Livin' Z Life - Historical Archive

[Arne]

4 Sep 2006 - Engine swap Complete

This was engine swap weekend. Monday was a holiday here in the US, which gave many of us a three day weekend. I decided that I didn't want to have to rush the job since the weather has been hotter than normal here in Western Oregon, and took Friday off as well. Which gave me up to four full days to get this done. Not that I figured to take this long, but the idea was to not have to rush it.

Friday, 1 Sept. 2006

I started the day by assembling the engine hoist (cherry-picker). Once that was done, I hooked the chain to the lifting lugs on the engine in the parts car, removed the last two bolts and lifted it out. Pretty simple. After sitting it down on some blocks I pulled the transmission off to inspect the clutch and seals. The seals in both the engine and the transmission look good, but the clutch is quite worn, just starting to polish the heads of the rivets on the friction plate. But this is not a problem, as the clutch in my car is virtually new.

I then put the yellow car on ramps, and began prepping it for engine removal. Drained the cooling system, the transmission and the engine oil. I pulled the carbs and intake manifolds, driveshaft, shift lever, etc. I removed the ZX radiator and set it aside and disconnected the exhaust. Hooked up the cherry picker and did it again.

By mid-afternoon, it's getting pretty hot, and both cars are in the full sun. I'm not feeling too much like working hard at that point, so I started wrapping it up for the day. The last thing I did was to properly route and mount the hydraulic line across the firewall between the clutch master cylinder and the slave cylinder. You may remember that I didn't get that done properly when I did the transmission swap, but doing it right at this point was easy. The metal line is secure and routed correctly, and I riveted the hose mounting tab to the frame rail to secure the hose.

Picked up my tools, looked at two empty engine compartments and called it a day.

Saturday, 2 Sept. 2006

First task of the day was to pull the good clutch off the L28 motor and put it on the L24. Moved that and several other brackets, mounts and such, then bolted the parts car's transmission back up. Hooked up the cherry picker one more time, and put the smaller motor in the car. No drama, no issues, very smooth.

At this point, the job became pretty routine. I've got some new parts to go in, and for the used parts, I just pick whichever is better condition or most appropriate. By the time the heat got to be a bit much in the mid-afternoon, I had the bulk of the external parts reattached. It was pretty much ready for fluids and ignition. Gear oil, engine oil, fill and re-bleed the clutch, finish connecting all the coolant lines and fill that, connect the fuel lines, and install the distributor. Oh yeah, the exhaust. That is the most difficult part of the job yet remaining.

And that's where I left things at the end of Saturday.

Sunday, 3 Sept. 2006

Took Sunday off. You can't play with cars EVERY day.

Monday, 4 Sept. 2006

Back at it in the morning, started with the fuel, cooling and ignition. I decided to use the carbs that came with the engine, as they were apparently well tuned for it before the accident. I set the timing statically by eye, and tried to start it. Nada. I took a look at the ignition again, and figured out that I had used the wrong timing mark when I set it. Reset the the timing (correctly this time), and tried again. And this time it started! (At 10:45 AM.)

And it seemed to be running quite well, actually. Unlike the old motor, no clouds of smoke, no noxious burnt oil smells filling the neighborhood, just a nice clean running motor. Oh yeah, it's LOUD since there was no exhaust at all attached to the headers.

After a minute or two, I shut it down and checked for leaks or other problems. Didn't really find any though. I did exchange the oil pressure sender with the one on the 280 motor, as the gauge seemed to be reading a bit low. (That worked, gauge shows good pressure now.) The next tasks were to fill the transmission and re-bleed the clutch. I started with the transmission.

An hour and a half later (maybe longer), I still had an oil-free transmission. I had planned to loosen the fill plug on the transmission prior to putting it in the car, but had forgotten to do so. I tried every trick I knew, but could not get the fill plug to budge, using the tools and leverage that I could get up in the transmission tunnel. After lunch, I gave up and dropped the transmission. Once out where I could get at it, I was finally able to get it loose. (I had to drive an undersize socket onto the plug with a hammer, and then used an 18" breaker bar to get it out.) Got the transmission back in place, and - FINALLY - got it filled with gear oil. Removing and replacing the transmission took about an hour - the entire process of trying to fill it took almost three hours. All for failing to remember to loosen the plug while the gearbox was already out.

