bramagedained

It never occurred to me to get a sender and electronic speedo before I bought them. I swapped the tach and speedo out right after I bought the car. I grabbed it from Menards just because I was there, otherwise I can generally get stuff for free. Autometer has a deal on where to add their sender to LS motors. https://www.autometer.com/media/2650-1563.pdf

2 5/8" for the smaller three and 5" for the speedo/tach. I used 3/4"x1/8" aluminum strap everything is short enough it seems plenty solid. It was cheaper to order them from Amazon. I looked up on Summit as they have a better layout to browse and then copied the part numbers into amazon. If I did it again, I absolutely would not get a mechanical speedo. Autometer sells a Vehicle Speed Sensor(they call it "Speedometer Sender") that bolts up to the the tail shaft(where the factory cable goes) of GM transmissions so that you can run an electronic speedo. Now I'm stuck buying gears or ratio adapters to correct the speedo instead of just pushing buttons and driving a marked out 2 miles to calibrate the thing. .

More chipping away at this. Since the last post I stripped the dash harness out which I forgot to take pictures of, it was another few lbs of wire. I left myself pigtails for the factory wire into the factory plugs for the combination switches for the blinker/headlights/wipers. I did the same with the wires/plug for the ignition and found another surprise. That was under more duct tape. It's the same wire that was duct taped in another spot, which is the wire that ran to the solenoid on the starter. I'm sure these two janky connections didn't help with my hot start issue. My order from Amazon came with a pleasant surprise. I had ordered the cheap version of the B&M Pro Ratchet shifter, however, they shipped me the nicer one. On amazon they're ~$80 different in price, list price is $100 different. I've been working since Saturday on mounting the new gauges. It takes way more time than expected, but, only doing it for 3-4 hours at a time makes it much more enjoyable. The brackets work and are solid, but, they're ugly so no picture of the back side. This is from roughly where the seating position is inside the car. The speedo/tach still need their brackets, they're just friction fit into place. At first, I was struggling with a good way to get them positioned correctly. The OEM gauges have just a slightly bigger housing. They way those are mounted is the back of the dash is angled slightly and they are basically spring loaded pushing against that to angle towards the driver. I noticed that the bezels of the OEM gauges are just slightly smaller than the bezel of the Autometer ones. So I took them apart, with a hammer and screwdriver. I could maybe been more delicate, but, meh. I then epoxied these into place in the dash, pressed against the angled flats to give me the proper angle. This made locating the gauges super easy. They're centered and at the same angle to the driver as stock and it looks super clean. As a minor nitpick, they must be from different production runs as the stencil that says "Auto Meter" and "Pro Comp" is ever so slightly different on the fuel level vs the oil pressure and water temp. I also figured out what to do for turn signal and indicator lights. Originally I had scavenged the OEM ones from the dash harness. I was going to be clever and make a box and use some fiberoptic to pass the light out of the dash. I've seen some pretty clever use of this by buying the right size to fit inside a pop-rivet to give you a bezel and finished look. However, I found these on DigiKey. https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/Q6F3BXXG12E/679-2739-ND/3153072 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/Q6F3BXXB12E/679-2731-ND/3153069 Green and blue panel mount LEDs with a diffused 3MM LED and a bezel. They can be wired right into 12v and have leads coming off of them I can easily add to the relevant circuits on the Painless harness. They were kind of spendy for LEDs ad $12 and $10 each. I'm now done with school at 1:30 every day so hopefully I can finish with brackets and start laying out the wiring for the new harness.

I saw -9° on the thermometer in the back yard this morning. I've just decided that today is for mounting gauges to the dash which I can do at the work bench inside. Those are some dedicated fans at the Vikings game today.

It would be a huge hassle, but it could be done. You would have to already put the bolt in the mustache bar before you bolt the mustache bar up, then work it into the diff and suck the diff up to the mustache bar. If you have a transmission jack it's probably not as big of a deal as you could just position the diff however you want as you pull it back on the bolts. It could have been done, but, drilling a hole you can fill with a rubber plug was just a much easier way to go. Mine is an early 260z so things could be different between mine and yours. I can't be much help for the parking brake deal. Perhaps add a bracket to the upright and a pair of parking brake calipers? http://www.summitracing.com/parts/wil-120-12069-bk/overview/ With everything assembled off the car it should be pretty easy to come up with a bracket for that.

Of this whole thing, the part I was the most worried about was pulling out the plastic interior panels. But, they all came out without issue. I had 3-4 hours into this today after school, just to remove the rear chassis harness. Driver's side: Passenger Side: I now have everything out that is coming out, with the exception of the antenna cable. The car will no longer have a radio. I put ~5000 miles on the car between the end of June and storage and maybe used the radio for 2 hours. The rocking speaker, it didn't even have stereo: While weight reduction isn't really the goal, I've taken out about 25lbs more than is going back in with the painless kit. My plan for the re-wire is to hook everything up how I think it should go without cutting any of the wires on the painless harness. Then hook a battery charger to the system(no battery) and run through the functions to make sure everything is correct with the factory switches. Once that tests out, I will shorten stuff and add connectors for if it ever needs to be removed. It looks like the weather is going to hold out for another day so the garage will be easier to keep warm. My next task is going to be drain and drop out the gas tank and pull out the factory fuel lines. Adding for reference if someone ends up here from searching, the relevant posts about connecting the 18 circuit Painless kit to the factory combination switches. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/29786-painless-harness-to-z-column-harness-headlight-combo-switch/

