Z. Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 In the meantime I resprayed the entire underside of the car in fresh black stone guard and painted up the remaining suspension components as well as the fuel tank. Put the front and rear suspension back along with new ball joints and bushes. There's just something about black suspension components and red rubber bushes... so pretty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 I then started on the engine and stripped all the crap of it so I could start rebuilding it. I pulled the head off and gave it a good degreasing followed by cleaning all the carbon out of the combustion chamber. I then began relapping all the valves, you can see a nice relapped port in the last picture. I then cleaned the crap out of the rocker cover and repainted it. With that done I pulled down the block a checked all the bearing tolerances, I was lucky that they the block was actually in really good condition. I then replaced the gaskgets and seals, put new piston rings, painted the block and sump and torqued everything back up. Unfortunately I was a bit lax with the photo for this process but you can see the finished product below. The brass welsh plugs on the blue block don't look too bad if I don't say so myself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 Next I moved on to the bonnet where I found rust had eaten through the front right corner and a section in the front middle. Again I took the whole thing back to bare metal. Then welded in some patches where the rust had caused havoc. (I have put the bonnet in primer and undercoat and I'll shoot up some pictures soon) This is where the project currently sits but I will be heading back up to Mildura this week to finish painting the car and then put her on a trailer and bring it back to Melbourne as my new address has a garage . Stay tuned, more to come... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thriller Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Nice work diving into it. Should look real tidy when it's all done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted May 13, 2014 Administrators Share Posted May 13, 2014 Nice work so far, good job on the L-series rebuild. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 Nice work diving into it. Should look real tidy when it's all done! Thanks man! Yeah I like just having a crack at something and seeing where it leads me. Don't think I've screwed up too much yet! Nice work so far, good job on the L-series rebuild. Cheers Gav! I wanted to use the old L-series, bit of nostalgia about them as well as they sound pretty mean when they're tricked up a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted May 15, 2014 Author Share Posted May 15, 2014 Just planning how I'm going to take the Z back to Melbourne after I finish painting it this week.. I was just going to sit the engine back in for the trip and take it out when I get there so I can put the wiring in first as well as put the transmission on out of the car because it's so much easier. But just thinking will the two engine mounts hold the engine by themselves or do I need the transmission mount on as well to hold the engine. Anyone know if the engine mounts without the transmission mount will hold the engine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PB260Z Posted May 15, 2014 Moderators Share Posted May 15, 2014 Anyone know if the engine mounts without the transmission mount will hold the engine? In short - No they won't. The motor would pivot around the mounts and most likely crash back into the firewall. If you could brace it to stop the movement then you may be OK. Cheers PB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted May 15, 2014 Author Share Posted May 15, 2014 In short - No they won't. The motor would pivot around the mounts and most likely crash back into the firewall. If you could brace it to stop the movement then you may be OK. Cheers PB Thanks PB! Yeah I wondered if that might be the case. Ah well I'll just have to sit the engine on a tire out of the car for the trip. Can't wait to get it back to Melbourne so I can work on it at night/weekends again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted October 15, 2014 Author Share Posted October 15, 2014 Just a quick update as I haven't been keeping up with this.. I didn't end up getting the Z down to Melbourne unfortunately but I have been back to work on it a few times over the last 6 months so there's a bit of progress! I finish up uni in about a week so I'll post pics and continue the build thread then. Looking forward to working on it again this summer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted October 20, 2014 Author Share Posted October 20, 2014 So I managed to get back up to Mildura over winter holidays and get stuck into the Z again. I had a couple of packages rock up while I was away which was nice. New set of drilled and slotted front and rear rotors and some new engine mounts... Absolute top bloke who sent me the engine mounts. Sent me a free dizzy cap and rotor for an L series engine and a box of fuses tapped to the back of a "help from above" booklet.. I'm not a religious man but who hasn't been in a situation where you're praying you have the right fuse in your glove box! Managed to get the hood in primer and finish up welding some panels on the car. Finished up pumping out the inner guards and re-welding them.. just need to give it a coat of fibreglass filler to fill the gaps and put some under body paint on it now. Recon