240znz

This car has so far had many people help me out, many of them here. The panel shop I am using is doing great work, my good friend has rebuilt the engine and got the head work completed. I'm delaing with the electrical bits as that's my trade. I'm just the mug who bought it, pulled it down into little bags with hieroglyphics as labels so it seems now, then emptied my wallet buying new essential bits and I haven't finished yet. Today saw me with 10 sheets of 500x500 tar paper sound deadener and a sharp knife plus heatgun. The result is 3/4 finished interior, stuffed wrist and burnt left palm (picked up the wrond end of the heatgun). I ran out of sheets. More tomorrow then I'll post some more pics.

Tom is not wrong. It's taken 4 years to get to here and the fever is still strong. So strong in fact that the fever has caused me to purchase a "self emptying wallet". Oh well, they're still printing the stuff aren't they? Will - Hurry up! Mike, you are too kind. All the rust you saw was in places that were OK to have rust in (bit of a oxymoron that statement). The hard to replace bits were fine. It's just all the "while I'm at it" items that kill it. Plenty more pics to come. I'll update the gallery one day.

Underside shot with epoxy, then textured with base and top coats over the top. It's all happening now. At last.

It's your car, you only need to answer to yourself, so do what you want to it. But.....keep the old engine just in case you change your mind sometime in the future.

The last caption is headed 240z, when it's a 260z. Oh well, can't always get it right can they.

Powdercoating is the way to go. Black is a very common colour so they wouldn't have to do a special run just for your grill. Ask and shop around for the best pricing.

I have one and a half 240z's. HS30-00352 is due back from the paint shop next week and most things are ready for the reassembly. It will be kept in the garage and driven when I feel like (all the time then really when I get the chance) but not so keen in the rain, but no doubt that will change at some stage. It should be referred to as rebuilt not restored. Just a few mods to the engine and suspension. "His Holeyness" is off to the crusher once I've picked it over for "where did that bit go" when putting 352 back together. I'll keep the best bits, dash, interior, pedal box, L28.

Nice work

I'll chrip in here and state that pulling down the car and dipping it then putting the jigsaw back together is a pile of work. More than you can imagine. Really.

My car has had two new rear guards with doglegs, two new sills, under battery tray repairs, firewall repairs, frame rails repairs around sway bar mounts, new hatch threshold repairs, lower front guard repairs, new floor pans, bonnet leading edge repairs, valance repairs and little bits of rust here and there. Also the shell has been sand blasted. It has been assembled to check fitting and gaps. Whole car gets etch primed then I fit the sound deadening. Etch prime again over the deadening cause it's waxy and paint won't stick. Fillers and sanding for at least a week. Then paint the underside with splatter. Then top coat of red underneath, engine bay and inside. I'll bring it home and fit re-assemble the entire car, test fire engine, test every electrical component to make sure that I don't have to remove the dash again. Then back to the shop to have the valance, guards, bonnet, doors and hatch fitted. Then spray the exterior with top coats. The idea behind this is to make sure that I don't scratch the body while re-assembly. It should work and although there will be a slight colour change in inside and out, it will be very difficult if impossible to notice. Final cost is estimated to be just under US$15K. This is a full bare metal resto and this confirms that they aren't cheap by any means. Final paint colour alone is US$900. Best way to decide IMO is to sit down and honestly appraise what you want. A show car or a nice daily that will last or something in between. Best money spent is in the prep work. For without good prep, the results are crap and you will have nothing but arguements, plus a empty wallet.

Be very careful of second life. We know a father of three who ended up spending 3 months in a mental hospital after becoming iddicted to second life. Nearly cost him his life. Turn the TV/computer off and enjoy life....in a zed.

Honda S2000 sub 500 VIN is very much worth keeping a hold of. I doubt the 350z will ever get classic car status. The front still remains a joke and the arse remains fat. The best thing about it is the falling resale value IMO. I'd have a new MX5 or S2000 anyday over the over inflated 350Z.

Mazda MX5's are a heap of fun. I took one for a test drive around the local hills here and was very very suprised with the performance, especially the handling. Mazda got it right with this wee beasty. Just needs a tad more power. Take the latest version for a blast if you get the chance. In fact, isn't this the car that overtook the S30 as the most sold sports car in history to date?

