motorman7

Got the motor put in. It went pretty quick with my son helping. Put the distributor on with wires and realized the harness combs were missing. Will have to get some of those. Got the rear side windows in last Tuesday. Much thanks to the person who suggested the masking tape to hold the weatherstrip in place while it dries. I think I actually had my first ever pleasant experience with weatherstripping

Wow, looks like a great start. I love fresh supplies and carbon fiber

I'm probably in the minority, but I almost enjoy cleaning and detailing my Z's more than driving them. Of course the best days are when I can clean and detail- then drive to show it off

Yes they did

Hi Gary, I have had two Z's done at the Maaco in OC,CA. On both cars, the paint looks great. I did the prep work myself. I stripped the cars until I was down to the rolling chassis-no motor, no glass, etc. I did most of the body work, sanding and prep myself. Some work was done by the Maaco on items that I missed-small charge for that. As mentioned by Mally002, each Maaco is different, as are their prices. I took my now yellow Z to the Maaco about 4 blocks from my house for an estimate. Their estimate for the top of the line 'signature' paint job was about $2600. The shop in OC, 60 miles away charged $1800 for the same work. In both cases, the 'signature' paint cost was the same for the outside of the car. The difference was the price for painting the engine bay, door jams, individual parts, etc.- huge cost difference. The local shop wanted $400 to do the engine bay, OC charged $50. It was worth it to take it up to OC. I did not check into the paint brand or quality. I left that to them. I really am not well versed on that subject. Regarding the paint work done, I was thrilled with the job they did on the yellow Z, not as happy, but satisfied with the silver Z. I am guessing the silver Z was more of a challenge because it was silver over silver or silver over grey primer. The yellow Z, was yellow over silver so easy to see what was missed. As a result, there are a couple areas in the engine compartment that were missed (I am being pretty picky here as one of the areas is the underside of the frame rails in the engine compartment the other is the front part of the radiator attach frame). Neither area is very visible, but these were both done well on the yellow Z. Also, the silver Z took a long time, almost 7 weeks. I knew I was in trouble when I brought it to the shop and the parking lot was filled with cars. Just like a diner, I am guessing you can also tell the good shops by the number of cars at the shop. There were few at my local Maaco, 10 times as many at the shop in OC. All in all, I am very happy with the results for the cost. Hope that helps.

I think Arne's right. These are all original hoses on my '70 except for the radiator hose and the valve cover hose. The fuel and smog hoses are that funky rubber coated cloth stuff. It is amazing how well they withstand the heat and time. The hoses are still very pliable. These are also original plug wires with the '70 stamped on them, and original paint on the fan and air cleaner.

Was hoping to have the motor in by today, but no go. Hopefully will get it in on Thursday. I did get the trans in, so that is good. Have the front end held up with a rope so I can move the car around. The trans took quite a bit of time to clean up. Was oily and pretty corroded. Got the anti-sway bar put in and the T/C rods. Put in new rubber T/C bushings. I figured out the best way to get the T/C nut to go on. Make sure parking brake is set and all four wheels on the ground; grab top of the front tire nearest the T/C bushing you are going to install nut on, and rotate it aft as much as possible. This pushes the T/C rod through the 'buckle' further and allows you to get the nut started. That is, rotate the tire aft with one arm and install the nut with the other at the same time. Worked pretty well for me. I need to paint the front disc covers. Looks like the caliper needs to come off to remove and paint that, what a pain. Add another $75 dollars to the total cost for new cluth disc, T/C bushings and pilot bearing. Had a new throw-out bearing, so no cost there, just took me 20 minutes to find it :-|. Add $26 dollars for 4 cans of undercoating. Total is now $5024. Still need to get that carpet kit and who know what else. Still a lot to do.

I volunteered, but was a day too late. :disappoin

Polished the 5 slot mags with an old Craftsman drill. It runs circles around my cordless DeWalt. Also cleaned up the wheel wells.

The more pics the better. Get good pics of the underside of the car. Also get some nice pics of the motor and interior. PS. Where in Northern Idaho? my folks live in Priest River

Not true, the only time I win is when you don't enter your car I look forward to the new wax. Oddly, I find waxing my Z's quite enjoyable.

