Namerow

Both Grannyknot and I have tried this 'poor man's' strategy. Actually, I tried it a few times and have a cellar littered with empty vinegar bottles to prove it. I won't try to speak for Grannyknot, but I can say on my own behalf that (despite best efforts re parts cleaning and prep) I wasn't satisfied with the results and finally decided to cough up the $$ for the Caswell chemicals -- along with borrowing Grannyknot's adjustable power supply. Although the vinegar/Epsom salts/fixed-output power supply strategy didn't cost me much money, it did cost me a lot of wasted time and effort. I now wish I'd gone the Caswell route in the first place.

The only time I've seen parts come out 'brown' from the electrolyte bath was when I when I realized that flash rust had set up before they went in. Zinc is grey. I'm not sure how it can become brown. Depending on how good a job I did at cleaning the parts and setting the amps and adding the brightener, my parts come out of the electrolyte anywhere from dull grey (adequate job) to shiny grey (great job) to grey-black-with-black-flakes-attached (crappy job). Re chromates & pH levels: I'm not a chemist, but it's my sense that neither of the chromates works by way of acidity. The brightening effect that I've observed (in my admittedly brief experience with all of this) was achieved by virtue of the Caswell 'brightener' liquid that I added to electrolyte before I started a new plating cycle. It really does make a difference. More so, I think, than polishing the actual part before starting to plate. In fact, I didn't even use the wire wheel on the last couple of parts that I plated (they were just glass-bead-blasted) and they seemed to come out pretty good. The Caswell brightener is supposed to 'brighten' by way of making the zinc deposit/plate out on the part's surface in a smaller particle size. I'm not sure how a dip in nitric acid after plating would brighten a dull zinc surface. But -- again -- I'm not a chemist. Maybe someone else can chime in here. While I prefer logic and science, there seems to be a dose of witchcraft (or maybe 'which-craft' would be more accurate?) involved in DIY plating.

That's a little worrisome, considering the cost of the original job and the potential damage that could result from an in-service failure. Hope he's paying for the return shipping costs, if not refunding you for at least part of the original charge.

My #1 caution (as others have said before me): Your parts need to surgically clean. All of the cleaning steps -- blasting/tumbling, acetone or MEK solvent wash, hot detergent wash, acid pickle, and distilled water rinses between each of these cleaning steps -- should be considered mandatory. Wear nitrile gloves to keep finger oils of the parts. Clean the nitrile gloves with alcohol before you touch anything. Re-clean them or replace them regularly. If you stop to scratch an itch or have a snack, clean the gloves afterwards. Clean all of your bath containers with alcohol before you add the fluids. Filter the Caswell electrolyte bath through a clean/new metal coffee filter before you use it. Use a fresh wire or fibre wheel on your grinder/buffer (or Dremel) and keep it away from any oily parts. A contaminated wire wheel will 'burnish' the oil contamination into your part, making it necessary to go all the way back to the blasting cabinet or tumbler. You'll never trust that wire wheel again, either. Install your hanger wire(s) on each part right after the mechanical cleaning steps have been completed. Better to make the hanger wire too long than too short. Extra length lets you adjust on the fly so that the part sits at the right depth in the electrolyte bath. For parts with complicated shapes or partly-'shaded' surfaces, install two hanger wires in different places so that you can quickly/easily change the part's orientation relative to the anode(s) when you're half-way thru the plating cycle. With all of this semi-religious cleaning, your parts are really vulnerable to flash rusting in between steps. For that reason, keep them immersed in a distilled water bath between cleaning steps. Don't let them sit in the water for very long, either. Flash rust is your #2 enemy in electroplating. Consider heating of the electrolyte bath to be mandatory. Keep it in the 100 - 110 degree F range. I rigged up a hot-water-tank heating element to do this. I heat the bath to 110 degrees before I start each 20-minute plating cycle and then I remove the heater. The temp never drops under 100 degrees during the 20-minute plating cycle. Clean the heating element with alcohol before you drop it into your $200 electrolyte bath. Consider a bubbler in the electrolyte bath to be mandatory (a cheap one from the Pet Supply store works fine). Clean the plastic tube with alcohol before you drop it into your $200 electrolyte bath. Consider heating of the detergent bath to also be mandatory. I bought a cheap crock pot. It works fine. Put the crock pot liner with the detergent mixture in the microwave for about 10 minutes to get it up to temp. The crock pot element will handle it from there. I haven't bothered with heating for the acid dip or for the chromate dips. I'm not convinced it makes a difference (and Caswell doesn't recommend it for the chromates). Add a 1/2 tsp of the Caswell brightener to the electrolyte bath every time you put a new part, or group of parts, in for a new plating cycle. The brightener really does make a difference. Just don't over-do it. It might be just me, but I've had poor luck trying to do multiple parts in one plating cycle. Might be ok for nuts and small bolts, but I don't recommend you try it on anything else. This adds a lot of time to the overall process. However, every screwed up part adds even more time to the process. I figure it makes more sense to devote the extra time towards making the part come out right on the first plating attempt, rather than spending the same time re-doing the entire process on several parts just because you wanted to speed things up. This electroplating process just punishes mistakes. If a part is hollow (e.g. the infamous Inspection Light housing), the surface area that you use to calculate your amps should be the sum of the external surface areas only. If you add in the internal surface areas, your amps will be too high and you'll 'burn' the part. The surface area of the edges of stamped-metal parts need to be included in your area calculations. Most of the Z's little parts are 1 to 3mm in plate thickness. You'd be surprised how much the edges contribute to the total surface area of each part. The iridescent 'yellow-green' result can only be achieved if you pre-dip in blue chromate. The iridescent 'yellow-green' appearance doesn't really show up when you remove the part from the yellow chromate bath. It seems to really start to 'pop' after you rinse the part with water and then apply heat with a hair dryer. Maybe just my imagination, but that's what I saw happening. I'm not sure whether you've purchased a controllable-current power supply or not. If what you've got won't let you control current, you can easily rig up a daisy-chain of park/turn-signal bulbs. You can patch into the daisy chain at various points until you get the current that you're after. Not as quick and elegant as turning a control knob, but a lot cheaper. BTW, Radio Shack-type potentiometers won't work. Even modest levels of amps burn them up. Hope this helps. Looking forward to seeing pix of your results.

