Restoration of BringaTrailer 240z - HLS30-35883

[inline6]

2 hours ago, dutchzcarguy said:

Have you checked the resistance (ohm) from the heating? Could be that your spare has a better resistance, It should be somewhere between 2 and 4-5 ohms.

I had to buy 4 rear hatch glasses before i had a really good one! (Less than 5 ohms and every stripe worked after checking with some steam on a cold glass)

Does your glass need some black glass adhesive (That black rubber compound that stays sort of liquid)  to make it water tight? I did some into the rear weatherstrip after i installed it.. (Not a brand new weatherstrip)

Hmmm.  I will give it a shot.  It looks to me like 2 to 3 of the lines off to one side of the grid have small gaps, but the rest looks good.  Having a working rear defrost isn't a necessity where I live, but it would be nice.  The other glass has more damage: more scratches and some kind of metal looking rub mark on it that won't come off.

[inline6]

@dutchzcarguy - I measured 3.4 ohms of resistance.  Yay!

Tonight I put my focus on testing fit of the front bumper.  I made note of asymmetric fit a long time ago and though I worked on it some to address that at the time, I want to resolve the issue completely before sending it off for re-chroming.  

    

    

 

While it looks pretty close, the bumper curve matches the curvature of the body on the the right side well and on the left side not as well.  

  

 

Those two picture show the difference pretty well.  The curvature of the bumper on the left side of the bumper is less than the curvature of the body, causing the bumper end to stick out a bit.  I double checked the left vs. right center alignment of the bumper.  It is within an 1/8th of an inch of being centered.  I checked the bumper mounting brackets for symmetry and that is good.  

So, I will see if I can work the left bumper end a bit to tighten the curve.  I think it likely that the upper and lower surfaces on that end just need to spread a touch further apart.  Doing that should tighten the arc.  

I also have been working on the original rear bumper.  Pictures don't really capture what the issue is.  This car was tapped in the rear, and the center bumper bar was "re-shaped" a bit during that impact.  In this picture, a new old stock bumper is on the left and the original bumper on the right. 

If you look closely, you will see some of the rear "face" of the original bumper (on the right), especially in the center of the bumper bar.  It also has less curvature over its length when comparing to the NOS bumper.  When it was hit from behind the center of the bar was twisted... downward.  I have been working it to restore its original shape using the NOS bumper as a guide.  Generally, this involves using my hydraulic press and some pieces of scrap metal which I use to clamp the bumper in place.  Then I beat on it with a hammer to attempt to reverse the "twist" it has.  I also use the scrap metal as spacers, and use the press to push on certain areas to work curvature back into it. 

When looking at the picture above, I will be happy when I can get that rear face to not be visible at this same viewing angle.  The curvature also needs to be restored to mirror the NOS bumper section on the left. 

Both the original bumpers are quite rust free, so I feel they are worth the time and effort to straighten.  I also want to get the shape right before sending them to the plater.  Then, they can focus on banging out the little dents, and grinding and straightening to remove the surface imperfections.  I will be sending the original rear and the NOS rear bumper pieces, and two front bumpers, as well plus one set of over riders for the front and one for the rear.  

[dutchzcarguy]

5 hours ago, inline6 said:

I measured 3.4 ohms of resistance.  Yay!

Okay then! If you have a line not working and you can find the point were it's broken, silverglue is the solution to repair that! It conducts electricity and is made for this. Use a magnifying-glass when you aply it.. it needs just a very very small amount of it!

(So.. if you measured 3,4 ohms, it looks to me as the early cars like the 240z have lower resistance (more current) and the later 280zx had about 4-5 ohms so a lower current/amperage.. )

[inline6]

I spent many hours searching the internet and looking at vinyls, and I am pleased to have found a vinyl that looks similar to the original one for the headliner.  I wasn't able to salvage my original vinyl, however, I think the headliner I made today looks quite similar.   

Original: 
  

 

As I said before, unfortunately, I wasn't able to glue the old vinyl to new foam without getting a lot of wrinkles:

 

Unlike the old vinyl, the new vinyl has a cloth backing which makes it lay flatter and makes it stronger.  I sprayed the contact adhesive out of a gun similar to a paint gun.  The gun was purchased for doing this and it worked very well.  The new vinyl:

  

 

The finished product:

 

While I had adhesive in the gun, I installed the new fire wall pads.  I will put up some pictures of those being installed tomorrow.

 

Edited February 11 by inline6

[Patcon]

Link to the vinyl source?

[inline6]

The vinyl is "Ottertex", and it is sold in a few places.  I got mine from fabricwholesaledirect.com.  It is 54" wide and sold by the running yard.  I bought three running yards because it was so inexpensive - it was only $9.99 a running yard.  

To ship it, they folded over and over into a square.  When I got it, I immediately unpacked it.  The folds and creases were visible even after I spread it out on a floor.  Then, I rolled it up onto and existing roll of foam material that I bought previously.  This was a few days ago.

Yesterday, when I unrolled it from the foam, the fold lines were still visible.  So, before gluing it to the foam, I used a steamer to relax the vinyl in those areas.  It helped, but they were still visible.  I was concerned that they would be visible after gluing.  I was glad to see and very relieved that they disappeared when I glued it to the foam.

Hi res photo:

I think I am going to switch to this vinyl for the A-pillars and windshield header because it looks more like the original than the vinyl I bought previously.  

Edited February 11 by inline6

[Diseazd]

On 12/17/2023 at 8:36 PM, inline6 said:

I wasn't able to spend much time working on the car today.  Just a few pics:

    

 

I used silicone rubber between the master vac and the firewall to keep water from finding its way into the car in the future.  I like how the master vac paint came out.  I was able to save the original master vac sticker.

I also pulled out the box of OEM rubber items that came with the car.  I put the main hatch seal in place all the way around the hatch opening (without glue) and shut the hatch on it.  I will leave it like that for a few days, which ought to help it relax/fit the opening a bit better than straight out of the bag.  I also started assembling the headlight buckets with the new bits I got from 240zrubberparts.com.  I bought the headlight harness rebuild kits, which include new rubber grommets to keep water from entering at the point where the wires go inside the bucket, new sleeves for the wiring, and new rubber enclosures for the plastic connector.  Can anyone tell me which ends is supposed to have the yellow tape (bucket side or harness connector side?   

  

And finally, I also changed out my signature picture with a small version of this pic:

Wow……The S30 Datsuns are incredibly beautiful. This restoration is incredible in itself. Great job @Inline6…..I’ll bet your shirts all hang in same direction in your closet!  😂    It just doesn’t get any better than this restoration…… Perfection!

Edited February 11 by Diseazd

[inline6]

11 hours ago, Diseazd said:

Wow……The S30 Datsuns are incredibly beautiful. This restoration is incredible in itself. Great job @Inline6…..I’ll bet your shirts all hang in same direction in your closet!  😂    It just doesn’t get any better than this restoration…… Perfection!

 

Thank you - very kind of you to say!

Today, I picked back up with gluing interior pieces.  Spraying glue is not something I have much experience with.  So, I was nervous about installing the new headliner in the car.  For example, I don't really know the right amount of glue to apply.  Too little, and it might stick for a while, but fail later.  Also, there is an amount of drying time that is important.  Depending on the size of the piece being installed, you may have to wait a length of time, as the adhesive doesn't stick well when it is too wet.  Or, if the piece is very large, you don't have to wait long at all, as it took some of that waiting time to apply the glue to the large surface area. 

There is a window of time where the glue transitions from wet... and a "tackiness" develops.  After more time, the adhesive feels dry to the touch.  And yet, if you put two pieces with seeming dry adhesive together, they can stick immediately... and not allow for pulling apart for "re-alignment".  

Over the past two days, I have found that waiting is necessary, but the pieces should be assembled when the glue is still at the "tacky" stage.  At this stage, you can pull it apart and reposition a bit.  If you wait until it is dry to the touch, then when you put the pieces together, they stick pretty strongly, and it is not going to go well if you try to reposition things.

With all that weighing on my mind, I worked on cutting foam and vinyl pieces for the windshield header and side panels.  I carefully examined the old foam and made new pieces that matched the thickness, width and length.  Because some of the original pieces were only about 1/8th" thick, I bought that thickness of replacement foam.  To match the thickness of the other original pieces, I stacked new strips of 1/8" thick foam, using just small amount of glue brushed down the center of the strips so they would stick together.

    

From the old pieces, you can learn things, so you should keep them until your new pieces have been installed.  For example, by looking at these indentations in the end of the old foam, I was able to eliminate any question about the correct location of the foam on the inside frame.  I was also able to determine where there was overlap of original foam pieces.  And that helped me locate the a-pillar piece of foam on the car in the same place as it was done by the factory.

