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Progress so far, Heater box, Evaporator and ECU are in with the vacuum hoses connected. The Blower is waiting while I chase down a wiring hack. Air vents, cowl drains, steering column and relays are done. Found two hacks on the ignition wiring and a few more on the hazard and defog switches on the console harness. As soon as the control arms to get back from having the old linings pressed out, this thing will be on the ground.

I like my '72 240 the best of anything with four wheels I've ever owned. No computers or ECUs, black boxes etc. My favorite of all time, flat spot on the front tire with gravel inside, had only 3 wheels.

My buddys car has the same 900mm as does mine and his hood fits beautiful. I would not sweat it . Sent from my SM-N950W using Tapatalk

I got the system in. Now just need to pull a vacuum. I also got some r12 and should install this weekend. The Zx bracket is super nice and everything tucks nicely The dryer I found matches almost perfectly.

I did a hi-res scan of the FSM chassis drawing and then did a raster to vector conversion. For those who are interested, I am attaching the cad file (.dwg format) that most cad software should open, as well the same drawing as a pdf. I scaled the .dwg file as close as I could to 1:1. One thing I noticed was that when I scaled such that the horizontal dimensions were accurate the vertical dimensions were plus about 3%. See the dims in green that I added for reference. Mike 240Z Chassis Dimensions - Source 1972 FSM Dated 10SEP71_Scaled_26MAY2018.pdf 240Z Chassis Dimensions - Source 1972 FSM Dated 10SEP71_Scaled_26MAY2018.dwg

Went to see my machinist. He is almost done with rough porting. Then he is going to cut the valve seats, polish everything up and then combustion chamber shaping/unshrouding of the valves. My dad met me over there in one of his 240's so I snapped a pic of our cars together too.

Looks great! Glad you got the cooling system sorted. btw if you are ever in a pinch for a simple gasket, you can take the metal part and press it into the cardboard from a breakfast cereal box. Cut out the indentation with a blade and you have a gasket. Some gasket sealer such as the molasses-like Permatex Aviation Sealant works great (put on all FOUR surface to tack for 5 min then assemble). Some autoparts shops also sell rubber, coated paper, and cork gasket material in A4 sized (or similar) sheets. https://youtu.be/nBG9C0Py0Ks?t=50s

Ok, so I went and measured the car in the shop. The pinch welds on the bottom of the rocker panels appear to be parallel. It's a little hard to measure the front because the floor supports interfere with a straight measurement. The rear was easy and measures out at 51 1/4". The under floor pan frame rails are close to 30" outside to outside but get a little wider near the front of the floor board. I wonder if that is because there are more layers of metal there. For center line in the rear there seems to be a list of good candidates. Center of mustache bar bolts, center of control arm bolts, etc. All of these seem to be centered off of the wheel wells. The front is more difficult. I agree that everything forward of the firewall is suspect. I ended up concluding that the center of the hood latch bracket is a good candidate for a center line. It seems to measure very close to center from the top of the fender supports. If the hood latch is not centered anymore then you probably have bigger problems. Not much else there to work with...

Has anyone tried a magnet on these SS bumpers? I'd bet one would stick to the Vietnamese bumpers. I buy a lot of SS bolts and every one from Lowes/China will attract to a magnet. Fastenal is my go to now, a few extra miles but true stainless.

Well more to report still, recently its felt like one step forward and two steps backwards however I finally feel as though some progress is being made. Quite a few weeks back now my new OS Giken single plate clutch and lightweight flywheel combo turned up from Japan which looks like a piece of art, currently placed on the shelf gathering dust for now though. I’ve also received an uprated diff mount from the US which seemed like some sensible over engineering to go in with the LSD not knowing the state of the oem hardware which I imagine is still very original. I now have a good lead for S14 gears thanks to JP so keeping my fingers crossed on that count, my Z therapy setup is also just waiting on the polished intake manifold and then that’ll be on its way as well. In other good news the stub axels made by John Williams have just been finished so I’m finalising details to have a small batch sent across for a few of us at the same time to keep costs down. Having further investigated my coolant issues as several of you now know it turned out to be that the water pump gasket had failed and was leaking coolant down the block onto the alternator belt and arb. Having written the car off from attending both the Donington Historic and Japfest I changed my registration on both tickets not thinking I wouldn’t be able to source and fit a replacement before the weekends shows. Having nearly given up in a last ditch attempt I gave Four ways a call on Thursday who happened to have literally one left in stock so a priority delivery later and I had a replacement on Friday morning before show day. Having got home and drained and stripped the front end it was clear that the original gasket was knackered and where the leak was coming from, having cleaned the surfaces and fitted everything back up it was apparent the gasket hadn’t seated properly so back it all came off with some more gasket sealant more generously applied to the bottom to seal the joint. Everything was going well at this point until in my tired state I over tightened the last bolt and snapped it! A job for later, the system was refilled and the leak was gone. Following a short test drive, fuelled up and loaded all the spares I could think of into the car as well as printed off my breakdown cover policy the car was ready to go at 11pm. Having recycled the coolant following the installation more signs have been appearing to support the theory that the car had serious coolant system issues in the past before my ownership and the band aid approach was applied. Having now done the heater matrix, head gasket, water pump and physically inspected and seen the poor state of the oem radiator it’s clear that some form of rad weld was holding the system together for a while. Plans in the short term are to remove the water pump to sort the snapped bolt and replace all bolts with new ones, completely flush the system again and look to sort the radiator. I’m still in two minds as to whether to re-core the oem radiator or to take the opportunity to drop a Mishimoto Ali rad in its place to improve the cars cooling. I’ve also been recommended a Gano filter that can be put into the system to pick up any remaining crud as well which should all massibly improve the efficiency. Fingers crossed that once this has been done everything was be in tip top condition and I won’t have any more surprises from the engine bay. The good news was despite the fact the engine needs a health check it made both Donington and Japfest and managed both journeys without complaint! Both shows were fantastic and allowed for some long overdue catch ups, let me put some faces to names and get plenty of ideas of things to be done. Having not been out in the car properly in months it was really nice and gave me some much needed motivation to push on with the project. The car got some fantastic attention over the weekend particularly at Japfest which was really nice, and on the home had people hanging out of windows and all sorts to get pictures and wave. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed everything slots together I can try and ambitiously get everything some before the Le Mans Classic in July. IMG-5612 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr IMG-6011 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr When most people are cleaning their cars or chilling with a beer before show day! IMG-6013 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr Out with the old and in with the new IMG-6014 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr Looking fairly tired and abused IMG-6016 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr More evidence of my band aid theory, this didn’t get back into the system IMG-6021 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr