Restoration of BringaTrailer 240z - HLS30-35883

[inline6]

It turns out that Steve's kit has two of the pieces which are second from the right most piece in the pic above.  One is rubber and one is a hard plastic.  I used the plastic one.  I could substitute the plastic with the rubber one.  

I also see now that the point tip I bought for my antenna is larger than the original.  Bummer.  I bought that one off of eBay.  I will have to replace it at some point - I don't like that it is too big.

I got another thing out of the way today that I was dreading doing: gluing the jute to the tunnel, and gluing the original vinyl to that.  I realized when reviewing some pictures that the tunnel jute and vinyl go into the car before the firewall padding.  Since I already installed the firewall padding, I had to pull it up at the bottom edges to get the jute and vinyl tucked under.  It wasn't too difficult to left up the fire wall padding a bit.

I poured contact adhesive into the spray gun, and I was off and running.  I temporarily fit the jute and marked a few places at the top center with a paint pen so I knew where to place it after spraying both the backside of the jute and the tunnel with adhesive.  

    

I think I ended up with good placement:

    

After gluing in the rear jute section, I glued the front section in place.  Then, I retrieved the original vinyl trim for the tunnel.  To start, I sprayed glue only on an small area at the top edge of the tunnel and the vinyl (third pic):

    

I had the fiberglass center console available for this part of the process because there were impressions made by contact of the console in the original vinyl.  I used those to determine where to locate the vinyl vertically on the tunnel (third pic shows some of the impression).  After I got the top part of the vinyl glued in place, I rolled the vinyl upwards to expose the side portion of the jute.  Then I sprayed that and the rest of the vinyl with adhesive.  The vertical location was already set, so all that remained to do was to roll the vinyl downwards over the sides of the tunnel and press down firmly everywhere.

    

At the rear of the tunnel (second pic), the vinyl rolls up against the rear face a touch.  

    

 

As far as I can tell, the vinyl appears to be in the correct position everywhere.  Hopefully that is the case.  With the tunnel jute and vinyl in place, I now can install several items including the heater core, the fan, the steering column, and the dashboard.



 

Edited March 18 by inline6

[Patcon]

Yes, I figured out the same thing about the firewall pad myself. You did good getting the original vinyl back in. Mine wasn't in good enough shape to consider

[grannyknot]

Just in awe of the detail that you are putting into this build, by far the best restoration I've ever seen. If it were mine, I would be afraid to take it out on the road.

[inline6]

Thank you @grannyknot, very kind of you to say. 

At the age of 15 and 8 months old, I got my first car, a Datsun 510 4 door.  My dad chipped in $500, which was the amount that he had given my brother for his first car a few years prior.  That $500, plus every dime I had ever saved came to about the car's purchase price of $1200.  As a single mother, my mom worked two jobs to pay for what was needed and little else.  Needless to say, we were not a rich family.

My dad convinced me to take it to the shop that worked on his car to go through it and "do everything it needed".  That cost another $264, and my dad started to record what I owed him in a little black ledger.  A couple months later, one of the rear wheel cylinders developed a leak.  That cost another $100 to fix at the same shop.  With each additional repair, it became obvious to me that I was going to either have to learn how to do some things myself, or I would just keep incurring a larger amount of debt with my dad.  So, I asked for a Haynes manual for Christmas (1985).  With that, my learning how to work on cars began. 

When I was in my early 20's, I partially restored/modified the 240z that I now refer to as my track car.  I experienced a lot of firsts restoring that car.  And I drove it for a lot of miles.  Over many years, I upgraded and reworked several areas that I had previously given attention.

For this 240z, my goal was (and is) to apply to a complete restoration... all I have learned from my prior experiences of working on my first 510, "restoring" and modifying my "track" 240Z, and repairing a few wrecked Honda S2000's.  And, in addition to a full restoration, I would like it to be to a level that makes this car worthy of consideration by those who would know, those who are experienced with rebuilding and restoring cars... that this is "one of the nicest" 240Zs around.    