I did complete a second round of plating last weekend. Things turned out well -- which was a relief, because my first session had run into trouble -- some kind of surface contamination on the last few parts I tried (might have been residual WD-40 that I'd used to keep the parts from rusting while were sitting around). Before starting the 2nd session, I refreshed all of my distilled water baths, made a fresh batch of acid, double-strained the electrolyte (you never know), and made fresh batches of detergent bath and yellow chromate dip. I cleaned the inside of all of the bath containers with alcohol, too. The problem parts went back into the blasting cabinet before the cleaning and plating was re-attempted. I was not able to refresh the blue chromate dip because Caswell only gives you enough base material to make a single batch (unlike the yellow chromate, where they give you enough to make several baths ). I think that the renewed blasting was what actually saved the day... but I wasn't going to take any chances with the baths. Although I've certainly thought about it, I have not yet picked up a pH meter. If I can find one at a plant nursery tomorrow that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I'll be happy to try to help you out. FWIW, my blue chromate dip was mixed according to the instructions on the side of the Caswell bottle and it never seemed to produce as deep a blue tint as your photos suggest you've been getting with yours. Following the instructions, I ended up with about 1/3 of the bottle's contents unused. Maybe you used the whole bottle? My point is that my blue chromate dip has produced pretty good results (to my eye, anyway), both on its own and as a pre-dip prior to the yellow chromate bath. Maybe you should test yours on a single part in its now 'diluted' form to see if it might still produce an acceptable result? BTW, I actually like the results produced by the blue chromate dip about as well as I like the yellow iridescent look produced by the combined blue/yellow dips. I'll post some more pictures and comments this weekend. I also made a chart of surface areas and start-off amperage settings for each of the parts that I've plated. I'll try to post that, too. Might save Blue and others a lot of measuring and calculating time.

I took my Z's hard plastic panels from black to butterscotch using a vinyl 'die' produced by a Toronto-based supplier called Parasol. They custom-matched the colour based on a sample from the seat covers that I bought from Banzai Motorsports. Very happy with the results in terms of application, coverage, colour match and final appearance. Cost was about $130 Cdn for a quart. Applied with an HVLP gun. I used the same product on the soft vinyl trim, too. More difficult to get uniform coverage than for the hard plastic pieces (maybe because of 30+ years of over-zealous Armor-All applications on soft vinyl by PO's in an effort to keep them 'soft'). Still, I'm pretty happy with the results. Bottom line is that you can re-colour a Z's interior panels successfully using SEM or other similar products if you read and follow the directions. Only exceptions are the seats, where I wouldn't be confident about either coverage or longevity. The vinyl die mftrs might choose to differ, though. There are companies that seem to be making a make a good business out of re-colouring boat interiors (including seats) using the same stuff.

