Namerow

Yup. That's what my home-made version looks like, too! Probably won't take you more than three attempts and 30 minutes to make one from scratch. In the 'open' position that Mike's picture shows, the spring still needs to have a bit of tension in it (to keep the lid forced open). That should give you an idea of what the spring should look like when it's fully relaxed/extended -- i.e. the two legs will sit at about the 12 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions.

Try winding your own. It's not that hard. All you need is a 2' length of steel wire of approx. the right gauge (0.015 - 0.020"?). Stainless would be nice. I think I used regular (non-tempered) hardware store wire, but it might have been tempered ('music wire'). Use a bolt shank or stud to form the coils (diameter somewhere between 1/8" and 3/16", IIRC). Clamp the bolt/stud vertically in your bench vise. To get a proper grip on the wire, clamp a pair of ViseGrips on each end. Now, holding the vice grips in each hand, wrap the wire around the bolt/stud. You need to form about 2.5 loops. Keep the coils stacked tight together as you wrap. Finish with the two projecting wire legs at about the 12 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions. Form an 'out-of-plane' 90-degree bend on each leg, then snip off the excess so that you leave just enough to fit into the hole in the lid flange and the hole in the tray body. All dimensions and angles referenced above are from memory and approximate (I did this job a couple of years ago). It'll take a couple of tries to get it right... but then, wire is cheap! The end result worked just fine for my ashtray and looks like a (spring) factory item.

I know, I know (sigh) . I'm hoping that someone will convince me it's do-able without taking that step. As I near the end of Year 3 with this project while also holding down a full-time job, I'm getting really conscious of 'mission creep'. Pulling the engine and then re-installing it after the paintwork will probably add two weekends of work to the project (re-and-re hood single-handed, find/prep places in my one-car garage to store hood and engine, build and then tear down engine hoist, maneuver hoist and car into correct positions, etc). There's no doubt in my mind that 'engine out' is the 100% solution. I'm just trying to learn whether 'engine in' will generate a 70% solution vs. a 30% solution, if you get what I mean.

Thanks for these notes, Greg. I have certainly thought of going the rattle can route, for exactly the reasons you mention. I suppose I'm shying away from it now because the body of my car has been sprayed with a non-stock green metallic and two previous attempts at colour matching (packaged in aerosol cans) by two different paint shops were unsuccessful. I've gone to a third paint supplier (recommended by a high-end restoration shop here in my city) and had them mix up a quart can of urethane which I'm expecting (based on their reputation) to be a correct match. While I'd intended this for use on the engine compartment and the front/corner valence pieces, I also want to have some left for possible future spot-touchups, so maybe I can reconcile putting most of it back on the shelf for that purpose. The urethane supplier doesn't do aerosol cans, but they have listed their ingredients build on the side of the can, so I suppose I could take that to a 'regular' paint store and have them mix it up in acrylic enamel form (not sure whether the ingredients and proportions would be specific only to urethane, though). Anybody else have any thoughts or experiences to share?

The engine compartment in my 70 Z was treated to a less-than-stellar, engine-in re-spray by the PO when the main bodywork was painted. Incomplete coverage, quick-and-dirty masking. I'm hoping to remedy that, but I'd like to get some opinions on how to go about it. Here's where things stand at the moment: Engine is still in the car, but completely stripped. Only the block, head, valve cover, timing cover and oil pan are still in place. Exhaust downpipe still attached to the main pipe. Just hanging in open space. Could be removed, I suppose, if it helps with paint gun clearance. Firewall, fender aprons, and rad bulkhead stripped pretty much clean of lines, wiring and parts. All that's left are the fuel delivery/return line and the vapor return line. I really, really don't want to hoist the engine out if I can help it. Nor do I want to remove the hood. I'll be forced to lean in over the fender on each side to do the application, leaning on the top of the valve cover for support when necessary. The spray angles and access for the firewall and the rad bulkhead don't look too bad. Nor do the top halves of the fender aprons. However, gun angles for lower fender aprons and the tops of the frame rails will challenged by the engine being in the way, so the paint will need to be shot at a downward angle of about 60 degrees. Does anyone have any hands-on experience with painting the engine compartment with the engine in place like this. Any tips for gun choice and technique? Also: Any tips for getting decent coverage under the battery support bracket? If have available a regular gun with a 1.3mm nozzle, a touch-up gun with a 0.8mm nozzle, and an airbrush. The new paint is a dark green metallic catalyzed (two-pack) urethane. It'll be going on top of the dark green urethane that was previously laid down by the PO (sanded and cleaned, of course).

