Richard Oben

Nice Job but you have to slow down, you are making the rest of us (ok just me) look bad. Keep up the great work, Cheers Richard.

More pix added for those who care. I know this an 8 month old thread. I am just S L O W as we have fortunately been busy in the shop. The Z is mine and it is always second to something that pays the bills. Thanks for looking. Cheers Richard.

More pix: Sorry for the fuzzy pix my wife is great but a lowsy photographer. Stuck the carbs on to store them. From driver side: From Pass side: The polished cover is one I bought years ago. I have the 2400 OHC cover for it which will go on so this one is just for now. Seems a waste to remove such a nice part to put on one that is stock silver. Thanks for looking and be easy on me with the greif about time. I still have to clean up all the line clamps and put them on but I will work on that and the rest of the engine hardware soon. Enjoy, cheers Richard.

Well time goes by and things get busy, the shop has had other projects that pay so the Z has been sitting but I finally had some time to get some other things done. In the previous pix the goal was a roller, harder than it sounds when it was nothing but parts. In the following it was time to get more parts on the car. Mostly all the brakes are on all the lines are run and the today the motor and transmission went in with the help of one of my guys. He took time out of his Sunday to give me a hand. He also rebuilt the motor and the automatic transmission. I may be in the running for the slowest redo ever. I am sending the dash back to have the redo redone as they put no holes in it and did not realize the upper hole in the dash has nothing in it and it looks like crap the way they did it. Once it comes back I hope to get it running this fall. I may hot wire it and then get it back to the body shop and do the rest of the wiring and interior when they are done. I have to say this site has been very valuable in helping out when I need a question answered. VERY VERY helpful. For those who think all the questions get old and all the answer been said, keep doing and saying the rest of us are reading. Enjoy the pix, cheers Richard. Engine on hoist still with transmission behind it. Engine almost in, strapping the trans to hold it in place. I am the old guy with the gray hair. I am only 45 (god I remember when I thought that was almsot dead) the other guy with no gray is Jeff and he is almost as old but does not look it. Engine in the hole. We did not scratch anything which is amazing. Engine in hoist off.

Hot rod air here also. I opted to not worrry about the fresh air. If I need it will pull open the vents. I just sealed the cowl vent and will run the heat and air with cabin air only. My observation on HR was they were a bit of a pain to make the controls work and look OE. I had to send it all back and have them redo it. The smashed the original control panel to bits, I had a spare which is a good thing. I have not finished the install but I hope to have it up and running in another couple of months. The 1970 controls are a lot different than any of the later model stuff, so that was part of the problem. My only regret is the hot rod air is very tight to the upper cowl. I will try to get some pix soon. Cheers Richard.

Bought studs and had studs and bolts and had no idea what went where. This forum gave me the answer in a matter of moments. Thanks to all who take the time and effort to answer questions. Some day I hope to contribute more. Thanks again, Cheers Richard.

That is a great deal on that car. Congrats, Cheers Richard. HLS30 009070

In the never ending restoration of 9070 I wan to make the car better without messing it up. (all bolt on mods) So bolting on sway bars seemed like a good thing. I bought the rear bar complete several years ago on eBay. Well I opened it up and it had no mount plates (no idea if they were supposed to be there or not, can't remember). The bar looked like an older Suspension Techniques bar and it would fit if it would have the mounts. I have the matching front bar already mounted. So after searching this site I found a thread about ST Suspension (Suspension Techniques) and googled them. Called and asked if they would sell just the mount brackets. They said sure, and three days later I have the mounts to put the bar on the in hand. Cad plated really nice parts for a little over 60 bucks. They had no reason to break up a 'kit' but did so even though they were not going to sell the bar. In this day of bad companies doing bad things it is good to see good companies do good things. Thought I would pass on my good experience. If you are thinking about bars I would support them. Cheers Richard.

No need to remove any fluid. Two bolts for the MC. And the stand on you head under the dash to get the 4 bolts on the firewall and the pedal pin. From there the booster will come out no problem. The MC may need to be pushed out of the way a little but no need to undo any lines. HTH, Richard.

Not wanting to add fuel to the fire too much but 9070 does not have the winter summer flapper and appeared to be all original when I purchased it. It is an 8/70, the manual that came with it also makes no mention of the flapper. It has the 2400 valve cover also. Not sure about any of this for sure but just my observation. Cheers Richard.

Tough question. I just installed the kit from Classic Tube on my 70 240. It took several hours and I am still not done. My car is west Texas car and the least rusty Z I or anyone I know of has ever seen. Mine were border line in a few areas so I replaced them. The brake and fuel lines were OK looking but for the money getting all new stainless seemed like the right thing to do. Besides your life depends on them being good. On the other hand our club did a psuedo resto of a 75 280 and we put all the stock stuff back on. I would clean out the lines and then let them sit for a couple of days and then clean them again, if they have any rust residue on the second cleaning I would replace them. Most lines rust from the inside out not the other way around. HTH, Cheers Richard. PS I just reread this and it really offers no real help ()

Beautiful work and inspiration for the rest of us. Cheers Richard. HLS30-009070

I installed one in a GTM, what a royal pain the rear. They made it look easy, all the real work was done before the plug and play shown on the show. We spent over 40 hours with two guys wiring the car. It is a cool concept but in my opinion not worth the hassle or the trouble or the time. There are several guys, mostly tech geeks or Electrical engineer types that really really like it or should I say think it is cool. For a newer car with newer and varied options it is not a bad idea but for our simple cars not ideal. The number of circuits are limited and even though they say it is less wiring I disagree, there is the same or more than a painless or other wiring harness I have installed. My biggest complaint is none of the wires are labeled. This is not the industry standard. I have installed just about every brand of harness out there, Painless, AAW, Haywire, Quikwire, Dieted donor harness, and this was by far the most time consuming and the least well thought out. On a Painless or others all the wires are marked, rt turn to light or rt turn to dash for example. This had none of that. Make it up as you go along and make your own diagram etc. Not simpler or easier than a painless, in my opinion. Again a neat concept but complete overkill for the average guy. I know only one guy who has installed more than one of them. I know a bunch of people who installed one and will never do another. This is JUST MY OPINION, Richard.