    

 

This foam compresses with very little pressure.  While stacking 3 pieces high was a bit thicker than the original, it compresses easily, and will compress to the proper thickness when the vinyl is pulled and stretched over the foam.

    

After getting the grey foam in place on all three sides, I masked off the frame area as described in the how to Restore you Datsun Z car book.  Then, I took a moment to organize things so I could spray the inside of the roof of the car, and the back of the new headliner, and install the headliner in the car.

    

When masking the rails, I made sure not any part of the rail surface was exposed to catching any adhesive.  Even a tiny portion of the edge of the frame, if exposed, will subsequently collect some of the spray on adhesive.  And it will become a problem when you go to position the adhesive covered back surface of the headliner in place.  A touch of cement on the frame, if present, will touch the cement on the back of the headliner and "bite", causing difficulty with getting the headliner, up and over... and subsequently tucked behind the frame edge.  Speaking of tucking behind the frame, I used a large plastic body filler spreader, which turned out to be a great tool for the job.  There was a fair amount of force necessary to get the headliner to go from outside the frame to squished... and then, using the edge of the spreader... pushed inside the gap between the outer panel and the roof structure.  The "extra" headliner material has to flatten out (behind the frame, hidden from view).

    

Again, I was very happy when, like the gluing operation to adhere the vinyl to the foam to make the headliner, the installation of the headliner also went well.  There were a couple of nerve racking moments, and 3/4 of the way through getting the edges tucked behind the frame, I was feeling some fatigue in my arms and soreness in my back from getting poked by various "not soft" parts of the transmission tunnel.

From there, I started the next project: to install new vinyl onto the windshield header (front portion of the roof frame) and the side panels (side portions of the roof frame).  I found it best to do things here different than Wick Humble's guidance.  I was able to use a small brush and only apply adhesive to the underside of the back weld flange of the header.  I let that dry a bit, and then positioned the header vinyl directly on that adhesive.  I didn't use the welting at all, initially.  The vinyl was simply hanging down from the back edge of the header, across the header's full width.  Then, I aligned the white dot on the welting with the center of the header.  I pushed the unglued portion of the header vinyl upwards and pushed the welting onto the back edge of the header, forcing the vinyl to tuck between the new headliner and the frame.  The glued part of the header vinyl did not move as I did this.  Only the non-glued part squeezed between the new head and the frame.  

    

    

At this point, the header vinyl is held captive by the welting, and it is ready to be pulled forward, and out through the windshield opening.  It will need to be pulled with a good amount of force so as to compress the foam that is on the header, and create a tight, wrinkle free finished appearance across the entire header panel.  And that has got me thinking...

I don't know how in the world they did that at the factory - keep a lot of tension on the vinyl covering the header panel.  The way the windshield goes in, the windshield gasket tends to push the vinyl on the header backwards.  If the glue holding the front of the header vinyl were to not hold firm, the vinyl would be pushed back somewhat, allowing the header vinyl to relax... and be loose.  If that happens, the finish look is not going to be nice, and who wants to pull a windshield BACK OUT, just to fix a loosely fitting header vinyl?

I am not sure how I will proceed.  But, I am thinking about buying a whole bunch of these, which I have seen other people use on other car restorations.  


I think I will need to apply the glue, and wait for it to dry... more than I have been, so that it will have the most strength possible.  And then, I will pull the vinyl a good bit to the get material tight, and wrap it around the windshield weld flange, and clamp it in place very tightly to keep it from slipping back and causing a loose fit.  And the glue will need to dry for at least 24 hours before I attempt to install the windshield.  

So, that is what I am thinking.  Anyone else have luck using a particular technique?
 

Edited February 12 by inline6

[Patcon]

That is what I did. There are pictures in my build thread. I did take Grannyknot's advise and didn't pull it too tight. He said the windshield gasket will tighten it some more. So I pulled it until it looked nice, smooth and even. If you pull it too tight you will crush the foam and potentially show the seams and flaws of the underlying metal.

[inline6]

I have found many things in your build thread to be helpful!  I will look through again for that.  Thanks.

Edited February 12 by inline6

[grannyknot]

inline6, if the apron or header panel isn't covered yet, it's good to re tap the threads for the rear view mirror and sun visors. Quite often they get filled with paint and once the vinyl/foam is in place it's hard enough to find the holes let alone deal with fine threads that won't cooperate.

[Patcon]

10 hours ago, inline6 said:

I have found many things in your build thread to be helpful!  I will look through again for that.  Thanks.

I lied. I made a separate thread...