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Woohow! Another one of these little long-term projects finally completed. I failed several attempts to paint the ignition-switch surrounding ring and the Turn signal switch stalk by myself. The paint would be so easy to scratch off (with fingernails) afterwards that it would immetiately look terrible once you touch it with anything hard. So after i realized i suck at painting, i decided to hand it over to René, the paint wizard at Autolackprofis which i know from the Honda-scene back in the days and is one of the most recognized paintshops in (and outside) switzerland. He's also in charge of painting the car once it's ready (if he isn't retired by then :P) The result is stunning. We decided to go for an industrial grade paint which is stronger and more scratch resistant compared to normal car paint. Perfect So first in installed the painted ignition switch surrounding ring back to the switch: Then started to re-assemble the turn signal switch (See previous steps here) First installed the wire back completely with the switch contacts and the plastic spacer: Added dielectric grease to all the contacts to make sure they will operate smoothly and contact well for a long time: At the bottom end in added the little contact back to the spring and added dielectric grease as well. Added the switch plastic housing and the inside mechanism back to the stalk and measured. Unpressed: Infinite Ohms (no connection) Switch pressed: Zero Ohms (Short). That's what the switch does. if you press it it will short the 12V applied to it to the chassis-ground. So it works perfectly (Always check before doing next steps, you will hate yourself for not doing so if you figure out once it's installed) Install the stalk back to the switch assembly. Since i wasn't able to find a similar bolt used in the the original assembly, i just took a zinc plated nail in the same dimensions, cut it off and made it fit After that it's time to get the wires back together. Don't forget to add the heat shrinking tube before you solder... Soldered wires back together and heat shrinking tube is shrunk to the original shape: And secured using the small little clamp: Think it ended up really well. checked all the functions and everything works, feels solid and looks great... and definitely much cleaner compared to the original dusty switch, which was completely covered in old dirty grease. I'm super happy to have completed another little project that took my quite some time

Last post of the year. Nothing huge, but wanted to share the progress. This week i visited the bodyshop to pick up some unused parts and had a look at t he latest work: The rear quarter panel is in, as is the inner arch. The outer arch has ben reshaped to fit the original bodylines. The repair panels have a different "softer" shape, compared to the original lines. but only visible if you know the details. Currently he's reworking the think soft "edge" (where the black line is). Most of owners probably haven't even noticed there's an edge. but my bodyshop guy is a perfectionist. that's why it takes a lot of time. anyhow. The body is getting a concours level restauration Also the tank filler "pocket" has been removed to get a little rust treatment, and to have better access to the inside of the rear quarters. And at home i've been puzzling together various parts laying around. Like this Differential strap mounts: Now freshly assembled with fresh zinc plated bolts and tubes and powdercoated base mounts. Perfect.

Christmas comes one day early this year After a four-week long wait, a little Box from Japan finally arrived here with some Parts for my MK63 brakes: 1) Project u MK63 Solid disk type NS street brake pads: 2) NOS Nissan Sumitomo MK63 Brake pistons I think i have everything ready now for assembling the Brakes over the holidays

Thanks mate. It ended up quite good at the plating company. however it has a few mostly optical flaws. lucky it's invisible once assembled

