X64v

It's been a long busy summer and an unusually cold and brutal winter here in southwestern Idaho, but I'm slowly making some progress. Last summer I borrowed a co-worker's 3500PSI pressure washer and blasted all the grease, oil, and road grime off the shell as best I could: Mid-progress pic, making my way down the firewall and into the trans tunnel. Incredible difference: Slightly visible in the pic above, the floor pans and frame rails are arched upwards from the front of the floor pan back to the front seat brackets, probably from a hard wack on a speed bump at some point in the car's life (I swear it wasn't me). Other than being a bit dented up, the frame rails and floor pans are generally fine, and I think I'm going to try to save them by straightening them as best I can and patching what holes the floor pans do have. I think a slide hammer, a dead blow mallet, and a block of wood should do the trick of getting them mostly true. From the front seat brackets back to the rear subframe the pans are straight and solid, so I'm going to add Bad Dog rear subframe connectors and tie them into the stock rails. At some point in the future I may add full Bad Dog rails and do more work on the pans, but this isn't a show car so I'm not worried about re-doing any paint or undercoating. Here are some better pics of the floor pan and battery tray rust: I knew my hatch had rusted in the window channel, but today I finally removed the glass and found out exactly how much: I'll cut the rust out of the outer shell and see how much of the frame underneath is damaged.

In the bottom of the firewall pic? That's the condensation drain hose hole from the (dealer installed?) air conditioning. They didn't take too much care installing it.

Front of the car disassembled: I'm not sure about how to go about cleaning all this up. I'm guessing a wire wheel to most of it and an angle grinder for the surface rust will be one of my only options without media blasting. I'm also considering removing all the flexible wire keepers attached to the sheet metal in favor of a real fastener system for engine bay organization. Better view of the rust underneath the battery tray: It's eaten through the firewall into the passenger compartment: Will be a tricky area to repair, I'm going to save it until I'm practiced up. First areas will be the floor pans: Pulled the gas tank, inside looked like this: I trashed it immediately. At the moment I'm planning on going with a cheap fuel-cell-style tank from summit, it won't be a proper cell but this car is realistically only gonna see street and autocross use for quite a long time.

Been slowly working on the car, a few hours here, a few hours there. Seats out: Dashboard and windshield out, they were surprisingly easy: Removing the tar mat sound deadening was by far the most time-consuming part of stripping the interior. I removed about half of it with a paint scraper and hammer, the rest I used dry ice on to make it brittle and then chipped it off with an old screw driver: The rust on the driver's side floor pan didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be, I'm hoping to be able to get away with two or three patches and then wire wheel/rust convert the rest of it. The passenger side, however, turned out to be a little worse. The battery tray rust has not only eaten through the inner fender, but also about a 5" section of the firewall, and the floor pan has various rust all the way back to the front seat rail. I'll decide how to deal with it after I clean up the metal and see the full extent of the damage. Prevailing opinion is that replacing the whole pan is easier than many small patches but I'm really trying to avoid that if I can. I'll post some more detail shots soon.

I'm back! It's been over five years since I've been active on this site. Since then I've finished college and moved from Arizona to Idaho to start my career. My 240 spent most of that time just sitting. I drove it once or twice a month for a few years, but it's spent the last year and a half sitting outside my parents' house in Phoenix. Last month I sold my 190E and finally was able to bring my 240 up to Boise. Sitting outside for the past five years has not been kind to my poor attempt at a paint job, nor to the interior. Now that I finally live in a house with a garage, it's time to go through the whole car and redo everything. Current engine bay: The interior needs to be completely removed: It's going to get a fiberglass dash, new gauges, matching seats, some light sound deadening and simple black cloth. The chassis wiring is also in dire need of attention: Most of the wiring is original and/or hacked to pieces, and I don't need half the circuits in the car (seat belt buzzers, door switches, radio, hvac, etc can all be removed), so I'm just going to rewire the entire car. I was looking at Painless harnesses but unsure of the most cost-effective route, or if other brands may offer something more suited to my situation. I also would like to pick a style of connector to use throughout the car for consistency (or at least one for interior wiring, one for engine bay/weatherproof wiring). Finally, rust! The doglegs have already been repaired, but many of the other common rust spots for Zs (battery tray area, L/R floor pans, rear window lower corners, etc) all still need to be fixed, badly. I'm going to take care of everything in one huge sweep of the car. It may take me a few years, but I'd rather be working on fixing the issues than drive it in the shape it's in. It should be garaged for the rest of its life, so hopefully this will be the only time such a thorough tear down is needed.

Been gone from HBZ for a year. Picked up a '99 328i in the meantime though. Sport + Luxury packages. Threw on a set of Pilot Sport PS2s and this car really grabs the road hard. Not as fast as an E36 M3, but I do get 32mpg on the highway.

TR - Yeah that should work just fine. You should be able to drive those coils just like I drive these. I've been gone from this site for a long time, but I can report zero problems with this set up over the past year.

HA! Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Been running around all over the northeast. Currently in Rye, NY. Nazareth, PA: Greenwich, CT:

Thanks for the advice guys. Definitely will pick up an El Cheapo wrench set and a few other misc tools, along with spares. Nope Jeff, still have the Z, though it's getting hard to drive in this heat. The Camaro isn't mine, I'm just collecting it. Mike, can't respond to your PM 'cause I'm on my BlackBerry, but thanks for the offer, I put your number in my phone in case I have any problems up that way.

So, I'm being paid to fly from Arizona to New Hampshire tomorrow to pick up a mostly restored '67 Camaro convertible and drive it the 2,700mi back here. I don't think I could be any more excited for this trip. Gonna take my camera, will try to get some interesting pictures along the way.

Try this: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/55580-painting-a-intake-to-keep-it-cool/

Thanks Dave! Remove it, it's now a paperweight. Make a block-off plate or use a 35mm brass core plug to fill the hole: With the distributor missing, the quill shaft that drove the rotor will now be unsupported. In my opinion, it's a good idea to remove it, cutting it off after the bushing surface on the oil pump drive:

Complete interior, minus: Rear plastic Rear carpet HVAC

Hit the truck scales, fully fueled. Fine with me.