Rudolfs 2+2: The gleaming emerald......

[CroS13]

Video update 21- Scoring new rims! Fitment issues.

So i scored some "new rims" for the Zed. But they didn't fit, so this video goes over all the issues i had, and how i fixed them:
 

Rudi.

[gilltech]

Nice work!

[JDM-TOY]

Hey Rudy good work mate. Love the videos very informative and clear. 

[CroS13]

Update 17.10.20 - TOUCHDOWN!
 

So my daughter is 1 month old today!

What a blur and whirlwind the last month has been.

Firstly, I won a pair of long champs off yahoo auctions Japan to go on the rear  end, and had them air freighted over. They were at my door in 3 days.

They had tyres on them, but shipping would have doubled to send them with rubber, they were new tyres and a good brand, but they were only a 185 wide tyre stretched over a 7.5 inch rim. i would have needed to buy new proper fitting tyres anyway, so i opted to have the tyres stripped off in japan and just have the rims sent.

This left me with a dilemma of needing rubber for the back, oh, and  the front, because the tyres on the front rims were 20 years old and dry rotted.

So i went on book face and found someone selling 4 good year 215/60/15 tyres. I managed to get all 4 for only $80! 

Good size for the front, "ok" for the back, i will buy 225/60/15's for the back to make it abit more chunky, but wanted to see how this 215's fit first, and see how much  clearance i have. No point spending $300 on 2 tyres to find out they rub and hit the shock and coil.
 

So It dam near took me 1 month, but i was able to get the rear drum brakes assembled and back together, and got her back on all 4 wheels for the first time in over 5 years! 
 

.

 

She is sitting HEAPS high at the back, which is strange, as i put in the 240z strut top mounts at the back, so it should be sitting about a inch or 2 lower.

Is it because its still a empty shell, and when i  put some weight in her, the rear will come down?

I'm not convinced, because really, what is there to go back in? a fuel tank? some glass?

The rear shocks were blown out when i removed them, so maybe that made it sit lower before,  and now because i have  fitted new KYB Excel G shocks, maybe that is contributing to it sitting higher?  I have the standard rear springs in it still, I didn't fit the lowering springs at the back, maybe i should.....
 

 

Anyway.....

When Alexis was 2 weeks old my wife organised a professional baby photoshoot, My care factor about it was minimal, but when she came, i directed her into the garage for some snaps! here are a few of my favourites:
 

.

 

 

 

And i really like this one, might get it blown up and framed to put somewhere, maybe in my gaming room:
 

 

 

New video will be done and edited.... lol.... whenever i get some free time! which is not often!

HA!

Rudolf

Edited October 17, 2020 by CroS13

[CroS13]

Video Update #22: Drum brakes.

Ok, I finally got some free time too edit and finish the latest video, where I do the rear drum brakes. Enjoy!
 

 

[PB260Z]

Hi Rudi

Are you running 2+2 spring hats in the rear ? The rears for the 2+2 are about an inch taller than fronts or 2 seater rears.

I changed to standard ones - made all the difference.

 

Just a though

 

PB

[gilltech]

Quote

Are you running 2+2 spring hats in the rear ?

He says he's got 240Z hats in the rear.

Both ends are sitting high it would appear. Yet you haven't changed the rear springs? The new shocks shouldn't be holding the car up.

Try this - loosen off all the suspension hardware, install the glass and fuel tank and spare wheel and anything else with a bit of weight. When ready to tighten the hardware up again, get a person or two to stand on the rear bumper.

Edited November 5, 2020 by gilltech

[CroS13]

40 minutes ago, PB260Z said:

Hi Rudi

Are you running 2+2 spring hats in the rear ? The rears for the 2+2 are about an inch taller than fronts or 2 seater rears.

I changed to standard ones - made all the difference.

 

Just a though

 

PB

No I put in 240z front isolators.

19 minutes ago, gilltech said:

Both ends are sitting high it would appear. Yet you haven't changed the rear springs? The new shocks shouldn't be holding the car up.

Try this - loosen off all the suspension hardware, install the glass and fuel tank and spare wheel and anything else with a bit of weight. When ready to tighten the hardware up again, get a person or two to stand on the rear bumper.