[inline6]

This past weekend, I rebuilt the side vents - the ones that are opened/closed via the knob underneath either side of the dashboard.  The rubber parts that seal around the edges of the disc that moves to close/open were dry rotted, but intact.  I thought about installing them as they were, but when I poked at the rubber, it crumbled easily.  These vent mechanisms are actually pretty difficult to remove/install, so I decided to rebuild them.  I have some thin rubber sheet I got from McMaster-Carr some time ago.  It comes in handy for making gaskets, and applications like these. 

For each vent, I had to first remove all the old rubber material.  Then, I cut two semi-circular pieces a little over size so that the edge would fold over seal against the ID of the housing.  I then used the contact adhesive I have been using to glue them into place, one on one side, and one on the other.  To finish up, I cut some 1/8" this open cell foam which seals the vent housing to the car body.

    

 

I also cleaned the cowl drain tubes and installed those:

  

 

Before I can glue other diamond vinyl pieces into the car, I needed to make replacement cardboard supports for the rear strut areas.  I had good luck using the cardboard from old three ring binders in the past.  This time, I was able to look online for a suitable material, and I found "Upholstery Cardboard Panels).  These (I ordered a pack of two) look to be identical to me.  Using the original ones as templates, it is a simple exercise to mark up and then cut out using a metal straight edge and a sharp blade in a box cutter.  I use a piece of soft aluminum (3003 I think) as backing for the cutting part of the exercise.

    

 

I experimented a bit with folding the cardboard.  Scoring the surface layer helps to create a smooth outside corner.  I found that on the inside corner, it helped to remove about an 1/8" wide channel of the surface material.  Not that it is needed, but the core material was accepting of folding to 90 degrees and back many times without tearing or getting noticeably weaker.  So, the inner material has some resilience.

    

    

 

To finish these up, I will coat them in a black rubberized spray paint.

Edited June 15 by inline6

[dutchzcarguy]

I don't know if there are more people that have this but my side vents always open up automaticly during driving.. In the winter i need to close them every 10 minutes or so, i guess it's because of all the shaking going on haha..

So, don't lube them.. make them go stiffly, otherwise you'll have the same "problem" ..

[Patcon]

I suspect the rubber seal on the vent flap is gone. When it's intact it adds friction to the closed position so it won't open up on it's own

[inline6]

I talked with https://www.ogdenchrome.com/ this week about re-choming my bumpers.   Here is what I told them and what I found out: 

What I told them I wanted:

• Two front bumpers, one from a AZ car that has been straightened and has a lot of surface imperfections from doing so, and one that has some body filler and has been painted
• Two rear bumpers, one that is NOS and one that is from an AZ car and has been straightened somewhat but needs more
• One set of front bumper over riders  
• One set of rear bumper over riders  

They said that straightening is easy for them. I think they use hydraulic presses based off what he said.  He said 240z bumpers are thin, so they only do their "show chrome" option on them.  From what he described, it sounds like they coat them with quite a bit of copper. 

Pricing: $1400 for each front bumper, $1600 for each rear bumper.  No discounting the price for either the low rust, or the NOS bumper (no discount for good condition).  $200 for each bumper over rider.  Current wait time is 6-7 months.

That is quite a bit more expensive than I was thinking and the wait time is way too long.  So, I will be checking with https://www.pulidoplating.net/ next.

[emccallum]

Tri city plating did mine. It was expensive and took a long time, but they did a good job. 

[Patcon]

When they show chrome, they build up lots of copper and then block sand it back down to make it flat like filler work. It is time consuming. You figure a couple of days for each bumper. So it adds up quick

[Diseazd]

Resurrected Classics shows rear bumpers for $375.00. I think they are in Georgia too.

[Patcon]

All of the reproduction bumpers are stainless steel I believe. Group Harrington(?) from the UK might be the exception to that. I have a set of repop stainless bumpers. They're ok but seem to be soft and scratch easily. Hard chrome is much more scratch resistant. On a car built to this level, I would want chrome.