Looks like a nice car. I admire your courage for buying site unseen from an overseas seller. Too bad about the shipping damage, though -- especially considering the fact that the car was apparently loaded into a container to prevent exactly this kind of damage from happening. Based on my own experience, I recommend that you go through the electrical connections from stem to stern, using De-Oxit or a similar type of spray to knock down at least some of the oxidation on the terminals. Pulling the white-plastic connector shells apart can be a problem. A bit of heat from a hair dryer before you start tugging may help. Up front, pay particular attention to the connectors for the headlights, the wiper motor, and the voltage regular. Check the condition of the fusible links while you're at it. Under the dash, there are two oversized 'spade' connectors for the primary current that are usually badly corroded. One is located in the console/centre stack area. The other is in among the bundle of connectors where the engine harness connects to the dash harness. To identify, look for heavy-gauge white or white-red wires. These two connectors can get really hot because of the combination of high current and corrosion. Corrosion on the terminals within the Combination Switch (Lights on/off and Headlight hi/lo in particular) and the Hazard Lighting switch is a well-known issue for these cars. Spraying with De-Oxit will help, but disassembly (finicky job) and polishing (Dremel tool with brass wire wheel attachments works well) is a better answer. Don't forget to check the condition of the Fuse Block. Look for a loose fuse (or fuses), which will probably indicate that the Fuse Block's plastic floor has melted and given way. The usual culprit is the Headlight circuit. If you find that your car's Fuse Block has melted like this, make sure you treat both the symptom (melted Fuse Bock) and the cause (corrosion and over-current issues within the Lighting circuit and switching). There are several articles on this site that go over the problem and the solutions in detail. An upgraded Headlight harness (with relays fitted) is probably the best answer. Finally, make sure that the electrical system's body ground connections are good. There's one in the engine bay (fender apron, adjacent to the Starter) and one under the Rear Deck floor, back around the gas tank.

Although I have not tried this, another strategy that I read about involves placing each tire on top of a pair of sheet-metal pads. The contact surfaces between the two pieces of sheet-metal are lubricated so they'll slide. I seem to recall that sand was used, but grease might be a better -- albeit messy -- solution. Plus: car can be rolled onto the pads without needing a jack, and both ends of the car are at the same level. Minus: less clearance to get at the bolts you're trying to torque.

Here's a picture of the early-style hinge, as posted in an eBay listing for a vehicle sale from a few months back (sorry, no credit available)...

