madkaw

I had a big day today. I finally got my headliner installed with the A pillar stuff too--what a big job-I'm sore.

The floor plugs will cost an extra 20$ or so, I guess you'll need to decide if it's worth the extra time and cost to go without. The Nissan plugs are good quality and should hold up for many years. The holes will come in handy for when I etch the metal for por-15, I can reuse the metal prep by catching the remander from the holes.

Glad I can motivate someone else .. I usually set my goals pretty high, but I wouldn't have it any other way. As far as the floors, I did bolt in the crossmember before I tore things apart and I don't believe anything shifted with this car, but the car is pretty solid everywhere else. The frame rails and rockers are solid which makes a big difference with these cars. I'm glad on my car I didn't have to do this, my floors just had surface rust. My headliner material came in today, so i know what my next major project is now! because after that job, everything should feel down hill.

just noticed your signature ajmcforester. I was actually born and raised Moorestown NJ. Loved hanging out at the cherry Hill mall and my parents still live there. I was ever so glad to get out of that state.

Floors aren't too bad since no one really see them if you do a terrible looking job:D I tried to make these look stock appearing from the outside. I also strived to do as much of the welding as I could outside the car or from on top of the panel. Anyone considering this job should order about 20 clecos from Summit or somewhere. They are a great tool for doing this kind of repair and they are cheap. I probably have 50 hours in the floors which include the floor supports and tying into the tension rod boxes to repair the bottom side of those. I still have rockers, doglegs, and hatch sill plate and a couple of other small items to finish on this customers car while i'm trying to finish mine in time for Zcon. When I get tired of doing the noisy, dirty work on this car i go and do some clean work on mine to keep my sanity. Actaully I think I like the dirty work as much!

Doesn't sound real good does it, maybe she's really stuck. When i took my head in from my early e-88, the guides were ready to fall out-so the machinist said. So maybe yours are about the same and the valve is in a bind.From Bloomington, now up in Avon-small world! Good luck

I have seen more then one Z do this, that's why I asked. The valves on the earlier car had a sticking issue. My car did it, and another car i worked on did the same thing. The valve sticks and then the rocker displaces which caused 0 compression. Keep at it with the penetrant. That car sat for 18 years and most of the cylinders came back strong . At the airport the mechanics would have to "shock" the valves on some of the recip engines by actually hitting the valve with a hammer(making sure the piston was clear).

Nice find on the car, ----how do you know the valve is bent?

Be advised that those floors are like most aftermarket panels-they need lots of work to fit. I posted on HybridZ about the floor pans , but recieved no responses. I feel that the pans are made too deep(compared to my untouched car), which causes a problem lining up with the floor support. No easy way to fix that unless you want to reform the floors on the outboard side. Then again, I repaired a Porsche 911 floors and those panels weren't that great either. As far as my health, I consider this my youth serum:) I try to stay in good condition just so I can continue to play like this. i admit that at 47 this is getting a little tougher, but I'm smarter and work smarter which makes things easier. I go to work dressed for warfare too-gloves, work boots, safety glasses, knee pads and coveralls. This is geniune stress relief for me to beat on some metal in the garage. I wouldn't want to do this for a living though!

