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While the interior paint was drying, I did some suspension work. So I removed the front axle, engine crossmember and steering to refresh some parts: Oh and I did pretty much the same for the rear: After the paint had dried I started rebuilding the interior layer by layer. Sound deadening: Some more insulation and some new vinyl from MSA: Oh and I rebuilt the drivers side door with a brand spanking new NOS door card

I find that time not money is the bigger challenge for me completing my car projects. Now don't get me wrong we live very modestly on a very tight budget but I go months between episodes in the shop working on the Z. That being said there are several projects that I can think of I would donate to. Blue has a very low number car that is on his project list and the super low number car on the forum that looks like swiss cheese is another. Another way to invest in the projects would be to help with parts. I have quite a number of parts laying around and would gladly help these projects that are very rare cars. I suspect that between the entire forum we could cobble together a lot of the parts necessary for some of these low number cars.

Well hello and welcome back. As foretold in the previous updates I plan on starting up the second year of the Datsun rebuild. Looking at where I left off I’m starting to think I bit off more than I can chew with the build expecting to take three years with just the winters being the active time on the project. I know I said I would poke here and there on the Datsun in the summer, fortunately and unfortunately I did not do anything with the Z except for take parts from on location and place them in another location no cleaning of parts nor wrenches on the vehicle were accomplished during the spring summer months of 2015. Where I left off with the Datsun was the dash removal. That went relatively well all one piece and no did not take instruments out like I thought I would this summer. With the dash out the next step of my plan is to continue removing all interior pieces . What’s remaining? The duct work , heater box/AC, interior vinyl coverings, pedals, steering column, gas tank odds and ends, wiring/conduit, and glass. Sounds like a lot looks like a lot less than that. After that then the next phase is body work. What this should initial, should be the purchasing of all replacement panels and materials for the cars welding and patching needs. The end goal for this stage is to have the car cleaned up inside and out , rust removed and stopped, patchwork welded and muddled, primer sprayed and ready for paint come spring 2016. Wow right, I am bugging out a little because I don’t want to include the drive-train and suspension in this phase but I have to remove it to be able to clean and clear the under-body of the Z. Comments would be helpful with this but either I am too cheap to get a paid blog or you folks who have subscribed don’t care to give advice, In either case comments and advise are welcomed good or bad. My thought is to go ahead with the suspension and drive-train removal but, when it comes to replacing parts keep that at minimum. The only reason this is any concern is due to the need to have a way to get the body to the paint shop, I don’t have a frame dolly with wheels to bring it on a flat bed. Although I could make one, but then I would be forcing work during the summer which may not agree with my family? I could maybe bust arse a little and try and get both drive-train and suspension done after getting the car ready for paint then putting the car for paint as soon as I am done, maybe get what is necessary completed on the drive-train with the knowledge that I will have to take off some of the parts again to add exchange or repair. For example I don’t need to mess with the brakes, but I plan on doing the Toyota forerunner conversion to the rear wheels to upgrade to disc brakes so everything on the spindle would have to go, also I am going to swap for a 200LSD vs. the current 180LSD but that doesn’t have to come off too roll the car into a paint booth. In any case this will give me something to rant about next update on the blog. The body in paint will free up room for prep for the last phase, the rebuild with new engine. If the body is in paint then I will have a open stall for a donor car with the engine or a engine and transmission separate. Then when the painted car is complete I can store it outside covered over a make shift outdoor covering or at another location for a short time to get the donor car emptied or move it back if I just have the engine and transmission to deal with I will be working on building a Car rotisserie for the Z in hopes to have it on the stand in November. I will need to modify the two stands with a piece of square stock steel and weld into place. I intend on continue to strip the interior and catalog the parts and remove the suspensions both front and rear in preparation for the rotisserie. A lot has to be done so wish me luck. After countless hours of looking at multiples setups and years of dreaming , watching and reading manga cartoons about racing and JDM cars, I have decided on a plan or direction for the Z. I am looking to slowly build the car in stages with the ultimate stage having very similar things as the devil Z with a 3.1 liter displacement and twin turbo, should be able to claim at least 600hp in a car that ways less than 2300lbs is pretty sick. That's the idea for the performance aspect. Since I don't foresee a Ferrari in my future, I plan on capitalizing on the Italian design cues the 240Z has already captured. I ma not going to go overboard with it, I feel that would make the car tacky. I do however am going to attempt to do this tastefully and efficiently as possible. My next update will be in a months time with pictures of the remaining deconstruction and current status, till then thanks for reading.

So I decided to start a thread to keep track of my mild build and to share my experiences and such 25th of august a longtime dream came true. I often wrote on my blog "one day I will...". I do fantasize about a S30 for at least 10 years now. And the 25th was the day, I got myself a Datsun 240Z. It was imported from the US to Europe in 2011. It is a 1973 model, and I love it! On the second try I managed to pass technical inspections and got the car registered. Thanks again Eric for borrowing me the stock-ish wheels. Till now I did a tune up (spark plugs and wires; distributor cap, finger, points and condensator; ignition coil and ballast; fuel pump). Soon I will get the carb setted again. And then it's a go for modding and restoring piece after peice. Think i will start by optimizing and restoring the interior and modding the suspension. And 2 pics from cars and coffee this weekend. I love driving this car. And I try to do it as much as possible to find as much weak points as possible. So I know what to change, modify, make better this winter.

