Dave W 1971/240Z rebuild

[Namerow]

17 hours ago, grannyknot said:

The dash is in nice shape except for a couple of cracks

To prevent those cracks from growing (esp. after the dash begins to see solar loads and high cabin temperatures during the summer), you might consider drilling a hole (at least 1/8" dia) at the peak of each crack.  Not sure how the owner would feel about the aesthetics, though.

[davewormald]

Did you have a close look at the hose I've circled in the picture? I believe it's a solid piece of rubber. I thought it was interesting that someone would actually have manufactured such a thing. I don't think any of the pollution control stuff was functional. The air pump had been removed and the air conditioner had been installed where it was normally mounted.

I wonder what valuable things the mice stored in the ventilation system, aside from the jute from under the carpets.

As far as the dash goes, I'm keen on preventing the cracks from getting longer. If holes at the ends of the cracks are effective, it's better than having them extend farther into the dash.

[HusseinHolland]

On 10/22/2023 at 3:25 PM, grannyknot said:

I got the front and back glass out today, also polished up the SS trim and put away in storage.  Something strange though, at least for me,  rust in the top corners of the roof and A pillars, I've never seen that before, anyone else?

The bottom corners of the windshield frame are rust free, that is where I usually find it. 

Windshield came up nicely after cleaning with a garden hose and some strong detergent, just a bit of sand blasting from the highway, the rear glass was wiped down with something abrasive at some point and you can see the marks that didn't wash off.  I'll have to go over the rear glass with a polisher and some fine compound to see if I can get that out.

 

Have you had much success with that? My windshield has a fine sand blast effect over most of it - not much fun when driving with sun glare or headlights coming at me. Be interested in know what polish/compoind is worth trying. I have a reasonable quality buffing tool with range of pads (Torq) I bought about 6 years ago to do the compound work on my X1/9 that I painted. 

[grannyknot]

4 hours ago, davewormald said:

Did you have a close look at the hose I've circled in the picture? I believe it's a solid piece of rubber. I thought it was interesting that someone would actually have manufactured such a thing. I don't think any of the pollution control stuff was functional.

 

Hey man, I just work here.  If it's on the car I take it off and make it look shiny and put it back where it was, if you got a problem with the way the hoses are routed, you'll have to take it up with the owner.😉

6 minutes ago, HusseinHolland said:

Have you had much success with that? My windshield has a fine sand blast effect over most of it - not much fun when driving with sun glare or headlights coming at me. Be interested in know what polish/compoind is worth trying. I have a reasonable quality buffing tool with range of pads (Torq) I bought about 6 years ago to do the compound work on my X1/9 that I painted. 

I'm just talking about trying to polish out the minor scratches on the back glass, that streaking you see in the pic.  Polishing won't do much to the sand pits on the front windshield.  To get a pitted windshield clear again you would have to go down to 60 grit and grind the glass to the depth of the deepest pit then work your way up through 120, 220, 320, 420, 600, 800, 1200 then Cerium Oxide for polishing, just like making a telescope mirror.

Not worth it, however, with an aggressive pad and heavy compound you can round off the sharp edges of the millions of pits and end up with a windshield that doesn't scatter as much light as it did before.  It won't do anything to the depth of the pits but it can decrease the amount of scattered light/glare, most of that happens right around the edges of each pit.

I did that procedure on the windshield of my first Z, I still had some Cerium Oxide left over from my telescope making days, glass is much harder than clearcoat  so it took many hrs of hard work (I would never do it again) I could see the difference, there was less glare, but a new windshield is a lot less work.

[davewormald]

9 minutes ago, grannyknot said:

Hey man, I just work here.  If it's on the car I take it off and make it look shiny and put it back where it was, if you got a problem with the way the hoses are routed, you'll have to take it up with the owner.😉

Shiny is what it's all about! I'm not keen on that pollution control stuff getting in the way of my driving! It mostly looks like a bunch of vacuum leaks waiting to happen anyway!