Here's a little background on the 'donor' car. Feb2010.pdf

Hard to tell without seeing the underside and typical rust places. If you paid between 3K-5K you are probably fine. Under 3K, and you got a great deal (carbs are worth 1K alone). Over $5K - maybe you got taken. Just my thoughts. Nice car except for the whitewalls

That looks very nice! I did not know you could put the motor/tranny combo in at the same time. I have always put the trans in first and supported the front end with a jack. Then dropped in the motor.

Hi Doug, I got the two rubber strips on the bumper itself from Les at Classic Datsun-great deal, just $30 each. He said they were the last two he had left. The rubber for the two over-riders is the original. I plugged the two holes where the 'towel bar' was with black silicon which matches pretty well. The rubber coated metal pieces on each side, just behind the bumper are also original. I scrubbed them with a scotch brite pad and Armor tire spray (the clear oily stuff) to remove most of the cracked oxidized rubber. They are not perfect, but look very good. I was happy enough with the results to keep them on.

Bring some parts by and I'll plate them and show you the process. Saturday could work for Stone. I plan on putting the motor in that day, but shouldn't be too hard. I can always use a break. My wife says I am addicted to this car stuff. She wasn't real bothered by it though 'cause she said it is better than being addicted to crack or something like that.:stupid:....

The brake line clips and rubber are all the original parts. I use the Armor-all tire spray and scotch brite to clean the rubber and get it clean and black. I had to clean off the PO's silver overspray. For the metal brake clips, I wire wheel them and then use my Zinc plating kit and yellow chromate to re-produce the 'gold' color. They are one of the easier parts to plate and really look great in person. The pics don't do them justice.

This is the same one that you were looking at on Craigslist. I got it before you did . Wish I would have known you were at Stone, I probably could have joined you. We will do that next time. I am hoping to have this Z ready for the Empire Z show. That gives me about a month. It will be close. Randy, thanks again for the yellow plug wires. They look great on the yellow Z. I am keeping this one stock though-plain black wires. I will also be keeping the fuel line insulation, flat top carbs and an early '73 radio. It's very retro - I am showing my age here.

I use the Caswell zinc plating kit. http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/zinc.htm I like doing the plating myself because it is convenient and I can get the exact finish I want. I can control the brightness, rainbow, and color darkness ...for the most part. Some metal types are harder than others.

Hi Mike, Detailed Costs (so far) Car: $ 900 Trailer home: $ 50 Title and Reg: $ 70 New Michelins $ 380 Fuel Pump: $ 52 Zinc kit cost (partial) $ 50 Body work supplies $ 40 Paint at Maaco $1680 Bumpers, handles $ 750 Bumber Rubber $ 65 BD Weatherstrip kit $ 220 Mirror, Fierwall Rubber $ 150 Dash Cap $ 100 Mag center caps $ 40 Engine bay light $ 25 Motor gasket kit $ 150 Panel and motor paint $ 45 Flywheel surface $ 36 Paint polish kit $ 120 Looks like the total is $4923 so far. I still need a carpet kit,some of the emblems, and some engine hoses. And I am sure there will be more. So looks like we will fly past $5K. Hopefully stopping short of $5.5K. I will keep everyone posted. Definitely a learning experience here. And I think you are right, would have been better off financially selling it once I got it running. Although, I really love doing the work. I find it very satisfying and theraputic. Would go crazy if I couldn't work on the car.

Got the front bumper in. This was one of the items I did not intend to 'upgrade', but closer inspection said they needed help. Thus the re-chrome and new front bumber strips. This is $800 that I did not budget in originally(both bumpers chromed, towel bar holes welded up, 2 new front rubber strips). I do love the look though. I painted the grill with the same paint I used for the back panel. Also completed the brake and fuel line clean-up. Dropped the flywheel off to get surfaced at the machine shop. If I can get the time, will get the motor in next week. Here are the progress pics. Also threw in a before picture.

I will try and keep the thread focused on the ‘Refreshtoration’ costs. The first thing to do was get the car running. Once home, this wasn’t all that hard to do. I checked spark and rough timing- that looked good. Pulled a carb fuel hose and turned the engine over-no fuel. That was easy. Since the car has an electric near the tank and a mechanical on the engine, I started with bypassing the mechanical and just running with the electrical. Still no fuel. Went and bought a new ‘Nippondenso’ mechanical pump for $53, bypassed the electrical pump and got fuel to come out the carb hose. Perfect. Hooked up the hose and the car started right up. All I needed was a new set of tires, $380 for Michelins at Costco and I am now using the car as my daily driver. Add $70 for new title and registration, $50 for the fore mentioned u-haul trailer and we are now at $1453. It adds up fast.