Here's some work under the car. The plan and sequencing went like this: 1. Put on the old rusty hard lines to remind myself where they went. 2. Bend new ones (wrong) 3. Re-bend the lines (right) 4. Weld on new attachment points for the lines 5. Mount the tank, new (aftermarket) fuel pump, and (aftermarket) fuel filter, which included welding in mounts for the filter and pump 6. Put on the suspension to sort out the hardware and verify there is no interference 7. Take the whole works off (I labeled and packaged the parts better this time -lesson learned) 8. Prime, paint and undercoat 9. Put all that crap back on

Here are some photos from the engine compartment. I went through a phase where I didn't take too many photos so I don't have much to show. The engine compartment work went hand in hand with me sorting out the undercar, hardlines, and fuel delivery. Somewhere in there I did some *gasp* welding on my gas tank to repair pin holes, which I have posted elsewhere. The engine compartment was sandblasted and a couple mounting points welded in for my brake proportioning valve and fuel pressure regulator. Enjoy!

Still plugging away! I sprayed the tank with the black top coat the weekend before last, which went ...not great. The Masterseries stuff is a lot thicker than the Eastwood paint I used before, which caused some issues. The first coat went on terribly, but the second -- which I thinned a lot more and fiddled with the gun settings -- was acceptable enough. It ended up having almost a hammered look, which wasn't really what I was planning on but looks okay for what it is. Since I was at it, this was also a chance to see if I could fix one of the J bolts that a PO had stripped the bejeezus out of. The Harbor Freight tap and die set I bought saved it. The inline filter I put on when I did the tank the last time was also fairly gunked up with stuff that I couldn't flush out, so I replaced that too. And made some new linings for the straps out of an old bicycle inner tube. The tank went back in on Sunday night, and even with ~4 gallons in it, there's still no fuel getting into the lines, so that has to get straightened out. Hopefully it's still just low. Work on the interior also coming along. Finally got everything cleaned enough to be able to hit it with a wire wheel tomorrow and start prepping for paint. One small victory: the broken seat bolt lost. I tried using a screw extractor, which promptly broke off right when it occurred to me that this probably wasn't the best approach. I got the broken part of and drilled out the rest of the bolt without even damaging the threads. A small thing, but it's nice to get a win! Then there's this thing, which used to be mounted to the transmission tunnel. I'm pretty sure it's part of the cruise control system that someone put in. The wires make their way down to a bundle underneath the brake booster, but I haven't traced them further. Looks like it might be a sensor of some kind. Anyone know for sure?

I was suspecting problems with my injectors once. Lean on 3 and 4 spark plug. To check the injectors I lifted them out of the manifold and attached small beakers to them and cranked the engine 10 seconds. With the spark plugs removed it wasn't to much stain on the starter motor. After seeing the results it was obvious the injectors were causing the lean condition. I removed then and reverse flushed them with a mixture of carb cleaner and fuel. They have been working great ever since. You mentioned changing the injectors last year. I think I would leave them to last and try to test, repair or replace the other parts first. The leakdown test with the pressure gauge will tell you were to look. You probably have more than one culprit causing the pressure loss. Like Sarah said, pressure loss is not that big a problem as long as its not getting air in the system it should built up pressure in seconds. When I first got mine it lost pressure in about 2 minutes. Mine was the check valve and a leaking fuel filter (leaking at the seam). After that it now holds pressure for 3 to 4 weeks. Just a note on starting: When it has pressure mine starts 1 second and sometimes 2 seconds. After the pressure has dropped to almost 0 psi it takes 3 to 5 seconds to start. Chas

Small update, here in the middle of re-doing the whole suspension. Took both front and rear off the car two weekends ago and found some good and bad. Bad: one each of the tie rod ends and ball joints had torn boots, so they're all getting replaced. All four shocks were completely blown; no rebound at all. The strut mount insulator bearings were covered in some kind of severe nastiness. Spindle pins were in bad shape, but at least that made it easy to beat the heck out of them. Good: seems like all the bearings are in good shape. A previous owner had already replaced most of the bushings fairly recently, so getting those off proved easy. Aside from consumable parts like the ball joints, everything else was actually in pretty good shape and I didn't have to facepalm once when taking things apart. After getting everything apart, it's been a lot of cleaning and paint prep. Started with a wire wheel, then made my first go at media blasting with a $20 siphon-feed gun. Not really knowing what I was getting into, I made this -- uhh...crude -- little "setup" thinking it might keep the mess down. It didn't. So I did a little scrounging around the house to come up with something a little more sophisticated. Still made a mess, and wasn't without some difficulties, but it got the job done well enough. Still have a little cleaning up to do, but hoping to get prep finished by this weekend so I can move on to paint and then get everything put back in two weeks. My stack of parts going in: Vogtland springs and Stagg shocks, Suspension Techniques sway bars, poly bushings, tie rod ends, ball joints, and a bunch of miscellaneous hardware. Only thing I'm not sure about is how to deal with the rear struts. Blasting and then painting the whole assembly seems like it would be a bad idea: too likely for abrasives and other stuff to get where it shouldn't be and muck up the works. I supposed I could remove the rear hub, but everything I've read makes me think I never want to do that. So for now, I'm planning on just cleaning and painting the strut tube and leaving the rest -- rough thought it may be -- as is. Is there a better option?