More pix added to the thread. Thanks for looking. Cheers Richard.

Well after getting some other projects done I got to back to the Z some. Here are some pix of where I am now. Spent quite a bit of time over the holidays putting POR 15 on all the suspension pieces and suspension mounts. New struts, new springs, new ball joints etc. I forgot how long it takes to put all that stuff back together. Kind of big day (Sunday the 4th) I/we (wife helped a little) made the car roll for the first time in about 2 years. I have new brake lines and fuel lines that I will install this week. The main reason I put the suspension on is so I could put it on the lift. It will be much easier to get all the fuel and brake lines on while on the lift. Will do all the brakes while on the lift also, new booster and MC plus all the lines, calipers, pads shoes, drums etc are all here I just have to find them. The engine is due back next week, transmission is here already as is the differential. I plan to do the half shafts and drive shafts this week if I have time. I hope to have the HVAC stuff installed by the end of the month. My plan is to have the tub ready to go back to the painter in March, hopefully running and driving so they can do the rest of the panel paint and install. I guess that is all I have to report for now. Cheers Richard. Rear suspension. More rear suspension Tunnel from Engine bay. Left rear with strut and wheel on. Front frame POR 15 and strut on. Front suspension. Engine bay, pretty empty. Passenger side front end. Finally a side shot of the car.

Congrats on the new addition, really cool stuff, cheers Richard.

I have a 4 post lift and a high lift door, it is within 2 inches of the ceiling. I only have 10.5 foot ceilings and I can still get most of the cars all the way up and get underneath the door, depending on which way the car is pulled on. For example the X5 has to go in reverse so the door can go all the way to the windscreen. With the 12 foot height you should not have a problem. The only disadvantage of the two post is the fact it can not move. My shop is 24X30 and if at all possible make the garage/shop as large as possible, there are many times I wish I had more room. For the rest I think you are fine. HTH, cheers Richard.

Jonny O, I built the car, it is what I do. We build cars for people. I have heard of Revenge but never seen any of their cars. We have been involved with Factory Five for 10 years. I have had the Z for 16 and just can't seem to let it go. Thanks for the kind words. cheers Richard.

Well we are way overfull on cars. Daily drivers are: 1994 BMW 325is my wifes old car my driver, it will not die 167K miles. 2002 BMW X5 my wifes car, also over 100K 2001 Ford Excursion Powerstroke Diesel (tow vehicle) HLS3009070 in progress 1965 Daytona coupe replica from Factory five. 331 SBF EFI that looks like weber carbs. Built in 2001/2 2008 GTM also from Factory five. 400HP LS1 in the back with a Porsche transaxle even futher back. The GTM is 42 inches at the roof top. Crazy short, 4 inches shorter than a Ferrari 430 (had them side by side at a rally for charity). 2300 lbs 400 hp scary fast. Yes sir, complete car fools. My wife had the subscription to car and driver when I met her. Fun thread. cheers Richard.

It looks like his plan was to do a VIN swap from one to the other, Not legal or ethical but that looked like the plan to me. I could be wrong and hope I am. It has been going on with Mustang/shelbys for years. JMO, Richard.

Unless you have a ton of experience with race pads do not overestimate the benefit of a good set of pads. We help on a race car (not a z but a 2450 lb car with 11 rotors on the front) and it runs Carbotech pads. We run XP10s on the front and XP12s on the rear. The car will throw the driver against the belts every time, even on a 3 hour enduro, (which we won!). The other thing is cooling ducts. We blew a cooling hose on one session, the brakes went to crap in a one lap. In short, get race pads, get good high temp fluid and get cooling ducts. I would bet those three things will help more than you can possibly imagine. HTH, cheers Richard.

Thanks for the kind words. Most of the work was done at the body shop. One of their employees used to work for Rad Rides by Troy. So the fabrication is excellent, not cheap but the work is really, really good. The color is Chrome yellow from Ford and the car was originally tennis ball yellow. I know it should be painted back that color but I could not do it, I just do not like the color well enough. The green in the pix is either Datsun primer or our primer. I should have it out of the trailer in a couple of days (other money making projects in the way right now) and get some more pix then. Lots of work yet to go. Look for lots of stupid questions in the near future. Cheers Richard.

I posted in the introduction but more people look here. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32449 Thanks for letting me hang out here. Richard.

Detail of dog leg repair, getting all the rust required some small rocker work. None of this is visible now. After rust repair and before priming. The bottom was blasted and we POR 15 the entire underside. I know it is not original but I will dipped if I ever have a problem again. POR 15 is amazing. We did all the welding and repair first as POR 15 is a NON weldable process. Epoxy primer. Final primer. As of last week. That is all for now. Richard.

More pix. Going onto the frame table. It was hit in the front and the shock towers were tweaked about .25 inches. Easy fix, only money. The naked truth, there is no such thing as a rust free Z. Dry ice revealed the rust. The only other rust on the car was the dog leg on both sides. The shop made new panels and they are so well installed that no one can tell, we saved the seam and all the original spot weld locations. Passenger and driver floor after repair. The panels were made not bought!