Restoration of BringaTrailer 240z - HLS30-35883

[emccallum]

1 hour ago, CanTechZ said:

Here's a picture of the screws that held down those strips on my '70. They are round head type 4mm thread OD x 12 mm long. There appear to maybe have had blackened heads, some evidence on a few of mine.

 

Same screws on mine as well.

[inline6]

Great!  Thanks for that.  I will need to forage through my hardware for the zillionth time to look for those.

[inline6]

This weekend, I disassembled the new Kanto Seiki ignition switch I got from Japan and changed out the wafers to work with the new, original keys that came with a new old stock hatch lock I bought off of eBay a while back.  

I found this link to Ratsun forums to be helpful with getting the key tumber out of the switch assembly.  In order to get to the wafers, you have to remove  the tumbler assembly which requires removing a small steel pin.  I drilled as small hole in a spot that allowed me access to the backside of the pin.  I was able to push it out and then pull out the tumbler assembly.  After I got it out, I swapped a few wafers so I could use the keys with the black paint on them.

  

The new ignition switch did not have these electrical wires.  However, these were easily moved over to the new switch.  

  

All done:

 

That was the light work for the weekend.  Then I switched over to the hatch glass again.  I have been dreading getting back to this, because I knew it would require many hours, and I was a afraid that even after investing many more, I would not achieve a satisfactory result.  Last time, while I achieving success with removing the deep scratches that were in the glass, I was not having much success getting the glass shiny again.  

I picked back up with experimenting with the polishing compound that came with the kit.  After repeatedly going over a relatively small area, I was unhappy to see I had made next to no progress.  I just seemed to be going through polish with no real improvement.  The manual said that if the polish wasn't working, I may need to got back to the previous grits.  So, I decided to get my magnifying glass and have a closer look.  Under magnification, I could see that the polish wasn't doing much even in the area I had concentrated on.  I also saw, however, that there were some scratches left over from the first grit.  Clearly, I would have to revisit use of some of the prior grits and rework.  

So, I used the magnifying glass and the green grit (second stage) until I had addressed everything I saw.  Then I switched to the blue grit.  I went over everywhere that I had used the green.  I also went beyond where I had sanded with the green by a couple of inches.  For the most part, the sanding scratches looked like )))))))))))).  So, when using the blue grit, I went 90 degrees to that, so I could see when all the scratches from the green grit were gone.  I used the magnifying glass to check progress. 

When I was done with the blue grit, I switched over to an Eastwood glass polishing kit I bought a long time ago to polish some wiper marks out of my BMW windshield.  From memory, I recalled that the Eastwood kit was able to remove the wiper marks, but also polished that glass back to normal finish.  So, rather than using the polish that came with the new kit, I decided to use the Eastwood kit instead.  

The Eastwood kit contains a powder.  To that, you add water.  Within a few minutes of polishing with this, I was able to see much better progress with the polishing stage.  So, I kept going this route.  I also utilized a laser thermometer to check heat, as polishing can heat the glass quite a bit.

Polishing glass... is not easy.  When I quit yesterday, I had worked on the hatch glass for 6 hours straight with just one 10 min break.  And it wasn't done, but I no longer feared that I wouldn't be able to use the hatch glass.  

Today, I picked up where I left off with more polishing.  After another two hours, I called it good enough.  I put the factory original weather strip on the glass and proceeded to install it on the car.  While that didn't go well, and I became highly irritated, I did eventually get it in.  

So, I have something like 14 hours of work in polishing the hatch glass.  I have learned a ton about how to remove scratches.  The kit I bought from Europe will remove deep scratches.  But, it takes a lot of time and very careful work with the sander and the grits to get the glass back to a point where you can polish it.  I think the polish that came with the kit is worthless.  Perhaps it is ok on non-tempered glass.  Instead, I recommend using the Eastwood product for the final polishing.

