motorman7

I did tap it into shape a bit using some wood blocks. Hopefully the rusted areas are not too pitted. Powder coating will cover small depressions, but not the deep pitting. Sent from my C6902 using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Got the suspension parts all disassembled and ready for powder coating. The powdercoater is great as they will sand blast the parts before coating. No need to do a thorough clean on these. The difficult task here was taking out the old bushings from the lower control arms. I went to Autozone and borrowed their U-joint/ball joint removal tool and used that to help with the bushing removal. The fronts weren't too bad as I was able to press them out with the Autozone tool and a carefully sized 25mm socket. The rears were not so easy. In addition to the press, I had to roll the edges of the bearing 'inward' to help peel them off the wall. A little PB blaster helped as well. So, I should have these at the powdercoaters tomorrow morning and they should be back in about a week. KYB Shocks have been ordered and should be here in a couple days. I will be ordering the Energy Suspension kit tomorrow so we will have all new Polyurethane bushings ready for assembly. All fasteners have been received by the plater and should be back here in a week or so. With that all done, I should be able to start assembling the suspension components here in a little over a week.

The motor is coming along. Got the valve cover bead blasted and painted with matte clear. Also installed the water pump, engine mounting brackets, and smog and alternator brackets.

Glad you got to meet Bob. With all the Z stuff going on, I am sure that we will run across each others paths one of these days. Great to hear from you. .......................................... Got the Oil pan on. Also cleaned up and installed the oil pump. Got the distributor shaft slot lined up at the 11:20 location. I broke down the front and rear suspension, also bagged the small stuff and sorted components. I have a box set-up specifically for the parts that will be powdercoated. I did a basic wire wheel clean on about 85 percent of the parts that need to be plated. Got those sorted (silver and yellow zinc) and bagged so I can ship those to the plating shop tomorrow. I have two large USPS boxes full of parts to send out. I will send the remainder of the parts out along with the longer fuel lines in a separate shipment. Pics are below. Check out the brake disc...a solid home for the spiders.

Got the timing gears and chain installed. Also installed a new timing chain tensioner. Cleaned up and sprayed the timing chain cover with high temp aluminum paint and got that installed. Also got the front pulley cleaned and painted and the oil pan. Will install those in the next couple days after they dry.

Interesting subject. This is one of the major features I use to judge the quality of a shops body work. On the low budget shops, the edge is rounded and sometimes not even very straight. The bad shops will mess this up even when there hasn't been any bodywork done in the area. On a side note, I saw a silver Z that was done on one of the popular car TV shows (not sure which one) and the body work and interior were incredible. On the body, they actually sharpened the line, along with the line just above it over the rear wheel. It looked gorgeous. I talked with Miguel about sharpening the line a bit on my white one. Will see how that goes when we get to that point. We are probably two to three months out on that.

I think that area will just be just the regular primer and paint for the tail light panel area. I will POR-15 the underside and then use undercoating over that.

And pics from the paint shop. This is moving along nicely. Car just came back from media blasting. Looks like we will will be welding in a new hatch panel and both rear doglegs.

Hi @pontiacguy, I have these two pics plus I kept the assembly in tact (for now) so will try and take pics of that and post it. Hops this helps

Got the head attached to block with No.1 Piston and Cam positioned at TDC.

Got the pistons cleaned up. Installed new rings and connecting rod bearings.

I do the same. Les Cannady at Classic Datsun Motorsports recommended this to me during my first Z engine rebuild. I am sure he has prepped more Z engines than the average bear, so I take the advice as gospel. Never had a problem.

Got the brass freeze plugs in. Also got the crankshaft and new bearings in as well. Probably won't get to the pistons till Monday as the wife has me busy restoring her 1989 Suburban..........Home. Tile work in the living room. Ugh. I'd much rather be working on the car in the heat than working on house tile in the cool AC. Oh well, need to keep the priorities right.

Yes, high temp gloss clear coat for the serial number. Yes, I checked that when I picked it up from the shop. I can't even feel a mild depression in this area. I thought i might feel a ridge or something,but it is as smooth and linear as the rest of the cylinder.