Yup. That's what my home-made version looks like, too! Probably won't take you more than three attempts and 30 minutes to make one from scratch. In the 'open' position that Mike's picture shows, the spring still needs to have a bit of tension in it (to keep the lid forced open). That should give you an idea of what the spring should look like when it's fully relaxed/extended -- i.e. the two legs will sit at about the 12 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions.

Try winding your own. It's not that hard. All you need is a 2' length of steel wire of approx. the right gauge (0.015 - 0.020"?). Stainless would be nice. I think I used regular (non-tempered) hardware store wire, but it might have been tempered ('music wire'). Use a bolt shank or stud to form the coils (diameter somewhere between 1/8" and 3/16", IIRC). Clamp the bolt/stud vertically in your bench vise. To get a proper grip on the wire, clamp a pair of ViseGrips on each end. Now, holding the vice grips in each hand, wrap the wire around the bolt/stud. You need to form about 2.5 loops. Keep the coils stacked tight together as you wrap. Finish with the two projecting wire legs at about the 12 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions. Form an 'out-of-plane' 90-degree bend on each leg, then snip off the excess so that you leave just enough to fit into the hole in the lid flange and the hole in the tray body. All dimensions and angles referenced above are from memory and approximate (I did this job a couple of years ago). It'll take a couple of tries to get it right... but then, wire is cheap! The end result worked just fine for my ashtray and looks like a (spring) factory item.

I know, I know (sigh) . I'm hoping that someone will convince me it's do-able without taking that step. As I near the end of Year 3 with this project while also holding down a full-time job, I'm getting really conscious of 'mission creep'. Pulling the engine and then re-installing it after the paintwork will probably add two weekends of work to the project (re-and-re hood single-handed, find/prep places in my one-car garage to store hood and engine, build and then tear down engine hoist, maneuver hoist and car into correct positions, etc). There's no doubt in my mind that 'engine out' is the 100% solution. I'm just trying to learn whether 'engine in' will generate a 70% solution vs. a 30% solution, if you get what I mean.

Thanks for these notes, Greg. I have certainly thought of going the rattle can route, for exactly the reasons you mention. I suppose I'm shying away from it now because the body of my car has been sprayed with a non-stock green metallic and two previous attempts at colour matching (packaged in aerosol cans) by two different paint shops were unsuccessful. I've gone to a third paint supplier (recommended by a high-end restoration shop here in my city) and had them mix up a quart can of urethane which I'm expecting (based on their reputation) to be a correct match. While I'd intended this for use on the engine compartment and the front/corner valence pieces, I also want to have some left for possible future spot-touchups, so maybe I can reconcile putting most of it back on the shelf for that purpose. The urethane supplier doesn't do aerosol cans, but they have listed their ingredients build on the side of the can, so I suppose I could take that to a 'regular' paint store and have them mix it up in acrylic enamel form (not sure whether the ingredients and proportions would be specific only to urethane, though). Anybody else have any thoughts or experiences to share?

The engine compartment in my 70 Z was treated to a less-than-stellar, engine-in re-spray by the PO when the main bodywork was painted. Incomplete coverage, quick-and-dirty masking. I'm hoping to remedy that, but I'd like to get some opinions on how to go about it. Here's where things stand at the moment: Engine is still in the car, but completely stripped. Only the block, head, valve cover, timing cover and oil pan are still in place. Exhaust downpipe still attached to the main pipe. Just hanging in open space. Could be removed, I suppose, if it helps with paint gun clearance. Firewall, fender aprons, and rad bulkhead stripped pretty much clean of lines, wiring and parts. All that's left are the fuel delivery/return line and the vapor return line. I really, really don't want to hoist the engine out if I can help it. Nor do I want to remove the hood. I'll be forced to lean in over the fender on each side to do the application, leaning on the top of the valve cover for support when necessary. The spray angles and access for the firewall and the rad bulkhead don't look too bad. Nor do the top halves of the fender aprons. However, gun angles for lower fender aprons and the tops of the frame rails will challenged by the engine being in the way, so the paint will need to be shot at a downward angle of about 60 degrees. Does anyone have any hands-on experience with painting the engine compartment with the engine in place like this. Any tips for gun choice and technique? Also: Any tips for getting decent coverage under the battery support bracket? If have available a regular gun with a 1.3mm nozzle, a touch-up gun with a 0.8mm nozzle, and an airbrush. The new paint is a dark green metallic catalyzed (two-pack) urethane. It'll be going on top of the dark green urethane that was previously laid down by the PO (sanded and cleaned, of course).