That's what I was planning, however, I got a mate who is 120kg to sit in the boot and the car didn't drop at all, NO movement down. not even half a inch drop.

The suspension isn't stiff, I can push down on the rear quarter and the shock has travel, it will bounce the car up and down.

I did think if the rest of the suspension was tight, it might have been binding up. I loosened the lower control arm outer spindle pin rod. (now a upgraded bolt), I loosened the back inner lower control arm bolt. I loosened the sway bar mounting bolts, with no difference.

What is weird. If I leave the car on jack stands, and jack the rear (hub /shock) it does not compress the spring and the shock, it just lifts the car off the stand. However with the front, it will compress the shock to full stroke, bottom out, then lift the car. So i know something is wrong there.
 

Rudi.

[AndBir]

43 minutes ago, CroS13 said:

I did think if the rest of the suspension was tight, it might have been binding up.

Was this the case before you rebuilt the rear suspension and the binding was keeping the car sitting lower at the rear?

Fitting the Kings lowering springs seems the only way to resolve this, as the springs you have in now may not be OEM?

[gilltech]

I think AndBir is on to something there. Who knows what provenance your rear springs are, a PO could have installed stiffer ones. But clearly they are way too stiff if they don't react when jacking. The car must be sitting at the top of the suspension travel instead of about the middle.

But be careful with selection of shiny new springs, of whatever brand. Been through this myself. Try before you buy if possible.

Kings told me their 'lowering' springs were about 30mm shorter than their 'standard'. The issue I found when I tried their 'lowering' versions on my 2-seater was that they were a lot stiffer than the originals, and the ride height actually increased compared to the old originals. So I hate to think where the 'standard' would have put the car up to.

But, the bigger problem I found was that they were also shorter than the originals so I had a problem with spring capture, about 10mm shy on the fronts and barely captured at the rears (and then only because I think I was supplied with 2+2 springs by mistake). Meaning I'd then have to change the shock inserts to shorter ones just to hold the springs in place. And presumably lose suspension travel as well.

So I gave up on them as all too hard and went back to the originals, always a good reference point.

Edited November 7, 2020 by gilltech

[Cozza]

Hey Rudy I somehow got linked to Thai video and it made me think of your recent video.

you can see in this vid how little adjustment is made with each hand brake activation. So its prolly best to do the majority of adjustment manually and only rely on the handbrake auto adjusters to maintain the adjustment.

Keep up the good work Mate.

cheers

mick

http://www.youtube.com/shorts/CU-sI0B-III

 

[CroS13]

Update end of November: Interior trim

So the suspension issue has been thrown into the "cant be bothered fixing this now" basket, and I wanted to tackle some interior bits, because all the boxes have been sitting at home for atleast 6 months gathering dust.

I was putting this off as I had hoped i could go and source some second hand parts off a few wrecked cars from Zac, and save myself this trouble of having to try and repair what I had, but alas having a newborn and wife recovering from surgery really hampered any effort to try and go get the parts, I simply had no time to go at the drop of a hat so I gave up. 

So it was time to fix the junk I already had.

Mind you... this is the first time i have ever plastic welded, or used fibre glass.

So this is what we started with:

I stripped the Vinyl off the rear quarter trims to find the plastic absolutely destroyed. broken in multiple places, huge cracks all through it, i would have said it was not salvageable...  But when you have no other choice, you can perform miricles!

.

In that first photo i have repaired the cracks with a plastic welding kit, it came with wire mesh re-enforcement, which i melted into the cracks and into the piece, then plastic soldered over the top.

This next photo you can see the hardest repair to do, where the hinge for the rear  quarter window sits.

 

I plastic welded the centre hole where the hinge goes, then fibre glassed over it and outwards to re make the edge lip

In the next photo i have used fibreglass to remake a corner edge broken off:

This is looking at the hinge area from the front side once the fibre glass and plastic weld has dried. 

