motorman7
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Everything posted by motorman7
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OK, she's off to the paint shop! Will meet with Miguel tomorrow to go over the details.
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Regarding the Diluted Muriatic Acid...It is just a 5% solution, so 20 parts water to 1 part Muriatic acid.
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Actually, a quick dip (5 seconds maybe) in a warm, diluted Muriatic acid bath will remove the yellow. Quick rinse with water and you are probably good to go. I do this at home when needed. I do not know whether the finish was shiny or matte. @26th-Z is probably a better source for this info than myself.
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To be real specific, the wire clamps for the early cars like yours should have been silver zinc and not the yellow zinc . @Carl Beck probably knows more about this, but the yellow zinc wire clamps came along a bit later, like on the '71 cars. Personally, I think it's close enough. Not many folks are up on that.
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I have the car completely stripped now and will ship this off to Miguel on Thursday. The interior is actually pretty clean and the paint looks nice inside. Once it's at Miguel's, we will remove the suspension and put the car on some custom roller stands that mount to the body so that the car can be moved around easy while it is at the shop. This will also allow me to bring the suspension parts back home and get them powder coated and the nuts and bolts replated while the body work and paint are being done. That way, when the painted body comes back to my place, the suspension parts will be ready. I plan on doing a lot of part prep while the body is at Miguel's. I did wipe the engine bay down a bit, but it is still pretty dirty. Miguel will eventually blast the engine compartment so no need to waste too much time cleaning it up. Pics are below. Pics are nice to have. Just noticed I need to pull those black caps off of the shock towers before I ship this off.
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Got a lot of stuff removed last Thursday and today. Got the Fuel tank, fuel pump, hoses, diff, half-shafts, trans tunnel fuel and brake lines, seats and steering column removed, among other things. Took some good pics of the fuel pump since that is unique to the '73 (as opposed to the '70-72). Also took some good pics of the steering column wires because, as we know, the green wire connects to the white wire. Now I just have to remove the dash, front and rear glass and interior vinyl and that will be it for the part removal. I will clean things up and get most of the grease and dirt off before I transport the body to Miguel. I am hoping I can get this to the paint shop this Thursday. The underside was pretty dirty with caked oil, so that may take a bit of time. It's interesting to follow all the Flat Top 'banter'. It will make the final results all the more exciting once it is complete. @CHL240Z, Yes, I am keeping Miguel busy. My white Z is down there already. Now it will have company.
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My only experience with the flat tops is that I had a '73 with them on and they ran great, even in bad traffic on the 5 Freeway. Hard for me to complain when I have only had a good experience with them.
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The only shop I know that might be available would be zcargarage.com up in San Jose. Currently, I am pretty booked and would not be available until sometime next year. Also, I know Les at Classic Datsun Motorsports in Vista is pretty booked as well. For reference: a restoration that looks like it just left the factory will most likely be in the $30K to $100K range, dependent on the current condition of the car. Also, it takes a little time and can be 6 months to 2 years to complete.
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Should not be a problem putting the trans on with the engine in place. I have done it several times before when replacing a leaky rear seal on an engine. I use a couple scissors jacks on a plastic 'oil drip tray' and carefully slide the assembly forward once it is at the right height. Make sure the trans housing and mating engine block are parallel. Also, you might have to rotate the drive shaft back and forth to get the transmission splines to insert into the clutch plate splines as you slide the transmission in.
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Continued the part removal process. Removed the Transmission and drive shaft. Also started removing door hardware and windows. I may be able to get this off to the paint shop by next week. That would be nice since the paint job is the long pole in the process. Paint will take about 4-5 months. Will work on motor re-furb, and undercarriage parts while body is at the body/paint shop.
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Yes, the left side has that one pan head screw. That is factory. My guess is that the pan head has a lower profile than the hex head. Also, there is no washer. My bet is that this was originally intended to be a hex also, but the hex contacted the cowl in this location, so they had to switch to a lower profile screw head. That's my theory for now unless otherwise corrected.
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OK, just sent him the question. Just edited above...fan is wrong also, it should be metal. Air cleaner is wrong, should not have summer winter feature. I doubt this is a numbers match.
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I wonder if he knows what matching numbers really means? The valve cover and fan are from a later model. Also, I own S/N 2614, just 13 units behind this one.
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Spent a little more time removing parts today. It was pretty dog gone hot here so I opted not to mess with the transmission today. Instead, I removed the front end bumper assembly and lights. Also removed some of the brake components in the engine compartment. I did a quick wipe with de-greaser on the engine bay fenders and they clean up pretty nice. Will clean up a bit more once I get all of the brake lines out. Here are the latest pics.
