The journal of rawr.

Day 1. - Getting the car~

Went over to Paul's place early this morning, but still late, damn traffic. To pick up my not-so-brand-new Datsun 260z! He was off to work once done and I had the pleasure of figuring how to transport it to my house.

The carburettor's run rough (sucking more air than fuel?) and there was no battery to speak of! But that matter; my friend and I went back upto my place, grabbed the 4x4 and went to hire a car trailer from the nearest place that we could hire one. The whole experience of having a trailer on the back of your car, that's longer than the car itself is pretty scary if you haven't done it before, let alone one with a car on it.. Haha good times.

Now the car was succesfully transported by us to my house, I reversed it nice and slow onto the front lawn. Now I've just gotta clean the shit out of the garage thanks to my brother's party and then I can start work on stripping her down! The sooner, the better. I'm so damn happy haha.

Video:

[flash=425,355]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEGbeVj_yWc

Photos:

well transported guys !!

I counted the "F" word 5 times during your 1min 3 sec video, not a bad effort.

chris

Ah the feeling of picking up your first Z, just great. Let the fun begin!

Your laughing using that nice 4WD.

If you want an adventure try doing it in a 4 cylinder Rodeo with and engine in the tray. I had to take run ups to get up the hills 

Good luck, and I think your hands will be getting a lot dirtier than that!

We had some people look at us angry-like, cause we were going just a tad slower than normal. I didn't feel too confident in the straps I had down, hell budget job.

But I just looked back as if to say "What the fuck, don't give me that look! We're pulling a car!" lol, thankfully enough though, everyone stayed as far away as possible from us. We were surprised no cops pulled us over to have a poke.

Another video for fun:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SgtFtbQ23YY

Welcome and congrats on your purchase.

With regards to unlocking your hatch, insert the key but don't push the knob in. Turn the key still without depressing the knob, once key has turned 90 degrees you can remove the key and then press the knob.

Good start. The youtube, the pics of the first glow of zed ownership!

Whats the plan other than stripping it down of course ?

Did you have the pleasure of people cutting in front of you while you were trying to stop at a set of lights and thinking how hard are you gonna hit em? Love the length of that shifter!

Brakes do become quite ineffective once you add tyres that are 4 inches bigger than standard and a car trailer with an 1100 kilo car on the back!

Your laughing using that nice 4WD.

 

If you want an adventure try doing it in a 4 cylinder Rodeo with and engine in the tray. I had to take run ups to get up the hills

Ha ha.... meanwhile, I looked down at my speedo while light throttle cruising up a steady climb in 5th, and had to back off cause I was doing 110.  Goes to show, Rover 4.6 + mild headwork + towing cam = serious torque.

We had some people look at us angry-like, cause we were going just a tad slower than normal. I didn't feel too confident in the straps I had down, hell budget job.

I've discovered the trick is to tie the body down hard, so that you compress the suspension (assuming you have accessible tie down points  :-\), and also tie the lower suspension arms down hard.  If the suspension can bounce, it can bounce the tyres and the damn thing starts to crab its way across the trailer.  The last one I strapped down didn't move in 40km, despite a few hard stops and some rough as roads....

The whole experience of having a trailer on the back of your car, that's longer than the car itself is pretty scary if you haven't done it before, let alone one with a car on it..

Its actually the width that worries me, since the whole wheelarch of the trailer seems to hang out either side of mine, and most of the roads I drive on have spots where the lanes get anorexic 

Oh yeah - and I just watched the walk around - you jinxed yourself bad at 0:16 seconds    I'd be sacrificing chickens if I were you!

Your car has some funky stuff going on - long ass gear lever, screen door handle screwed to the boot (and used to be one on the bonnet too!)

Love the little diatribe on sunroofs, its so true.  And as for the size of a zed?  Try this one on - sit in the drivers seat with the door open, and touch the rear wheel.  Not too many cars where you can reach out and touch the back wheel from the drivers seat!

Hey guys! This might be the last post for a little while, cause I don't want to update every single day with some minimal like "Here is me taking off one wheel" and then the next day "Here is me taking off.. the other wheel! omgz".

Honestly, I'm a bit stuck in the direction, I honestly have NO IDEA, what it's like to be in a S30 with an L engine, I'd really love to experience that, because I was thinking.. maybe I shouldn't drop the VH41 in there? Maybe I'd get the same performance.. (obviously not, but I think you can understand what I'm getting at), V8 or L-engine..