Well I had to search to find this thread I started because it was so long ago and that scares me. Zcon seemed pretty far away in January, but as usual time is flying by. I can't say that I am on schedule , but I am getting some things done. The exhaust is finally done, or as done as i am going to get. I bit off a pretty bite trying to make duals for this car. There isn't a lot of rom to work with and this was the first exhaust i ever fabricated. The hard part was making it look symetrical. The lack of room underneath only allows for short mufflers(glasspacks in my case) and it was hard to have them not at some kind of angle. Multiply that by the fact that I put an LSD in and had to fab a support bracket for the rear control arms which got in the way of the original exhaust-sssooooo more fabrication and moving of the exhaust. I ended up with exhaust tips that came out of the rear at a slight angle(down and outward). I'm willing to live with it after seeing a 370z exhaust tips that come out at a downward angle also. Sometimes you just have to say "good enough". I also started putting some of the interior back together. As you know with these cars that everything kind of starts at the headliner when you put a stripped out car back together. Well my headliner i put in was not up to snuff so I am redoing it. The padding I used was too thin and left gaps around the top edges of the headliner-so I pressed on with other items that i could do until more headliner material came in. I installed some firewall insulation from some aircraft stuff a buddy gave me and then I was able to install the heater box which i had already restored. I then moved on to installing my gear shifter and boots. This might seem to be an easy job, but once again I was dealing with a change i made from stock. I installed the BWT-5 and that moved the shifter way foward and I updated the actual shifter which affected how the original rubber boots fit. So basically I took an one hour job and made it a 5 hour job because of my modification. I had to notch the console that wasn't the original console. My hats off to folks that work in the R&D department:) Lastly I worked on getting the accessories on my engine. All this while I was putting floors in another Z. I had a motorhead friend come over the other day and laughed when i said that i would be driving this car in July-now I'm really motivated. he bet me 100$ that i would have it done and i thanked him for gas money to Nashville;)

That bondo is sneaky stuff:)

It depends on what por15 product your using-but in the case of the rust preventative you need to follow the instructions or it will not adhere-though it will good for a while.

If they were 280 motors I'd be there today, but already have a 240 block in storage.

....because it could have been ugly! My daughter was home for the holidays and I try and take the oppurtunity to check on her 81 280zxt and make sure it's okay. I put some new speakers in the car for her Christmas present and I also had some maintenance items I wanted to take care of. Due to the extreme cold here in Indianapolis the 30 year old oil seals were starting to give out. The Crank pulley or front main seal started leaking and the power steering pump started spewing too. I happened to have an extra crank seal and I was actually able to order a shaft seal for the pump from Napa(6$). I never had messed with the PS pump before but thought it couldn't be too bad. I was actually guessing the seal was bad on the shaft since I hadn't taken it apart yet. Both jobs went pretty well and I was bale to replace the crank seal without disconnecting my condenser and moving it. The hardest part was getting the keyway to line up when reinstalling the pulley-I couldn'y really see it and had to feel my way around. I was really nervous about dropping it into the timing cover. The PS pump was a learning curve but not too bad, but I did booger up the first seal when i tapped it into place, so I had to order another one from Napa(last one they had). I was doing this job without removing the PS pump, because I didn't have a wrench big enough to hold the HP line nut to get the line off. I got in a hurry the first time installing the seal but came up with a better paln of attack the second time. Since I had to wait another day for the new PS pump seal I was putting my schedule in a bind. I told my daughter I would get the car to her that day that the seal came in, so I had to move effeciently to get everything done and checked out. The second seal went on great and I finished putting the car back together and test drove it-no noises, no leaks-i'm cool:cool: Well I hop in the car and drive it 50 miles to her school and drop it off and everyone is happy:) A busy day and I was done Z-ing and I would clean up the garage tomorrow. Tomorrow came and I cleaned up the aftermath on my work bench of the pile of tools rags and stuff. Then suddenly I locked up looking at my bench--------there sat a C-clip-a C-clip to hold the PS shaft in place--OH Sh%t, I said about a million times. I called my daughter right then and told her to not drive the car until I get down there. Then I had this scary image of being on the highway at 70mph when the shaft came out of the PS pump and how much damage that would have done:stupid: I really got lucky this time-thankyou Z Gods