Picked up the tools, put away the spare parts, and just generally tidied up the work area. And then, since I wanted to get it warm enough for the thermostat to open, I took it for a little drive. Never got it into top gear, I didn't want to annoy the neighbors that badly. In fact, I never revved it higher than 2000 RPM. It's not too loud if I hold it at 1500-2000 and cruise there. The good news is that it seems to run well, and doesn't seem to smoke.

But obviously, until I get some exhaust on it, it isn't going very far.

[Arne]

10 Sep 2006 - Quiet Time

This weekend was quiet time, in more than one way. First, it was quiet in that I didn't do much on the car this weekend. I spent a good part of Saturday cleaning and organizing the garage and work area, and not much time working on the car. On Sunday we did a little non-automotive recreating, and again I didn't do much on the car.

On Saturday, I got all four of the sidemarker lights working, with the addition of some new bulbs and replacing one of the bulb sockets with one from the parts car. A minor thing, but satisfying none the less.

During the preceding week I made a few calls to some muffler shops, and I have decided that I need to take the car to them for accurate quotes. Most of the shops gave me phone quotes that were considerably more than I had expected. So one of my tasks for the weekend was to get some parts to see if I could get the header connected to the old exhaust, just good enough to drive it some. I bought the parts on Saturday, but did my test fitting Sunday evening. I think I've got that covered, I didn't finish connecting it all, but it looks like it will all fit, and even with nothing tightened down (lots of exhaust leaks) it is much quieter. It should get me by for a while, until I figure out what I want to end up with.

[Arne]

18 Sep 2006 - Fine Tuning

I spent some time trying to get the car ready to drive some this past weekend. I started by finishing cobbling together a semi-usable exhaust system. It doesn't fit all that great, but it's on, and it's quiet enough that I can drive the car now without fear of setting off alarms on parked cars as I pass.

It's also quiet enough to figure out where I stand with this motor and transmission. And the answer is that it is mostly good. The transmission from the parts car is much the same as the other one - shifts fine, no ugly noises. The engine seemed to run fine, without oil smoke. I do have an exhaust leak where the header meets the head, so the manifolds will need to come off so I can get that fixed.

I installed the parts car motor with its original carbs, and it seemed to run fairly well with them, but I decided to put my original carbs on to see how well they worked. And they work quite well. In fact, I spent a few minutes tuning them, and they seem great, even better than the other set. So I left them on it and took a short drive.

And this was the final test, whether the engine is really sound enough to run as is, or whether to plan for a rebuild. And the answer is that all seems great. No smoke, runs very nicely, no bad noises, no smoke, good oil pressure, temperature is steady, it's pretty much all good.

So what next? Well, a real exhaust is definitely in order. I need to get a proper battery hold-down, and also to replace the inner hatch weather strip. I am only running water in the cooling system for now, won't add real coolant until I get the exhaust leak handled, since I have coolant running to the intake manifold. But those are the next details, after which the car should be reasonably drivable. So probably a couple of weeks to go.

[Arne]

24 Sep 2006 - Happy Anniversary!

That's right, today is the one year anniversary of when we got the yellow 240Z. And so it may be appropriate to recap.

But before that, on Day 365 I worked on the exhaust (again) and the cooling system. The header was leaking at the cylinder head, and I wanted to try to fix that. Since I have to drain the cooling system to pull the manifolds, I figured this was a good time to change from water to antifreeze, as well as to change all the hose clamps to the new OE wire-style clamps that I received a few days ago.

I fiddled with the header for quite a while, shimming and trying to make certain that I had as even pressure on it as I could manage. And I failed. It still leaks rather badly. In hindsight I'm not at all thrilled with this particular header, the mounting flange is rather thin, and it is difficult to get good pressure on the fasteners. I've only got a couple of options. One is to order a special manifold gasket designed for headers and give it one more try. The other option is to bag it and buy a whole new system. Haven't decided which way to go yet.

And so what progress has been made in the first year? Not a lot that is externally visible, but quite a lot underneath the skin. The exhaust is about the only mechanical issue remaining to having the car decently road-worthy. The brakes have been dealt with, the suspension is decent, and the electrical system seems healthy as well. The entire running gear (except the differential) has been either replaced, rebuilt or refurbished. It has gone from a poorly running, oil-burning 2.8 liter with poorly installed injection and an automatic transmission to a pretty nice running 2.4 liter with original carbs and a 4 speed manual transmission. Lots of small things have been dealt with, and I can foresee finishing all the non-appearance items within a few more months. All in all, a pretty good start.

