madkaw

Well ever since I found out that Z con was going to be so close to home this year, I have been telling myself that I've got to be there with my Z. The reality is that I have a ton of work to do. You might have seen my thread where I had posted that the car was finally painted, but now it's time to put everything-and I mean everything back together. This is a daunting task with a deadline that is getting closer everyday. I've tried to have a lot of things ready to just bolt back on after painting, but all those details are what's going to catch up with me. When I make out a list it seems never ending: Things to do; 1.Buff out paint job and fix any imperfections 2.Install all glass including door glass and hardware 3. Install interior, the car is gutted(95% is restored-just need installed) 4.Install all weatherstripping 5.Start, breakin and tune new motor after I finish accessory installations 6. run engine compartment wiring so I can do step 5 7. Install all exterior trim, lights What I do have done; 1. Drivetrain installed, engine,trans, diff, axles 2.Brakes installed,just need to bled and tested 3. Interior refurbished-including dash 4. Gas tank installed(non factory type so it needs testing) 5. Exhaust fabricated and partially installed, another couple of hours of work Oh, the other things I need to do; 1. pay lots of attention to wife-keep everyone happy;) 2. work lots of hours to pay for daughters college 3. hang out with son and go to his swim meets 4. maintain the other 3 cars in the household 5. finish all the sheetmetal repair on the customers Z in my garage 6. maintain the house Hope to see lots of folks at Z con. If I'm not driving my 240, I will have the daughters 280zxt-come to think about it, it has A/C:cool:

I believe I used nason clear on my car and I am almost sure it is made by Dupont.

I plan on putting my car back together after paint, which includes starting the fresh motor for the first time. I plan to have the car back together for Z Con. I also need to finish the Z- that is not mine- in the garage. I need to finish all the sheet metal work and get it prepped for the painter. And lastly I need to maintain my daughters ZXT incase all else fails I can take it to Z Con. Plus do all the school activities with my boy and go to all his swim meets,maintain a home, maintain the DD's, be good husband;) ect......... Oh, by the way Steve, did you get all that sheet metal work done?

Be advised that you want find anyone that sells a long enough peice of line to go from the front to back in one piece. Make sure you get the right fittings-I believe 10mmX 1.0. The real fustration will be if you start flaring your own ends-it is harder then it looks. You want that right or NO brakes.

Carl, I was in the same dilemma. Though my lines were very servicable, I didn't want to put in nasty looking hard lines against a freshly painted engine compartment. I also have put on wildwoods and needed to install a bias valve, so my lines would have looked different from each other. I opted for new lines that I orderd off of ebay-not SS, just newer ones. The line kits were cheap and the fitting were correct for our cars. The lines were also very maliable and most of my bends were done by hand. I think they were about 50$ The fuel lines I did just paint with some por-15 silver. They didn't look "concourse" by any means, but they looked fresh and consistant in color. As far as whether you would mechanically benefit from SS lines, I can not see where that would make a difference.

Very nice pieces indeed, and I would have opted for them if the tension boxes were any worse. The tension boxes are rusted, but sound-bent, but fixable. So those are bad dog frame rails or ... Well I read the first line again-duhh

Well it worked out better then I thought. Though Charlies floor pans are short on material up front, the rails are extra long. I moved the rail forward probably 2 inches from the stock, maybe not even that much. I was able to remove most of the damaged area under the tension box and I believe it will look very stock when it's done. As you can see the rail is about perfect width for the tension box except for the aft part of the box-you have to spread that out a little. This is on a customers car. On my car I actually had the same situation where I had rust free floors but a bent rail. I actually cut a hole in the floor pan right over the damaged area of the rail and then beat it back in place and then touched up some of the welds.

Johnny O, did you ever figure what you are going to do on the floor supports? I am replacing a customers floor pans and rails now and I am kind of disappointed with the amount of material on the replacement panels. The floor pans are too short up front, but seem to fit fairly nice. The floor support would have been better if they were about 6" inches longer to reach all the way under the tension rod boxes(I think that's what you are refering to as far as NOT long enough). I still need to measure and compare to my unmolested Z, but I going to see if I can't get away with sliding the pan supports forward enough to replace the bottom of the tension boxes. Does that make sense-sorry no pics at the moment.