I want to get rid of the sunroof, it's as simple as that. I love some cars with some roofs and some people love cars with sunroofs, but it's just not for me..

Honestly, I'm a bit stuck in the direction, I honestly have NO IDEA, what it's like to be in a S30 with an L engine, I'd really love to experience that, because I was thinking.. maybe I shouldn't drop the VH41 in there? Maybe I'd get the same performance.. (obviously not, but I think you can understand what I'm getting at), V8 or L-engine.

You've copped the disease I call stunted modificitus....  When I got my alfa back, the intention was to quad throttle and turbo it, which would have given me the same power as a 180sx, in a lighter car with a much stronger top end, and an equally strong bottom end.  But I got halfway there (did the quad throttles), and now I'm thinking I may just leave it NA - the sound is awesome, and considering the carbies were so screwed that it  put down minimum 20kw short of what it should have on the dyno (55kw, along with streams of black smoke out the exhaust), it actually feels damn quick compared to what it used to.  Plus I'm feeling a turbo would kind of change the whole character of the car, and not necessarily for the better.

But back to the original point, I'd get it running, then cough up for a temp permit and go for a cruise.  Will tell you a lot about what condition its in, as well as give you more inspiration to get it done through the hard times (and restoring/modifying cars can absolutely kill your spirit in the bad times) so that you get to drive it again.

My choice for a zed motor?  Still a turbo L series: budget option homebuilt turbo setup on an L28 using a decently designed single throttle intake manifold and a megasquirt, $$$ option turbo setup on an L31, still with efi, but maybe individual throttles.  Not entirely convinced on the usefulness of ITBs with turbos, but the RB26DETT uses ITBs, so must be some positive effect.  Then again, I'd probably end up keeping it NA for the same reasons my Alfa is, just with a monster L31 build.

And kill the sunroof.  Extra weight thats not needed, and makes the roof flex more.

I had to get a new roof installed on my car by Zshop..

My previous owner decided to install a "factory vynil sunroof", so he cut a whole the size of cambodia in the roof...

Small update

Still stripping the car down, quite a few dodgy jobs on the car in the past it seems.

Chassis rails seem to be in good nick, floorpan seems to have some spots where it was replaced with fiberglass and tin (wtf), so that's gotta be completely replaced for proper plating. Left door has some serious bad bog job on it, right side A-pillar might have a bit of rust, not sure yet..

Bottom of the hatch tail, has some bad bog job as well.. they've bogged up the rust from the water seeping into the window and down the back of the hatch, but they didn't even bother to grind it down nice and clean, you see it all rough and dry. Some serious bad bogging job behind the right door hinge, just above it under the A-pillar.

So far, that's just that.. who knows what else I'll find in this can of worms, but it's all good! It'll all be repaired, replaced, PROPERLY. Question though, how the hell on earth do i get the side quarter panels off?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL9iu9XJwfw

I bought my 75 260Z 2 seater in Altona at an auto salvage place, changed three plugs and drove it back to ballarat.

Fun times , good luck with the Project.

Robstar, In your most recent video you show a shot near the end of your fuel filler cap area where a piece of metal seems to be popping out of the body work. There were never any badges in that area and your filler flap is in the correct position. It is as it looks,....Bad, some one has attempted to fix either rust or dent by welding a home made patch onto the body and then painting over it.

Yea, I came to that conclusion in the end.. it's pretty bad, but thankfully it's on an area of the car that could be easily be repaired.

I have a pretty important conversation concerning the front panel fenders. They won't come off.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emfw-fNXzbk

This is where the breaks between panels should be.....

FRONT

REAR

Oh my fucking god. I'm stumped, I absolutely don't know what to say.. except I'm incredibly frustrated and worried that if I put a grinder of some sort to the car in the area of where the parting is supposed to be between panels, that I will screw something up. >_>;

Thanks for posting the pictures though Hellfire! They confirm with me that I'm not out of mind and there should be parting haha.

Oh my fucking god. I'm stumped, I absolutely don't know what to say.. except I'm incredibly frustrated and worried that if I put a grinder of some sort to the car in the area of where the parting is supposed to be between panels, that I will screw something up. >_>;

I suggest an angle grinder with a wire wheel on it - rips paint/rust/bog off, leaves the metal pretty good.  I went crazy on mine with the wire wheel on the grinder, I basically walked around the car going "hmmm, that looks dodgy..." and would just wire it until I saw metal.  Sometimes that took an inch or so of bog.  I suspect you will get some nasty surprises (like I did on mine) doing that to yours, its got some pretty suspicious areas.  At 5:24 in your video the lower left hatch 'frame' is in shot, and it looks a bit nasty, like someones gone crazy with sealant.

