280zjoel

yep. Thats what im going for, I just have to be careful. Ive been known for turning my welder into a plasma cutter lol:flamedevi

hehehehe. I forgot to post an update, here is the work I did Friday, it doesn't look like much but I had to weld up all those annoying drilled holes, got most of em done. I cut the VIN off of my old firewall, and tacked it on my new firewall. Slowly but surely its getting there. This is what I did today: I finished welding the VIN plate on and cleaned up the welds in front with a dremmel. I really wanted to buy some Rust bullet to spray under the cowl panel but I'm so broke right now its not even funny, so I ended up getting some Rustolium Cold Galvanized primer, and Rustolium satin black enamel, I still need to buy the seam sealer on Monday when the paint store opens, gotta get the good stuff for that. There's nothing worst than having water in the car when it rains:shock:. Also this pic was taken when I hit it with the first coat, I sprayed it with 3 coats for the primer. Here is what it looks like with 2 coats of the satin Enamel paint, lol its really dark outside so ill wait till tomorrow to hit it with a few more coats(notice the spots I missed )

Im curious, does your engine sit slanted or is it sitting straight?

when I made my trans mount, i took and input shaft and a peice of tubing to a friend of mine who is a machinist and had him press the two together and balance it out, then i Inserted it into my trans and lined it up to the center of my diff yoke, then made the mount according to that. It worked out pretty good.

lol

Well, Im going to weld in the Original Vin from my car onto the firewall, and grind off the old vin(unless the indentaions are too deep, then ill just cut and weld in a clean plate) there is a spot for the vin on the cowl cover that bolts on in front of the dashboard, im just going to drill the rivets and place my vin on that cover.

Thanks for the comments guys, it motivates me to do more work on the car. Well, I did get my brother to weld the firewall and bottom section of the cowl panel since I havn't been feeling to well these last couple days. Ill post some pic tomorrow when the sun is out of the work we got done so far. Everything thing looks good so far, and all the dimensions look good. Hopefully soon ill have it back on the road. Here is a little teaser shot I took( its too dark outside to get a good shot with my cheap camera)

I always though about getting these projector fog lights from a Subaru Legacy and fitting them in the spot where the 280z turn signals go upfront. One would be your turn signal, and the other(projector) would be your fog light.

well if you look at the opposite side of the firewall from the drivers side area, you will notice that there are those 2 square sections that pop out 1/8''. Those would have to be cleaned up and redone so that the firewall plate would sit straight. But then it would not fix the issue with the cowl panel with the vent being on the other side. also the bottom sides of the cowl panel are not Asymmetric, it wouldn't work to just remove the vent and weld it on my origional. also since the whole RHD clip was bead blasted there was just slight surface rust, my original had some rust under the cowl. Good time to fix that lol, I could have redone the whole firewall, but that would leave me with a rusty cowl panel (under the top panel). So I figured since i already have to swap the cowl panel might as well just swap the the firewall too.

ok guys, here is another update. I stripped off all the leftover sheetmetal from my 280z to get the firewall in, which took a long time:(. Then I found out that the bottom of the cowl panel had to be removed also so that the firewall could go in. SO basically all 3 sections(firewall, top of cowl panel, Bottom of cowl panel) had to be removed in order to be installed. Here is what i mean: Notice how the firewall will not drop down.... Here is why, that section is too wide to fit in, so I separated the rest of the cowl from the firewall. (2 days later) FINALLY!!!!!!!!!! it took a while but its in. Not welded but its in. Im going to get some self tapping screws and measure everything and make sure Im good with the measurements, screw it together, double check the measurements and then weld it in, then remove the self tap screws and plug weld em up. Ok, so here is my screw up. Notice the trans tunnel right before the firewall, when I was installing the firewall, i noticed that section needed to be removed in order for the bottom of the firewall to slide in, since the firewall slides under the floorboard, well i though to myself that if I cut that section and just reweld it back on, I should be ok. LOL When my bro shows up to see the progress i made, I hear him say "NOOOOOO why did you do that?" then I was like "um.... cuz i need it outa the way"....... OPS ADD moment. Anyhow he mentioned if i weld that peice back on it will end up flexing at the welds, so to fix this we are going to do this: Im going to get some sheetmetal and drill some holes in it and plug weld it on both sides to be on the safe side. What do you guys think? any other ideas? Anyhow hopefully I will have it all welded together by next wed.

Wow, great job on that bracket

Thanks Shaggz00, I did not even think about the tunnel not having something to hold it up, I did place a block under the tunnel where the trans mount is to hold it up. Thanks again. I got most of the firewall out and remeasured some of the points and everything lines up. Ill get some good pics tommorow when the sun is out. Here are some pics, grrrr I can wait to paint that engine bay. I hate the horrible paint job done on it.

Here are some of the dimensions I got from the engine bay, now i just have to check some measurements for the interior.