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Hi Guy, good to hear from you again. Yes, having a great painter is a huge help. It is the only way that I will do the cars now. Got some more parts off of the interior of the car. Also got the engine harness out and the engine out. Will take out the trans, diff and brake and fuel lines next. Also got the wiper arms and wiper motor out. I am guessing the car was parked somewhere close to a tree at one time. That Z CSI comes in handy. If i knew my trees better, I could tell you what kind of tree it was . ?
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Got the radiator and AC evaporator out then started working on the back end. This actually cleaned up pretty nice, and the bumper and rear end damage do not look too bad. All the interior panels will need to be replaced though. They are as fragile as egg shells. The rear tail lights are in very nice shape. Here are some pics from the disassembly.
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The car is actually an early 1973 with a build date of 10/72. The SN is 125678. Also, I think @jayhawk mentioned that he drilled the holes in the firewall for the AC so I am wondering if it is more an aftermarket AC and not a dealer installed AC. Perhaps he can comment after vacation. For this restoration, we will be removing the AC. That makes things a little bit easier. I was not aware of the difference in the flat tops from '73 to '74. I will have to look into that when I start re-assembly. I will definitely be consulting you and @Zup when I move to the clean and restore phase. Thanks!
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Ahhhh...good to see the the car owner here. @jayhawk stopped by today and dropped off a six pack for me, a six pack of flat tops that is, See pics below. Two are the originals and the other four are spares. I will look into those a bit later. I began the motor tear-down this evening so that I can pull the motor. Things went pretty well, so I am hoping to have the motor out this weekend. It always amazes me what I will find during the tear down. Some of the amusing finds include the double spring set-up attached to the SU, missing fast idle linkage, capped off heater lines, and unique '73 tubes going to nowhere (pics below). It's amazing what you can hide behind a large air cleaner and a set of SU's. Anyway, not a big problem. We will get these fixed when we get to the assembly portion. For now, I want to get the motor out and then move to the interior disassembly.
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Thanks for the comments everyone. It should be a fun build. The owner will be stopping by on Monday with a number of original parts that he has purchased for the restoration. I think he said he has an original radio along with the original set of flat tops and a number of other parts. That will definitely help. Maybe he even has a shift knob ? . Will post as things progress.
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Well, the last restoration went so well I think it's time to do another one. I am actually restoring this '73 240Z for a gentleman up in the Bay Area. He is the original owner of the Z and a friend of the Orange Z owner whose car I recently completed. We will pretty much go through the same process and restore this one to it's original condition including the original flat tops. Actually the flat tops are one of the first things we discussed on the phone and I was thrilled that he wanted to have those put back on (I would have a hard time restoring a '73 and putting on the round tops). So, attached are some pics of what we have to work with. I will document things here as the project progresses.
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Personally, I prefer the permatex adhesive shown below. I do not like the 3M adhesive. The permatex is much stronger and sets up faster. 3M took way too long to set and never really held that well when hardened.
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Interesting car there. I noticed that you did not say motor was matching numbers. That would be a big item when it comes to price. The motor appears to have been out at one time since the motor mount bolts are installed with one facing down and the other facing up. That is kind of funny actually. Odd that the whole balance tube is stripped; Fast Idle control and everything, not just smog. The thing that is really bugging me in the pics is the dash. It is not original as the grain looks way too coarse and does not match the glove box door. Perhaps it is a 'Just Dashes' dash. I don't think it is a cap from the pics, but hard to tell. In it's favor, the car does have a lot of original stuff (seats, muffler, Paint (?)) and looks great. Given the above items, I would say the car is worth somewhere between $20K to $35K. The low number would be if the engine is not matching numbers. High end is if motor is matching numbers and paint is real nice. Just my opinion....feel free to ignore.
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Well, I think I am done sanding. I was planning on taking this down further, but I think Miguel with his equipment and liquids can do in 2 hours what will take me 20 hours by hand sanding. So, I will send this off to the body/ paint shop and start work on the engine. Here are a few final shots of the car before Miguel gets it. My hauler will be here tomorrow at noon for pick-up. Once it is at Miguel's, I will take off the front and rear suspension and we will put this on rollers. That way I can clean the suspension up while this is in the shop.
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More sanding....this is the boring part of the project. It was windy out today so had to use custom hood and hatch props.
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Thanks, I will need one also, so waiting to hear some feedback.
