240Z BRE Replica Build-Continued

[motorman7]

The paint job on this car is gorgeous!  I love seeing this in my garage even though it is not mine. It looks right at home with my other cars.  After a two year break, I am back restoring Z cars....in my retirement.  I love it.

I did some of the work on this Z back in San Diego for a good friend of mine (the owner).  I helped install the  motor and transmission, all of the glass, most of the interior as well as the electrical harness refurb and wiper motor refurb.  To make a long story short, I moved to Idaho, the owner is moving to Texas and not much has been done on the car since I left San Diego.  I was asked to complete the build by the owner which I am more than happy to do.  So, I will blog my progress on the site here for both the owner and others to see.  

Some of the plans are to remove the current brake set-up and install the Z car garage set-up.  Also, I will add air conditioning.  I have done neither of these on my previous builds, but hope to get input from the group and installation videos as needed.

So, car arrived yesterday evening.  We unloaded the car and pushed it into the garage where I will do the work.  Today, I just wiped down the car with detailer and microfiber cloth to clean off the dust on the car and the engine bay, also cleaned the windows.  I aligned the hood and latch mechanism so that everything operates smoothly. Tomorrow, I will begin to tackle the electrical wiring.

Most of the remaining parts are still in San Diego, but will arrive here in two weeks. Until then, I will clean up some of the items that are currently on the car.  Here are a few pics

 

[SpeedRoo]

Love the BRE paint scheme, must have looked fantastic when it first appeared in 1970. Look forward to your build on this one @motorman7 , always enjoyed all your other restorations over the years. They have been an invaluable resource in helping me try and get things right on my cars.

[Diegodonn]

Hi All, just for source info this is my car that Rich has graciously agreed to finish for me and to do a once over to make sure that everything that I installed was done correctly.  I started it in 2016 after stripping it except for the suspension and wheels I sent it to SOS Customs in Oceanside to do the minor body work and paint.  They first sandblasted it and then it sat for about 9 months because they were too busy to get to it.  Finally started working on it and it only took them about 3 months to finish it before I picked it up.

I brought it home, put it up on jack stands and stripped the rest of the suspension pieces off and sent them out for power coating.  After getting those pieces back, I began the slow process on putting it back together as well as buying lots of new parts.  I enlisted my step son to help as I needed an extra pair of hands on occasion.  Since he knew nothing about cars, he eagerly agreed.  Over the coarse of the next 5 years, we got it about 3/4 done.  My wife has been very ill the last few years and I haven't been able to work on the car for about the last year and a half, as I have been caring for her full time.

Since deciding to move to Texas, both for her care and that's where my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids live, I asked Rich if he would finish the car for me since I have no place to put it until my house gets finished.  He agreed and this is where we are at now.  I will be driving the remaining parts out to him in Boise in about 2 weeks when I return from Texas.  I still need to sell my house and get everything moved.  My house should be done by the end of the year and I'm thinking the Z will be done by then as well.  If you have any questions about the build up to this point feel free to ask.  Thanks,

Donn

[motorman7]

I did a little work on electrical wiring the last couple days.  I installed the new modern fusebox, splicing it into the original harness.  Conveniently, the new fuse box had the yellow terminal sleeves to make it easy to graft into the original harnes.  I worked under the passengers side dash to make the connections for the engine bay, dash and rear harness connections.  Most of this was pretty straight forward as the connectors are Poke-a-Yoke.  I did have to replace a few broken terminals on the harness, but overall, not too bad. 

I had to drop the tank a bit to install the fuel tank harness which was coiled up in the back of the car.  Also, I could not find the ground nut hole on the frame under the rear panel so I drilled a hole and secured the ground to the body.  Not sure if the hole was covered up or did not exist at all because it is a 1970 car.  Anyway, wire is now properly grounded and securely attached.  Pics below.
 

A little more car info:  Engine was rebuilt by the same shop that does Adam Corolla's race car engines.  
 