Cheers Will, Looks like Plasti Dip is for me then. You US boys sure do have niche market products. I'll have to have scan about the local hardware stores here to see if we have a similar product. No doubt there is a Chinese equivalent (but will it last?) James

For those of you who have had their cars dipped or sandblasted, what product did you use to insulate the wiring harness fixing tabs in the engine bay. I could use some heatshrink on them but I'd rather try to find something as close to stock as possible. Can you buy a liquid form of rubber that sets once exposed to air? It would be difficult to do but it could be done with a lot of prior testing. Cheers James

Spot on pics and dims. That makes life just easy thank you very much. No doubt I'll have some more queries in the not so distant future. Cheers all, James

Cheers for that but it's a bit small to print and get good quality. Any chance that you could take a bigger pic and post. I'll be printing it on A4 so something under 1MB would be OK but no less than 500KB. My panel guy needs big pics. The drain hole info is great. Located that camera yet Wil? Just kidding.

Hi all, Looks like I'm fast becoming a Quality Surveyor with my panel shop. The new floors are in but he has omitted to extend the two rear pan support plates (shown in the attached photo to the right). Can one of nice chaps take a close up of both sides and reply to this thread with measurements as well. Also the two pan support channels have holes in them (shown in the attched photo to the left). I have new channels on mine and he's not noted where they old ones were. Can someone also let me know how far from the TC rod bracket these are and also the diameter. Looks like M10 to me but I want to be sure. Are these holes open or are bungs installed? This is a case of a panel shop removing rusty bits and throwing them away before fitting the new ones. Grumph!!!! Cheers all.

Like the above comments, I stripped my car into zip lock bags where possible and took a zillion digital photos from far to many angles at 5 megapixels each. The idea being that if I get stuck putting it back together, I can refer back. Either fab up a rotisserie yourself or your panel shop may have one they can adapt up. Just before you put it on, drop the entire undercarriage. While the body is being dealt to, you can sort the suspension, gearbox and engine. When it's painted, get it back without the hood, guards, doors and hatch, so you can minimise scratching it while you re-assemble everything, testing each part as you go. This method could be thought of as "a little too far" by some but the amount of leaning over guards to work on the engine bay is a lot. Putting the dash and interior back together would be easier with the door off of course. I would pay some particular attention to the wiring. Make sure you label every connector. I wrote a different letter on each pair of connectors. You can easily destroy a loom if you hook it up wrong.

Don't you just have to love the internet for stuff like this. I visited the panelshop this afternoon, saw that he had replaced the entire section under the battery but the gusset hadn't been fabricated, he said get me an image with measurements and I'll sort it tomorrow. So I posted this thread 25 minutes before leaving work and it got comprehensively answered only 61 minutes later. AMAZING. Thank you Will. A dozen cyberspace beers are travelling the internet highway to you now. Legend! As a side note Will. How are you going to protect that (what looks like) sound deadening mat that you have put against the drivers foot well? Surely it will get knocked about pretty quick when you start driving it.

Can someone taek a snap and attach it to this thread of a closer image of the attached photo please. Both sides of the car thanks. Can you also measure at list out the individual dims as well. A lot I know but we can't find any measurements anywhere for this and my car needs two new units. The LHS was original and was cut out by me ages ago and lost. Gone The RHS has been removed and a patch places over it. Thanks again.

Thanks Jon. Thanks for explaining that, it makes more sense now. I got the 5 speed rebuilt last year and I'm about to pull the spare diff I have in the parts car. That car had the triples on it with L28, some suspension mods and relocated battery. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a 3.9 or 4.11 in there. I compared the head work with the E31 and N42 I have, yes, big differences all round. The valve size is huge. Now I just need my car back to put it all in.

Did you blow out the fuel return line as well? It either electrical or fuel related right. Once it has died, does the starter motor turn over? Do you have electrics. Not as simple as a stuffed battery and alternator charging circuit fault is it? Happened to me before. Battery has just enough charge to run everything for a bit then dies. Wait a while until the battery recovers then it is a OK for a short while.

Jon, The duration looks tiny to me. After visiting various AU and NZ cam profiler websites, common duration is about 260 to 290 for more torque. The engine is a overbored L24 to L2.5. His arguement is that we aren't chasing compression as I want it to run on pump gas and avoid pinging with our pathetic 95 octane fuel that we get here in NZ. He went on to add that the L24's rev better than the L28 so the setup is for higher rpm without sacrifcing low down torque. I'm not sure that he just hasn't thrown up enough fog so I can't see the reasoning. I guess I'm doubting his reasoning with this cam with the head work he has done. Maybe I'm a "Doubting Thomas", but I guess I'll just have to see what it's like and if it's not what I like, then change it. I'm also running headers with a 2.5" pipe. Standard dizzy at this stage and 3.54 diff. Any ideas on what I can expect?

The car will be used for some weekend driving and the occasional time trial events at the local track. So what I'm after is a engine that will give me pull and a bit of top end when stomping on the loud pedal.