities, sir! I've never seen a Zed brought back from the dead as well as this. Good on ya'.

 

Cheers, Mike

[disepyon]

5 hours ago, Hardway said:

Fantastic work and picture Disepyon!  Your works is certainly motivation for all of us.  I agree with what others have said, a lot of people would have junked that shell and bought a different car but you pressed on with what you had and learned to repair and improve upon the factory design in some areas.  You mentioned you were not happy with your english wheel from Baileigh.  What specifically do you not like about it?  What other brand do you wish you had gone with?  I see a lot of pictures on the Metalshapers FB page and it seems like a fair amount of guys take some parts from an existing english wheel and then build their own.  Have you thought about doing that or is it too big of a project?

Thanks.  My biggest complaint is the upper wheel is off centered to the lower anvil, looks to be a lot of work to get it centered with the design they have. The upper wheel didnt set perfectly flat/flush to the lower anvils, I tried my best to correct this with some work on the anvil cradle.  there is a lot of free play in the upper wheel and anvil support. The jack for the lower anvil support has wiggle room where the slits are for the two positions are for the lower support, hard to explain. The upper wheel is thinner (2" wide) than the lower anvils (3" wide), makes no sense to me and never ever seen this before on an english wheel online, in fact their online description is misleading on this part. Really the only good thing out of it is a decent set of lower anvils and the frame.

I put an order in from Hoosier Profiles Inc. (http://www.hoosierprofiles.com/) for a 8"x3" upper wheel and a bunch of specialty lower anvils. Waiting on those to arrive. I will have to modify the Baileigh wheel to accept the bigger 8x3 wheel. The lower anvils from Hoosier will work since they are the same dimension as the anvils that it came with.

As far as what brand to get, I dont actually really know as I never used any other brand, but I hear a lot of great things from Metal Ace, Ron Covell uses them.  You can also take a look at Mittler brothers brand, hear good things from them. Honestly though, for the price of the brands I mentioned, you better off buying a kit from Hoosier Profiles Inc. and making your own frame. Look on metalmeet forum and there isnt a single compliant on Hoosier.  I should had gone that route, but because I had such good experience with the other Baileigh tools, I figure what can go wrong with their English Wheel...

3 hours ago, Pop's Z said:

Like everyone else here, I stand in awe of your skills, determination, and abilities, sir! I've never seen a Zed brought back from the dead as well as this. Good on ya'.

 

Cheers, Mike

Thanks Mike, hope this becomes useful for others.

[wheee!]

This car and your skills deserve an entire episode or two on a Jay Leno Special....

You make me envious and sad at the same time. I am doing similar repairs but the new bar you have raised leaves me severely intimidated...!

[grannyknot]

1 hour ago, wheee! said:

 

You make me envious and sad at the same time. I am doing similar repairs but the new bar you have raised leaves me severely intimidated...!

I have to pick through my photo's carefully before I post them now so I don't look like a rank amateur compared to Brent   but that is a small price to pay to be able to see such great work.

[Patcon]

21 hours ago, grannyknot said:

I have to pick through my photo's carefully before I post them now so I don't look like a rank amateur compared to Brent

Amen. Ditto...

The really bad thing is I think I have sweat shirts older than Brent...

Edited October 26, 2016 by Patcon

[disepyon]

Haha, I have my fair share of UH OH's such as the one pictured below.

The first set of Interior rocker panels I made which were for my car, you can see in the picture below that the bottom of it has a bow.  Though it has a bow in it, Everything still aligned up, the only fitment issue I had was with my floor pans, had to put a curve in it at the flange end that gets welded to the rocker panel in this area. Oh well I guess, part of learning. 

Was working on making a set of 240z Interior rocker panels yesterday and finished tonight for Charlie at Zedd Findings.

You can see in the pictures below, that the bottom of it is straight like its supposed too, unlike the one pictured above.

Before painted comparison picture.

After a light coat of Rust preventative Weldable Primer.

 

[Freez74]

Beautiful work!

[Woody928]

I've just stumbled across this thread and taken the time to scroll through all of your photos. It's safe to say the age old adage of a picture speaks a thousand words rings so true in this case! 

What you've done to transform this Z is nothing short of incredible! Particularly when considering you have taught yourself all this from the internet at home, I bow down to your enthusiasm and clear determination to sort out your Z and get it back on the road. I think its fair to say most would never have bothered to try and save this car given its obvious rust issues... Are you sticking with the factory colour once the repairs are complete? 

I'll continue to watch with great interest  

[wheee!]

Charlie at Zedd Findings is a stand up guy! His order of your work is a huge nod of approval!

[rossiz]

wow.

i'm stunned.

you probably would have saved some time & $$ starting with a set of panasports and a vin plate... but this is pretty cool to watch!

[siteunseen]

That's funny!  Reminds me of my Dad saying remove the radiator cap and drive another car underneath it.

[disepyon]

Thanks guys for the comments. Hehe yeah I suspect a lot of you are older than me, I am 28 years old.  Goal is to get this car finished before I turn 30, will only happen if I stop being lazy. Once I get all the body work finished and some more of the custom fab work completed for the LS1 swap, everything else will go fairly quickly hopefully. Yeah hopefully Charlie will like the panels I made for him. he wont get them till next Monday.

On 10/28/2016 at 8:17 AM, Woody928 said:

I've just stumbled across this thread and taken the time to scroll through all of your photos. It's safe to say the age old adage of a picture speaks a thousand words rings so true in this case! 

What you've done to transform this Z is nothing short of incredible! Particularly when considering you have taught yourself all this from the internet at home, I bow down to your enthusiasm and clear determination to sort out your Z and get it back on the road. I think its fair to say most would never have bothered to try and save this car given its obvious rust issues... Are you sticking with the factory colour once the repairs are complete? 

I'll continue to watch with great interest  

I will go with a different color than the factory lime green (I think thats the original color name). Had some friends here locally tell me to keep it same color, but I am just not feeling it. As of right now, I have no idea what color I will want.

Small update to show. Just glad the interior is all finished. Now to work on the rear of the car.

Filled in any rusted holes and sanded down on these parts pictured below.  Coated those parts I sandblasted for the seat belt mechanisms.

Parts welded on. Gonna hold off on welding the tie in plates for the seat belt mechanism housing (not sure what their called) because I have plans to make some jack support braces later on.  The rear jack stand points will be in this area somewhere. Havent planned it out yet in details but will. Besides the tie in plates dont fit that great for some reason, most likely since everything I made wasnt an exact OE fit in order for the seat belt mechanism housing tie plates to fit perfectly.

Finally welded in all those holes shut and sanded down from when I removed the original transmission tunnel mounts. Had to make my own and move them back a little ways for the T56 magnum trans for the LS1.

 

Well thats it for the interior, at least for now anyways.

Rear Tabco quater panel replacements.

Though before I work on that, I want to get the front camber plates installed. Took me forever to figure out where I had placed them in this mess.

Found them..

Get alignments made for when its time to weld the camber plates.  Wanted to make sure first that the fire wall was same distance on each side, I just choose two points on the front end of the car.

Marks measured and scribed.

Rough mock up to see how it looks.

Thats it for now, stay tuned!