SpawN's 240Z Resto/Mod project.

Thought I may as well make a journal while I’m waiting for parts....

Ok, so where to begin.

I have always loved the Z cars and have yearned to own one for a long time. After buying a new house with what basically is a small warehouse for a shed I decided the time had come to get said vehicle! So the search began, 3 years of me being a fussy bastard and ghosting 12 or so different Aussie car forums netted me a number of a "phantom Z seller".

This phantom Z seller (Isaac Smith) was suppose to only come out near summer and sell Z cars?! After a phone call that lasted a good hour and a half I had found myself a Z! Isaac had a straight matching numbers 1971 240 that he was willing to let go. Isaac helped me get it from his house to Port Melbourne where I was to pick it up.

The wait was excruciating, I hadn't felt excitement like that since early childhood Christmas. It was only a week...... anyways!? I jumped on the plane and had the worst flight of my life (L plate pilot!!), landed and headed for the port. When the truck pulled up with Z in check I was a little taken aback. The car looked bad.

Looking inside the car made me feel worse; most of the interior was sitting in the cargo area along with alot of other parts. Trying to get it off the back of the truck was a little difficult. There was no loading bays or areas that could be used to get the car off! To add to that the battery was flat and there was a leak in the fuel tank and where the car was sitting on the trailer had allowed the tank to almost completely empty! shiver! After getting a jump start from the wharfies I drove around looking for a fuel station hoping to not A. see a cop and B. run out of fuel.

Once the initial shock wore off and I stood back and had a good look at it for what it was, a fairly cheap matching numbers 1971 Z car, I felt a little better. I had a fairly long wait to get onto the boat and this helped me see that the car wasn't all that bad. Most all the parts were there and there appeared to be very little rust (this may come back to bite me yet).

3 things in my life have never faltered, my love for my fiance, my love of everything mechanical (Z's!!) and my love of siberian huskies.

My sibe: Kiara, "Kortierra Obsidian Dream"

As such I named my car after my last black and white sibe, Kiara. The Z will eventually be black and white but not in the normal way most people paint Z's. My fiance believes I already spend more time with the car than her so she has name it "The rusty mistress". As you can see here her body language tells the story of what she thought when I pulled up!

After getting home and have a massive sleep to get over the shockingly bad "Ocean view recliner" I had to sleep in; I set to work on getting things apart.

I slept through the day when I got home and then my mate bought his ra28 celica around. The celica will be some what of a sister car I suppose. Once they were both in the shed the night flew and before I knew it the sun was starting to peak its head over the horizon!!

Things were alittle bit hasty and I didn't label some things so I reckon there will be some trouble getting some things back together!

So can i ask how much you payed for it, dam i thought my 2+2 was bad, well it is bad but it as coverd under about 240kg of BOG. LOL.

Ill just put it this way, im a tight arse bastard (if you read my wanted 240 thread you would see) and I got it for what I considered cheap

Like I said in my ramblings it LOOKS bad, but in all honesty it isn't. The bog was slapped over some rust sections by the previous owner x2 (He obviously didn't understand the properties of bog) but all in all it doesn't seem to bad.

It has all the normal rust spots that they have but it hasn't been masked like most Z's you find out there. Also given the fact that I am doing a roaster resto/mod job on it I dont mind if there is a bit more than expected.

I have some more updated that I will be putting up some time in the near future that will show the rust sections and where I am at with the car at the moment.

Love the shed mate, very jealous. Looks like you have plenty of room for a hoist.

Yeah I did have one but the council wouldn't let me put it up because of the slab thickness (I didn't build the slab). So I am going to get one of those movable 4 posters that run off 240v Biggest problem is the door for the big shed, the door itself is only 2k but the price to get the thing put up is extorsion as it needs 2 of the lifts because its too heavy and long for one

Why does the council need to know?

Just cut a section out of the floor for each of the two posts and put a large footing in.

Although they are lax and fun loving, the next door neighbour is a council member Where I live is like desperate house wives as soon some one makes a noise there is people at windows looking at whats going on, not because everyone is shagging each other but we are 30 odd km away from the nearest large town and not much happens here

By the way I choose to live here Just in case you were wondering, nothing like waking up in the morning with the snow capped mountain in the background with the only thing breaking the morning silence is the horse next door

Fair enough, although I am sure he will look the other way if you let him change his oil on the hoist every now and again. HA.