You can clearly see the original damaged panel. Well i had to now use the plastic welder to melt this busted part back down into my newly repaired area and fuse it all together:

Now i could sand it all down flat:

Now i could take the vinyl trim and re trim the panel in black. I had issues in the deep pocket where the seatbelt mount fits into. I used a heat gun but still could not get the vinyl to stretch down enough to the pocket. So i had to make relief cuts into it:

I bought some ABS sheet, cut it to match the shape, heated it with a heatgun until it was as soft as wet spaghetti then pushed it and formed it onto the pocket. it came out ok i think, also fitted some speaker covers as new speakers are going in too.

Both sides are done, as is the top rear trim piece that holds the interior light, i had to re make that panel out of Masonite. Just need to re wrap the factory harness, and maybe re pin it, or at least clean up all the terminals, then it can all go back together!

 

Video coming..... when I can get away from the newborn for more than 10  minutes LOL...

So... soon, but i wouldn't hold my breath haha!

 

On 11/16/2020 at 8:30 PM, Cozza said:

Hey Rudy I somehow got linked to Thai video and it made me think of your recent video.

you can see in this vid how little adjustment is made with each hand brake activation. So its prolly best to do the majority of adjustment manually and only rely on the handbrake auto adjusters to maintain the adjustment.

Keep up the good work Mate.

cheers

mick

http://www.youtube.com/shorts/CU-sI0B-III

 

Thanks for the information, that was a good little video. The rear drums were already dragging on the shoes when I slipped them on, so I didn't bother adjusting them from the back. 

Rudi.

Edited December 2, 2020 by CroS13

[240ZBUILTBYME]

Nice work rudi! You didn’t want to stick with cream!? Lol 

Nicely done working that vinyl! I’m an ex upholsterer. 

yes that deep pocket would have been tricky do with vinyl. Only other thing you could have done was had a 2 piece panel sewn up to fit in, one long strip cut to shape, with the unsewn edge folded and glued to look nice, then sewn into a circular piece. If you kept the seam of the long strip at the top side of the shape (when you glue it in) it won’t be seen in the car. If none of this makes sense PM me and I can draw some pictures up for you. Though you might be happy with the abs method!

The seat belt mechanism goes in there right? So you won’t really see it anyway

Ryan 

Edited December 3, 2020 by 240ZBUILTBYME

[CroS13]

22 hours ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said:

Nice work rudi! You didn’t want to stick with cream!? Lol 

Nicely done working that vinyl! I’m an ex upholsterer. 

yes that deep pocket would have been tricky do with vinyl. Only other thing you could have done was had a 2 piece panel sewn up to fit in, one long strip cut to shape, with the unsewn edge folded and glued to look nice, then sewn into a circular piece. If you kept the seam of the long strip at the top side of the shape (when you glue it in) it won’t be seen in the car. If none of this makes sense PM me and I can draw some pictures up for you. Though you might be happy with the abs method!

The seat belt mechanism goes in there right? So you won’t really see it anyway

Ryan 

I think I get ya? kinda like making a stubbie holder shape and sew that into the pocket too?

factory has a plastic cover piece that goes in there, although, it only the size of the base of that pocket, fits snuggly in there. Yes a seatbelt anchor I believe mounts there, so it is concealed. I stuffed up when I made the relief cuts and cut them too long, so when I put the factory cover back on, It didn't cover the cuts, hence why I needed a new one.

I'm Pretty happy with the results, we will see once its all back in place.

Thanks for the kind words, its the first time for me attempting any of this, obviously I'm not going to attempt to retrim the door cars or seats, ill leave those to a professional. (I did watch a whole bunch of videos and nearly bought a 150 hour long "learn to trim" online tutorial video course, but I would need a walking foot sewing machine and I cant really justify the $500-$1000 it would cost second hand, only to do 1 job or so)

Rudi.

[CroS13]

Video Update #23 - Dyeing interior and repairing plastic trim

So here is the video of me doing all the work above! enjoy!
 

Rudi.

[CroS13]

Update end of January:

Rebuilt the windows, regulator, polished all the glass, and the chrome. Replaced 90%  of all rubbers and gaskets in relation to the doors.

All pretty straight forward except the window sash. had to grind the staples off the original one, source new felt sash and make it work, Riveted it all together:

.

 

 

.

 

 

.

Also got around to changing out the rear springs for the lowered springs I had.
.

 

 

.

 

Looks a lot better, still needs to go a little lower but hopefully it will, once I put in the fuel tank, spare wheel, rear bar, rear glass etc etc.

