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Since i got the Zinc plated parts back i'm trying to push the assembly of parts. Just because it's so much fun to finally see the puzzle-pieces come together to bigger pieces Started with the installation of the lately returned Zinc plated bolt and lock-nut: Then felt like it makes sense to clean a lot of small bits before putting it together. I mean wile i'm at it.. Dentist tools... And and old toothbrush came in handy and worked fine: The result. Well i even cleaned them another 30minutes more after this picture: Then started with the installation of the rest of the parts. like the steering boot clamp / Dust ring and the tierod-link stop nut: So next step will be the installation of the NAMS / Nagisa Auto Motor sports (Japan) adjustable Tierod endlinks (now discontinued ) and the steering rack boots. Takes a lot of time to figure out how all belongs together and to clean all the small bits. but honestly it's so much fun

Today i have some nice news: Got back my first load of parts from the Zinc plating and yellow-passivating (which makes it look "golden" and also secures it better from corroding: Honestly this was my first attemt ever in doing something like this. so not all parts ended up perfect as i hoped, but however most of them are usable and some of them were for trying anyway only because anything up t 39 kilograms was the same price so i put whatever part i wanted to have replated into the box anyway. Here's a closer look at the colour: So while i was looking at all the nice parts i got a bit motivated and decided to complete at least the fuel cap So i started with cleaning the still nice and soft rubber seal and adding a bit of Vasiline (Petroleum lube / Jelly) Just to make it last a bit longer. After done i put it back to the cap And installed all back together. Yay - first part complete But not only me was productive today, also Yves over at MUC is working hard at the moment and welded back some hand-crafted rocker panels: Still needs a few touches but it looks brilliant compared to what it looked before Here's another view: With the zinc-plating delivery today i got a lot of parts back which i was waiting for to complete the steering rack assembly and the Front subframe parts. So Expect to see a lot of these parts assembled soon

Thanks to a steel tube, a Hammer and the Torch i somehow managed to remove the steering column bearings which are only press fit. However it seems like i damaged the Plastic spacer and i'm still not sure how to remove the bearing on the lower part of the steering column Jacket. And on we go with the updates from the bodyshop. Yves at MUC is currently replacing the Floorpans, seat mounts, and rocker panels and installing the NOS Framerails: Thats it for now. More to come soon.

Time for another update: 1) While still waiting for the parts to return from the zinc-plating shop i ordered and got some fasteners and small OEM Bits from nissan for the Pedal box. nothing spectacular: 2) Also my Bodyshop guy constantly keeps sending my updates andi hope i can visit him once again next week. Hower his work looks very promising and his fabrikation skills are stunning: During work (Area below the battery tray): The finished, hand-crafted product. Absolutely great in my opinion! Today he started with the floorpans and rocker-panels: Current state of the car. Not much original Metal left. but the work is just brilliant! 3) While waiting for parts and work i decided to disassemble the Steering column. Before: Almost finished. If someone can tell me how the bearings are mounted into the housing and how i can remove them, this would be very helpful. Will get the housings sandblasted and powdercoated and don't think the bearings like to have sand and heat inside. also the service manual, haynes and other books only mention "replace bearings if worn" but not how to... Any advice i'm very thankful for Hope the zinc-plating parts will return early next week and another delivery goes to the powdercoating company

So here we go. Started preparing stuff for getting it zinc-plated / Replated. The company that does the work told me they can only remove slight surface rust and old zinc so i had to remove the thicker rust spots and old paint, grease and rubber: Started like this: 60 pieces total (Note the Snow in my Garden ) Gave all the pieces a treatment with paint-stripper. just to make sure everything is gone: After letting it soak for a while and then cleaning it with water. it looked like this - much better already Spent another hour or so cleaning all the bits with a dremel and a mini wire-wheel. Much better. Now ill ship it to the zinc-plating company and hope to get the bits back soon

