motorman7

Hi Dave, The '71 will be fun to work on. Looking forward to it. Got the first batch of Yellow zinc parts back. They look so pretty! Pics are lousy though, flourescent lights are the worst for photos. Also got new flat and lock washers in from Belmetric. It's not worth the time to wire wheel and plate washers since you can get most of these for 6 to 10 cents each. Much cheaper and simpler to go this way for the washers.

Hi Jim, Darn near impossible to get those fittings out in a clean manner. The list of items I utilized over the last week and a half include, PB Blaster, Kroil, Muriatic Acid, and a high temp torch. After all that, and using a 14mm flare wrench, I could not get those things lose. Anyway, I am glad they are out and fortunately I have a nice one to put on. Hopefully I will get that today with fresh plating. It's pretty exciting with all the stuff going on and things are progressing very quickly. Body is coming along well at the paint shop, dash is at "Just Dashes", sent the carbs and intake manifold off to ZTherapy last week (insured UPS shipping was just $28), and parts are being plated just down the street. Will be nice when this all comes together. Thanks for the words of encouragement. Best regards, Rich

The inspection lights are multiplying . I cleaned up the original for this car and sent it off to the platers along with the engine bolts and other parts to get the yellow zinc plating. Should get those parts back tomorrow. Can't wait to see them. I will drop off the silver zinc parts when I pick up the yellow parts. Still had a very hard time getting the air galley off even after soaking the air fittings for well over a week. I was not able to salvage the air galley that came with the exhaust manifold, but I was able to get out all of the fittings in tact, mostly. Five I was able to unthread using vise grips and a hammer. One I had to drill and tap, so not to bad. Tapped with the 1/4 BPST tap. I will run the tap through the other five ports just to make sure they are all cleaned up. Then I will send this off to get ceramic coated. Pics are below

Updates from the paint shop

The two orange ones are kind of worn out, but they came with the Caswell plating kit. Caswell lists them as a 'Nylon abrasive wheel' with no grit specified. Since they were worn, I got the blue one at Home Depot. It is designed for a drill, but I drilled out the center drill shank with a 1/2" bit and sandwiched it between the two orange ones. Seems to work pretty well. I don't know what the grit is but it originally looked like this. https://www.amazon.com/Dico-541-784-4-Nyalox-Wheel-4-Inch/dp/B00004YYD9/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492481361&sr=8-3&keywords=Abrasive+wheel 240 grit is about right.

The Plating Process: Spent several hours yesterday (before Easter activities) prepping parts for plating. The plating is a very involved process and prep is the most important thing. Since I am doing a large number of parts, I will be sending these out for plating where they can plate these in large barrels. I have my own set-up, but it is better suited for low quantity work. The first step is to clean the oil and gunk off of the original parts. Usually I will do this by putting the parts in my paint thinner/lacquer thinner mix, using a brush to clean off the parts. This will remove most of the oily stuff and loose junk. Then I will dry the parts on a cloth. The parts need to be free of oils or they will contaminate your wire wheel. Once that is contaminated it spreads to all the parts, so this needs to be clean. I also intermittently clean the wire wheel with lacquer thinner just for good measure. After the parts are dry, I remove all the rust, paint and plating using the wire wheel. This can be a bit tricky as most of the parts are somewhat small. Typically I will wear a leather glove on my left hand and thin latex glove on the right. Goggles are a must as the little wires will occasionally fly off in addition to the debris and occasionally the part itself. A small breathing mask is also useful due to the dust. The part needs to be completely cleaned of the old material or the new zinc will not stick or look good. I also use a fiber wheel for cosmetic purposes after the parts have been wire wheeled. The fiber wheel makes surfaces super shiny which will also make the plating super shiny. Usually I will do the bolt heads and other very visible parts on the fiber wheel. At this point the parts need to be plated fairly soon or they will quickly rust. The parts are essentially naked at this point. Some people prefer to sand blast parts before plating. This is convenient for tight spaces but results in a somewhat dull finish. This is a fairly laborious process, but it's the little details that really make the car. Pics are below.

Did a little more clean-up on the engine parts. Cleaned and painted the oil pan and front pulley. Cleaned and put a light coat of high temp aluminum paint on the front timing chain cover. Parts are just loosely attached to the block since I don't have the nuts and bolts ready for plating. Hope to have those to the plater this Monday so I can start actual assembly soon. Will also get the valve cover glass bead blasted so that looks nice and pretty. Got a nice E30 Exhaust manifold with air galley off of e-bay (replaces the N36 that was installed on the car in 2013 and not original). Will douse the air galley fittings with Kroil and let them soak a bit before I try to remove. The air galley is in nice shape so I would like to try and preserve that. Pics are below.

Yellow zinc plating

Got the head on and torqued down. Put on the timing chain with number one cylinder at TDC and aligned the shiny links to the dots. Adjusted the valves, .007" gap intake and .010" gap exhaust. Put on the oil sump. I think this was all the easy stuff. Now it's time to attack the oil pan and exhaust manifold. I got a semi-new air galley for pretty cheap on e-bay so I will install that once I get the after market air galley off. That will be a bit of a challenge. I have been soaking the air nozzle fittings for about a week now in PB blaster with little progress. I am almost thinking that the easiest way to get this off would be to drill and tap. Anyway, things are moving along Oh, and I cleaned off the 'KAR' from the front of the head with lacquer thinner. Not sure what that was from.

