CG240Z

I am just about ready to order the Illuminas. Not good news, hopefully they figured something out soon.

Good looking build. I'm in the middle of a 280 build myself. I always enjoy seeing what other people are doing.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. So far it's been between 4 or 5 of us hitting it hard on the weekends. One of my buddies likes to sandblast, that's the dammdest thing, haha. I hate it, so it works out very well. Over Hauling does a complete car in a week with a unlimited budget and 30 some people. Hopefully I can do 5 months with 5 people.

Has anyone seen these before? I have never seen these before and my car didn't have them. They go over the tool storage compartments behind the seats. How do you get to them? I had no access to these compartments with my carpet going over them.

Back to body work. Got 2 coats of primer on so I can see exactly what kind of body work I'm looking at. Primer went on very smooth. Didn't get everything primed, but got a lot. Both front fenders need patch panels welded on at the bottom and they have some other rust issues. I bought one patch panel last week so I could start working on it. After looking at them closer I said scratch that, and I ordered two new fenders from Black Dragon. Time is money and two new fenders will save some time.

Woah those are some big pictures.

ahh.. bummer, not sure why the pictures didn't show up. Let me see if I can fix it.

Made some killer progress this weekend. I should clarify what I mean by "Full Restore". Is it not going to be a trailer queen, but it will be a damn good weekend driver. Got the paint 99% stripped. Spent many hours behind the blaster, while I had friends grinding and sanding. Looks like the driver door took a good wack, had a good amount of bondo on it. And the right rear quarter had some bondo where it took a good wack also. What's funny is I bought this car from the original owner and didn't even think to ask if it's ever been in a wreck, haha. Whoever did the body work did a really good job, the bondo was on there pretty good. But all and all it's nothing that's not repairable, it's just how it goes with 30 year old cars. [ATTACH=CONFIG]65219[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65220[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65221[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65222[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65223[/ATTACH] Stripped the interior completely besides the dash. The plan is to spray LizardSkin in to quiet the ride and keep the temps down. Also found these guys will tearing it all part. It will be a neat thing to have for car shows.[ATTACH=CONFIG]65224[/ATTACH] Took a break from body work and tore the engine down completely. The engine has definitely been sitting for 18 years. Even with an oil change and running the engine for 30 minutes a few weeks ago, their was sludge everywhere. The engine will need some hot tanking for sure. [ATTACH=CONFIG]65225[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65226[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65227[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]65228[/ATTACH] Piston #1 is looking a little rough, so in an attempt to save money and time this engine is going to sit on the shelf for awhile. I have a 280 engine that my dad completely rebuilt for my 240 project that has zero miles on it. It already has the higher compression pistons and bigger cam. Doing this will save me the time of rebuilding it since I'm on a time crunch.

Body parts everywhere! I am in the thick of it for sure. Making great forward momentum though.

This is what I have been using. It takes a few coats, but you just put it on, wait for it to bubble, then scrap it off. Definitely wear gloves, it burns a little when you get it on the skin. That's how you know it's good. I got it at either Hope Depot or Lowes.

I'm rebuilding the engine myself, it's a simple motor. Of course the machine work I'll have to take somewhere. Hopefully it will just need some honing, valve job, and check the head. I'm tearing the engine down this weekend.

I know 5 months is a huge time crunch, but so far I feel like I'm on schedule. Although we all know that could change in a heartbeat. My dad is helping me and also any friends I can gather up. The body really isn't that bad, so that alleviates a lot of work. Worse case scenario, if I can get paint and engine done before I move, I can do interior in California.

Pulled the engine so I can get the engine bay blasted and looking sharp. It started raining on me, so I had to stop blasting. As soon as I get some free time, I'll finish that up. An engine hoist makes it easy to get underneath the car to do some blasting. After I get some more progress on the body work I'm going to drop the front and rear suspension, blast it, and have it all powder coated. Doors off so I can start working on them. I won't be able to do much this week, but next weekend I hope to have some primer on, so I can continue on the body work.