Well ever since I found out that Z con was going to be so close to home this year, I have been telling myself that I've got to be there with my Z. The reality is that I have a ton of work to do. You might have seen my thread where I had posted that the car was finally painted, but now it's time to put everything-and I mean everything back together. This is a daunting task with a deadline that is getting closer everyday. I've tried to have a lot of things ready to just bolt back on after painting, but all those details are what's going to catch up with me. When I make out a list it seems never ending: Things to do; 1.Buff out paint job and fix any imperfections 2.Install all glass including door glass and hardware 3. Install interior, the car is gutted(95% is restored-just need installed) 4.Install all weatherstripping 5.Start, breakin and tune new motor after I finish accessory installations 6. run engine compartment wiring so I can do step 5 7. Install all exterior trim, lights What I do have done; 1. Drivetrain installed, engine,trans, diff, axles 2.Brakes installed,just need to bled and tested 3. Interior refurbished-including dash 4. Gas tank installed(non factory type so it needs testing) 5. Exhaust fabricated and partially installed, another couple of hours of work Oh, the other things I need to do; 1. pay lots of attention to wife-keep everyone happy;) 2. work lots of hours to pay for daughters college 3. hang out with son and go to his swim meets 4. maintain the other 3 cars in the household 5. finish all the sheetmetal repair on the customers Z in my garage 6. maintain the house Hope to see lots of folks at Z con. If I'm not driving my 240, I will have the daughters 280zxt-come to think about it, it has A/C:cool:

I believe I used nason clear on my car and I am almost sure it is made by Dupont.

I plan on putting my car back together after paint, which includes starting the fresh motor for the first time. I plan to have the car back together for Z Con. I also need to finish the Z- that is not mine- in the garage. I need to finish all the sheet metal work and get it prepped for the painter. And lastly I need to maintain my daughters ZXT incase all else fails I can take it to Z Con. Plus do all the school activities with my boy and go to all his swim meets,maintain a home, maintain the DD's, be good husband;) ect......... Oh, by the way Steve, did you get all that sheet metal work done?

Be advised that you want find anyone that sells a long enough peice of line to go from the front to back in one piece. Make sure you get the right fittings-I believe 10mmX 1.0. The real fustration will be if you start flaring your own ends-it is harder then it looks. You want that right or NO brakes.

Carl, I was in the same dilemma. Though my lines were very servicable, I didn't want to put in nasty looking hard lines against a freshly painted engine compartment. I also have put on wildwoods and needed to install a bias valve, so my lines would have looked different from each other. I opted for new lines that I orderd off of ebay-not SS, just newer ones. The line kits were cheap and the fitting were correct for our cars. The lines were also very maliable and most of my bends were done by hand. I think they were about 50$ The fuel lines I did just paint with some por-15 silver. They didn't look "concourse" by any means, but they looked fresh and consistant in color. As far as whether you would mechanically benefit from SS lines, I can not see where that would make a difference.

Very nice pieces indeed, and I would have opted for them if the tension boxes were any worse. The tension boxes are rusted, but sound-bent, but fixable. So those are bad dog frame rails or ... Well I read the first line again-duhh

Well it worked out better then I thought. Though Charlies floor pans are short on material up front, the rails are extra long. I moved the rail forward probably 2 inches from the stock, maybe not even that much. I was able to remove most of the damaged area under the tension box and I believe it will look very stock when it's done. As you can see the rail is about perfect width for the tension box except for the aft part of the box-you have to spread that out a little. This is on a customers car. On my car I actually had the same situation where I had rust free floors but a bent rail. I actually cut a hole in the floor pan right over the damaged area of the rail and then beat it back in place and then touched up some of the welds.

Johnny O, did you ever figure what you are going to do on the floor supports? I am replacing a customers floor pans and rails now and I am kind of disappointed with the amount of material on the replacement panels. The floor pans are too short up front, but seem to fit fairly nice. The floor support would have been better if they were about 6" inches longer to reach all the way under the tension rod boxes(I think that's what you are refering to as far as NOT long enough). I still need to measure and compare to my unmolested Z, but I going to see if I can't get away with sliding the pan supports forward enough to replace the bottom of the tension boxes. Does that make sense-sorry no pics at the moment.

I wish i had the vin#, but that car was sold 25 years ago in Bloomington Indiana. It was my first Z and I wish I had kept it. Thanks for converting the pics zbane!