[Arne]

30 Sep 2006 - This Changes Everything

A funny thing happened on my way to building a nice 240Z. The project to refurbish the yellow 240Z has been derailed.

Last weekend while I was working on the exhaust, I had a visit from a neighbor who also has a 240Z. Charlie has stopped by now and then to talk when he sees me out working on the car. He also owned a '71 240Z, that he bought about 18 months ago from a co-worker, who was the original owner. I had seen the car a time or two, and it seemed very nice. Anyway, he stopped by to tell me that he had decided to sell it, and wanted to know if I knew any Z enthusiasts who might want to buy it.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

I told him that I did have contacts, and we should get some digital pictures of it so that I could spread the word. So he went home and drove it back. Of course now I needed to look at it closely, if I was going to try to help him sell it.

What I found was a late '71 (Series 2) 240Z that has been garaged its entire life, and shows 59,500 miles on the odometer, which is thought to be original. Charlie had spent some money getting it road worthy since he got it, all new brakes, tires, tuned, cooling, etc. It has its original red paint (code 905). The car is 98% stock. The only non-stock items I could see are the wheels (14x6 Appliance Fine Wires - true wire wheels, not baskets), exhaust, a pair of driving lights under the bumper, and an aftermarket sunroof. Everything else is stock - original signal-seeking AM radio, 4 speed, steering wheel, upholstery, even all the smog gear is intact. Interior and under the hood look awesome, nice cad plating on all the smog stuff, good early ashtray/fuse cover, console, etc. Excellent chrome bumpers.

Since it has always been a garaged car, and seldom even seen rain, there is no rust. None. I looked in all the normal places, found nothing. It appeared to me to be ready to drive right now.

Downsides? The paint needs a little work. A fair number of chips on the nose, and little flaws here and there. But if it were polished and properly touched up, I think it could be really good without a re-paint. Of course, I considered the sunroof to be a big minus, although this one seems to be fairly high quality and the seal looks good. The new tires are too small - 175/70-14. The rear hatch strut no longer holds the hatch up. The factory power antenna no longer works.

I really didn't plan to buy it! Honestly! I ruled it out because I didn't really want a car with an aftermarket sunroof. I sent out a first feeler to a group of Z people that I routinely correspond with here in Oregon and Washington, and waited to see if there were any bites.

But I kept thinking about it, still marvelling over how clean and original it was, especially under the hood. The sunroof that had turned me off completely at first was seeming to be less important as time went by. On Tuesday when I was talking to Deanna about how nice it seemed, she asked if I was sure I didn't want to buy it. (She later said that she had felt fairly safe in asking that, figuring that I would say no because of the sunroof.) I told her that I had been thinking about it, and that it seemed to make sense in numerous ways, so maybe we had better go look at it and perhaps drive it too.

So we looked and drove. Yes, it has a sunroof, but at least it's a nice one with a good looking seal. And the wire wheels and small tires will have to go, as soon as I figure out what I want to put on it instead. (Three cars, 15 tires and 19 wheels, and I don't have anything I like yet. Figures.) But man, is it amazing. And boy does it run and drive nice! All in all, we figured it's just way too good a car to pass up.

So I picked it up yesterday, and spent a little time exploring it today. I also pulled the differential out of the parts car, as I have to start thinning the herd, and soon. Pictures and more details on the new car soon, maybe tomorrow.

[Arne]

1 Oct 2006 - Starting Anew

So here begins a completely different type of story. The red 240Z (I guess I'll have to keep identifying them by color until I'm down to a single car) is not perfect, and there will still be a lot to do. But it's a completely different kind of project.

 

Saturday morning I started my cleaning and fixing by pulling the hatch support strut out of the parts car. Since it worked and the red car's support strut didn't support, I figured that was an easy first fix. And it was - after I stripped the good one to bare metal and primed and painted it. No way was I going to put it in the way it was, not in this car. While I was doing this I noticed that the left hinge mounting plate on the hatch is breaking loose. Apparently this is common, both sides had been re-welded on the hatch I put on the yellow car. That will need to be addressed very soon.

While the paint on the strut was drying, I continued exploring what I had bought. I found the spare tire was oversize, and on an aftermarket wide rim, and so (like the yellow car before it) the tire didn't fit in the spare well correctly. This was simple, I just took the spare I had refurbished earlier from the yellow car and put it in the red one. That took care of that. I also replaced the original shift knob that was a touch faded and had a crack in the plastic emblem with a brand new factory knob that I had been keeping for future use in the yellow car - whenever it got to that point. I found that the ashtray lid had a crack in it, but among all the ashtray parts I have gathered I had one perfect lid. So you know where it went, too.