Today i was finally able to complete a little project on which i've been working over the past few weeks. I completely reworked the Inspection Lamp. Remember a few weeks ago when i posted this pic? This is how it all started. Rusty, Painted over a few times, and in bad shape. didn't even work: Of course started to disassembly everything first Then had the housing tubmlered to remove old paint, dirt and rust (picture has other parts included as well, which don't belong to the inspection lamp): And got it zinc-replated and yellow passivated to get back the origina look. Then started to source the missing parts. Even if i'm in the business i failed to find an original green twin-wire with the original thickness. but since the original wire was still in good shape i decided to just clean and keep it. The bulb was a bit of a headscratcher too. but after i figured out the Keyword was "BA9s" (9mm bajonett-socket with single base connector) it was easy to find a fitting bulb, 12V, 8W as the manual states. Nowadays you even could replace it with a lot of less-power consuming LED bulbs, but i decided to keep it oldschool in this case The switch was the most tricky part. the original was toasted (see left). It could be saved and restored but then you still have a completely brittly 40 year old piece of plastic in an outdated electronic design, so i decided to replace it with a newer style switch. The first generation of inspection lamps had a metal switch too, so it's not a completey wrong look. The switch needs a 12mm thread, but must be small enough to fit inside the housing (most 12mm threaded switches are too big) and it should have the little notch in the thread to secure it properly in correct position. After trying various options i figoured out this one would fit perfectly (Available at farnell) http://www.atakel.com/urun/apem-5000-series-miniature-toggle-switches/EN/ While the original one is an ON-OFF switch, this one is an ON-ON switch, but if you remove one of the outer pins you have an ON-OFF function again: First the little nipple has to minimized by 0.5mm or so to fit the slightly smaller notch in the new switch: Then prepared all the cables. Cleaned them first with a rough side of a dish cleaning sponge, cut off the ends, removed insulation ca 1mm at each end with a special tool and then pre-soldered the ends to make it easier to solder it later. It probably helps if you have a full high-end soldering workstation like i have at my office and 20+ years of daily soldering routine skills All parts ready? Here we go. The fun part begins - assembly (got a new replica lens and rubber insulator from ebay, plus additionally a piece of black heat-shrinking tube and some red electronic wrapping tape). First i installed a new rubber insulator grommet on the bottom of the back housing. the original one was falling apart by just looking at it. New ones can be found easy in any electronis speciality shop. The removed the old wire-end from the connecting plate and cleaned it. resoldered the new wire-end to it and cleaned it with flux remover (removes flux from the soldering, which may decrease the electric connectivity! see bottle in the back) Soldered the other wire back to the hook and attached some black heat-shrinking tube like it was in the factory setup: Next was soldering the wires to the switch and protect the solderings with some black heat-shrinking tube: Also added the red electrical tape as it was in my factory setup (it goes inside where the clamp is to protect wires): Soldered the wire back to the little Clamp And installed the clamp back to the bottom and secured the cables inside with it. Done Apply 12V DC to it (ground to the housing, plus to the red wire, switch on - YAY! assembled it to gether and still everything works as it should: So here's the result. Quite the difference when compared to the first pictures, which was the same item! Spent quite a few hours sourcing parts and getting everything cleaned and so on, but honestly it was totally worth the work

I've been super busy with dozens of small 240Z projects, but unfortunately it's two steps forward and one back at the moment so i haven't really completed anything noteworthy to post here. Nevertheless i left some parts at the paint-stripping company today and should be able to pick them up early next year. And then suddenly i got a picture from my Panelbeater with a small update: The outer radius on the Tabco rear quarter panel has been corrected to give it the factory-like sharp edges (the tabco is a bit too soft) and the welds have been cleaned. Hope to have more updates soon. really working on a few ends at the moment

So yesterday i got the box with parts back from the plating company. Everything got cleaned, zinc plated and yellow passivated. The colour is slightly different then last time (more redish). Probably due to the changed regulations for the mix of chemicals used for this procedure. Still quite happy with the result. Took me a while to sort through all the parts, but mostly figoured it out by now Started with the re-assembly of some parts. From this... To this (Hose brackets) From this... To this (hood closing mechanism..) This (the other part of the hood closing mechanism... (x2) And then finally got all the parts ready to re-assemble the shifter with the new bushings and some bushing grease. Before... After. And because fun, i decided to test-fit the Kameari Z-Shift knob as well. Thiss will be a perfect match once it's in the car Still have some parts to sort through and a lot to assemble. but need some pre-work on some parts first...

Since i have all of my body panels together, i wanted to have a look at the last possible "unknown" area. The front grille. I never had a close look at it and wanted to make sure it's OK. Well it's not (of course :D). Started like this. It seems like there are various versions of the grille around, but it apepars that this is a fulyl original one. the middle finis shorter, which also seems to be original. Everything is just plugged together and then secured with four long and thin bolts on the back of the horizontal fins: Onfortunately it's all just made out of cheap and thin sheet metal, so quite prone to bending: Luckily the most delicate parts (the fins) are ok, and the rest is quite easy to fix or make on my own (i guess). the rest of the parts are just riveted together, so i probably give it a try and make my own grill. Need to think about it and see if i'm able to find the horizontal U-shaped fins in the correct size.. guess i will send the available parts for rust and paint-stripping and then see what i can do seems to be a fun DIY project