From Fred Puhn's book, 'How to Make Your Car Handle': "Many elusive twitches and wiggles can be blamed on bump steer, and often it is the cause of high-speed stability problems [Hello, 240-Z!]... Try really hard for zero bump steer at the front. A car with bump steer in the front suspension will be unpredictable in a turn and unstable during braking. The car is very sensitive to toe-in changes. With bump steer, toe changes can happen with every dip in the road or when you hit the brakes. Both toe-in and toe-out errors give terrible handling and should be avoided in the front suspension". The basic goal: On each side of the car, keep the tie rod parallel with the lower suspension arm throughout the arm's full travel (or, if not, at least for all but the last inch of droop and/or compression). Bump steer's evil twin is something called Roll Steer. It's the same thing, but experienced during cornering. From a design point of view, you still want zero roll steer and bump steer at the front. Roll steer seems to be of greatest interest at the rear. For cars with IRS, the goal is to use roll steer to encourage understeer when the roll angle becomes extreme. To relieve bump steer at the front of the car, one solution is to raise or lower the steering rack (which changes the angle of the tie rods). In your case, though, this has become a problem rather than a solution, so you need to work with the other fixes to try to un-do the result. One of the alternative fixes consists of bump-steer spacers. You've tried these and experienced a positive (but incomplete) result. Maybe you could fab additional spacers using your new/old lathe? Another fix is precisely the type of spherical rod-end tie rod set-up that Chas has illustrated. Puhn says, "This allows shims to be used between the steering arm and the tie rod end for small bump-steer adjustments. Large changes cannot be made this way, but it is a good way of getting an extremely precise small adjustment." Hmmm. Maybe not enough to solve your situation? Interestingly, Puhn's book talks about yet another technique for alleviating bump steer and uses a Datsun 510 to illustrate the point. It consists of bending the steering arms. Puhn cautions that this is a job best left to specialists because: 1) you may crack the arm casting if you heat/bend incorrectly, and; 2) the arms will need to be crack-checked and then heat treated afterwards. I wonder if a less painful way for reaching your final goal would be to use a suspension geometry algorithm (I guess they're called 'apps' now) to investigate different combinations and settings before you actually do any more tweaking/cutting/welding/bending (and purchasing). There's got to be an on-line, free-for-use app on a racers' site somewhere. Maybe one of the other CZCC members can help out with this so that you don't have to go searching (and if you find one, please let the rest of us know so that we can play with it too ). Among other things, it would be interesting to see whether the stock Nissan set-up really does achieve zero bump steer over the full suspension travel (unless somebody else has already investigated this?)

Not 'complete garbage'. Rather, 'failed experiment'! Nice looking wheels, by the way.

I'm confused, Blue. You start off by mentioning '240z Canadian Jan 1971' and ' date codes in the car are Dec-Jan 70/71', but then you say, 'there is no split in the back deck carpet as the 01/1970 had the plastic storage bins behind the seats'. And then the pix that follow right afterwards are labeled, "240Z Jan 1971" but they show a back deck carpet with no split. Would I be correct in saying that your first set of photos are mislabeled and should, in fact, say: '240Z Jan 1970', while the text preamble should say, '240z Canadian Jan 1970' and 'date codes in the car are Dec-Jan 69/70' ? Also, I have a question (for you, or for others) that the photos don't directly address: Did all of the early cars (i.e. cars with the plastic storage bins behind the seats) use the rubber underlay sheet in the back deck area in place of the jute pad underlay that appeared at some later point? Let me put that another way, so you'll see what I'm getting at: Did the jute pad underlay in the back deck area arrive in conjunction with the relocation of the storage areas from behind the seats to underneath the deck floor, or did the jute replace the rubber underlay at some point while the storage areas were still located behind the seats? My car is a 5/70 and was purchased with both carpet and underlay missing from the hatch and the front floor areas, so I need to figure out what should go in those locations.

A giant, chrome moose! Never saw anything like that before. Must be spectacular at night under the lights.

Very useful to see how this panel was designed, esp. the joins at the lower rocker/sill and the hatch sill, as well as the inner panel that joins to the hatch floor. Too bad no one offers these as a re-pop. Nice find!

PM sent

Not in the market at present, but curious: Do you know who is the manufacturer of that strut brace ?

A 'Dogleg Rebuild Panels Kit' might be a winner. Not all these cars need the full inner rocker/sill panel treatment, but the majority seem to have rot in the dogleg. And, as Chris points out, that's a multi-layer construction and not easy to figure out for someone faced with doing it the first time. If the car's owner is hoping to end up with a $15K - $20K car at the end of his/her restoration or refresh project, I would expect that laying out 2 x $300 for a LHS/RHS dogleg panel kit would be a justifiable outlay. Of course, your pricing would need to make sense relative to what Tabco, Zeddfindings and others ask for their types of panels.

