2 4 0 Z Uh Oh Project

[wheee!]

I am no longer posting progress pictures... too much awesomeness in this thread to compete!
I am very impressed with the quality of this build.

[Dave WM]

amazing work.

[disepyon]

On 11/2/2016 at 10:23 PM, wheee! said:

I am no longer posting progress pictures... too much awesomeness in this thread to compete!
I am very impressed with the quality of this build.

Keep posting updates in your thread, I really enjoy looking at other peoples process and ideas, Its how I got started. Great to share around.  There are times where I dont post updates on purpose because with all the pictures I have, I feel like others get annoyed when they keep seeing my thread pop up, haha. 

On 11/3/2016 at 8:33 AM, Dave WM said:

amazing work.

Than you sir.

 

Well finally got the camber plates dealt with, however its not what you would of thought...

Started with cutting out the bulge in the strut tower top plate using my plasma cutter.

Another look at the camber plates I had bought from ZCCJDM.com on the strut tower.

Discovered that they dont fit my Stance Coilovers.  Reason I think is because these are probably for the Megan coilovers. 

Comparison picture of the camber plate to the stance camber plate. As you can see the bolt holes dont align, and the main center hole is to big on the ZCCJDM camber plate.

The forth bolt wont go in, I can force it, but shouldnt ever have to force a bolt in.

So I decided to ditch them as I didnt like the fitment, too tight and loose in areas. Also bothered me that the preferred method of welding these plates on is to weld them on top of the sheet metal of the tower wall/cover and not directly onto the stock upper plate as this is thicker and more structurally sound.  But I guess that method was proven buy numerous of Datsuns to work. Plus I wanted a factory look for some reason.

Here is how I did it. Keep in mind that I will later on be adding in strut bar mounts. Havent thought about how I will do it, will need my LS1 engine in place to see how much room to work with, but hopefully after I get the strut bar mounts welded in, the camber plates will much stronger and more connected with its surroundings.

Played around with the idea of trying to make the stock top strut tower plate to work with out having to do a lot of work. Bad Idea, haha. ended up just welding a plate in to close up the holes and start with a fresh canvas.  Got to do things right otherwise you will get a crappy result.

Holes closed up with tig welding plates in of similar thickness as the stock plate. Made damn sure I got penetration all the way through, purposely gave my welds loads of filler rod.

Sanded down.

Made a template from the Stance coilover camber plate.

Comparison to the ZCCJDM plate.

Template test fitted on coilover.

Though for full adjustment locked all the way positive and negative, added some tape on and cut it out, this will make sure I dont place the template too far in/forward on the tower considering the limited room to work with underneath the strut tower.

Lines marked.

Since I dont have the proper bits/tungsten carbide bits or whatever to make life easier in making an elongated straight hole, I opted for the drilling of multiple holes and then used a cut off wheel on my air dremel tool to blended in the holes.

Centers punched in for drilling.

Checking the alignment one last time, always good to check constantly.

Started with drilling the bolt holes first.

Holes blended in.  Probably would of been cleaner with a thinner/smaller cut off wheel. Oh well, it works.

Then off to work on the middle hole. Used a 1 1/2' hole saw.

used my air belt sander (one of my favorite most used air tools) to blend them together.

Coilovers test fitted.

Finally coated with paint (for temporary purposes) and hammered down the lip of the tower wall cover or whatever you call it. Will need to spot/plug weld the lips later on, but will wait till I get the struct brace mounts figured out.

Doesnt look like much of a noticeable change from stock...

Thats it for now, stay tuned!!

Forgot about this picture. This is what the rear coilover looks like.

Edited November 5, 2016 by disepyon
pictures

[grannyknot]

5 hours ago, disepyon said:

 There are times where I dont post updates on purpose because with all the pictures I have, I feel like others get annoyed when they keep seeing my thread pop up, haha. 

If someone doesn't like what or how often you post then they don't have to click on it.  I'm sure almost everyone here looks forward to your posts and the great work you are doing on your Z, I'm loving it. 

The stock shock tower has the 10ga plate that you modified and the 20ga sheet metal spot welded around the top that you peeled back, it looks great what you have done but are you concerned at all about the little bit of extra strength that the 20ga added that is missing now?  Although you are right about welding in the ZCCJDM camber plates, you have to cut away most of the 10ga plate to install them and they end up being welded to just the 20ga sheet metal tower cover.

[disepyon]

3 hours ago, grannyknot said:

If someone doesn't like what or how often you post then they don't have to click on it.  I'm sure almost everyone here looks forward to your posts and the great work you are doing on your Z, I'm loving it. 