Yeah I did have one but the council wouldn't let me put it up because of the slab thickness (I didn't build the slab). So I am going to get one of those movable 4 posters that run off 240v Biggest problem is the door for the big shed, the door itself is only 2k but the price to get the thing put up is extorsion as it needs 2 of the lifts because its too heavy and long for one

Can you get the engineering for the slab and footings or at least the standard drawings he shed builder would have worked off of? 100 thick slab 25MPa concrete with SL82 top will hold a passenger car two poster hoist easy! Assuming the foot perimeter is big enough, punching won't be an issue.

Council can't deny you a hoist on aesthetic grounds.....

Good luck with the project! What number is the chassis if you don't mind me asking?

I have the drawings around here some where, basically the shed was built on what you could call a 'tight' budget. Im not going to dispute it because I could see them wanting me to take it down!!!

I wasn't implying that they denied me on aesthetic grounds? The neighbour is a meander council member (the only one from my town I believe) which means he would be dealing with my application, seeing as there is only around 650 people all together that live here and most people know each other he would know if I put it up without approval. Not worth the risk in my opinion.

The chassis number is HS30-01701.

Ripped into the slam panel.

It had been bogged up and there was metal welded underneath it?!

After having a go with a flap disk I changed to a 3mm disk, this was some dam thick and hard bog. Turns out the entire panel you see above was actually a davinci sculpture!!

Once the massive amount of bog had been removed I could see it have been botch repaired, it had to come off. Once the welded in panel had been removed it made it bleedingly obvious that the whole slam panel had to come off. I had grave fears for the rest of the panel below and the rear quarter panels.

Looks like ill be getting a slam panel from some where and getting some panels fabbed up to replace that section.

More to come.

this is my next thing i have to do to finish the rust repair on my body then its all done. Mine dosnt look any better than yours 

Ahh I see, I was expecting to have to replace the slam panel but it looks like the cancer has spread to the rear quarters as well

You can buy that part as a replacement panel I'm pretty sure.

Yeah I have the number of a couple of places that make them and also rare spares

Little movie of me doing a dodgey engine removal with a sissor jack .

Wow, that looked a lot harder than with an engine crane. Love the vid. Daft Punk rocks by the way.

I wish i could put my whole resto on fast forward like that

Haha yeah unfortunately it wasn't that quick!! I just realised that I wrote "my gear the return" instead of "my gear to return" :S Uploading it again now!

Wow, that looked a lot harder than with an engine crane.

Its definately not harder than taking it out with an engine crane through the engine bay If mine was here the only difference in the movie would have been me lifting the front of the car with the crane and walking it backwards The whole engine, suspension and gearbox comes out as one unit All you have to do to move it around is either tack a piece of steel to the strut tops, use a strut brace or drill some holes in a bit of wood to make your own wooden strut brace then walk it around like a wheel barrow

Took the engine and front suspension out of the ra, same way as with the Z

**Note the water on the floor, had to wash out the coolant that came out of the radiator that had no drain plug and was sikaflexed together!?!

Also mounted up the fender mirrors to gauge what they look like. Going to take a bit of getting used to but I really like them! Still have to figure out how to get the mirror glass out of the cup so I can get them powder coated black.

Seeing as I work 9 days out of every 14, 300km away from home I have mixed all my media into a little movie that ill post up here soon when I get around to rendering it.

Video of everything up until yesterday.

I know the footage is very amateur and the clip isn't very well put together but I have to do some thing after 12 hours where the only 3 things to do are gym, the hole in the wall (pub) or sleep!

Video of everything up until yesterday.

 

 

I know the footage is very amateur and the clip isn't very well put together but I have to do some thing after 12 hours where the only 3 things to do are gym, the hole in the wall (pub) or sleep!

That is so Cool, wish I had done something similar, keep up the story line !

wow thats fantastic

I was going to post my project video's but yours puts mine to shame

what program did you use to make the movie ?