Honestly i would like to show you some assembly progress here but unfortunately im still in need to get all the small bits and fasteners cleaned and zinc-plated before i can continue. Also I have a bunch of parts that need to be powedercoated so i decided to spend time with this task first: 1) On my way home from work i stopped by the garage because i had a good idea during work. I Finally found a solution to remove those rear subframe bolts from the chassis (the ones that bolt to the moustache bar): The wheel-torque wrench with a long shaft and a metal-tube extension finally got them out. Thesre are pretty special so no possibility to get those new. I had to get them out for zinc plating. They have a conical shape with both threads on the top- and lower end. 2) Before i went home i made sure to pack up all the parts i need at my home-workshop during the next days. because my garage is a few minutes away from home... 3) Decided i need some parts zinc-plated from the pedalbox as well and all the bigger bits need a sandblast and powdercoat so i started the dismantling. Before: And after: Still need to dismantle the steering column and safety-harness mounts and some other parts before sandblasting / Powdercoating and Zinc-plating all the bits. THEN finally i will hopefully be able to move fast forward with assembly of many small things...

Also got some updates from the bodyshop. He's currently working on the Framerails, battery-tray area and the passenger-side firewall. I'll let the pictures speak. please note that most of the work is not completed yet, so it might look a bit like a hackjob - but you have to wait until it's done That's it for now. hope go get the parts ready for zinc-plating soon because this will give me all t he missing fasteners i need to move forward with the subframe assembly... Now taking a day off and go to the Zoo

It seems like every post i write starts with a "finally". So this one is no different: Finally some Assembly work started. After many years of taking parts apart and cleaning them, finding replacement and doing research - i started the assembly of the Steering rack-and-pinion system. This is how it started (Note the new workdesk light i installed also ) I highly recommand using these Surface cleaning pads (pot cleaners) for removing old dried-out grease, slight s urface rust and dirt. Works brilliantly and is super cheap and easy to get Also love my new multi-purpose grease pump It's so much fun cleaning all the little bits like the grease seal seen here: Looks like i didn't do a lot but after two hours of cleaning surfaces, degreasing, re-greasing a lot of bits and puzzling it all together i ended up like this Still need to get a few parts zinc-plated before i can complete the assembly but at least i have something like an almost-finished steering rack Then bought a simple spring-scale from an online auction so i can make sure to have all the parts within specifications as mentioned in the service manual. No the most high-tech thing but it was cheap and wil do the work for me Also got a little delivery with some Nissan OEM Fasteners that were on back-order. Now have most of the parts ready for a full subframe re-assembly with all new OEM bolts. still need to get a few replated but most of the parts are ready. this will be fun

Jepp, progress is currently a bit slow because i'm still working on a lot of research stuff and the weather is cold and snowy over here (and you know my garage is unheated). However got some small stuff done again: Ordered a big bunch of OEM Nissan Nuts, Bolts, washers and springs for the rear subframe assembly. Still a few missing they will be delivered delayed. Also finally got a little update from Yves over at MUC. He's currently preparing for exchanging the Genuine frame-rails i brouth him a few weeks ago (See below):IMG-

Progress has been a bit slow lately with me being busy with christmas-stuff and working and yves, the bodyshop guy being stuck in other small customers works. However i'm working hard on finding a solution (aka a useful shop) for galvanizing my bolts and it seems i just found one. And somehow i found the time to order a few more bolts, nuts, springs, fasteners and other stuff for the project. This time the fasteners are for the engine- and transmissionmounts. Great stuff. Now will make a next big order for the rear subframe bolts. we be slightly bigger

My Job forced me to work in sunny Brazil for almost two weeks and when i came home i had a terrible cold. So updates were rare. However it's christmas time and i got some cool stuff: Thanks to my mate stev i got a printed version of the S30 Service manual: and thanks to my lovely girlfriend i got a nice air-compressor as a christmas gift. Wow, something i've wanted to buy for a while but always spent the money on other things

Got a huge truck by my house yesterday which brought me a big Plywood box from USA directly from the Airfreight-carrier Heavy duty stuff It contained a part both my chassis didn't have in needed quality and which i've been looking for for a while now.. But finally Thanks to an ebay auction from a great guy called Kevin i finally have a straight Roof without any sunroof-patch-repairs or a ton of bondo. Even the roof liner inside si there. Great news and big thanks to the seller Will completely unpack it when needed for easier storage