Looks like a nice car. I admire your courage for buying site unseen from an overseas seller. Too bad about the shipping damage, though -- especially considering the fact that the car was apparently loaded into a container to prevent exactly this kind of damage from happening. Based on my own experience, I recommend that you go through the electrical connections from stem to stern, using De-Oxit or a similar type of spray to knock down at least some of the oxidation on the terminals. Pulling the white-plastic connector shells apart can be a problem. A bit of heat from a hair dryer before you start tugging may help. Up front, pay particular attention to the connectors for the headlights, the wiper motor, and the voltage regular. Check the condition of the fusible links while you're at it. Under the dash, there are two oversized 'spade' connectors for the primary current that are usually badly corroded. One is located in the console/centre stack area. The other is in among the bundle of connectors where the engine harness connects to the dash harness. To identify, look for heavy-gauge white or white-red wires. These two connectors can get really hot because of the combination of high current and corrosion. Corrosion on the terminals within the Combination Switch (Lights on/off and Headlight hi/lo in particular) and the Hazard Lighting switch is a well-known issue for these cars. Spraying with De-Oxit will help, but disassembly (finicky job) and polishing (Dremel tool with brass wire wheel attachments works well) is a better answer. Don't forget to check the condition of the Fuse Block. Look for a loose fuse (or fuses), which will probably indicate that the Fuse Block's plastic floor has melted and given way. The usual culprit is the Headlight circuit. If you find that your car's Fuse Block has melted like this, make sure you treat both the symptom (melted Fuse Bock) and the cause (corrosion and over-current issues within the Lighting circuit and switching). There are several articles on this site that go over the problem and the solutions in detail. An upgraded Headlight harness (with relays fitted) is probably the best answer. Finally, make sure that the electrical system's body ground connections are good. There's one in the engine bay (fender apron, adjacent to the Starter) and one under the Rear Deck floor, back around the gas tank.

Although I have not tried this, another strategy that I read about involves placing each tire on top of a pair of sheet-metal pads. The contact surfaces between the two pieces of sheet-metal are lubricated so they'll slide. I seem to recall that sand was used, but grease might be a better -- albeit messy -- solution. Plus: car can be rolled onto the pads without needing a jack, and both ends of the car are at the same level. Minus: less clearance to get at the bolts you're trying to torque.

Here's a picture of the early-style hinge, as posted in an eBay listing for a vehicle sale from a few months back (sorry, no credit available)...

From Fred Puhn's book, 'How to Make Your Car Handle': "Many elusive twitches and wiggles can be blamed on bump steer, and often it is the cause of high-speed stability problems [Hello, 240-Z!]... Try really hard for zero bump steer at the front. A car with bump steer in the front suspension will be unpredictable in a turn and unstable during braking. The car is very sensitive to toe-in changes. With bump steer, toe changes can happen with every dip in the road or when you hit the brakes. Both toe-in and toe-out errors give terrible handling and should be avoided in the front suspension". The basic goal: On each side of the car, keep the tie rod parallel with the lower suspension arm throughout the arm's full travel (or, if not, at least for all but the last inch of droop and/or compression). Bump steer's evil twin is something called Roll Steer. It's the same thing, but experienced during cornering. From a design point of view, you still want zero roll steer and bump steer at the front. Roll steer seems to be of greatest interest at the rear. For cars with IRS, the goal is to use roll steer to encourage understeer when the roll angle becomes extreme. To relieve bump steer at the front of the car, one solution is to raise or lower the steering rack (which changes the angle of the tie rods). In your case, though, this has become a problem rather than a solution, so you need to work with the other fixes to try to un-do the result. One of the alternative fixes consists of bump-steer spacers. You've tried these and experienced a positive (but incomplete) result. Maybe you could fab additional spacers using your new/old lathe? Another fix is precisely the type of spherical rod-end tie rod set-up that Chas has illustrated. Puhn says, "This allows shims to be used between the steering arm and the tie rod end for small bump-steer adjustments. Large changes cannot be made this way, but it is a good way of getting an extremely precise small adjustment." Hmmm. Maybe not enough to solve your situation? Interestingly, Puhn's book talks about yet another technique for alleviating bump steer and uses a Datsun 510 to illustrate the point. It consists of bending the steering arms. Puhn cautions that this is a job best left to specialists because: 1) you may crack the arm casting if you heat/bend incorrectly, and; 2) the arms will need to be crack-checked and then heat treated afterwards. I wonder if a less painful way for reaching your final goal would be to use a suspension geometry algorithm (I guess they're called 'apps' now) to investigate different combinations and settings before you actually do any more tweaking/cutting/welding/bending (and purchasing). There's got to be an on-line, free-for-use app on a racers' site somewhere. Maybe one of the other CZCC members can help out with this so that you don't have to go searching (and if you find one, please let the rest of us know so that we can play with it too ). Among other things, it would be interesting to see whether the stock Nissan set-up really does achieve zero bump steer over the full suspension travel (unless somebody else has already investigated this?)