I love Craigslist for buying cars. Nice selection and in my opinion, some great deals. You also get quite a few dreamers on there as well. Anyway, when I saw the ad on Craigslist for the ’73, I was very impressed by the original look and the motor pics that looked to be untouched. All that funky insulation was intact as was the smog and the flat top carbs. The owner wanted $1300 for it. I called the owner to see the car, at which point he mentioned he could no longer start the car. I told him that was fine, I would still like to see it. When I arrived, the owner was still trying to start the car. I did a quick inspect and tried to help him start it but no luck (later found out it was a bad fuel pump). Since he couldn’t start it, he on the spot lowered the price to $900. That was nice, no need to haggle down the price. I checked the car over and was thrilled. There were two minor rust spots behind the rear wheels, not bad. Radiator, radio and seats were not original, otherwise it was not too ‘molested’. The seats were a nice pair of Recaro’s which are now in my sport yellow Z. The owner had bought the car for his son to ‘fix-up’, but the son lost interest. The seats were as far as he got, fortunately. The owner was very excited to show me the blue carpet that he had bought to ‘re-do’ the complete interior.:sick: He was insistent that I take it to complete the car by gluing the carpet over the vinyl black diamond interior. The funny thing about this is that the original vinyl inside is nearly flawless as are the door panels-better than my ’70 even. Makes me cringe to think he would have tossed that to put in the horrendous blue carpet. The owner was really quite cool, though. He is the author of a very popular robotics book and he gave me a free copy. I helped with my sons’ robotics team at school, so we had a lot to talk about. Anyway, I got my wife to agree to car number 6 and paid cash for it the next day as I picked it up with the u-haul trailer. Now the fun begins

I was not going to start a thread on this but changed my mind as the information may help those who are thinking of buying a Z just to do some minor clean-ups and flip it. What I thought would be a quick 3 month ‘clean-up’ and sale has now turned into a well over 5 month ‘Refreshtoration’. I don’t really call it a restoration as I am not doing a complete 100% strip of the body and undercarriage. And my original intention was just a simple re-fresh. So, I am now in the middle of these two with what I am calling a ‘Refreshtoration’. Part of the problem in cleaning up a vehicle is you can’t just strip a car, put a nice paint job on it, put it back together and sell it. The paint may look great but the surrounding parts do not match. So now the paint looks good, but the bumpers that looked fine on an oxidized car now look lousy on a freshly painted car. So we add re-chromed bumpers to the cost. Now that the bumpers are re-chromed, the old door handles look bad. You get the picture. One improvement eventually leads to another. As a result, my initial refresh budget of $2500 has now ballooned to over $4000 (so far). That is a huge increase. And, that price does not include labor as I do most of the work myself. And for those of us who are ‘anal retentive’, like myself, flipping cars is not your calling. The issue is that there is a lot of time in the details. I am talking about rust abatement here. I can’t for the life of me put a rusty nut or bolt back onto a car. It has to be either wire wheeled and zinc plated, or wire wheeled and sprayed (paint or clear coat for metal). Of course thread anti-seize also has to be used. And, any form of rust on the body needs to be treated and Por-15’d or at least passivated and sprayed. This all takes quite a bit of time. Now, let’s throw ‘attachment’ into the picture. Of course when I bought the car and told my wife of my plans, she said, ”You won’t be able to sell that car because you will be too attached to it”. I said, “No problem for me, I can sell it in a heartbeat”. That was easy to say when I first bought the car. Now, after many hours of labor on this car, I find myself re-considering. “Maybe, I can finish it and drive it up to my parents’ barn and leave it there for a while”, I tell myself. I think I’d like to enter it in some of the local shows here soon. Maybe I keep this one, give my son the yellow Z and sell his T-bird. Oh how my wife knows me too well. So this is where I am at right now. I will re-post some of the original pictures and then show the progress. I will also add more info on this as I get some time. The PO was pretty interesting so I want to add that as well.

I used a Scotch Brite pad to clean the fuel and brake lines. That seems to work best. I've used steel wool before, but it leaves too many 'hairs'. Once the lines are clean, I spray them with a clear coat enamel to prevent rust. The brake clips and bolts I zinc and yellow chromate plate myself with the Caswell zinc plating kit. It works great and is very convenient.