On Sunday, I replaced bulbs in the tach, glovebox and in the engine compartment lamp, and repaired the dome lamp. I found that the parking brake warning lamp didn't work because the switch had come unplugged, so that was reconnected. I removed the aftermarket driving lights and mudflaps, while mentally thanking whoever it was that installed the lights for not drilling any holes in the dash to mount the switch.

One thing I had noticed when driving it, the clutch engaged very high, and was difficult to operate smoothly because of that. Since both the master and slave cylinders had been recently replaced, I suspected they were mis-adjusted. And I was right, readjusting them made a big difference.

And that's pretty much it for the weekend. While this car is in fantastic shape, there will still be a lot of things to do to it, so check back (assuming you're interested). Next weekend will see me working on getting the parts car ready to go, and maybe a little work on the new car too.

 

[Arne]

8 Oct 2006 - This and That

The acquisition of the red car has slowed the pace somewhat, and (finally) lent some focus to the project. I spent a few hours on Saturday doing the final bits to get the parts car ready to be hauled away. I pulled the dash (with gauges and wiring), removed the rear window, and finally dropped the gas tank out. I've been storing worn and bad parts in the shell of the parts car, figuring to leave them in it when I haul it off, so my final task will be to look through that stuff to make certain I didn't miss something, but I don't think so.

Didn't do much to the yellow car, but I do need to decide if I want the new springs I put in it a while back for the red car instead. There may be yet another round of spring swapping in my future.

As for the red car, first on its agenda was a new battery hold-down. This was an odd coincidence. I had ordered a set of the battery hold-down parts for the yellow car from the dealer a while back. They arrived last Monday. The funny part is that the red car had no hold-down at all! Of all the bits and pieces on this car that are totally stock and original, the battery hold-downs were the only parts that were missing. And I just happened to have already ordered them, before I had even looked at the red car 2 weeks ago.

Other than that, more cleaning and such, still slowly learning about it. I made a list of the things that need to be addressed (other than a paint job someday), and for the most part it's pretty minor stuff. The three biggest items are tires & wheels, weatherstripping & seals, and the fuel system vent hoses. I'll be working towards all those items in the coming weeks.

[Arne]

16 Oct 2006 - Wheels and Whatnot

The red car was gone for a few days last week, I left it with a local body shop (which was recommended to me by other satisfied Z owners) to have the hatch hinge plate rewelded. I got the car back on Friday, and I'm pleased with the result. Nice work, and now I don't have to worry about it breaking the rest of the way off.

Saturday morning found us heading to Danny's Datsuns again, this time to see what he might have in the way of vintage mag wheels. Deanna and I spent some time looking through stacks of used wheels, looking for restorable matched sets. Danny had a pretty decent selection of wheels, and we found a nice set of 14x6 aluminum basket-weave wheels - either Appliance Wire Mags, or very close copies.

Spent some time Saturday afternoon cleaning the wheels, but I think I'll have them professionally polished rather than trying to do it myself. I'm pretty sure that I could get them looking pretty good, but I think a pro should be able to do better.

Other than that, just some cleaning and such. Didn't really drive it much last week, but if the weather cooperates, we may take a small road trip next weekend.

[Arne]

22 Oct 2006 - Road Trip!

Well, I did almost nothing TO the cars this weekend, instead doing something WITH one of them. Saturday I was busy most of the day doing non-Datsun things, for the most part. I did check the air in the red car's tires, but that was about it.

But Sunday, we hit the road! While the yellow car wouldn't quite be ready for a trip yet (even if I had not bought the red car), I figured the red car could handle a trip. So on Sunday Deanna and I drove up the back roads to McMinnville, OR (about 90 miles each way) where we met up with a group of four other 240Z owners from the Portland/Vancouver area for lunch. Deanna and I got to the meeting place first, and so we got the treat of seeing the other four 240Zs arrive in a group. Pretty unusual seeing an old 240Z on the road at all these days, and here came four of them playing follow the leader! We had a great time chatting and - of course - looking at each others' cars.

And how did my car drive? Quite nicely. It sounds like there may be a u-joint going bad, but that's actually pretty common for early Z cars. I'll look into that over the winter, as well as the other things mentioned earlier. (Cooling hoses, fuel vent hoses, weatherstripping, etc.)