So this is Lovells lowered springs (equivalent of king lows) and 240z top hats.

Might go some Fatter rubber too to help fill the arch gap. it has 215/60's (which are not wide enough IMO for the rear rims) 

Maybe I'll go 235/65 or something like that for the back.

 

 

Rudi.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2021 by CroS13

[Groundhog]

Nice choice of colour there!

[gav240z]

On 10/17/2020 at 11:46 AM, CroS13 said:

They had tyres on them, but shipping would have doubled to send them with rubber, they were new tyres and a good brand, but they were only a 185 wide tyre stretched over a 7.5 inch rim. i would have needed to buy new proper fitting tyres anyway, so i opted to have the tyres stripped off in japan and just have the rims sent.

Who did you use to ship them? Jesse Streeter? I've looked at a few wheels in Japan, but found the difficulty is getting the tyres off since that increases the cost of shipping substantially..

[CroS13]

1 hour ago, gav240z said:

Who did you use to ship them? Jesse Streeter? I've looked at a few wheels in Japan, but found the difficulty is getting the tyres off since that increases the cost of shipping substantially..

yes Jesse Streeter.  exchange rate at the time was 74.2 yen to the dollar.

In this case he had them shipped to him, he stripped off the tyres then re send them to me.

postage to him was 4400 yen   ($54)
Tyre removal 2000 yen ($25)
shipping to me in sydney 20500 yen ($227 at the time) (only for 2 rims not 4)

 

[CroS13]

Update early April:

I had a windscreen guy come out and fit my front glass though insurance. 

I asked if he was going to put sealant on the rubber and he said no, because the window and gasket was a nice and tight fit. Multiple people have now told me he probably should have put mastic or sealant on the edges regardless, So I will be looking into getting something I can squirt under the edge of the gasket.
 

 

 

I had to fit the chrome stripping myself, and what a nightmare that ended up being. It's all in my latest video.

Also, I roped in the rear windscreen myself, after being screwed around by 3 separate windscreen installers who booked in with me and never showed.

Didn't fit any gasket sealer under it, when I get some for the front, ill do the back too.

 

.

I had bought New badges for the bonnet, and for the boot.

And it was time to find new '260z' badges for the front quarter guard.

Problem is, all the ones I could find NOS, were $490 US for a pair.... so probably $600+ landed, for 2 badges... no thanks.

I decided to try and repair mine myself:

Step 1:
Use a heat gun to melt and peel out all the chipped and cracked resin from the original badge

 

Polish the hell out of the chrome, which took some paint from the edges of the badge, so mask it all up and repaint it:

 

Pour in some new resin. I had green dye powder laying around from when I was doing some resin pours in a woodworking project, so the hell with it, lets make the badges green to match the car:

 

And here we are, fitted!
 

Video is up, will post it soon!

Rudi.

Edited April 10, 2021 by CroS13

[AndBir]

Love the look of the 260Z badges and the tips on how to refurb them.

Interested to know what brand your new windscreen is?

Edit: Looked a bit closer and looks to be an "FY" (Fuyao) - had not seen one of these with the black "masking" around the edges of the windscreen.

Edited April 10, 2021 by AndBir

[CroS13]

2 hours ago, AndBir said:

Love the look of the 260Z badges and the tips on how to refurb them.

Interested to know what brand your new windscreen is?

Edit: Looked a bit closer and looks to be an "FY" (Fuyao) - had not seen one of these with the black "masking" around the edges of the windscreen.

hey no my bad.....

Its the window that came with the car, is it original? not sure.  I got insurance to re fit it with a gasket I supplied, which was a precision rubber, As I was entitled to 1 free glass per year, I made use of it.

[CroS13]

UPDATE AUGUST:

Been chipping away at the Z very slowly.

Everything else I own has been blowing up which has kept me away from the Z for the last few months.

The gearbox blew in my Forester, and it was a expensive ordeal to upgrade to a 5 speed STI box.

Then it broke again a few weeks ago with the radiator splitting. So I'm currently fixing that too.

And my wife's car is puking oil. So my weekends are currently spent trying to keep all the other junk running at the household.