This week has been the most busy one car-wise in a while Well. I guess that's good?! Thist itme i've cleaned the ignition switches again thoroughly and assembled them back. Tried to keep the original patina but clean it. And made sure all the contacts are fine. Then installed one of them directly to the previously finnished steering column: Really fun to start putting completed parts together to even bigger completed parts Had the covering ring cleaned, since the old paint wasn't nice anymore: Resprayed it with some rattle-can car-paint in flat black and had it drying under the lamp for a day: And then put it back to the switch: And then got a package from Poland. Have to Thank Jakub Nurzaj a lot for his support and digging in some old stock to find me this US-Spec Corner valance with the factory cutout for the american turn signals. Cheers mate for the great service! Also thanks for the free datsun europe stickers! So now i have another shipment ready to get rust and paint removed at the alcohol dipping company. Body-parts are now officially complete. Hope i can push my bodyshop to hurry up a bit with the chassis... Progress is awfully slow at the moment...

My delfir Chips are made from ceramic and not plastic and so far they've lasted quite good. had the machine rattling for more than a week non-stop now! I guess "Delfir" is a brand Name by the swiss manufacturer, see here: http://www.polyservice.ch/Keramik_Deutsch_02.09.pdf they also sell small Batches, thats why i Chose These..

Those green ceramic pyramids (the abrasives) as seen in the Picture below. These Shakers / tumblers are basically meant to polish small and nice Stones, but if you change the abrasives you can also clean metalparts with them: I think i made a post about how it works in this threads a few years ago when i bought the machine and made some tests. I used said delfir Chips and worked out nice. Just be aware that these Chips won't be able to clean inside the bolts threads or inside small Corners or so. But In my case that's ok.

Found them on Ebay of all Things I Initially bought it to remove paint from bolts and stuff. That didn't work out well. Paint seems to hard to remove and needs blasting or paint-stripper. Then switched to the Delfir-chips which worked really well to remove dust, grease and rust from small parts. Also had to figure out that a 4:1 mix of Chips to water (with a few drops of dishwashing-soap) doesn't create too much of a foam or mess, but works well enough to remove the grease and so on. and last but not least i figured out that you need approx 12hours for all parts until they're mostly clean. If you prepare the very rusty parts with a wire-wheel brush the results get even better.

Was quite busy this week with the Z's small projects that have been going on. I've been cleaning and exchanging the partsi n my tumbler almost daily and today i finally had them completed: Now all is packed up and ready for zinc re-plating and yellow passivating. Which means i have to wait for the parts for approximately one week before i can continue. Pretty happy with the result by the way. The Tumbler was well invested money. just took me some years to figure out how to use it properly During preparation process i also fixed some parts which where slightly worn out. Like this one. Before: Straightening it out in the little vice: and After. Much better Oh and then got some new parts, like the replacement repair-lamp bulb cover. I know it's not 100% the OEM colour, but it looks pretty good. still might try to clean the original one. Oh and some new door switches by the original manufacturer: And greased and packed all my brake-stuff to prevent them from rusting. Oh and started disassembly and cleaning of the ignition switches: Next step: Ordering some parts (will do that in a minute) and then complete some other bits next week.

While i can't show you much, i've been busy lately completeing a lot of stuff i've started but never really finnished. 1) Thanks to the input of some readers i was finally able to remove the last cylinder from the brake caliper. The solution was easy. install the allready-removed cylinder again and fix it with a c-clamp. add some air-pressure again to the brake-fluid channels and it would pop out easily (It doesnt look like the cylinder is aligned properly but i fixed that) Since sunday my Rattler / Vibrator / Tumbler / Spirator / Whatever you call it, has been working in full force to remove all the rust / Paint / Dirt and grease from all the parts i will send for re-plating. It's maybe not the fastest solution but it comes out quite handy and you don't have to do anything except of waiting Guess it will take another week or so until all the parts are ready andsome of them even might need a bit of manual cleaning, but the first bunch of parts are allready looking shiny and have a super-smooth surface Then i got some new (used) turn signal switches from my mate Patrick (Thanks for that!) to complete that job too. That's it for now hope for more updates again soon

Carefully hammering the piston deeper into the calipers using a wooden hammer was easy, but it won't come out anymore. Anyhow. i will try again later with some of the inputs mentioned before

