240ZBUILTBYME

I don’t know if our old z cars fall into the same category. Certainly I would always prefer to buy an unrestored car as there will be less bodge jobs and cover ups under the paint but that’s coming from a place of knowing I’ll be doing a restoration on it. But I certainly wouldn’t be willing to pay more for a preserved/patina z over a well documented restored z. I think another factor is the car also needs to be in the right environment for the patina to be aesthetically pleasing, most nice patina comes from extremely dry environments like Arizona or California where the paint is able to stay more/less intact but be weathered. Rust bubbles generally aren’t appreciated lol

Pity they’re all LHD

Cheers @C.A.R. Will do

Meeting with the blaster went well, he can take care of the undercoating for me. I just have to remove the sound proofing from the trans tunnel and rear cargo space. he only blasts cars and is a huge car enthusiast himself so this pleases me. He’s booked out till march which is a bummer…. But has mentioned if I get the car ready to go if someone else isn’t ready he can slot me in early. So now I have to get the car ready to go. She’s waited long enough….if I wait any longer there won’t be a car left to restore…. I want to remove the rear quarter panels, remaining rear valance and roof skin and a portion of the outer rockers so the internals can be blasted. So first I’m going to add some bracing so that A) movement is restricted as I remove body panels and B) when the car is lifted up for the underbody to be blasted there’s a bit more structural rigidity to prevent any bending of the chassis. This thing is rusty AF and I just don’t trust it. I’m probably being over cautious. First I decided to ditch the gasless wire and start learning with gas. I wanted to practice on 1mm first and then practice welding my 25x25x3mm shs bracing onto 1mm sheet. Was very happy with the results for my first time. Turns out watching all those YouTube videos may have helped… first tacks My unimig for some reason has no setting guide for 0.6mm solid wire so I had to guess the settings. I ended up finding 14 volts and 4.5 m/min worked well. Does this seem about right? And can anyone tell me what the brown discoloration is? all stitched up rear of the join, seem to be getting penetration, does this look right? and after some dressing. I got warpage as I wasn’t trying to manage heat, but not too bad for a first go me thinks… Next welding 25x25x 3mm thick shs to 1mm sheet. no blow throughs, great success… I felt ready to weld in some bracing. Decided to go from the rear strut towers to the dash. the welds weren’t pretty, they were awkward spots though, didn’t want to do full welds as I wasn’t confident I could remove the bracing later without damaging something so I went with decent sized tacks. Seems to be enough strength in the tacks as the bracing feels solid. any feed back and thoughts on what I’ve done are welcomed. I really have no clue what I’m doing lol I’m planning to tie in the roof to the bracing and I think that should be enough?

Finished painting the shift boot and surround. Went with black for the shift boot to break up all the red. shift boot and surround were brown to begin with. The surround plastic was pretty knackered from UV damage. Lots of sanding later I had a paint shop match the interior trim color, it was spot on, happy with the result. And with everything installed also can we take a second to appreciate how cool the oem Nissan gear knob’s are? Rule number 32 of zombieland, enjoy the little things… My slave cylinder rod was too long and didn’t allow for any downward adjustment of the clutch take up point. I cut 15mm off my slave cylinder rod and then threaded 15mm further down. Drives like a dream now…

Hi all Thought I would start a thread topic on the JMC head project as from what I can tell no one has done so already. would be interested to know if anyone in Australia is planning a build with one of these. for those living under a rock JMC designed and manufactured a brand new L28 head with various improvements over the oem N42 head. - larger intake/exhaust ports with a uniform 2.5mm thickness between ports - reshaped combustion chamber designed for higher compression - redesigned water jackets to improve cooling Overall aiming for a better flowing and more durable head for tuning the L28 Website supplying the US: http://bluemoonperformance.com/project-l6/ has spec sheets and pricing chart video of the head in action Video where they CT scan a worked genuine L series head and found a port wall thickness of 1.2mm The price for a head is around the $7-8k AUD mark. So a significant investment. I haven’t seen any testing or performance/dyno figures with and without the head for example. discuss.

All muscle car parts sell new bonnets which seem good value for money, believe they’re out of stock though. https://allmusclecarparts.com.au/datsun/240-260z.html

Try two…. lol I like the term time vampires! So true

Yeah I’m sure you’re right, it’s just demoralizing every time I look at the car lol I think the answer is getting 4 of them like you gav, I think that’s the go…. Better start pampering the wife…

Yeah….I mean it’s a shit box, needs a resto, but it’s a complete running car. panel gaps are terrible, chassis rails and floors need doing but it’s probably still better than mine. i kind of need a shell that’s been blasted and epoxied so I can see how the rust is, too dangerous to buy a painted car, too many potential nasty surprises

Yeah this is what I have read in various sources, the guy I’m looking at using does purely car bodies and he does all the work for one of the classic car Resto outfits here in perth. I’m removing all the flat large surfaces prior to blasting so that should be ok.