But I have been able to do a little bit to the Z.

I have been searching far and near to find all the chrome bits and pieces I'm missing from the car.

Found these new metal cast quarter pillar badges in England. The seller states there is no Left and right badge and they are the same. That was a lie, and I received 2 RHS badges, making me have to re drill the passenger side pillar to fit the badge there because the pins were in the wrong spot.

 

Also found chrome trim for the rear hatch glass, minus the top corner parts on eBay from America. So they came and I gave them a polish and fitted them too:

 

I restored the old headlights... well, at least 1 so far.

Ordered the Toyota H4 light as a upgrade, which worked for me as I was able to get it for cost price through work, saving about half the price.

old:

 

new:

.

 

 

.

 

Not sure how I feel about them to be honest. I like the curved glass of the sealed beam Hella unit that was in it. 

I also ordered some Raybrig blue diamond headlight lenses. For a more tuner/updated look. I'll keep the Toyota lights in for now, but I can swap them out later if I get over them.

Oh.... and I needed a "beefier" gearbox for the Zed........

My engine is currently getting built too through a mate at his engine shop.... 

We are aiming for 450hp.......

 

Rudi...

Edited August 14, 2021 by CroS13

[CroS13]

VIDEO UPDATE #25: SEPTEMBER 2021

Latest video  is now up. This covers from about June/July to September.

Not a lot got done to the Z in that time.

Had everything else I own break, my daily driver broke multiple times, then my wife's car broke multiple times when I was driving that to work while I fixed mine. It was 2 months of deciding which car was "least broken" and could limp me to work as I awaited parts to fix the others. It wasn't a fun quarter.... 
 

But I did manage to squirrel away some cash to spend on the Z.....

What set me back, and what was a major time sink, was trying to use a spray on chrome paint system on my rear tail light surrounds.

I had rung 6 chrome shops in Sydney, all who would not chrome plate plastic. The one who advertised that they did, never got back to me and were hard to contact.

 I decided to give up on re chroming the plastic and try ALSA easy chrome.

I had seen extremely good videos of it working on YouTube, and it looked amazing.

At $100 for a 25ml kit.... it was.....very very expensive.

It had a demanding application process. Asking to wait 1 week between application of the various coats, to allow the solvents to completely evaporate and for that layer to completely cure before applying the next one. So it would be dam near 1 month before I saw the finished results.

The young painter kid at work absolutely f**ked up on the final state, ruining the job completely. 

Long story, we had sprayed the primer, then the base, and on the 3rd week were going to apply the chrome.  

There is 25ml of chrome paint to use. Paint shop recommended using a mini touch up gun. Kid used a full size gun and opened the fan as if he was painting the side of the Titanic. $100 of paint went into the booth filters within the squeeze of 3 trigger pulls and about 8 seconds.

He had good coverage on 3 of the 4 sides of the light bezel, the 4th side was still in black base coat.

This can be seen in the video. As you can see, it actually looks pretty good, and looks chrome.

Then screw up no 2 happened.

He had the smallest amount of chrome left in the gun, so he added thinners, at probably a 4:1 ratio, and sprayed another coat on the trim piece. When it dried, it had lost all its shine and looked like hammer tone or a dull silver.

I went back to the paint shop, spent another $100 and got another kit.

We were told, don't spray direct over this hammer tone finish. The chrome requires the reflection against the black basecoat to really pop, and going over this dull silver finish wont make it look like chrome.

We had to strip it entirely down again, and start from scratch, another 3 week process.

The second time I feel he still had some residual thinners in the gun when he sprayed the chrome and it affected the finish, leaving it not as shinny. When he applied the clear coat, It dulled it down even more to what can be seen as the finished product.

Very disappointed in the results. $200 down the drain.

I finally got through to the 1 plater who could do the job, So now the taillights are getting re chromed, with a 8 week turn around time.,

Got a few other bits and pieces done, but I didn't really explain what happened with the Alsa easy Chrome in the video.


Anyway, on with the show:
 

 

 

.

 

Rudi.

[gav240z]

https://aclassmetal.com.au/electro-plating-plastic-car-parts/

For Chrome Plating plastic... I believe @Ledge recommended them in the past!