So any way I leave this guys place wondering can he be serious, surely he would come down in price-the car doesn’t even run. I gave it a day and decided that I would call the guy up and tell him that I owe too much on my car and I couldn’t afford what he was asking and maybe he would reconsider his price. Well I called him and told him that I really couldn’t afford the trade out and he stopped me right there and said that he reconsidered and he didn’t want my Z after all. So I say that’s all right, when I sell it maybe I can just buy the Datsun straight out. Then the conversation went like this; he said” my wife and I have been talking it over and we decided to just let you have the car”—well I just froze in silence, not sure what to say. He then said that’ the car was taking up too much of his time that he could be using for better things’ and he rambled on about the ministry and other things that I didn’t pay much attention to because I was just thinking that this guy is giving me this car. “So you are just giving me the car” I had to reconfirm. “Yes, it is yours for free----FREE”, he actually spelled it out. “Will you sign over the title?” details, details “Yes and you can have the tow bar that is hooked up to it, but you have to tow it away” I think he noticed by now how excited I was getting . I told him that I would try and get back today to get the car. Needless to say I was on this instantly before he changed his mind. I grabbed my buddy that had his 56’ Chevy truck with a tow ball and we grabbed it later that day. My buddy could hardly believe it, I did have pretty good luck when it came to cars. I towed the car to my house until I could find a place to work on it. By the way, the title showed that it was a 1970 from Texas. As I type this out I remember now that when I say I was looking for a place to work on the car, I really had no clue what I was doing. Yeh I had some fast cars but I was no mechanic-I’m still not a mechanic. I was and still not one of those guys that just had a mechanical aptitude, but loved working with my hands. I was more interested in looking good in my car then whether the car was engineering masterpiece of its time. But I stumbled on with these big plans of rebuilding this baby; I’ll figure it out as I go along! I towed the car home(I was based 25 miles from my house in NJ), and there it sat in the driveway-parents never had a garage, still don’t. I would stare at the car coming up with a plan of attack that had no scientific reasoning or mechanical backing. Though my memory isn’t good enough to remember exactly, knowing my lack of mechanical ability I looked at the engine apart I figured that it needed to be rebuilt, never really doing any of the important things like a compression check.What I saw when I looked at the engine was all of that aluminum everywhere and I thought how beautiful this engine compartment would look all cleaned up. This is the closest I had ever been to a Z engine, but it was love at first sight when I saw that engine compartment. So I yanked the motor and dropped it off at the machinist and said ‘rebuild it’. More later…

I thought I would finally get around to telling this story of my first Z. It was way back in the 80's that I was in the USAF stationed at McGuire in NJ. I always had a some great cars and I always was out of money. I was barely 20 and had a 79 Z-28 that was a great car, fast and black laquer custom paint with a L-82 drivetrain. I was always broke from paying car payments and high insurance in NJ. I believe a 4th of my income was funding this ride, but that's the way I rolled back then. I finally decided that I needed to get into something that didn't involve a payment and full coverage insurance. I was driving around the base and I noticed this Z(datsun type) sitting in front of this trailer that was used by on-base housing. I don't remember if it had a sign or not but I said to myself that I always loved those cars and maybe I could fix it up cheap and have a cool car and no payments. At the time I had my Z-28 up for sale and was driving around with a for sale sign in the window. I went to the trailer and knocked on the door and this guy answered and I told him that I was interested in the Z and that I was selling my car at the time. He was very interested in my Z and he thought we could work out a cash and trade deal. I got a chance to take a close look at the car and noticed it was definetly NOT a driver yet. It looked a little rough outside and under the hood was well-ummm-incomplete! The carbs and intake was sitting in a box-not good. This was going to take some work . So we started talking money and I told him that I was looking to get about 6000$ for my Z-it was pristine. He then said that he was looking to get 3000$ towards the trade for the Z. I'm always a nice guy so I swallowed my initial response( are you fu#%&*g crazy), and I told him that I would have to think about it. On that note I drove off thinking- damn I would love to have that car, this sucks. to be continued... red 240z 13.BMP red 240z 17.BMP