@C.A.R. do you know the car well? Im wondering why it’s so cheap. I’m always looking for decent value cars that could replace my rusty chassis

Yes watched this one, I like his videos.

I have a blaster coming to look at the car this week that was recommended by a restoration shop. He’s going to assess the undercoating and if he can remove it with blasting, otherwise I will have to strip it. he has said he can blast the car while it’s on the chassis frame which is awesome. He can lift the whole thing with chain blocks to access underneath. Downside is he’s booked till march next year….. This whole time I have just been trying to work towards just getting this damn thing blasted and in epoxy! and with the severity of the rust and lack of structural integrity I wasn’t confident putting it on a rotisserie until some of the more structural rust was repaired. I have decided to pull all the panels off to expose all the interior sections that I know will be rusty as hell. I’ll remove the entire rear valance, rear quarter panels, roof skin. I have a few other panels I’m considering too like the front panel of the tool compartment and top wiper cowl panel. There’s a lot of rust in both those sections. I started experimenting with a few mechanical ways of removing undercoating used a oscillating multi tool with a scraper attachment as recommended by @CBR Jeff, on my undercoating it was not overly effective. First photo was just the tool and second was tool followed by a knotted wire wheel. most effective way proved to be a strip it disc, makes quick work of it. the oscillating multi too and scraper worked well on some of the sound proofing sections. but not so well on other parts yay more rust…. while I had the strip disc out I wanted to see what was under the paint on the rear quarters……there were lots of layers and much bog, I dared not do more…. started stripping the rear slam panel as I will need to unpick it, some quality repairs from previous owners. Just a couple of tacks and she’ll be right…. Also managed to knock off the rest of the second rotisserie frame. Now just need to finish the rear mounting assembly and the rotisserie will be done and ready to use when the time comes…

I love the look! The flying brick lol

I’ve always wanted to build a sleeper Volvo 240 wagon…

A mini doco on the death of the sports car. Watch it on your tv if you can, it’s beautifully shot.

@hmd And what were the rights pads shoes/drums combination for you if I may ask? Or trade secret?

Back in business. my shitty cigweld 135 would not weld properly anymore, after several sessions of trying to get it to work I bit the bullet and upgraded to a unimig 185. I think for my budget it seemed the most sound choice, online reviews were all very positive. Every single component of the unimig is far higher quality than the cigweld and it welds amazingly in comparison. Runs much hotter welds than the 135. got a few hours in today and finished up the base of the rear rotisserie stand. still getting used to the welder, some welds were good some were shit. I’m keen to use up the last of this gasless wire….

The gods gave me a sign, EOFY sale at total tools which had a promotion for the unimig 185 bundle which included the tig torch so I pulled the trigger and now I get $200 credit to buy more tools! I couldn’t find enough info about synergic mig welding so I passed on the Lincoln 191. Unimig 185 reviews were very positive online so I felt it a safe bet. looking at the wire feeder assembly on the new unimig it’s no wonder my el cheapo cigweld wasn’t working, it’s wire feeder assembly was all plastic and incredibly weak compared to the all metal on the unimig. You get what you pay for I guess

Everyone loves a bit of wank factor Jeff yeah I’m going with stock brake set up initially with a slight upgrade to the later 77-78 drum cylinder setup. if I do upgrade the brakes I’ll probably go the whole hog and do the z car garage brake kit as they have great reviews

How do these perform Jeff? What’s your review of them?

Anybody have any comments on synergic welders? Basically you set the material thickness and wire type and the machine controls/sets the volts and feed rates automatically. the Lincoln 191c is a synergic mig and I’m not sure I’m sold on them. I’m leaning towards a more traditional style machine with more manual style settings, like the cigweld and unimig. I wanted a dedicated mig machine but all mig welders in the price range I’m looking at are 3 in 1 welders. It’s another 1k to jump to a dedicated mig machine. im tossing up between the - Lincoln 191c powercraft (synergic) $895 - unimig 185 $800 - cigweld 185 $750

@ZED660s Son Sorry for your loss and deepest condolences to you and the rest of your family. Hopefully the car will be staying in the family and his passion for zeds will live on through yourself.