Well after forty years of ownership I'm finally starting a second go around at restoring my 1970 240Z. I purchased the car well used in 1978 with 90,000 plus miles from the local Datsun Dealership in Chilliwack, BC Canada. Here is a picture from July '78:

 

Here is what it looks like today.

Looks reasonable but the paint is showing its age and there are some other issues lurking that need to be fixed properly.  Full disclosure will come later.

 

Restoration number one was done in 1982 and I only did what I could afford at the time.  I actually think this first attempt of was really "Canadian maintenance", my poor Zed was at a do or die point. Here are a few pics from 1982:

 

I went to the parts department at my local Datsun dealership and made, what I learned later was, the largest order of body parts that anyone had ever placed with them to that point. By the time my body man and painter were finished and with the cost of the car, I could have bought a brand new 1978 280Z instead, but hey I was 18 at the time and I have never regretted doing it.  

In future installments I will list my restoration goals add a time line of my 40 years of ownership, after I sort and scan more of my old pictures.

Anyway I plan to document my adventure with my re-restoration here, and I'm sure I will be looking for advice, also comments and tips will be very welcomed.

Cheers, Mike

My goal for this restoration is to keep the car as original as possible and bring the condition up to a number two level.  When complete I will continue to use the car as I always have, weekend drives, going on club events and the occasional show. I don't want it to be a trailer queen.  I get plenty of pleasure from ownership but these cars are meant to be driven. My plan is for the whole process to take about two years.

The main focus will be on body and paint, neither of which I will do myself. I am currently looking for a restoration shop to work with. I will not be doing a 100% complete disassembly to the last nut and bolt but rather disassemble into sub-assemblies that can be refinished and if issues are found deal them on a case by case basis. I am also looking for companies to do re-chroming and plating.  At a minimum I plan to do the following to accomplish this:

- Remove interior and dash and glass.

- Remove engine and driveline.

- Remove front and rear axles, suspension and steering etc.

- Disassemble body as required.

Step one will be removing most of the interior so that I can show the complete car to a few restoration shops before the major disassembly is started. The shops I have been talking with so far have a waiting list of about six months so I will have all winter to do the disassembly.

Right now I am working on removing most of the interior, so that the resto shops I am talking to can fully access the car to give me reasonable estimates before I get into the major disassembly.

Got enough of the interior out to get a good visual of the problem areas, here is what I found.

Luckily so far I have only broken this one retainer on the RH kick panel,  not sure how I could have saved it.

Overall I'm not too shocked with what I have found and I won't be pulling much more until I have selected a restoration shop to work with. I want to keep the car drivable as long as possible.

Looking forward to watching your restoration.  Looks like some body work is definitely in the cards for you but glad that you are keeping her alive.

 

Clay

Thanks @CHL240Z, I definitely have some rust repair to deal with.  Over the winter I will post pics of the good, the bad and the ugly as I progress.

My first order of business is to sell my last project, a 1988 Suzuki Samurai. This will give me more space in the garage and help a little with the budget.  I might put it up on BAT.

Before,

During,

And after,

 

After a bit of a delay it's time to get my project back on track.  I have been in discussions with a very talented and respected auto restorer near me, and he is willing to take on my project.  If all goes right my car will be on his rotisserie in the fall.

Lots to follow soon.

Cheers, Mike

Edited June 7, 20195 yr by CanTechZ

Mike, did you see the photos of the Chilliwack Datsun Dealer in 1971? They are somewhere on this site.

@240260280, yes I remember seeing them. I did a search and the link was broken. Here is a link on the510Realm where they are. I think they were first posted on Ratsun.

http://www.the510realm.com/viewtopic.php?t=13223

Here are some ads from Chilliwack Datsun that I posted a few years back. On 510 day

 

 

Edited June 8, 20195 yr by CanTechZ

Good news to report, my Samurai sold so I now have the room to start disassembling my car, and no more excuses not to start, LOL.

The first order of business was to document the existing condition. In a addition to taking countless pictures I shot several videos of the exterior, engine bay, interior and chassis. Hopefully these will be a help when it comes time to put my car back together. It's amazing to me that no matter how many pictures I take to document things, I still manage to miss things.

For those you are interested, I am posting the videos here.  Just a warning, I will not be responsible for the time lost if you watch them. They are quite long.

Exterior condition;

 

Engine bay condition:

 

Interior condition (1 of 2):

 

Interior condition (2 of 2):

 

Chassis condition (1 of 2):

 

Chassis condition (2 of 2): Oops  this is 1 of 2, don't seem to be able to delete a video link

 

 here is 2 of 2

 

Edited October 14, 20195 yr by CanTechZ

Very nice videos, it will help lots when you put it back together. I was surprised to see a emissions sticker on the hood as your car has none of the emissions stuff. My car did not have one and as they are so close in Vin's I did not expect to see one on yours. As well, I see you have a header, did you keep the original exhaust manifold when you did the sap?

5 minutes ago, 240dkw said:

Very nice videos, it will help lots when you put it back together. I was surprised to see a emissions sticker on the hood as your car has none of the emissions stuff. My car did not have one and as they are so close in Vin's I did not expect to see one on yours. As well, I see you have a header, did you keep the original exhaust manifold when you did the sap?

Thanks Dan,  I can't explain why my car has the emissions decal, just one of those strange mysteries I guess.  I put the header on back in the early 80's and sadly I didn't save the exhaust manifold. At the time it didn't seem important.  The early ones without the air tubes are next to impossible to find now.

What exactly are you going to do to it?  It looks in pretty fine condition now, but I understand perfectly the desire to just take things apart, no judgement here.

30 minutes ago, grannyknot said:

What exactly are you going to do to it?  It looks in pretty fine condition now, but I understand perfectly the desire to just take things apart, no judgement here.

Basically I'm doing what I should have done during my first restoration back in the 80's.  I recently cleaned off most of the old undercoating and discovered more chassis rust than I expected to see, probably will replace the front frame rail on the left side and replace the let side floor plus other rust repair as required.  Before I bought the car in 1978 it had a cheap paint and bondo over rust paint job.  As it has had two re-paints I will go to bare metal and then go back to original color, it is currently Ontario Orange Metallic, a '71 Corvette color.  This will be a glass out, drivetrain out  complete job. I will get into more detail soon as well as describe in more detail what was done during the first resto.