But all in all, it was a good day. Great weather, excellent company, and a nice drive in a very nice car. I can't wait to do it again!

[Arne]

29 Oct 2006 - And Then There Were Two...

Yes, on Thursday afternoon the remains of the parts car were loaded on to a flatbed tow truck and hauled off to be crushed and recycled. I had the wrecked car for about three and a half months, during which time I stripped off most anything of value. The yellow car has been an obvious beneficiary, gaining the engine, door, bumper and more from the parts car. An additional seven 240Zs have also benefitted from the parts car's demise, with a few parts left to sell in the future. It had a good run, but it's over now.

As for the other two cars, the 'new' mags for the red car are in the hands of the wheel polisher now. I hope to get them back in a week or two. I picked up a set of spark plugs for the red car, and OE-style fuel filters for both remaining cars. On the yellow car, I still have a bit of work to do to get the fuel delivery system dialed in, and the filter is one part of that process. For the red car, both the fuel filter and the spark plugs were recently replaced but neither were proper for the car.

I also replaced the spark plug wires on the red car, using a set of new ones that I purchased some time ago. The old wires appear to have been original, and so I have set them aside and will keep them as novelties. Lastly, in an effort to see whether the recent tachometer problems on the yellow car might be related to the 280ZX electronic ignition it was using, I replaced the ignition with the original points ignition from the parts car. The ignition works fine, but the tach is still bouncing around, so the ignition isn't it. I do have a spare tach out of the parts car, so I will try that at some point.

I have received a few questions about the ultimate fate of the yellow car, and I have to admit that I don't yet know exactly what will happen there. The sensible thing to do is to tidy up a few minor issues and sell it. There's no way that I can recover what I've got into it at this point, but that is almost always the case anyway. But we have been kicking around the thought of proceeding with the project, in a modified form. If I could get it fixed up a bit more, it would be much easier to sell, and done carefully, we might not go farther into the hole, and maybe - just maybe - we might recover a bit more than we could at this point. That decision has not yet been made, still a lot of thinking to be done before I decide to go that route.

[Arne]

13 Nov 2006 - Small Stuff

Nothing big has happened since the last update. The wire mag wheels are still at the polisher's shop as he has been fighting equipment failures. No worries on that, I don't need them to drive the car, plus the rain we have been getting has kept the red car in the garage anyway. I noticed that the vacuum hoses were stiff and badly cracked, so those were replaced last week. I also noticed that the brake master cylinder on the car is wrong, it is for '72-78, not the '70-71 unit it should have. Since the outlet ports between the early and late cylinders are reversed, this is perhaps more serious than it sounds. So I have ordered the correct early cylinder from the dealer.

Nothing much has been done to the yellow car lately, it's probably feeling unloved. I've been working on clearing out the remainder of the stuff left from the parts car, most of that is gone, tentatively spoken for, or in the eBay planning stages. And that's about it for now.

[Arne]

26 Nov 2006 - Wheels, Brakes, Lights, Etc.

I got the wheels back from the polisher on Friday, the results were a mixed bag. I knew going into this that polishing wheels this old can be a crap shoot, as the quality of the alloy and castings in those days was rather inconsistent. And inconsistent is what I got. Two of the wheels turned out quite nice. One is rather mediocre, and one is not very good at all. In the cases of the two not-good wheels, the alloy is rather porous and gives a speckled appearance to the wheels, as well as a noticeable unevenness to the surface. Nothing much that can be done about it, I rolled the dice and lost. But even though the appearance of two of them is not what I was hoping for, they will still fit the car better, and drive better than the wire wheels now on the car. And it's not like they are trashy looking, they just don't look as nice as I'd hoped. They are what they are, and they'll be going on as soon as I get around to getting a new set of tires. I still need to order a set of center caps for them too.

On a more positive note, I installed the proper brake master cylinder on the red car today. I had to readjust both the pedal and power-booster pushrods, as both had been changed to accommodate the later-style master cylinder. I plan to put the nearly new one I removed on the yellow car, as it has already had the lines modified for the later style cylinder, but the one on the car is of uncertain age. Might as well use the new one, it's not good for much else.

I replaced the red car's original Koito brand headlights with a pair of H4 halogen units. The original headlights have been packaged up for safekeeping. On the yellow car, I replaced the original (automatic) console with the manual transmission console from the parts car on Saturday. I've also been sorting through all the parts I've pulled from the parts car to decide what I'll keep, what I'll give away with the yellow car, and what I might sell. Still a ways to go on this task.