Very impressive metal-forming work, esp. considering the gauge and CR material. Price seems more than reasonable, considering the hours I expect you put into fabricating a pair. For a Z with rot in the dogleg area, the chance to put fresh, heavy-gauge sheet metal into the area where the safety belt mounts might be worth the price of admission all on its own.

I bought connectors and tools (crimper, terminal removers) from Vintage Connections last year. Good stuff, and a good vendor (easy ordering process, good packaging, fast turnaround). Recommended. Worth noting that removing the connector shells makes it a lot easier to install a new firewall dustboot on the engine compartment wiring harness. While others have said that it`s possible to coax the dustboot over the connectors (with heat, maybe?), I'm not sure I'd want to risk tearing the boot to try that.

Thanks for posting the interesting pix. Unfortunately, this may kill off your locking gas cap idea. Re your viewer challenge question, it was Artie __ (dressed as a confused WW2 German soldier, emerging from behind fake plants) as a recurring character on 'Laugh In'. What's my prize?

Question for CO: How did you do the stitching? By hand? Household sewing machine? Jobbed out to your local shoe repair shop?

As promised, here are some pix and comments about my plating set-up... Electrolyte Bath Although a 3-gallon set-up would be great, that was going to push the cost of the Caswell 'Part A' and 'Part B' chemicals pretty high, so I opted for the 1.5-gallon set-up instead. That meant doing some head-scratching about bucket sizes and shapes, so as to get the most out of the fixed, 1.5-gallon fluid volume. I looked at three possibilities: 5-gallon pail, 2-gallon bucket, and std-issue dishwashing bowl. I filled each with 1.5 gallons of water and then measured the resulting depth. The floating bottle caps give you an idea of the results. While the 5-gallon pail gives a couple of extra inches in diameter, it also produces a relatively shallow bath depth. In the end, Mr. Happyface won. It gives me a bath depth of about 9" and a diameter of about 10". The dishwashing bowl is what I propose to use for plating bigger parts (haven't tried it out yet). Note: I cleaned all of the bowls in advance (wiped down with alcohol) to make sure there was no parting compound or other manufacturing residue on the inner surfaces. The Caswell electrolyte chemicals consist of a bag of lumpy power and a jar of liquid. They need to be pre-mixed, after which you add 1.5 gallons of (distilled) water. I used the 5-gallon bucket to do the mixing. The Caswell 'Part A' powder also contains a lot of big white chunks of stuff (metal salts?). The chunks eventually dissolves, but not right off the bat. Before adding the Caswell 'B' liquid to the Caswell 'A' powder, I broke down all of the powder lumps (not to be confused with the chunky stuff) and picked out a few suspicious-looking bits of small stuff that didn't look like they belonged. After adding the 'B' liquid, I used a (clean) spoon to mix the two together (creates a watery paste) and then I added the distilled water. I mixed the water in thoroughly, using a paint mixing attachment (pre-cleaned with alcohol) in my cordless drill. The result is a kind semi-opaque, brownish liquid (which eventually turns clear). I did all this mixing on a Saturday evening and just put the lid on the bucket before calling it a day. Not sure whether the white chunks had fully dissolved at that point, but when I came back to the job the next day, the mixture had turned clear brown and there was nothing at the bottom other than a bit of undissolved debris... I poured the liquid into another (clean) 5-gallon bucket, using a coffee filter to get rid of the debris. Then I poured the filtered liquid into Mr. Happyface. More details and pix tomorrow.