Thanks for the input guys. I never got the idea to re-install the other piston and use a c-clamp. Will try that first with air (after having soaked it in rust-removal oil for another night or so) and see if it works. I guess the grease-pump is the next thing if it doesn't work. but it will mess up all the air-channels then. I know it's cleaneable but still another step to take. so i'll try it with air first. Thanks a lot. really appreciate your knowledge

Spent some more time disassembling parts to get them ready for zinc-replating. Thought while at it, i could take the brake-parts for a replating as well. So i started with the disassembly of my Sumitomo MK63 Solid disk type Ex-works type calipers: First got the old pads and shims removed. still looking quite good to be honest: Then spent an hour or so at the garage and disassembled the rest of the calipers. With the help of my trusty little air-compressor and some redneck-skills i managed to get 7/8 cylinders out of the calipers without any damage to me, tools or the calipers. However the last sucker doesn't want to come out. Even brought it to a local garage and he used a torch to heat it up but wasn't able to remove it. we'll see how i can do that. Any inputs? Otherwise i'll try another two days having it soaked in WD40, and if that doesn't work i'll bring it to a machine shop or so... Otherwise i was quite successfull, the brakes are in great condition and by the way even learned a lot about brakes (first time working on some brakes so that was quite some fun). After that i took all the bits from the brakes plus some other i found in my garage and put them in the "re-plating box". Still need to clean all of this stuff for a few hours before i can send it there (they prefer old rust, grease, rubber-leftovers and paint to be removed. Hope i find some time again soon..

Had a bit of spare-time today and decided it's time to get some stuff done for the car once again. Wanted to have some parts replated (yellow zinc) so i grabbed everything that seemed to be worth replating. Here are all the small transmission parst that will go for replating (not all of them) And than i found some other stuff that had to be disassembled first like the side marker / Turn signal lights: Engine compartment repair light (Early version with the toggle type switch). before: After ( I cut the wires since i will replaced them with new cables. the old ones are quite brittly and Nissan had a person with bad soldeirng skills for their soldeirng work *lol*): Then the hood stay / lock mechanics: So here are all the parts ready for replating. Still need to remove old paint (will do that tomorrow) before sending them. In case if you wonder how i remember where all the parts belong - What you see on this blog is actually just a small fraction of the pictures i make. I like to make all kind of "exploded view" shots like the ones above to remember the order they came in (FSM is wrong sometimes, or a bit unclear). And i also mark my pictures as seen here. When the parts return i will put them in the boxes again which belong to each part of the car

Nothing big here. just spent two hours cleaning all the transmission parts after the glass bead blasting. Removed some leftovers from the masking tape and blew away all the leftovers from the blasting from all the small corners, etc. Since i forgot my cam at home you only get some crappy mobile-phone shots: When done i started going through the small parts and decided i could clean them too. so the trusty green scotch-n-brite came in handy again to clean all the small pieces: Then decided to make a little test-assembly with the new PU shifter bushings (red), since the old ones were quite worn-out (black): This is how it all goes together: And this is the result. quite happy. Will remove it all again, grease the rubber with some bushing-grease from the energy-bushings kit and have the washers and nuts zinc-plated alongside all the other nuts and bolts from the transmission before the final assembly:

In my last post, i wrote about the fact that the transmission looked wrong after the "glass bead blasting". Many readers pointed out it seems to have been just sandblasted. I contacted the blasting company again and asked what happened. He excused himself a hundred times and told me that his guy somhow missunderstoud somthing and that it was only blasted. but not sand blasted as you thought, but blasted with "broken glass". this is softer and won't attack the surface of the Aluminum. It's less corrosive than regular silicat-sand used for blasting. At least that was good news. He promised me to immediately fix that. Today i was able to pick it up again: They glass-bead blasted everything and the surface now looks and feels a lot smoother and got this slight "satin gloss" finish. just as it should be. The sense of Glass bead blasting is to improve the surface density of aluminium. Like that it's much stronger and will keep the appearance for a longer time when used unpainted in a car. While it doesn't have the super-glossy OEM-like finish it's what i was aiming for. I got told for the glossy finish it should be soda/vapour/fluid blasted. But for me it's perfect as it is. it's not going to be a concours build anyway and it seems much fresher again. Also they clearcoated the cast-iron bits as promised, to protect it from corrosion: This is how the gear selector looks after the protective tape was removed. Still needs a bit of cleaning though but looks perfect. just as i wanted it Super happy with the result. and while it took me a few extra hours to bring it back again and pick it up. the good thing is they felt so sorry that the extra-work was for free. They only charged me for the first part of the work. which is awesome and came out on a budget

thanks for thie input.. already heard about it. but so far only got recommanded glass bead blasting, as it would improve the surface density of aluminum.. But the vapour/hydro does clearly look more like OEM finish...