Figured I'd share this 280 build for anyone interested. I had a 240 build thread going on awhile ago, but that project has currently gone on hiatus and the cars sitting in my enclosed trailer in the back yard. It's going to require more work than I can give it right now. I found a good price on a 1978 280Z original owner, hopefully it will be a straight forward restoration, I decided to pick it up and start another project. This time I'm on a time line, I'll be moving to California at the end of the year and won't have the garage space to do any major work on it. This being said, the time crunch is on! This is the picture of me taking her home. Bought it from the original owner and it has been sitting in his garage since 1995. Decided to see if the engine would run after sitting for almost 10 year. Changed the wires, oil, plugs, etc. basic tune up stuff. End up having to the fuel pump and she fired right up. The engine has some crusty vacuum hoses, which could explain why she didn't want to idle. Also had to clear this out, looks like someone decided to keep their food there. So I got the engine running, it's still going to get a full rebuild, I was just curious if it ran. I was going to originally have the whole car soda blasted to save time, but I had some paint stripper laying around so I decided to try it out. I put a few coats on and the paint started coming off like butter. So instead of spending the $800 to get it blasted, I'm going to go this route with some sand blasting if needed. The fenders are going to need patches welded on in the bottom, typical Datsun rust. Also the doors are going to need some work. The driver's door has some bondo that I'm going to grind off and see what's behind it. Still have a lot of body work to do.

Also got the clutch in today. You know, I was looking at all these performance clutches like Centerforce, etc. The pricing on them are pretty high and I bet they are great clutches. Realistically though, I'm building a weekend cruiser 240 with a 280 engine in it. I'm not going to be pumping out any crazy horsepower, so for $100 I got Autozone's finest Duralast clutch. I've put them in other cars and never had a problem. If it doesn't work well, I can always switch it out later on.

Man oh man, it's been awhile. Unfortunately I just ran out of steam and energy for this project....But I'm back at it and hopefully in full force. Over the weekend I finished up the front suspension and rolled the ol' car out of the garage to wash it. The plan for this weekend is to drop the engine/trans in and switch out the rear end to a R200. I have a billet mustache bar coming in the mail from Arizona Z Car, pretty excited about that. Still lots of work to be done before I'll be behind the wheel driving, but hopefully soon. New (to me) Rack and pinion, adjustable control arms, Eibach lowering springs, slotted rotors, and 4 piston calipers. Still need to put the MSA sway bar on. Rolled the car out, (can't remember the last time it's been on all 4 wheels), and gave her a bath to get all that garage dust off.

More progress being made to the engine, got it all bored and honed out. Bored it .26, then honed it out the rest of the way to .30.

Tear down on the engine continues... Pushing the pin out of the rods. Hot washing the block. It was filled with old crusty oil, apparently the previous owner didn't believe in changing the oil. Also magnafluxed the block to look for any cracks, no cracks found. Just got off the phone with Z Car Source, master engine kit ordered with newer flattop pistons, should be in next week. Hopefully this engine will shape out to a mean 6cyl.

Got my buddy to pop my trans open and inspect it. I don't really know anything about the internals of a transmission. Going to replace some bushings and seals in it. It's going to be nice to have a 5spd in this.

I have steering rack bushings in a box waiting to go. I found a crack in my steering rack and am in the process of picking another one up from a fellow forum member. And thanks for the heads up on the bump steer spacers, haven't heard of those. Hopefully these carbs will run well, right now I'm just using them because I have them. If they don't turn out so well when I get the car running I'll look at other alternatives.

Just to confirm, went to Autozone and ordered 2 ball joints for my 1970 240z, fit like a champ, and cheap too.

Have the left strut assembly pretty much all put back together. Waiting on the lower ball joint which should be here by Friday. Also still getting my butt kicked the control arm. I'm trying to get the inner sleeve out so I can fit the new bushings in. Tokico strut, eibach lower spring, slotted rotor, 4 piston caliper. This sucker is pretty heavy, def not making the vehicle any faster, but I'm hoping she'll stop fast.

Engine bay painted tonight.

I have considered triples, but I already have the webers off the original engine. I guess once I get it running and if I don't like the carbs I'll look into triple options.

It is great weather and I do need an engine harness. I'll send you a PM.