Well, third time's a charm, it seems. After two lengthy and unsuccessful adventures with a DIY electrolyte set-up, I finally spent the money and bought the Caswell chemicals. It took me almost full day to create a new set-up... I created all-new baths (distilled water, muriatic acid, MEK solvent, Caswell electrolyte, Caswell blue chromate & Caswell yellow chromate). Every container was wiped down with alcohol before use, to make sure and manufacturing residue, fingerprints, etc. were gone. I also replaced my wire wheel (brass) with a new one, just in case the old one had acquired any kind of contamination. The acid bath was mixed at 1 part acid to 4 parts distilled water Electrolye and chromate baths were created according to the directions on the Caswell packaging (I didn't buy their manual).and added new ones for the electrolyte and the two phosphates) I used a fresh, single hoop of Moss-Boss zinc foil I added 1/2 teaspoon of Caswell's brightener liquid before getting started No heating used for the acid bath, nor for the two chromate dips My detergent bath consisted of a 4-qt crock pot full of distilled water, to which I added 400ml of liquid ammonia and a shot of dish detergent. I kept this at about 100 degrees F. Parts were scrubbed with a toothbrush, then rinsed off in a distilled water bath. The electrolyte bath was kept heated at between 100 - 110 degrees F during plating, with constant agitation using an aquarium bubbler. I pre-heat the solution with a hot water tank heating element, then remove the heater before I start plating. I started at 110 degrees. The temp dropped to about 100 degrees over the plating period. Plating current was set based on 140mA per sq.in. of part surface. I ran the part for 20 minutes, turning it 90 degrees at the 10-minute mark. I wasn't actually ready to get started with my first part (a brake line clip from the engine compartment) until about 3:00 Sunday afternoon. The part looked good coming out of the zinc plating step -- full coverage, dull light grey, no burning, no visible edge or corner effects. It got a quick swish in a distilled water bath, then into the blue chromate for a 60 s. dip. After that, it went directly (no rinse) into the yellow chromate dip for a 15s dip. Then a quick rinse with tap water. Then a 1 min. blast with a blow drier (running on HI heat). I can't tell you what a relief it was to see the part emerge like this... I'll post some pictures of my set-up later, along with some additional comments about settings and running multiple parts. I haven't tried any large items yet, so that remains an unknown.

Thanks, Casey. In the intervening time since I made this post, I've made a couple of important discoveries: I am an idiot. The trim badges (which I already have) come with the barrel clips already installed on the mounting posts. In my defense, they're tiny and easy to miss. There's a (relatively) convenient source for these clips from on online jobber who has an eBay store... Gulf Coast Auto Parts LLC Bag of 25 clips for $9.95 (that's more like it!) Shipping free in the USA (or add $15 for Canadian orders). http://www.ebay.com/itm/Barrel-Nuts-For-Nissan-Qty-25-1-8-Stud-5-32-Hole-Trim-Emblem-Molding-018-/322144534004?hash=item4b014f7df4:g:81wAAOSwuhhXWest&vxp=mtr Lots of other items available from this supplier. Great fun if you're a fastener geek.

When I bought my Z from the PO, the body had been repainted and all of the small press-in clips used to secure the trim badges had been removed and lost. Now that I get around to replacing them, I find that I need 20 of them and they cost $2.50 each. That's $50 for a bagful of clips that I would have expected to be worth five bucks max (ok, maybe ten). Has anyone located a non-Nissan source, or a parts-store substitute, for these pieces? In Nissan parlance, these are: 'Clips - Tublar' (tubular) with the part number, 63845-18000 . In the non-Nissan world, I believe these are called 'trim barrel nuts'. Everybody used to use them back in the day. I think these are what the Nissan clips look like...

This is an impressive build. Great attention to detail. I like the fact that you're willing to divert from the conventional aesthetics here and there (e.g. black fasteners) to get the look you like. I didn't track back through the entire thread to pick up on the details, but I believe there was discussion of electrical tape. May I suggest that you have a look at using automotive 'loom' tape (no adhesive), rather than the non-automotive. Maybe not so important for the under-dash wiring (where covering the wiring runs with tape is probably optional), but a real consideration for the engine compartment, where engine heat can cause the tape adhesive to weep out of the wrap, creating a dirt magnet that will defy easy clean-up. I used loom tape to re-wrap my engine compartment harness (pretty much all of it, by the time the job was finished) and was really pleased with the results. There are some tricks to working with this material but, with a bit of practice, you should be able to complete the job in a morning or an afternoon. A $25 roll should be enough for the front part of the car. If you're interested, I'll post some hints on how to do the wrap.