I got another update guys, I lost my camera( i just fround it right now) and took some quick snapshots of what i did yesterday. I got the windsheild off, but it ended up cracking it:evil:. Kinda sucks but oh well. Anyhow i mounted up the brace from one door hinge to the other and then welded it together, and welded some bars from that to the top of the roof, I also welded a bar across the frame rail before the firewall, and a bar on the trans mount, I have the car sitting on blocks on the rear lift point, Oem scissor jacks behind the TC rod mount(on the rail) and jacks up front, the block pretty much lifted the car about 1/8 of an inch, and when i set the scissor jacks I hand tightened them until they hit the rail and did a 1 revolution turn, just to get some slight pressure on the rails, I still have to shim the jacks in the front to get a small amount of pressure on them. So what do you guys think? is it safe or should i brace some more?

Hey whats up, i remember reading your thread before about that. Lol Since hearing what you said i made sure to measure where the intake sit in regards to the master cylinder, and on the stock intake I did clear the MS. By the way did you have to move the alternator to the Left hand side to clear the steering shaft?

Is it the tires you hear making noise? since you have a 2 way its engaged on acceleration and deceleration, so you should hear the inside rear tire(of the direction your turning) slipping at low speeds since it wants to move at the same pace as the outside tire. Just a thought.

ok, got some more work done, I finally got everything separated, I did end up removing the top portion of the cowl panel so that when i install it, I can just weld it from the factory points from inside the cowl instead of removing the side posts and going through all that trouble. Here are some pics of the parts ready for installation. I will have some good progress by Wed. since my bro has half day at work, and he will help me out with the install and welding. Heres the top section of the Cowl panel: Here is the front: Right hand side: Left hand side: And, back side: If anyone wants more specific shots of sections let me know.

Im going to weld a support across the frame rails about 5 inches in front of the firewall, also weld a brace where the stock trans mount bolts also a brace to bolt between the A-post(ill bolt it on the inside where the door hinge bolts are) and I have to figure out a way to weld in a cross brace from the floor board to the top of the roof. Im also going to get 6 oem style jacks(with the turn crank) and position them in the rear, middle and front. Im going to hand turn them all till they hit the frame rails, and turn them all one revolution and distribute the pressure evenly. Hopefully this will be enough, anyone feel free to chime in and let me know if I will need more support. Thanks

:icon15:Well, actually i came up with a plan that will allow me not to drill those out, Im going to chop out the firewall and cowl panel with my cutting disk and leave about 2 inchs of sheet metal along the factory welds so that i can drill them out easily, since the center section will be out i can have good access to the spot welds, then just drill and remove the remaining pieces of sheetmetal. I will have to drill out the top of the cowl panel and remove it to weld up the spots inside but thats so much easier than removing those posts.

*sighs* the more I look at it the harder it gets, lol in order to remove the cowl panel and firewall, i need to remove the these bad boys to get to a couple of welds on the A-post that cant be drilled from the inside since the flange faces up and on the inside of those posts..... to be more specific, I cut part of that section out to show were the welds are that need to be removed. Well, Ill figure something out,

Thanks Nick and Eric, I am going to try my best to make it look as clean as possible. Here is a pic of the pedal box bolted to the firewall. I was too lazy last night to check it out, so there it is.

hehehe, I wish i wasnt so sick this past week, or i would of gotten alot more work done on the car. I did manage to take out the dashoard and do some cleaning up. Ill post some pics in the future for the parts that look to be the same between RHD and LHD for reference. Thanks tony, I'm going to use the RHD pedal box, which i believe bolts onto the firewall, so I'm covered there unless i skipped something. Hopefully i will have some updates this week with more progress.

ROFL hehehe "I pity da foo... I aint ridin no pony!!!"

Well did some drilling and got most of the welds drilled, here is a spot weld cutter drill bit you might want to use for pinch weld removal, it just makes thing so much more easier.(and yes the bit is that big lol) Well after a few hours of drilling I managed to remove part of the floorboard that was still attached to the clip, as you can see you have to drill out the welds up the firewall and over to separate the firewall from the wheel wells. You might notice that some spots i drilled completely through all pieces of sheet metal, that actually was a mistake. Its ok for the clip since i wont be using the back sheet metal but, not a good idea to do it on the car its going on(welding holes is no fun) As you can see on top, the welds had to be drilled, and the sheet metal separated. pretty much straight forward with the drilling, just find out where you need to separate and drill the welds out. I used a small pry screw driver to make sure that the metal was completely separated. Also notice as you get close to where the A-post is, you will need to grind the welds since they are not pinch welds Do you guys think that i will have to make a brace to hold the A-posts from moving once i remove the firewall? Or is it ok to just cut and install the other firewall? Im kind of worried about the car flexing when i take the firewall out and just though id ask your opinions. Thanks