Restoration of 71 240z

[SteveJ]

9 minutes ago, Clay C said:

SteveJ you are in my town. I know you are itching to come put together a car!

Yep, my 240Z has been waiting on me for a few years now...

[Trnelson]

I live pretty close to you, Highlands, NC.  I’m in the early stages of what will eventually be a full restoration, if I could ever bring myself to stop driving the 240 nearly EVERYDAY!  Where did you have your plated parts re-plated?  I’m thinking about tackling the engine bay once the roads get salted and I’m forced to park it for a while. 

[Clay C]

I haven't been good at keeping up the postings on this build. It's been one bad thing after another but finally getting all straightened out! Finally got the car back to my shop around the end of September and there were some serious problems with the Paint and Body. I don't want to bad talk anyone but basically the whole process wasn't managed very well by my friend who was taking care of that process for me. They essentially did all the paint work without first reassembling the car to make sure all the gaps and reveals were good. Also the one body line doIMG_5106.HEICwn the middle of the car was different from one side to the other. I was pretty unhappy to say the least but in the end it was made right.....they just had to do the work all over again the correct way.

 

Trying to attach pictures but they only show up as attachments...Got to figure out whats going on with that.

IMG_5106.HEIC IMG_5109.HEIC IMG_5133.HEIC

Edited February 2, 2021 by Clay C

[Clay C]

Looks like I may have to convert all my Iphone Pictures over to jpegs now. Nothing is ever easy.

[Clay C]

Picture Problem solved. 

[Clay C]

It was BAD! Overspray all over the place, contaminated paint spots. The finish on the hood was horrible. Nothing like Epoxy Primer all over the fresh powder coat on the crossmember I was so careful to get looking as nice as possible. 

[Clay C]

Few weeks later and tons of work doing it right I finally got a proper paint job.

[Clay C]

Winter is the slowest time for my business so after the paint job was all done and buffed out I was able to spend the next few weeks at the shop putting everything back together. I should have taken more pictures but I was so focused in on getting this project that had suffered so many stumbles along the way done and back home.

The hood was an absolute mother to get lined up where it sat down correctly when closed. I wasn't sure if it was my hood or the hinges but we finally got it lined up. This was before the respray though. Didnt want to fight with it after the paint was done and risk scratching and messing up the paint. Instead of removing it to sit the engine back in we chose to bring the engine and transmission in from the bottom. Wish I would have gotten a picture of that! We had the car at least 3' off the ground and used a creeper to wheel the motor under the car. Then used a forklift VERY CAREFULLY to hoist it up from the bottom. I was skeptical it would clear the crossmember but it went in fine. 

[Clay C]

That valve cover is NO BUENO! I struggled getting it clean and eventually resorted to wire wheeling it to remove the old crud that was all over it. Luckily I have a few others and found a place near me that does vapor blasting. That should look a lot better. 

[Clay C]

I was dying to see if the engine I rebuilt would actually run. I followed the instructions but I have never torn into the bottom half of anything before. I was very nervous about the startup. 

[Clay C]

First start up! It took a while but finally got everything flowing and running. NO OIL PRESSURE! Now its been almost a year since this car has run. I didn't have very much time with the car before I tore it all apart but I thought the gauge was fine and I installed a new pressure sending unit on the block. I was freaking out at this point wondering what I had done wrong. We took the filter off and it was totally dry. Oil pump wasn't working. Filled the filter up with transmission fluid and squirted some in that passage and tried again. This time we got good pressure. Ran the engine a bit more with the filter off to push all the trans fluid out. There was an airgap I supposed in the pump. Just couldn't get enough pressure to start picking up oil. I was told later to pack the oil pump with grease or fluid next time to give it something to build pressure until it can start pulling the oil. 

[Clay C]

At this point it was running but something still wasn't right. It wouldn't idle smooth and we couldn't get the carbs dialed in. Sprayed brake cleaner all around the exhaust manifold and the area where the carbs sealed with the Intake and as soon as the spray hit the engine it would smooth out and run good for a few seconds. We had pretty bad vacuum leaks at the headers and the carb to intake. 

I feared the headers weren't going to seat up correctly when I was installing them due to the angle of a couple of the pipes coming off the flange. I should have looked over the carb assembly too before installing it because straight from ZTherapy there was one gasket they had missing a bolt hole with. The carbs were easy, simply took all of that apart and fixed the gasket and used a little silicone to put it all back together.

The headers were a bit more involved. Removed them and had to heat and reshape a couple of areas where we could get the proper studs in place and use the fat washers that bridge the gap and hold everything tight to the head. Just more work but after we got everything put back together the vacuum leaks were fixed and we were able to set the time and adjust the carbs.