[grannyknot]

13 hours ago, davewormald said:

Shiny is what it's all about! I'm not keen on that pollution control stuff getting in the way of my driving! It mostly looks like a bunch of vacuum leaks waiting to happen anyway!

Dave, do you want me to remove it all and make it look cleaner?

[grannyknot]

Well, I'm a month late getting her into the garage but will still have lots of time to get the work done and have her out on the road by the spring.  Now that I have some proper light I can get a better idea of what it's going to need.  Only 2 small dents and one 3" crease to deal with, looks like rear wheel arches have been replaced and the filler has eliminated the main body line, have to dig in there and repair that. Here is what can happen when you a get a quicky paint job. Shrinkage.

Took lots of pics of the original black paint that was used at the front grill and around the doors, I've never noticed that the black paint extended up into the quarter windows before.  Firewall insulation in near perfect cond. A Blaupunkt BFX9DV Seattle Cassette deck, that is definitely going back in.

 

[davewormald]

On 11/7/2023 at 5:57 AM, grannyknot said:

Dave, do you want me to remove it all and make it look cleaner?

That would be great, but it isn't a priority. I agree it would look better without it, but I don't think any of it is doing any harm.

I thought the passenger rear wheel well looked original - thought it still had the weld marks, where the driver's side doesn't. The paint job was pretty terrible. I suspect it was done just before the car was sold. Looks like the radio/tape deck is late '70s/early '80s vintage, so it probably came with the car (I didn't get the car until 1994). I did install a set of rear speakers in a piece of wood that ran across the back of the hatch. Sadly, I also hacked out the piece of plastic at the bottom of the slot in the console so it would fit better. I remember regretting it even as I was doing it! At one time I had the original radio (and some gauges) from either the '72 or '73 that I owned back in the '80s, but somewhere along the line I got rid of them. Too bad. The good news is that I still have a few old cassette tapes hanging around!

[Namerow]

I bought one of those 'legendary' Blaupunkt AM/FM cassette players for my Z back in the day ( ~ 1980).  It was a top-end unit costing $$$ (c/o Kromer Radio in downtown Toronto).  It worked like a champ for about 1 year (just out of warranty, of course), at which time a small, unreplaceable plastic drive gear split at the root of one of the teeth, leaving the tape drive useless.  I was not amused.

[davewormald]

33 minutes ago, Namerow said:

I bought one of those 'legendary' Blaupunkt AM/FM cassette players for my Z back in the day ( ~ 1980).  It was a top-end unit costing $$$ (c/o Kromer Radio in downtown Toronto).  It worked like a champ for about 1 year (just out of warranty, of course), at which time a small, unreplaceable plastic drive gear split at the root of one of the teeth, leaving the tape drive useless.  I was not amused.

Unless Chris has hooked this one up, I can't honestly claim that this one is still working, either! I was playing tapes in it in the late '90s, but it's been sitting in the garage for a lot of years since then. It's possible that the mice stashed some of its important parts in the ventilation ducts.

[grannyknot]

3 hours ago, davewormald said:

Unless Chris has hooked this one up, I can't honestly claim that this one is still working, either! I was playing tapes in it in the late '90s, but it's been sitting in the garage for a lot of years since then. It's possible that the mice stashed some of its important parts in the ventilation ducts.

I haven't powered it up yet, no speakers, blew out the dust and it looks pretty good.

Tore down the heater and blower box, no surprises, filled the heater core with CLR and let it sit over night then back flushed. One melting event but there is still continuity so just cleaned it up with a brass brush. Laid out the engine bay wiring harness and stripped all the tape off to check for melts and breaks, only found a couple, the 2 breaks are right where the harness goes through the firewall, someone pulled the firewall rubber grommet  off and let the wiring harness ride on the edge of sheet metal.

I drilled out the VIN door tag, to remove the respray paint from the edges I applied a tiny amount of Aircraft paint stripper with a Q tip and rubbed it with 0000 steel wool.

 

[Yarb]

Nice work! That wiring loom could have been a huge headache. Glad you found it friend.