I'll be able to fit some pretty wide rims with a mean offset under there now Here's a progress shot of the rear with some primer on it. You can also see the replacement panel I had to make up for the rear passenger side and a few bits I filled in a the bottom of the bumper.. This is pretty much where the car sits currently.. I managed to finish up the body work and put a couple of layers of primer onto it. Unfortunately I had to head back to Melbourne again for uni at this point. But I have been collecting a few parts to take back with me and Dad has assured me there's also a pile of stuff showing up at home for me. Here's some of the parts of collected over the last few months. Managed to pick up some extractors from "YellowRX" on here. Cleaned off the rust, gave them a fresh lick of hi temp black paint and wrapped them in heat wrap. Came up pretty nice! I ordered a MegaSquirt 3 with the expander board, wideband O2 sensor, intake air temp sensor and new wiring loom. Here's a few shots of the assembly process of the board (I'll throw some completed shot ups when I get it back out of storage to take with me up to Mildura)... I know it's easier to just pay the extra $40 to get an assembled unit but most of the reason I went the Mega Squirt route was so I could assemble and tune it myself (well that and it is capable of running my v12 project ). I know the community is pretty split over their performance but I recon it's a great way to learn about engine management. Plus the whole idea of this project was to do everything myself and learn from the experience. Also grabbed a VT coilpack module and some MSD coils to go on it. Looking to run a wasted spark system on the L28. Picked up some BFG radials to suit the watanabe rims .. bit pricey but I really like the large profile and raised white lettering on older cars. Shot of one of the 10.5 inch rear rims with the tyre My gktech spacers also rocked up. These are for the front but I'll see where the rear rims sit when I put the suspension back on. I'll be heading back up to Mildura on Sunday for a couple of weeks so stay tuned for more updates! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 So I managed to get a couple of weeks of work and get up to Mildura to do some more work on the Z. Here's what she looked like when I pulled the sheet back off her.. The primer coat showed I still needed to smooth the weld in a bit on either side of the rear.. looks like I'm in for a bit more sanding -_- Needed a bit more smoothing under the rear passenger window too. The rear end has come up really nicely though, I'm very happy with it. Finished fixing the filler area and the section under the windscreen where I welded in a new plate. I was a bit sick on sanding the body so I started off by getting the suspension sorted. I managed to pick up a set of second hand coilovers on this forum from 260det. They were pretty rusty but they only cost a 6 pack of VB so why not! Thanks to dat2kman for picking them up for me and posting them! The rears did come with an adjustable shock damper but they were pretty buggered and I had a new set of rear pedders shocks that came with my z so I pulled the sleeves off the rear coilovers to swap over to the new shocks. That was no easy task either! The grub screws were pretty rusted in there so I ended up having to drill them out and re-tap new threads. Here's the set of coilovers with the old shocks pulled apart. New shocks... Cleaned up the front coilovers and the new shocks and gave them all a lick of red metallic paint. While they were drying I thought I'd start getting the rims ready for painting. As I mentioned earlier in the build thread I wanted to do them with a polished lip and painted gold metallic centers. First I had to polish the primer off the lips and polish them up. Luckily old Nissan 4 stud has the same PCD as 90's Honda's. Just bolt up the rim, idle the car in 4th and hold sandpaper to it... makes for a much quicker job That being said, the rears had some deep pitting from the cast and scratches where someone had gouged into the metal with coarse sandpaper which was a pain in the ass. I also had to clean off a bit of gutter rash around the lips. I ended up using a file and taking a skim off the entire lip as the wheel was spinning to smooth them back out. You can see the pitting in these pictures Progress shots.. Rears finished Front finished All ready to be taped up and painted Here's some of the parts that arrived since I was home last.. Adjustable camber plates for the front coilovers and some spring hats (there was a set missing in the coilovers I bought) New fuel rail Adjustable thermofan controller New billet camshaft from Clive Cams in Melbourne Stimulator board for my Megasquirt plus some shots of the finished boards Wideband O2 sensor and controller/gauge Optical crank angle sensor from a skyline to drive the ecu Some dust boots and tierod ends to reco the steering rack with I then fibreglassed up the gaps in the wheel arches where I had flared them out to fit the wider rims. Then painted them in black stone guard. Stripped back the doors and fenders. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly considering all the rust I found under the rest of the cars paint, the driver door was swiss cheese along the bottom and both fenders had rust repair plated welded in. The passenger side fender repair was pretty good but the driver side was obviously done by someone else and was just a plate welded on the back and covered with filler on the front. I left the passenger side as it was but set about cutting out the driver side repair and do it properly. I then cut the entire bottom section of the driver door off and bent up a new piece to weld in. Considering I don't have a sheet metal bender or press, I was pretty happy with the quality of the replacement panels I was making up by hand. Once I had the new repairs welded in I fibreglassed up the rubber strip holes in the fenders and the side mirror holes in the doors (I'm looking to put fender mirrors on the car). As you can see the driver door was mangled around the side mirror area.. just a mess of booger weld. I decided it was too much of a pain to try and fix that mess properly so I just smoother it out with fibreglass and a skim of filler in the end. I also fibreglassed up the washer holes on the headlights.. useless idea having washers there really. I had a mate come out and help me finish off smoothing out the body. Then put it in grey high fill primer and blocked it back smooth. As for the topcoat paint choice I wanted matte black. This was for two reasons 1. it makes for easy spot repairs for any little scuffs I get when I track the car 2. it just looks tough . I picked up some standard matte black paint from the paint shop but I also got the bloke to mix me up some midnight black with matting agent in it. I did this because I wanted the car to have a really dark black on it which you can't get with the standard matte black. So by using the darkest black available and adding a matting agent to it I could get a better colour to use for the last coat I put on it. By using the cheaper stuff underneath I managed to save quite a bit of money and still get the same result I tried to get a shot showing the difference in the two paints.. Body finished Could have probably gone a bit more matting agent in the top coat as it came out somewhere between matte and flat but I'm still really happy with it and I'll knock it back with some 2000 grit wet and dry to take some sheen off it anyway. I also managed to get the doors and fenders in primer but unfortunately I ran out of time again and had to head back to Melbourne. Here's some shoots of them packed back inside the car though. That's as the car sits currently. Hopefully I can get some time off soon to go back and paint the doors, fenders and hood. Stay tuned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PZG302 Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Nice job. That's going to be a nice old bus when it's back on the road, and kudos for doing the full build of the megasquirt ECU and then doing the tune. There are a few blokes with MX5's that have had some success with the megasquirts and ITB's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 Nice job. That's going to be a nice old bus when it's back on the road, and kudos for doing the full build of the megasquirt ECU and then doing the tune. There are a few blokes with MX5's that have had some success with the megasquirts and ITB's. Thanks mate hopefully she's on the road soon! Definitely would encourage others to build one of the megasquirts if they're thinking about getting one, great bit of fun and you learn a fair bit in the process too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PZG302 Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 I'm good at that little welding with that flexible rod stuff and non arcing rod on little copper pads on plastic, but that big welding stuff, well lets say, that's why other people go to TAFE and I pay them money........ I would much rather tackle soldering up a PCB or a wiring harness than welding up panels..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z. Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 I'm good at that little welding with that flexible rod stuff and non arcing rod on little copper pads on plastic, but that big welding stuff, well lets say, that's why other people go to TAFE and I pay them money........ I would much rather tackle soldering up a PCB or a wiring harness than welding up panels..... That's kinda funny I was always the other way.. welding wasn't an issue but prior to building the megasquirt pcb for this car I wasn't really confident doing soldering haha. It's always nice to just be able to pay someone else to take all the blame when it doesn't work though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew_L26 Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 As some of you may know I have decided to take on this project! I will be doing repairs in parallel with my 260z 2+2 and hopefully getting this zx back on the road whilst I continue work on my s30 I'm keeping roughly the same final vision however I will probably change to a gloss black instead of the matte going with ZG flares and fender mirrors. I started the small amount of rust repairs (by comparison to my s30) by repairing the small amount of rust that had eaten the surrounds of the fuel filler. I noticed that the metal on the s130 is significantly thicker than that of the steel in the s30's but I managed to find some thicker material lying around. I'm going to focus on reassembly of the engine bay for the next little while whilst I make up templates for s130 dogleg and rear guard repair sections I will occasionally post updates here however I mostly use Instagram to log my builds. It can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/andrew_langford88/ for those interested Andrew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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