The stock shock tower has the 10ga plate that you modified and the 20ga sheet metal spot welded around the top that you peeled back, it looks great what you have done but are you concerned at all about the little bit of extra strength that the 20ga added that is missing now?  Although you are right about welding in the ZCCJDM camber plates, you have to cut away most of the 10ga plate to install them and they end up being welded to just the 20ga sheet metal tower cover.

Thanks and thanks for looking out with your concern, great to have input.

There is about a half inch lip left of the 20g sheetmetal at the thinnest area, which is enough for some spot welds. honestly, the material I did removed, there where only like 2 spots welds on both sides that I had to sand away. the thick top plate is spot welded all around the sheet metal tower and on the top back side (where the frame for the air vent is) pretty good too.  I thought about skinning the plate out of 20g and welding it to the existing lip, then spot welding it to the plate.  which wouldnt be a bad idea. Just would like to wait till i get the mounts figured out first for the strut braces because id prefer to weld the majority of the mounts directly to the plate.

[wheee!]

Inspirational work....

[Patcon]

I love seeing the work pictures

I wondered if there was enough metal there too after all the holes get cut....

[5150 will]

I've been busy working on my own car lately and haven't been on here in several months.  This is the first thread I came across and I am BLOWN AWAY by your skills and ambition taking on a project like this.   You should be proud of a job well done so far!!   

[disepyon]

12 hours ago, wheee! said:

Inspirational work....

Thank you sir.

5 hours ago, Patcon said:

I love seeing the work pictures

I wondered if there was enough metal there too after all the holes get cut....

You guys have me worried, which is good, gives me a chance to improve. You are right that all three elongated holes did compromise the strength, the weak spot is actually the metal in between the bolt holes and the middle main hole. After thinking about it all day, deciding I will make a set of weldable camber plates and layer it on top of the existing plate.  Will wait and do this later when Im ready to work on the strut bar mounts. Nothing wrong with beefing things up if you are in doubt for piece of mind. Last thing I want is for my car to fall apart when its all finished.

1 hour ago, 5150 will said:

I've been busy working on my own car lately and haven't been on here in several months.  This is the first thread I came across and I am BLOWN AWAY by your skills and ambition taking on a project like this.   You should be proud of a job well done so far!!   

Thanks and glad you enjoyed viewing this thread.

 

Didnt do much today on the car, just some miscellaneous things need to catch up on.

Welded the holes shut on the battery tray and sanded smooth. Then sprayed it with some POR15 degreaser and prep n ready.  After drying, coated the bottom side with POR15 chassis black rust preventative paint. For the heavily pitted areas, coated with Silver paint (has the metal filler in it).  Havent welded it yet, will tomorrow, though will need to sand down the paint in the areas being welded  and coat with weldable primer.

Trimmed the passenger side rockers on the bottom.

Before trimming with line marked.

Trimmed

 

Extras: non 240z related...

Decided to put the engine and trans back in the car to free up some space in the garage, needed to do this anyways for when its time to work on the radiator support and strut bar. This probably disgusts a lot of you seeing another engine other than the L24 in the 240z as well being another typical LS1 build.  But here is a little quickie of some pictures regarding the LS1, I wont post any more pictures of this part of my project since this thread isnt about the ls1, unless you guys dont care. However being it that this is wrong material for the thread topic section too.

Picture of the engine. It actually sets about a quarter of an inch to the passenger side.

Transmission isnt hanging down past the floor rails, also added those supports you see on the dolly to the floor rail to help with supporting the weight of the engine and trans. Thinking about lowering the transmission a little bit, but will wait until I get the rear differential mounted and see how the drive shaft aligns (angle wise).  

Here are what the engine and transmission mounts look like.

Will be working on more misc. things before starting on the rear quarter panels.

[Patcon]

I would enjoy seeing all the pics LS1 or not. You have really good fabrication skills, so seeing how you solve the different problems would be good. Also the car you are doing would have gone to the crushers if you hadn't saved it! So if you want an LS1 after all this work, by all means do it.

[Freez74]

I think the LSZ will be an awesome car.

[5150 will]

2 hours ago, Patcon said:

I would enjoy seeing all the pics LS1 or not. You have really good fabrication skills, so seeing how you solve the different problems would be good. Also the car you are doing would have gone to the crushers if you hadn't saved it! So if you want an LS1 after all this work, by all means do it.

My thoughts exactly!