However, in response to your video question, yes your front guards have been seriously reamed.  It looks like someone has capped your sill (badly) and then I originally thought they'd welded it to your guard. But I actually think whats happened, is that there is a fibreglass? side skirt fitted onto it (stretching from front guard to dogleg), and they've bogged all around it to smooth it and blend it into the bodywork.

I personally would not hesitate to put the grinder with a cutting disc through the outer layer of metal an inch or two behind the back edge of your guard, because I can almost guarantee that under that cap on your sill (if it is what it looks like) there will either be a completely lacework original sill, or the original sill has been cut out, and just enough of an edge left to overlap the "repair" section onto.  However, before you go do that, if you look through the holes on the inside of the car at the back of the sill (maybe with a mirror so you can see the top), you should be able to gather enough evidence.  Following that, grab the grinder with the wire wheel, and just dig in at about the back edge of the front guard, and see whether you find weld under the bog, or whether its just the bog holding it together.

Question though, how the hell on earth do i get the side quarter panels off?

I thought you meant rear quarters with this, and wrote the following then realised you were talking about your front ones when I watched the other video  Anyway, I think it may help you, your car looks to have had a worse history than mine , so I've moved it to the end.

Rears quarters are spot welded on in a number of places.

1. Front edge, need to open the door and look at the door jamb to see these ones.

2. The lip inside the wheel arch - that lip is actually a join between inner and outer of the wheelarch.

3. Open the hatch, and look in the kind of channel between the hatch seal and the rear quarter.

4. (From here on in, testing memory a bit, may be a little inaccurate!) At just below floor level (behind bumper, remove!), take a line from behind the rear wheel to the rear light, its spot welded to a piece of floor that drops down (pull the plastic trim off the inside, and look down in between the hatch area and the quarter, you should see what I mean).

5. Its supposed to be joined in some way just in front of the dogleg, think it was supposed to be spotwelded but mine was rusted out so I cut it with the grinder, since I was fixing it anyway.

6. Its also spot welded to the sill (jacking edge under car) in front of the rear wheel.

7. Remove the quarter windows (4 screws from inside, come out with whole frame/seal/glass), and there are a bunch of spotwelds holding the quarter to the inner body (which forms a lip that those 4 quarter window screws go through!)

8. Just behind the roof, once its been paint stripped, you'll find a different coloured area of metal on the pillar running down to the back of the car.  This is lead filled from the factory, and you'll find a few spot welds under the lead fill (its thick!).

9. There are also some spot welds going in next to the rear lights, I think....

Oh yeah - and by the way:  GOOD LUCK (not in a sarcastic way)

So far the car seems savable, but you are going to need your welding mate to be going for a long time on it, and you will get very very frustrated, and probably lose motivation a number of times.  It is NOT going to be a particularly quick restoration, so be prepared for the wait, and be prepared to turn around and walk away for a couple of weeks (I find I come back to it and get much more down in a few days than I would if I'd kept going for the weeks I left it alone).  And I suggest finding someone with a running Zed car that you can get a ride or drive in, to help keep you inspired to finish it.

I find Mull's videos on hybrid z forum motivating.

Might want to check it out cause he does a great video diary as he pulls it apart. Think you could learn a lot from it.

Good luck mate.

BTW there is no break in the sill which runs under your door if that's what you were hoping.

I'd rip those gaurds off the front. Just a tip you need to remove the panel in front of your windscreen first to get at a couple of bolts.

Thanks for the help guys! Zeddophile, you've really made a few good points, but I won't lose inspiration, I knew it wasn't going to be an easy project or short heh, but that's what makes it all that much better in the end.

I have to go out and buy a wire brush for the pneumatic drill, so for now I've actually chiselled a little at the side and found bog or something covering the entire sill underneath and the front guards are absolutely not salvageable.

Pics:

Should I just rip it all off completely? Seems like the right way to go about it.

Get one of these as well - 3M Clean'n'Strip wheel.

This is like a huge circular scouring pad that you mount to an angle grinder.

Light pressure, slow speed and keep it moving over the panel or you will heat up the steel too much and it will buckle.

This method will get the panels back to bright shiney bare steel,