CW240Z72

A ton of work has been done to the car since the last update. Many, many hours of prep work and paint to get the front clip painted this weekend. Now the reassembly can begin for the drivetrain and suspension.

I hope everyone had a nice and safe holiday break these past few days. During that time we worked on the body in preparation for paint. Passenger quarter and fender received the first round of body work and primer. Driver’s side soon to follow.

That’s correct. Shooting for a total stock restoration, with a few minor updates - upgraded AC system, blower motor, and electronic ignition.

Sound mat was installed in all the factory places prior to paint (including the floor pans). Firewall will get the fiber backed pad installed on it Floors before paint

Interior of the shell was painted tonight. Next we’ll go back and mask off the areas that need to be blacked out, and begin the reassembly process.

Arch panel as the metal that goes under the battery tray? Give them a call for that piece. Its a made to order part.

Big jump in progress on the Z this weekend. First round of the 901 silver was sprayed on the body. It's amazing how different this silver looks in photos, and which lighting you have around it. We'll get the engine bay and interior painted next, then on to the exterior.

Been meaning to update the build. Lately, the body has received several hours of sanding in preparation for sealer and base. So not a whole lot of exciting or interesting photos to post. We did get the battery tray welded in. At the moment its being sanded down as well as we get closer to painting the engine bay. Planning to get the underside completely painted in the coming weeks. Even with painting it in a booth, we'll shoot the body in stages to make it easier, and will be a more thorough paint job this way in the end.

Thank you! This is a personal car of mine, restoring it with the ultimate goal of finding it a new home when its done. I enjoy building these cars up, but can't keep them all. As far as the plating goes, what I have seen is that most exterior applications utilize a yellow zinc (originally a cadmium finish I believe), such has engine hardware, brake lines, and most suspension hardware. The clear zinc (again, I believe this was a cadmium finish) was mostly used on interior items, hose clamps on the HVAC, and dash hardware for example. There were a few exceptions, and I tried my best to plate parts as they came originally. My understanding is most industries switched from cadmium plating to zinc due to cadmium being considered toxic. "Yellow" cadmium provided good salt and corrosion protection for hardware, which is why most exterior hardware was done originally in this finish. With zinc plating today, I don't think there is a substantial difference in yellow vs clear in terms of durability. More or less how accurate you want to replicate the look.

Back on the body for some final work to the interior before paint. When the shell was blasted we had all of the sound deadening removed so that any rust underneath could be removed and cleaned up. I wanted to maintain the original look of the floors best we could for this rebuild. To do this we replicated the factory sound deadening pads placed throughout the interior with sheets of a 3M material: Sound Deadening This material comes with an adhesive backed side and a top surface that can be painted. It goes on very easy and can be trimmed down to the correct size with scissors or a box cutter. Once ready for paint the entire interior will get a coat of sealer followed by the silver base color and clear.

Now that looks great. I'm excited to give this a go on the washer bottle and fuel tank expansion canister out back. Hopefully with results as nice as yours.

Perfect, that's exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

We took a break from working on the body to finish up the rear strut assembly rebuild last night. Once the underside and interior is painted we'll be close to getting the shell off the rotisserie. One thing I do need to track down are new hardline rubber isolators. Does anyone know where I can buy a complete rubber kit for these? Z Car Depot only sells 3D printed versions from what I can tell TIA.

More progress made on the body. Last bit of body work completed on the underside, and the final primer applied. Next I'll weld back in the spare tire hold down. We removed this so that any rust under and between it and the tub could be completely removed. The inside of the car also received primer at the same time. Once dried we began to apply seam sealer in the same locations as the factory did. While the original application was very sloppy, we tried our best to accurate replicate it but with more attention to detail. Need to finish up applying seam sealer to the rear strut towers and a few areas around the firewall. After that it will get sound deadening applied, and then be ready for some color.

I don't recall the original window scraper being any more than a rubber seal stapled to the door trim. I will look and see if I have photos of the correct one and this DIY fix side by side for comparison.

Small project completed tonight, rebuilding the rear brake cylinders and rear struts. Couple quick shots of the completed struts with hardware and shoes. I'll post some more in depth pictures of the entire assemblies before and after.

I don't know how comparable the 510 squeegee profile is to a Z, but this DIY alternative worked great on mine. I had ordered two outer door squeegees, installed one and somehow misplaced the other. For the 510 most of the quality rubber bits come out of Australia, and I didn't want to wait a month for this one piece. My local hardware store (Lowes) sells garage door seals in various profiles and materials. I found a rubber seal with a section of the profile identical to the squeegee. Measured the length needed, trimmed the unneeded section, and installed with the existing steel backing strip. I didn't have a staple gun strong enough to fasten both pieces together, but a very small rivet worked nicely. Once installed there was no physical difference in appearance or function from the "correct seal". https://www.lowes.com/pd/M-D-9-ft-x-2-in-Black-Rubber-Garage-Weatherstrip/1085381

Thanks! Texas Precision Plating did the work. I was lucky, the bores came back with a thin zinc coating, but the exterior nice and uniform. A light hone seemed to clean them up, same for mating surfaces. I was curious how they would reassemble after plating, but they have sealed up nicely.

I did. Split them in two, media blasted the outside and then cleaned the bores, had them plated, and reassembled with new parts.

Thanks! I was really excited to get the full length hardlines redone as well. I’ll try to grab a few shots of those.

Here's another side project on the Z that's on pause while we sort through hardware and body work. For the AC system, we'll use the restored dealer evaporator, a modern Sanden compressor (mounted on the lower LH side of the block), and all new hoses and components. One thing I didn't like about how these AC systems were routed, was how the dealers would use sheet metal screws and install the dryer on the RH strut tower. It's big, bulky, and ugly IMO. I mapped out the hoses, and I think the cleanest way to place the dryer is on the front side of the core support, next to the condenser. Behind the grille and blacked out core support I don't think it will be too obvious from the front, and from the engine bay all you'll see are the two hoses routed down the RH frame rail. In order to map this out I modeled up the core support mounting points (in green), the condenser itself, dryer, and fittings. I'm able to plumb the hoses in CAD, using the minimum bend radius of the hose and its physical properties to accurately plumb with it. The larger green holes are the openings in the core supports where the harness routes through. The bottom of the condenser has mounting holes for cushion clamps. My thoughts were to clamp the lower hose down to prevent movement and abrasion. Thoughts? (sorry, terrible screenshot photos).

Slowly rebuilding the hardware that returned from plating. Hand brake mechanism, fuel tank hardware, hood release, headlight buckets, HVAC controls, and the proportioning valve were first for reassembly. Also started working on the suspension components. Here's the rear control arm brace assembly, powder coated and plated hardware. I know the lower control arm caps should have been black instead of clear zinc as they are now, but I thought it would be nice to break up all the powder coated parts in that area. Front strut assemblies are also reassembled now. As are the front calipers. All new bearings, seals, wheel studs, brake line, KYB strut, rotor and pads.

Parts arrived back from plating for the Z this week, both in yellow and clear zinc. Now for inventorying every nut bolt and washer and to allocate them back to where they were previously installed. This is roughly half of the yellow zinc parts that were restored. And most of the clear zinc.

From the FSM, front spring specs: Rear spring specs:

That’s correct. Front and rears are of different lengths, and they have different spring rates left to right which account for driver’s weight. FSM has this documented, I’ll try to find it.