Got the block cleaned up and painted.

I found my Silver 1973 restoration thread. This is hard to look as I really wish I had that one back. Selling my silver 1973 probably ranks in the top 5 stupid decisions that I have made in my life (Which says a lot since I have made a lot of stupid decisions). Anyway, here is the tread to give you a bit of preview as to what's ahead.

Got the block and an E88 head back from the machine shop. The block only needed to be honed which is nice. The head was cleaned, pressure and leak checked, in addition to the valve job. I ordered new conn and rod bearings along with new piston rings, gasket kit and brass freeze plugs. Now the fun begins. Will start by cleaning that block up and painting it nice and pretty.

You need to rotate the short arm that attaches to the motor 180 degrees. This should fix the running into the cowl problem (Don't ask me how I know that ?)

Pics from the paint shop

Here's a few pics from the paint shop. Picked up the suspension, will start to disassemble. Car is on rollers so it is easy to move around the shop.

Well, lot's of stuff going on here. Currently I am sorting, disassembling and cleaning parts that will be sent out for zinc plating. Most likely I will have several batches to send out. The box of parts in the picture below does not look like much, but it actually goes fairly deep. I would guess the box weighs close to 50 pounds. That is a lot of parts to plate. I got a call from the machine shop early this morning. They said the head is not in very good shape and that the water jacket and exhaust port were disintegrated enough that there were two small holes between the two and the metal was very thin. I almost felt like I could touch my fingers together when I went to check the thickness of the material. Not easy to see from the pic but if you shine the flashlight into the water port, you can see light in the exhaust port of the first cylinder. The exhaust ports of cylinder 2 and 3 were also eroded. Welding would be a bit of a challenge as the exhaust port area seems to have lost a lot of metal. Not sure how that happens. Anyway, while I was waiting to talk to the shop owner about the head, I noticed another Z head on their 'unclaimed parts' rack. As I passed by the shelf , I checked the serial number and saw that it was an E88 head just like the one I brought in, all completely serviced and ready to go. I asked the owner about the head and he said it had been sitting there unclaimed for almost a year. I asked if it was available for sale and he said he would love to get rid of it as it is just taking up shelf space, the price was $300. After inspecting it and comparing it to @jayhawk E88 head, I told him i would take it. Such a deal. That's about what the valve job would have cost anyway if the head were in good shape. So, the shop owner said he would clean the head up, since it had been sitting for a while and run pressure and leak checks and I can pick it up tomorrow. I will probably keep the original head but, not sure what to do with it. Tomorrow, I will go down to the paint shop and pick up all of the suspension parts. The shell is now lifted and on rollers so the body can be easily moved and worked on. Will take pics of that tomorrow.

Looks beautiful, very nice job! Just a few quick comments. My early '70 did not come with decals on the air filter so I am thinking that you would not need those. I am not sure when the decals started showing up, but I would guess yours did not come with those originally. Also, the timing chain cover looks unique. Mine has ridges in it. Maybe the early ones were flat like in your picture.

I do not know. I am surprised that they only give a temp rating and no pressure rating.

I figured that the insulation would be a little controversial. Here in California, asbestos is right up there with coffee and saw dust for being cancer causing agents. As of right now, the insulation is wrapped with Saran Wrap and in a box for it's protection (and mine I guess). I did not want to get any dirt or grease on it. My current thoughts on it is that I would like to keep it original and will use my 'Go to' Hi-temp matte clear paint spray over it when I am ready to install.

Finished the engine tear down this weekend. Will bring the head and the block to the machine shop on Tuesday. It's always interesting what you find when you break these down. On the exhaust manifold, there was one broken stud and another location where the nut was not even installed. Not to mention that it is the wrong exhaust manifold. There should be a port on the back part of the exhaust manifold. Fortunately, @Montezuma has a '73 manifold available, so I will use that one. Will post pictures of that one a bit later. I love the insulation on the fuel rail. I will be very careful with that and keep it as clean as possible. It may not be 'sporty', but I think it is way cool. Also, the cylinders look very clean with no scratches. Hopefully we can just get by with a hone on these guys. Pics are below.