I wish i had the vin#, but that car was sold 25 years ago in Bloomington Indiana. It was my first Z and I wish I had kept it. Thanks for converting the pics zbane!

So any way I leave this guys place wondering can he be serious, surely he would come down in price-the car doesn’t even run. I gave it a day and decided that I would call the guy up and tell him that I owe too much on my car and I couldn’t afford what he was asking and maybe he would reconsider his price. Well I called him and told him that I really couldn’t afford the trade out and he stopped me right there and said that he reconsidered and he didn’t want my Z after all. So I say that’s all right, when I sell it maybe I can just buy the Datsun straight out. Then the conversation went like this; he said” my wife and I have been talking it over and we decided to just let you have the car”—well I just froze in silence, not sure what to say. He then said that’ the car was taking up too much of his time that he could be using for better things’ and he rambled on about the ministry and other things that I didn’t pay much attention to because I was just thinking that this guy is giving me this car. “So you are just giving me the car” I had to reconfirm. “Yes, it is yours for free----FREE”, he actually spelled it out. “Will you sign over the title?” details, details “Yes and you can have the tow bar that is hooked up to it, but you have to tow it away” I think he noticed by now how excited I was getting . I told him that I would try and get back today to get the car. Needless to say I was on this instantly before he changed his mind. I grabbed my buddy that had his 56’ Chevy truck with a tow ball and we grabbed it later that day. My buddy could hardly believe it, I did have pretty good luck when it came to cars. I towed the car to my house until I could find a place to work on it. By the way, the title showed that it was a 1970 from Texas. As I type this out I remember now that when I say I was looking for a place to work on the car, I really had no clue what I was doing. Yeh I had some fast cars but I was no mechanic-I’m still not a mechanic. I was and still not one of those guys that just had a mechanical aptitude, but loved working with my hands. I was more interested in looking good in my car then whether the car was engineering masterpiece of its time. But I stumbled on with these big plans of rebuilding this baby; I’ll figure it out as I go along! I towed the car home(I was based 25 miles from my house in NJ), and there it sat in the driveway-parents never had a garage, still don’t. I would stare at the car coming up with a plan of attack that had no scientific reasoning or mechanical backing. Though my memory isn’t good enough to remember exactly, knowing my lack of mechanical ability I looked at the engine apart I figured that it needed to be rebuilt, never really doing any of the important things like a compression check.What I saw when I looked at the engine was all of that aluminum everywhere and I thought how beautiful this engine compartment would look all cleaned up. This is the closest I had ever been to a Z engine, but it was love at first sight when I saw that engine compartment. So I yanked the motor and dropped it off at the machinist and said ‘rebuild it’. More later…

I thought I would finally get around to telling this story of my first Z. It was way back in the 80's that I was in the USAF stationed at McGuire in NJ. I always had a some great cars and I always was out of money. I was barely 20 and had a 79 Z-28 that was a great car, fast and black laquer custom paint with a L-82 drivetrain. I was always broke from paying car payments and high insurance in NJ. I believe a 4th of my income was funding this ride, but that's the way I rolled back then. I finally decided that I needed to get into something that didn't involve a payment and full coverage insurance. I was driving around the base and I noticed this Z(datsun type) sitting in front of this trailer that was used by on-base housing. I don't remember if it had a sign or not but I said to myself that I always loved those cars and maybe I could fix it up cheap and have a cool car and no payments. At the time I had my Z-28 up for sale and was driving around with a for sale sign in the window. I went to the trailer and knocked on the door and this guy answered and I told him that I was interested in the Z and that I was selling my car at the time. He was very interested in my Z and he thought we could work out a cash and trade deal. I got a chance to take a close look at the car and noticed it was definetly NOT a driver yet. It looked a little rough outside and under the hood was well-ummm-incomplete! The carbs and intake was sitting in a box-not good. This was going to take some work . So we started talking money and I told him that I was looking to get about 6000$ for my Z-it was pristine. He then said that he was looking to get 3000$ towards the trade for the Z. I'm always a nice guy so I swallowed my initial response( are you fu#%&*g crazy), and I told him that I would have to think about it. On that note I drove off thinking- damn I would love to have that car, this sucks. to be continued... red 240z 13.BMP red 240z 17.BMP

Welcome, you might see this Z around Bloomington, it's my daughters. She is attending IU. We used to live in Bloomington and plan on moving back someday-great town. Her car has only 92,000 and she loves it. Did you get your car painted in Bloomington?