Last week i brought my transmission housing parts and some smaller bits to the local blasting company. The guy made a serious appearance and explained how Aluminum parts like these normally will be treated with class-triangles to break-up old paint and remove it. and then treated with glass-beads (pearls) to increase the surface density. He even told me he's gonna paint the cast-iron parts with a clearcoat to prevent it from rust... This is how it looked before: Clearly old silver paint peeling off is visible: Today i picked it up. and the first thing i noticed how "raw" and rough everything looked. It reminded me of sandblasted items. Sand-blasting is corrosive and will remove small spots in the surface of aluminum (like the transmission part) and give it a rough feel. While the aluminum is thick enough to handle it, it just doesn't look as smooth as a factory-fresh unpainted transmission should look in my opinion: But since i don't have a lot of experience, i returned home. What made me even more curious was the fact that sand came out of various spots of the transmission. Its clearly not glass-bead, nor is it any other glassy. I guess this is the "sand" they use for sand-blasting.. The guy even told me how hard it was to remove the paint from the previous owner. so i guess they switched to sand at some point. While i'm all fine with that, i guess they didn't glass-bead blast if after that. Somehow it gets a bit more shiny / glossy after glassbead-treatment and this sure looks like just sandblasted to me. Also the cast-iron small pieces didn't get the promised clearcoat... Not sure yet. Don't want to blamy anybody and it would clearly do the job. but i want to have it perfect. Either i bring it back or i bring it to another company to have it checked and re-done... have to think about it. Or maybe it's just me and the "gloss" will come back once it's slightly corroded? not sure...

In my last post about the 240Z you could easy see how the gear selector was worn out and had some concave marks where the balls meet the selector. Since it's a Cast iron item it's a bit tricky to weld. And if you've been following me for a while you know there's only one superhero for me when it comes to metal and welding: My buddy Stefan Schär - who own's an awesome little collection of beautiful Nissan's and Datsun's by the way - So i sent him that thing to fix it: Before (Clearly some "holes" visible): After some pre-treatment and cleaning the holes got welded up: and then ground back to originale flatness: Surface is way smoother than it was from factory. Now those shifts should be direct as New again. Maybe even better Next it's going off to Glass-bead blasting, then the transmission is ready for assembly again For Stefan, he opened up his own business "Cagedude" lately, specializing in rollcages, but doin' basically anything that involves some metal and welding (and cars maybe) Check out his facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/cagedude/ for some examples. His stuff is really work of art, and i have the highest praises for all the stuff he's done for me so far. And he's a super nice guy too, with a lovely little family. Check it out and support Stefan / Cagedude, you won't regret it

Today finally some progress on the Z from my side as well After removing the Breather vent: I had serious trouble to get out the speedo pinion carrier from the transmission. Thanks to my close friend Stefan and some brute force, it finally gave up and came out nicely: He also managed to move the "tube" that holds the gear selector in place, intwards the transmissino housing: So i was able to remove the gear selector. It's currently at my other buddy Stefan for some rework (more on that soon) After i finally have disassembled the transmission as far as i want to go myself, i had to make an "exploded" view shot, just for fun's sake Next step was masking the transmission housing parts with duct tape for glass-bead-blasting and to prevent glass beads ending up in the transmission.. The previous owner once decided to paint it all in silver, but i will get rid of the peeling-off paint again and have it back in all it's original aluminum glory. Now only waiting for that one part back from rework, then will have it all blasted. All the other parts are ready

Today is a short update with a single pic, but a big Impact on the overall appearance of the car: The RH Tabco rear quarter panel is welded in place. I guess there is still a lot of work to make the fitment perfect and all, but at least there isn't a big hole anymore