240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted December 12, 2020 Author Share Posted December 12, 2020 11 hours ago, CroS13 said: Haha congrats on the little one mate!!! I was wondering when it would arrive because you mentioned on my thread you were due soon! I've started to get "some" time back in the shed now. My little one is pretty chill now (she is 3 months old next week) On weekends I can usually get up at the crack of dawn to give her a morning feed, put her back to bed and she will sleep for another 4 or 5 hours and that's when I'll sneak into the garage and get as much done as I can. Rudi. Cheers rudi! Congrats on making it through 3 months! I found those first 4 months the hardest with my son, in terms of sleep. Hopefully my daughter will be easier cross fingers... I work 1 week on 1 week off, so always have one day of break set as my Datsun day when the boy is at daycare. Usually get a solid 6 hours at least. Better than nothing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted December 13, 2020 Author Share Posted December 13, 2020 so despite my daughter arriving I managed to make it to the car to do a bit of spannering, stripped the drum brakes and gave them a clean out, also got the front suspension assembly broken down and ready to bring all components in need of a press to my mates shop. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to rebuild drums or go straight to discs. Any thoughts or opinions? not sure which is an original 240z cylinder, anyone know off hand? After wire brushing the crud off the rear control arm looks like some smart fellow tried to put a jack stand under it. I was thinking I would just finesse the dents straight if I can. Outer tie rods were jammed in tight, haven’t tried heat yet but figure I’ll just press them out along with everything else. So just dismantled steering rack at the knuckle. anybody know if the silver brackets from the steering rack bushes are meant to be there? They looked like diy aluminum shims made up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gilltech 324 Posted December 13, 2020 Share Posted December 13, 2020 Quote anybody know if the silver brackets from the steering rack bushes are meant to be there? They looked like diy aluminum shims made up. Haven't seen those before, if they look DIY then they must be. Go for the aftermarket urethane bushes, and the steering coupler as well, really improves the steering feel. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AndBir 284 Posted December 13, 2020 Share Posted December 13, 2020 2 hours ago, gilltech said: Go for the aftermarket urethane bushes Probably the only option anyway as I understand a set of the OEM type rubber ones are NLA. gilltech 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted December 16, 2020 Author Share Posted December 16, 2020 @AndBir @gilltech cheers guys! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted December 16, 2020 Author Share Posted December 16, 2020 Early Xmas present arrived... found someone from nsw to share shipping costs with, still very expensive.... ended up being $550 landed. Still cheaper than getting someone in oz to make it I figure... gilltech and gav240z 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted December 23, 2020 Author Share Posted December 23, 2020 More Xmas presents! Santa has been generous this year... weatherstrip kit arrived along with rubber and grommet kit all from z car depot. I am 90% confident that the zcardepot kit is straight up the precision kit. All parts are corresponding to precision’s part numbers, arrived in a precision box, some parts did not come in precision branded packets but upon watching some of the precision installation videos on YouTube some of the packaging looks unbranded. Also came with a precision kit packing list. So unless z car depot goes through the trouble of restickering all their kit with precision part numbers. I’m pretty sure I have a precision kit. What I don’t get is the 200 USD price difference? Zcardepot 289 USD and from precision 468 USD! Rubber bumper and grommet kit was a bit of an impulse buy, but contains a lot of parts I assume I’ll need at some stage. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 Happy new year everyone! Had so much time off over the Xmas/new year break but due to Family commitments, new baby and spending two weeks in WAs beautiful southwest, progress on the car was non existent. I managed to strip my rear SU, so plan is now to buy a parts washer and clean everything in prep for replating and vapor blasting. Can’t believe how many individual parts make up a set of SUs! All parts very thoroughly catalogued and organized. Does anyone know the best place to source oem or equivalent fasteners for SUs? I have some screws with stripped heads etc I did receive my blemished zstory jdm muffler. Which is a very nice unit, and for 260$ aud shipped I couldn’t resist. I don’t know what my plan is to minimize the blemish just yet. slight damage during shipping but nothing unfixable, may just need to have a machine shop shave the tip. im hoping I’m able to make some decent progress this year. Ryan gilltech 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted February 6 Author Share Posted February 6 Unfortunately I have not had time to work on the car since New Years . My mum is unwell and I have had to spend a lot of time with her. Managed to put this together. I’ve never done metal work before this and if this inspires even one person to give it a go I’ve accomplished something! Ryan gilltech 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CroS13 201 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Dam man that's a killer price for the muffler! So how much of that price was shipping for the muffler? I feel like a Turkey... I got a Genuine Fujitsubo LegalisR MUFFLER For my car from japan... it was $1000 after shipping.... ( Mind you this was 8 or so years ago and these copy's weren't around then ) What did you pay for shipping from Z car depot for the seal kit? I got 2 badges and 4 gaskets from then last week and it cost me $120 postage Hope your mum gets better! Rudi. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 2 hours ago, CroS13 said: Dam man that's a killer price for the muffler! So how much of that price was shipping for the muffler? I feel like a Turkey... I got a Genuine Fujitsubo LegalisR MUFFLER For my car from japan... it was $1000 after shipping.... ( Mind you this was 8 or so years ago and these copy's weren't around then ) What did you pay for shipping from Z car depot for the seal kit? I got 2 badges and 4 gaskets from then last week and it cost me $120 postage Hope your mum gets better! Rudi. Not sure the breakdown on the muffler, was just a set price. I’d say at least half of it was shipping. But you don’t have a perfect product. I still think it’s great value, and my car won’t be a show car so not fussed on the blemish. I payed 150-160aud for shipping. It was a largish and heavy box so I thought that was good value. Wow 120$ for some gaskets and badges! I think I will have paid more in shipping at the end of the build than I spent on buying the car! thanks mate, she’s got a long road to recovery. ryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 More pieces of the jigsaw puzzle arrived this week. I can’t wait to get stuck into the rust repair. Can I just vent a little and say that MSA aka the z store is the worst company to deal with and has the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. Took them 6 months to get these to me. In the end I didn’t even get an email from them to say your panels arrived and have been shipped sorry for the inconvenience. Just received a notification from fed ex that I had a package on the way. Useless.... Ryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C.A.F. 1,193 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 (edited) Any of the US Datsun suppliers are difficult to deal with. Edited February 20 by C.A.F. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 4 hours ago, C.A.F. said: Any of the US Datsun suppliers are difficult to deal with. Yes, they are, I always thought the US had great customer service, I did when I was there anyway, obviously this doesn’t carry over to the online world. I would have gotten these sections from KF if they had them, they will be making them at some point, they’re adding new sections all the time. tabco is going to lose a lot of business to KF. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sexual_sushi 12 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 29 minutes ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said: Yes, they are, I always thought the US had great customer service, I did when I was there anyway, obviously this doesn’t carry over to the online world. I have been in the states for the past 5+ years and the customer service on average is atrocious everywhere. People genuinely seem annoyed that they have to deal with you and they generally don't know what they are doing, particularly if anything out of the ordinary happens. I swing between being annoyed and then realizing the minimum wage in some places is half of that in Australia Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RestoZ 9 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 Having been to the US and got smashed on some parts not available locally, I'm not keen to go through the experience again if I don't have to. I'm chasing left and right lower front panel sections as per those Ryan ordered above, and was wondering if anyone can recommend a good fabricator/supplier locally. Know I can get them thru Rare Spares and will do that if that is the only choice I have. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 2 hours ago, RestoZ said: Having been to the US and got smashed on some parts not available locally, I'm not keen to go through the experience again if I don't have to. I'm chasing left and right lower front panel sections as per those Ryan ordered above, and was wondering if anyone can recommend a good fabricator/supplier locally. Know I can get them thru Rare Spares and will do that if that is the only choice I have. Mate I’d go with the KF vintage jdm ones they make them now, when I ordered my ones from MSA, KF were not yet making front fender panels. If they were I would have ordered through them, the quality is miles above tabco or rare spares. Even comes with the inside panel. Check them out. I never paid any import duties or tax on any of my panels. I personally haven’t heard anything good about any of the rare spares panels beside the door skin. By the time you buy L&R panels from rare spares you’re paying $330. I dare say including shipping KF would still be better and cheaper. Just email them to see how much shipping is. ryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 6 hours ago, sexual_sushi said: I have been in the states for the past 5+ years and the customer service on average is atrocious everywhere. People genuinely seem annoyed that they have to deal with you and they generally don't know what they are doing, particularly if anything out of the ordinary happens. I swing between being annoyed and then realizing the minimum wage in some places is half of that in Australia Hahaha that’s so funny, I found the service so good! I guess living there is different to holidaying. I can only speak to restaurants and retail really. Ryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RestoZ 9 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 10 minutes ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said: Mate I’d go with the KF vintage jdm ones they make them now, when I ordered my ones from MSA, KF were not yet making front fender panels. If they were I would have ordered through them, the quality is miles above tabco or rare spares. Even comes with the inside panel. Check them out. I never paid any import duties or tax on any of my panels. I personally haven’t heard anything good about any of the rare spares panels beside the door skin. By the time you buy L&R panels from rare spares you’re paying $330. I dare say including shipping KF would still be better and cheaper. Just email them to see how much shipping is. ryan Thanks Ryan, I'll check them out. Yea, wasn't keen on the Rare Spares option, so having an alternative is really helpful. Cheers Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDM-TOY 244 Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 On 2/20/2021 at 11:06 AM, 240ZBUILTBYME said: Can I just vent a little and say that MSA aka the z store is the worst company to deal with and has the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. Took them 6 months to get these to me. In the end I didn’t even get an email from them to say your panels arrived and have been shipped sorry for the inconvenience. Just received a notification from fed ex that I had a package on the way. Useless.... Venting is therapeutic. I had the same issue and couldn't get a hold of anyone there but my panels did arrive lol Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted March 22 Author Share Posted March 22 Minor update chassis jig is complete! Photos and video coming soon. I managed to free my carb insulator blocks from the intake manifold with a razor blade and cleaned them up. The gasket was pretty much glued to one of the blocks, attacked it with the razor blade and was careful not to inflict any damage. cleaned up further with paper towel and sugar soap. Came out pretty good! Question: are my blocks ok to reuse and do people normally recoat/varnish these blocks before reusing? If so what product would one use? ryan Mike_F 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 Received my screw set I ordered off eBay for the SU depression chamber and float bowl cover. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Datsun-240Z-Float-Bowl-Suction-Chamber-Carburetor-Screws-Set-/164620649300?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292 these are great and a perfect match for the old screws. not the cheapest after 12USD for shipping but worth it IMO ryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
240ZBUILTBYME 62 Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 finally finished building the chassis jig after much toil. It was a journey in learning the basics of metal fabrication and has laid the ground works and basic skills I will need for my rust repairs. Pretty happy with the results considering I hadn’t touched a welder previously. Still much to learn though... As I will outline in the video I wanted to replace the backbone of the car, floors, chassis and frame rails prior to mounting on rotisserie for blasting. As you will see this will be impossible without extensive repairs to the rockers/doglegs and rears arches. So I have decided to get the whole thing blasted prior to starting any rust repairs. I will be bracing the shell extensively before mounting to the rotisserie. please excuse the cheesy thumbnail photo... Ryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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