Heres what my set-up looks like before it has been run. Those pretty carbs would look great next to a ceramic(shiny header). Be advised, I was told by a friend and verified thru research that you don't want to dial in new carbs with a freshly coated ceramic header. A bad fuel mixture will dull the finish of the ceramic and never come back. I wish I could get some Z therapy carbs, but my carbs are almost new-plus I got some mikunis for after break in. Good luck with your carbs!

It did help a lot to give me an idea of space constrictions. I just left all the tags on them and took them back(the ones I didn't cut) for my money back. You are also limited on your selection of turns. Great place for tubing http://www.mandrel-bends.com/catalog/ Good prices for kits. I bought from them when I did my daughters 280zxt 3" exhaust. The pipe I bought for my 240 came from Stahl headers-mild steel.

Dave, I like your tank option-I didn't think of that. I would hate to venture how much time I put into changing out tanks. I am using a CJ-5 plastic tank. It was square and fit in there nicely. It is a lot of work to make the 2 pipes out the back-I hope we are both happy with the results:classic:

The garage runneth over with Z's and my wife is fu%#*ng thrilled. Actually she will get her center spot back by night fall. Greg, I haven't forgot you, Rachael will be getting lots of attention very shortly. My car is the red z and my daughters is the ZXT. The yellow is a customer. Too many Z's and not enough time-I guess that's not all bad.

Dave, I've done the same thing on my car, but I cannot attest to the results since my car is now just going back together. I like the idea of the muffler with the built is X pipe, I didn't think of that option. I just fabbbed my own. You probaly be done before me , so I can't wait to HEAR it. I share a few pics of my set -up, which is also 2" all the way.

Here are the original brochures for the AC

Well the car sat in my garage for 3 weeks before I even looked at it because I was trying to get my daughters ZXT going. The last couple of days was all about my Z since the daughter has hers back. It was actually a great 2 days since things smoothly and no damage on the new paint---------yet! I hated to deal with those brake lines , but the underside has to be done first so the firewall can be completed to a point to get my engine in. The brakes lines are all new(ordered off of ebay-kit) and the the fuel lines I just painted. I also had to hand rub out the engine compartment first to take care of some overspray-that sucked, but worth it. I can't wait to get the engine in !!!!

I was just having a discussion with my wife the other day about San Antonio and the fact that she is going there for a conference. She was asking if I wanted to go with her and I was thinking what could I do in SA and then I see this thread and I didn't even know about Z con. Too bad her conference is in Feb. 2010, it looks like a great show. I guess I could go and scavenge the junk yards for Z stuff while she was conferencing-she would be mortified:classic:

Look on hybrid z, I have posted a whole write up on the 17X8.5 rotas on a stock 71(actually 1" lowered". There are lots of guys running the size you are talking about.

You just have to take your time and do a little bit at a time. Don't glue a whole bunch at once and try to make it all stick cleanly. Work from the center out and make sure you center your piece in the fabric or you will come up short on one end. Make sure you clean all the old loose material from the old panels. A roller maybe be helpful, but I just used my hands-good luck!

That body is pretty rough, but not suprising if it is a Indy car. If you decide to redo the suspension bits there is a place on the west side called Gails enameling that will give you a good price for sandblasting and powder coating the suspension stuff. I hope you have a mig and some patience for all that rust. I am getting ready to replace floor boards on a 71. Good luck.

I had the same issue and it was the float bowl fuel line was kinking. Just a thought.

Yes, the wildwoods are under there somewhere;)