Not 'complete garbage'. Rather, 'failed experiment'! Nice looking wheels, by the way.

I'm confused, Blue. You start off by mentioning '240z Canadian Jan 1971' and ' date codes in the car are Dec-Jan 70/71', but then you say, 'there is no split in the back deck carpet as the 01/1970 had the plastic storage bins behind the seats'. And then the pix that follow right afterwards are labeled, "240Z Jan 1971" but they show a back deck carpet with no split. Would I be correct in saying that your first set of photos are mislabeled and should, in fact, say: '240Z Jan 1970', while the text preamble should say, '240z Canadian Jan 1970' and 'date codes in the car are Dec-Jan 69/70' ? Also, I have a question (for you, or for others) that the photos don't directly address: Did all of the early cars (i.e. cars with the plastic storage bins behind the seats) use the rubber underlay sheet in the back deck area in place of the jute pad underlay that appeared at some later point? Let me put that another way, so you'll see what I'm getting at: Did the jute pad underlay in the back deck area arrive in conjunction with the relocation of the storage areas from behind the seats to underneath the deck floor, or did the jute replace the rubber underlay at some point while the storage areas were still located behind the seats? My car is a 5/70 and was purchased with both carpet and underlay missing from the hatch and the front floor areas, so I need to figure out what should go in those locations.

A giant, chrome moose! Never saw anything like that before. Must be spectacular at night under the lights.

Very useful to see how this panel was designed, esp. the joins at the lower rocker/sill and the hatch sill, as well as the inner panel that joins to the hatch floor. Too bad no one offers these as a re-pop. Nice find!

PM sent

Not in the market at present, but curious: Do you know who is the manufacturer of that strut brace ?

A 'Dogleg Rebuild Panels Kit' might be a winner. Not all these cars need the full inner rocker/sill panel treatment, but the majority seem to have rot in the dogleg. And, as Chris points out, that's a multi-layer construction and not easy to figure out for someone faced with doing it the first time. If the car's owner is hoping to end up with a $15K - $20K car at the end of his/her restoration or refresh project, I would expect that laying out 2 x $300 for a LHS/RHS dogleg panel kit would be a justifiable outlay. Of course, your pricing would need to make sense relative to what Tabco, Zeddfindings and others ask for their types of panels.

Very impressive metal-forming work, esp. considering the gauge and CR material. Price seems more than reasonable, considering the hours I expect you put into fabricating a pair. For a Z with rot in the dogleg area, the chance to put fresh, heavy-gauge sheet metal into the area where the safety belt mounts might be worth the price of admission all on its own.

I bought connectors and tools (crimper, terminal removers) from Vintage Connections last year. Good stuff, and a good vendor (easy ordering process, good packaging, fast turnaround). Recommended. Worth noting that removing the connector shells makes it a lot easier to install a new firewall dustboot on the engine compartment wiring harness. While others have said that it`s possible to coax the dustboot over the connectors (with heat, maybe?), I'm not sure I'd want to risk tearing the boot to try that.

Thanks for posting the interesting pix. Unfortunately, this may kill off your locking gas cap idea. Re your viewer challenge question, it was Artie __ (dressed as a confused WW2 German soldier, emerging from behind fake plants) as a recurring character on 'Laugh In'. What's my prize?