Today i got an early christmas surprise I decided to change my plan regarding the bolts and take the easiest possible way. Finding all the approximately 300 Different nuts, bolts, washers and springs in the correct size, threads, coating, lenght, strength etc at a hardware supplier is a pain in the arse. Specially because some of them are custom made only for Nissan. So i thought the simplest way is just print all the part numbers out of the nissan E-Fast tool, and place a big order at the local nissan dealer... Well it wasn't that easy. But this is what i got today: In fact i had to find replacement partnumbers for the original obsolete parts and at the end this are all the original parts still available from nissan europe. Also checked with nissan japan. they only had one nut more So At the end i have at least 60% of all the steering rack and front subframe assembly / Suspension bits together. All the standard pieces will be bought from a big hardware store and the custom made bolts like the transaxle mounting bolts will be cleaned and recoated / zinc plated because they still look nice! Yesterday i also visited My Bodyguy Yves from M.U.C who is working on my chassis. Not much changed since he last sent me an update but talked a lot to him and had a closer look at his work: So much better than before: This is the current state of the car. As you can see on the floor i dropped of the NOS Frame-rails i got a while ago so he can replace the rusty and patched up ones. So happy to have these items even if they cost me a kidney Prepare for another big update coming this weekend

A work of art, as usual Today he started work on the frame rail. Pretty rotten. good thing i Have NOS Nissan frame rails ready to get built in more updates soon again i hope. even from my side

I've been doing a lot of reasearch on small bits and pieces and ordering a lot of bolts, nuts, washers, spacers and stuff. So no pictures to show you from my side untill the parts arrive here. It's kinda hard find all the right partnumbers in Nissan E-Fast and than find Nissan Replacement partnumbers on a Homepage like this (great Page for finding replacement numbers! www.online-parts.co.uk/nissan/ ). However I have big news soon. And at least my Bodyshop guy Yves from M.U.C is constantly updating me with pictures so i can show you some progress on the body: He started to repair the passenger side inner wheel well. Before: During repair: Done Same on the other side:

Thanks mate Well yeah, all of my cars are japanese, White and have flat gold wheels so i think i'll stick with the theme. it's my fetisch **

As you can see there is still a lot of old lube inside (the yellow stuff): So i took my favourite dremel tool and cleaned the mess. way better Then worked after the energy suspension manual to install the bushings. First add lube to prevent the clean metal from corrosion and make installation easier: And finally they're installed. Still needs a bit of cleaning at the end Oh also went to the garage and vacum cleaned chassis number one And last but not least installed the Nissan E-FAST tool which is great for looking up original drawings and part numbers. You can get it here: http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html%C2'>

Progress is huge currently and i could'nt be happier Lets start where the last pics from the bodyshop ended: Yves sent me an update on the front air ducts. Man i love his fabrication skills and im happy the old shitty repair attemts are completely removed and replaced by proper bodywork: I'll let the picuteres speak for themselfes: I did some work as well: Started with removing the old shells from the Front Lower control arm bars (LCA's). There is a great manual here: http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/suspension/frontcontrolarm/index.html Before: At work (it's quite a bit of a hack job): Out it is:

While Yves is going crazy on the body i'm doing my homework as well. But let's see... Most of the work i'm doing now is research. I need to replace all the worn, weak, corroded, sheared of and damaged bolts, nuts and screws on my car so i tried to figure out what bolts there are. was a bit hard to figure out until my friend and fellow Datsun Z Owner Nils sent me a few very useful links. here we go: Check these Links if you want more information. there's even a bigger and better list with every single bolt pictured and measured!! http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/98751-suspension-bolts-inventory Nils also pointed out to be sure tu use at least 10.9 grade bolts for all the subframe stuff for safety reasons! If you're looking for the bolts in the rest of your car (engine etc), you can get them here: http://mmsacc-stainless.com/html/Datsun.htm or here: https://zcardepot.com/ They have various kit including this "master kit" which includes all the bolts minus the subframe (i didn't find any kits for these, but with above information it isn't too hard to create your own kit). I think the master kit looks good: While working on this i also started to rework some random stuff: Cleaned uo the inside of the Steering rack which the powdercoater messed up slightly. Will take it to the office tomorrow where i have a powerful airgun to blow ot the debris inside: Collected a few parts from the front subframe / And starting to figure out how it all comes together Started to clean some random stuff, like the inner shifter boot. Before: After (washed it in warm water with soap, and then added some Petrolium-lube (Vaseline) to keep the ruber material smooth. Put chassis number one back on Jacks: And sterted to dig through the piles of parts i have to collect a box full of pieces which will go out to sandblasting and yellow-zinc plating when i've got together enough pieces. Still have some work to do now but i'll keep you updated as soon as the big news come

Thanks mate. Didn't know hayashi made bike parts, cool to know Well my current plan is to build / stroke an L28 with triple mikunis but i havent thoguht too much about that yet. Its at the far end of the 2do list and still have to check with local laws and restrictions to see what's possible. The main plan is to build something like a classic Pro-tourer. the overall car should look like some streetracer in the 70ies with classic L-series engine and a lot of parts available back then or at least parts that look like they where made back then. I just love JDM-parts and even more so classic JDM parts so why not buy a lot of them and build a car that fits them? thats what i try to do. still have a huge wishlist and just found some more amazing parts today but still have to save some money and source them

Yves, my panelbeater / Bodyshop guy keeps updating me every few days with pics of his work. as you can see there is a LOT of work however i thought i'd share the pics with you, might have some interresting views inside a Z you usually won't see on a complete car. Before: After: he started work on the passenger front end and is now working around the car. Before: After: some leftovers These are the pics i got today: from the Air channel on the passenger side. Before: And removed. some rust inside... some shitty previous repair attempts: Alsoi'm currently looking for a new roof. found some but actually it's a bit hard to find one who ships to switzerland or is for a reasonable price. if anyone has a good idea where to get a nice roof cut or roof skin without sunroof, please let me know! (can be used as well) Will visit the bodyshop soon and make some better pics with my camera. those pics above are all made by yves, the Bodyshop-guru with his cellphone

My Friend René (which is also the guy to paint my car once it's ready) recently sent me a picture of a Datsun colour code brochure, joking he's preparing to paint my car I thought this might be interresting for you guys so i asked him to send me more pictures: Here we go: In Case if you're wondering, i'll stick with the #904 white, chich is also Called Kilimanjaro white according to some sources.

11) After a 5 minute drive the car was unloaded at the bodyshop. It's now waiting in the "cleaning room" and after cleaning will be moved next door for bodywork. I've spent like 2 hours with the bodyguy and he seems exactly what i was looking for. He's an experienced chassis builder (not only panel beater) which is perfect due to the fact i need extensive chassis repairs and finishing not only small repair patches Plan is to have the chassis done within a year. i hope this works as planned 12) He also gave me a few JDM-books for reading which i thought was worth a foto and really exciting The bodyshop is close to my home so i plan to have a look there every now and then and update you with pictures. and of course i'll get some other stuff done in the meantime. so watch out for updates

6) And then finally the day came yesterday when i had arranged a date to get the car delivered to my bodyshop-guy. The day started like this: 7) After uncovering the white first (now spareparts) chassis i moved the black one out of it's comfort-zone to but it to a bit of sunlight first time after two years 8)Then put the white chassis back into th e garage first time in two years to have it save before snow falls and to have it ready to cut spareparts for the bodyshop if needed 9) Then i had to wait for the Car-hauler to come, but he was a bit late due to an emergency-call so i decided to clean the space in front of my garage from all the jung, leaves and dirt that have collected during the past years underneath my white car: There she's waiting.... 10) Then finally the Hauler showed up and despite having some concerns if everything will work fine i was really surprised the car was loaded after 5 minutes and tied down. This guy was a real pro and well experienced