[motorman7]

Car parts arrived, so I am now continuing the assembly.  I installed the rear hatch vents, the spoiler and internal hatch cover.  Installed the radiator and temporary install of hoses (clamps are a little on the large size and will need to be revisited).  Also installed the front air dam, Skillard grill, and bumper deletes. I wish I could say that it all bolted together perfectly, but such was not the case.  The rear spoiler was fairly simple as were the vents, however the front air dam and grill are a very close fit.  The grill has about a half inch clearance from the body at the top, however, the air dam is line to line with the grill.  Also, on the grill, the lower support in the center required some modification as the slot was not long enough to engage the support.  I had to drill a hole a bit below the slot in order to get full support.  Also, the grill comes stock with just 3 support points, 2 upper (one on each side) and 1 lower in the middle.  There are two lower side mounts on the front clip that are not used as the grill has no features for these.  These would be nice as they would help with alignment of the grill.  Below are a few pics.

[motorman7]

Boy, got sidetracked with my daughters wedding, landscaping projects, contract work and life in general.  Finally getting back to working on the Z now that all of that stuff is done.

I finished the front end, installing the halogen headlights (will install relay kit later) front turn lights and side lights.  I rebuilt the  headlight holders which were freshly zinced, installing new screws, wire sleeving, new connectors and over shield. 

Installed the aftermarket antenna.  I will post the brand name later as it was a pretty nice install.  Added bullet connectors to mate to original harness.  everything lined up well.

I put in the new threshold vinyl and scuff plates.  Also installed the Sparco seats.  The rails on the Sparco seats are about half an inch wider than the stock seat rails so I had to drill 2 additional 3/8" holes to accomodate the wider rails.  

Started work on the fuel system.  I mounted the K&N electronic fuel pump on the rear suspension brace after modifying the electrical wires and making a custom mount plate.  I added about 8 inches in length and added bullet terminal to mate into the existing harness. Also started installing fuel lines.  Should have the fuel system complete in a couple days.

Installed shock tower braces front and rear.  Will remove protective blue plastic once car is complete...or let owner do that.  Will leave on for now to help prevent any scratches.

Pics are below.

[grannyknot]

Beautiful work.

[motorman7]

        I had some spare housings for the engine light, so I put a couple together.  The original was pretty corroded.  The white dome on top is definitely very hazy and opaque, so I cleaned it as best as I could.  It would be nice if someone would contract a mold for these and have some nice translucent ones made.  I installed the most silver looking light as it better matches the engine bay colors.

        I installed the fuel hoses to the electronic fuel pump, tank and forward metal lines under the car.  The metal lines had to be reformed slightly as they were crashing into the rear suspension parts as shown in the pic below.  Such is the curse of aftermarket parts.  Anyway, everything worked out nicely with a little tweaking (not to be confused with twerking).  Hoses routed smoothly and installation is pretty clean. 

        I am trying to figure out a clean way to route the carb float bowl vent into the small K&N air cleaners.  I would like to drill a hole in the base of the air filter and route the hose into the air cleaner, but that leads to a pretty sharp bend in the hose, and it collapses.  A right angle fitting would work better.  I will have to look around a bit and see what is available.  Not sure what other options there are without things looking too messy.

Pics below.

[motorman7]

Got the Door cards and handles installed.  They went in very nicely with no issues and look great.  Need to find a chrome pull handle finisher for the drivers side.  The one I have has pitted chrome.  May be somewhere in the stash of parts here.

[motorman7]

I installed the Z Car Garage brake kit on the Z Replica yesterday.  Boy, everything should install this smoothly.  The kit comes with a 60 page PDF file with complete step by step instructions for the installation.  I was able to pull the PDF up on my phone and follow the instructions conveniently.  Instructions not only had very clear pictures, but also included torque values and thread lock instructions at each step.  Also, the machining is BEAUTIFUL and the quality is excellent. The parts arrived in three nicely packed boxes.  The parking brake set-up is also pretty cool.

The only issue I ran into during the assembly was that the previous front brakes on this car had the Toyota caliper set-up, and the 4 bolts that secure the disc to the hub were longer than the stock bolts.  As a result, I had find the correct bolts in my stash.  Fortunately, I had them on hand. You can see the bolt length difference in the third picture below. Other than that, a very straight forward install.  Was able to complete the install in a day.

[Patcon]

Nice kit.  Sounds well designed. Pretty significant investment...

[grannyknot]

Will be looking forward to your report when you get the pads bedded in, I've heard that kit gives remarkable braking.