 

    

 

    

 

Is it perfect?  No.  But, I got rid of a bunch of deep scratches and I learned a lot.  If I had to do it again, I think I could get the time down to around 9 hours which is still crazy, but for what it is worth, I was able to save the original hatch glass:

 

 

 

 

[Patcon]

It looks great!  Is the Eastwood polish sort of pink tan too?

[inline6]

No, the Eastwood powder is white.

[inline6]

Not that long ago, I got the steering column in the car.  Here are some reference hardware pics.  Note that in the first two pics I have the wrong flat and lock washers.  The ID is too large. 

    

    

    

 

Can anyone confirm that this is the correct orientation of the bolts and nuts?  I didn't recall exactly how they were originally and couldn't find any reference pictures.  I have two bolts going upwards and two going downwards.  The bolt heads and the nuts seem to be a bit lower profile than standard, and the way I have them installed seems to be the most logical.

Edited April 27 by inline6

[grannyknot]

Looks correct to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[inline6]

I couldn't find the original screws for the threshold plate, so I got these from Belmetric - some of the only non-original hardware anywhere on this car!  🙂

  

 

I have looked for many years for a 240z rear view mirror that doesn't show signs of corrosion on the edge of the glass, but haven't found any.  I am thankful that @zspert sells an excellent reproduction:

  

 

Next step for the upholstery cardboard was to coat it in a rubber coating to keep moisture from causing it to lose its rigidity over time. 

    

 

These are ready to glue into place now.

Speaking of gluing, I finished gluing the rear hatch main seal in place this weekend.  I again used the yellow "landau" contact adhesive.  I glued the four corners in place first.  This seal is a bit small for the opening and requires stretching.  So, gluing the corners first allowed me to put sufficient stretch into the rest of the seal.  Then, it was a matter of using the acid brush to apply the adhesive in the remaining areas.  This adhesive sets up in under one minute, and is super strong.  I found that it was best to work in sections that were only about 18" in length.  I would apply adhesive with an acid brush on the weld flange as well as the backside of the weather strip, then wait about one minute.  As soon as I put the two together, it sticks, and goes nowhere.  Great stuff to work with.  

 

    

 

I started to install the fuel hose in the engine compartment.  Before doing so, I checked to see if the carburetors had inline fuel filter screens.  The front carb did not, and the back carb did.  I installed new ones.  I have to check that the floats are set correctly, so I elected to hold off on installing the hoses that go from the fuel rail to the float chambers.  I did install the hose to and from the fuel filter.  Hose is cloth covered; the closest thing I could find to original.

    

 

Can anyone confirm the hose clamps I am using here are correct?  I think that the clamps at the filter are supposed to be spring clip type... while the connections at the hard line and fuel pump inlet are supposed to be the zinc plated hose clamps as seen here:

    

 

I also got all the bumper pieces packaged up.  I will be sending them to Tri-City plating to get them redone.

 

Edited May 6 by inline6

[AZ-240z]

Hey inline6.  Here are the clamps on my 1/71 series 1, and I’m pretty confident they are correct.

[inline6]

Thanks for this. 

That is the most accurate engine and engine compartment I have ever seen.  I especially like the plating, and the finish on the SU domes and valve cover.  While my plating is nice, I wish it was more authentic, like yours.  Incredible.

 

Edited May 6 by inline6

[Captain Obvious]

Just picking nits, but should that have a branded fuel pump? Nikki, or maybe a Kyosan Denki?

In any event, it's beautiful. Do you have a pic of the master cylinders (clutch and brake)?

[AZ-240z]

Thanks for the very much appreciated compliments inline6.  The valve cover and carb dome finishes are OEM.

And Captain, I assume the “nits” were directed at my picture.  The fuel pump, see attached pic, is indeed

a NOS Nikki pump, and I also included a pic of the master cylinders.  
 

inline, not trying to hijack space as the work you have done on your car is truly amazing.

AZ-240z

 

 

Edited May 7 by AZ-240z