Got the pistons in with new rings and rod bearings. Did final torque on Crank and rod bearings. Crank bearings torqued to 38 ft-lbs, Rod bearings to 23 ft-lbs.

It's overcast here, but you can see the difference the lighting makes. Also, here is a picture with the alternator bracket with original paint from the same motor. Pretty close given the bracket paint is about 45 years old. As I mentioned before, my only issue with the paint is that it seems to be on the glossy side. It should have more of a satin finish.

Hi Carl, The pictures above are a bit dark because of the lighting. I just double checked the color using the CDM paint on the lower left flange and there is no difference. I will take a pic of the block a little later today in natural lighting. The blocks below are the exact same color, just the lighting is different.

And more paint shop pictures. Looks like we are going down to bare metal on the hood. Looks like the hood has been orange, yellow and red in a previous life.

Yes, have that cleared already...I use that a lot. Pretty much all metal on the car needs to be painted or plated. Only metal that may not get some clear or plating would be some of the aluminum motor parts.

There is really a lot going on with the car now. We are in full production. The body is at the paint shop, the dash is at 'Just Dashes', and I just got the block and head back from the machine shop. The head was leaked checked and the rubber seals were checked. It was in perfect shape and the block only needed to be honed. They did a mild clean on the block also. No significant scratches in cylinder 1 which had the cracked ring. That worked out well. After I got the block and head home, I wire wheeled the block and wiped it down with phosphoric acid and then lacquer thinner. After that I painted the block. The paint was from California Datsun and looks to be the same color as the previous blend from CDM. I think the only difference is this paint appears to be a bit glossier, but I think that will be fine. I also got the freeze plugs in and the crank, crank bearings and rear seal. Before and after pics are below.

Coincidentally, I was actually at Just Dashes this morning dropping off The '72 240Z dash. Shipping is pricey (that's why i dropped it off) at $179 each way. Cost is $1750 for standard black. Lead time is 10-12 weeks. First payment to be made when they start which is about 3 weeks after they receive the dash. ..Oh, and I taped over the Kanji..and mentioned the importance of that to the guy at the front desk.

It's gone.....didn't think that would last long.

Good question, I will have to check and get back to you on that. Here are some of the latest body work pics. Miguel wanted to remove some of the previous paint work, so he has done quite a bit of sanding. Looks like the hood may have had three paint jobs so he is removing most of that. Nice progress in short time.

Will take the head and the block to the machine shop tomorrow. The head should be fine, but I want the shop to check the valve seating just to make sure. For the block, I am hoping that we can get away with just a cylinder hone to knock of the glaze. Also want to get it hot tanked to clean it up. Piston ring in cylinder one was cracked. Not really a problem as I will get new rings, but it explains the gritty material in the bottom of the block.

Didn't notice that when I was looking at the ad....just saw the pictures. Yes, would be nice to know why it was salvage.

I would probably pick this up if I had space. Looks nice from the pictures. I love the flat tops and the many original parts in the engine bay. Even the plastic cover for the regulator is there. '73s with the original flat tops are getting rare since everyone changes these out to the round tops. Still kicking myself for selling my silver '73. Wish I had that one back. https://sandiego.craigslist.org/esd/cto/6066092298.html

Thanks Zup, I will make sure I have the kanji taped off so it doesn't get painted. Nice to know. Thanks Captain, no plans on switching parts. I will clean these up and re-install....eventually.

Removed the instruments and harness from the dash this weekend. Will drive the dash up to 'Just Dashes' in Van Nuys and drop it off for restoration. Started the tear down of the motor. I was hesitant to take the head off the motor at first as it looks to be in perfect shape, but I wasn't sure about the block components (a little more car Z CSI). As you can see in the pics, the cam gear and chain look brand new and the head looks very clean. Obviously, the top end had been recently repaired. However, I had no idea what condition the pistons, rings and cylinders were in, so I did take it off. Pictures are shown below. The bottom end looks clean, but could probably use a cylinder hone and new rings. I will take it to the machine shop and get their opinion. I will also take the head in and have them check out the seal on the valves. Also need to check bearing clearances.

The price range that we discussed is $5-10K. This includes final prep for paint, final clean-up and some minor welding work on the driver side floor board. The car will get a full primer coat and guide coat. Assuming all is well after that, it will get a two stage paint job in the original 918 orange, color sand and final polish. For the money I think it will be Concours level work at mid-level cost. Miguel does some very high end work. I am looking forward to seeing the final product.

Big day to today. Finally got the car off to the paint shop. Woo-Hoo! I am very excited about the paint shop here. The final prep, primer and paint will be done at 'Customs by Miguel'. Miguel does the paint work for Les at Classic Datsun Motorsports and specializes in Z cars. He also does the paint work for several of the local racers. His work is very impressive so I am looking forward to monitoring the progress. While Miguel is taking care of the paint, I will get the dash ready for delivery to 'Just Dashes' in LA. After that, I will start work on the motor. Things are moving along pretty well. Below are some pics of the car delivery to the paint shop. You can see some of Miguel's work here including the Bob Sharp Racing Nissan prepared for the Amelia Island Concours: https://www.facebook.com/CustomsByMiguel/