The wires also pulled out of the crimp connector inside the tape when I went to pull it out from the firewall. -This was referenced to a comment about the duct tape. When stuff goes back together, everything is getting soldered. Oil Pressure, Water Temp, and Fuel level gauges are on the way. I did tack on a ratchet shifter, too. For the fuel gauge there was basically two options. First, buy the fuel gauge that is set for an older Ford which is semi close to the ohm value that the Datsun sender uses. The mismatch can be bandaided with some trial and error with resistors/pots. I'd still be at the mercy of the error now in the 40 year old sender. Second, just buy a fuel level gauge calibrated to a GM sensor, which pretty much everything aftermarket uses and then figure out the rest later. I went for the second option, which means I will absolutely have to cut up the car for a fuel cell. It's something that would have to happen before the car got boosted anyway as you simply cannot pull fuel fast enough from the stock tank to feed that. I still need to dig more on what is practical for a fuel cell, there's cheap aluminum ones and cheap plastic ones(summit/jegs brands, RCI, etc). Which while not Certified by anyone can't be any worse than the factory steel tank. NHRA rules look super easy to comply with. While I forgot to order one, I'll be putting in the NHRA required battery cutoff while I'm re-wiring the car. The battery is pretty obviously no longer in front and the rules require one regardless of your et/trap when relocated. The more of this "extra" stuff I add, the less likely a motor swap becomes. I originally planned on doing it next winter anyway. The only way I could have pulled it off this year is if "the plan" went exactly as planned. This whole re-wiring project wasn't originally accounted for, nor the one of adding a fuel cell.

I've decided to just work on the car for 2-4 hours a day while the sun is still bright in the garage. That sort of schedule also stops me from getting overly frustrated/tired of working on the car. Dash out of the car: What I meant about comitted: I found more than a couple spots of questionable wiring like this: ...that actually ran to the starter. Dash on the new workbench so I can work on it where stuff is warm. Most of the hard part of re-wiring the car is here, getting the painless stuff connected to the stock combo switches for lights/wipers. New stuff came in the mail today, now just to send in for the $100 rebate: I think the instructions were written by an old guy. I can't see someone who grew up with the internet thinking that the font for all of the "Note:" sections was a good idea: I pulled the evap coil out too. These were dealer installed options, it's a 240z part showing the mix and match of parts on the 260z: It's not very heavy, but, is something else I don't need in the car so it goes. I decided last night that anything not required is going. Pulling insulation/sound deadening, but, leaving the panels as based on the ones I took out, they can't weight more than 20lbs total. I have the harness pulled out of the car except for rear of the seats which runs the rear lights. It runs into the passenger side quarter and it seemed like a good place to stop before I have to start pulling interior panels off. I left myself a couple feet of the stock harness from the front lights which I'll put a weatherpack connector on and tie to the painless stuff. The dash harness is still there, but, is coming out. I decided to put in new gauges while I have it out. I left a pigtail for the wipers for now, as I don't know how much of a hassle that could otherwise turn into. I don't expect it to be a problem to take things apart to get to the motor itself, but, it is still a 42 year old car. The same logic was behind leaving a length going to the front lights. I'm ordering gauges when I'm done with this post. I'm also tacking a new shifter on to that order. I don't like how the one that is in there doesn't lock you out of neutral, so you can go right past Drive/3rd into Neutral. So, I'm buying a ratchet shifter. It will fit better in the car, too. The space between the dash and where the shifter needs to be is limited and the current one is so close in Park that you can't get your hand all the way around it which has been semi annoying since I bought the car. I'm going to order wheels in the next couple of days. My plan is to have the wiring done, and the interior back in the car by mid-feb. That will leave me spring break to hack up the body for flares and pull the motor/trans. I can't do that until I have wheels+tires and new springs for the front(to set ride height, etc). I can't get new springs until I know if I need to change to smaller coils to clear the wheels+tires. I can't pull the motor until all of that is done so the car is at the right weight. At that point I'll decide if I swap in a motor. There should be enough time between spring break and the end of salt on the roads to pull it off. It is amazingly well documented online. Tomorrow I'm pulling the bumpers/bumper shock absorbers. Supposedly they weigh a bit over 100lbs total. They'll get replaced with fiberglass replicas of the smaller 240z bumpers. If I had the cash, there's a guy in NY making carbon fiber dashes and consoles which combined weigh like 5lbs. The factory dash is probably like 30.

Welp. Now I've gone and done it. I pulled the console and dash to prep for the painless kit, now I have a case of "while I'm in there". The car originally had A/C, so I'm going to pull the coil which is dead weight. While laying across the rocker to unhook stuff to pull the dash I got curious and peeled up the off-brand dynamat which the floor is lined with. It turns out the rust spot is bigger than I thought, it's still not major and will just be one piece of flat sheetmetal to patch. While looking at that I noticed that the trans tunnel is coated with a tar like stuff, which I assumed to be OEM sound deadening/insulation. Some of which is dried like plastic and breaks off, the rest comes off like tar. Should I just peel all of this shit out? I have to remove a lot of the interior to strip the OEM wiring to put in the new stuff anyway. I could always buy new stuff later if the noise/heat bothers me. Should I just get the full whack of autometer gauges now since I have the dash out and I'm starting from scratch with the wiring anyway? At a minimum that's replacing the 3 factory ones with Oil Pressure/Fuel Level/Water Temp. The 2-5/8" ones are very close to OEM size and will fit in the stock location.

Painless has $100 mail in rebates on a lot of their wiring kits. And Vatozone(who is an authorized retailer) has a 20% off deal right now. So last night I impulse bought the 18 circuit universal kit, and after the rebate will be $190 or so. Which I'm willing to pay vs piecing together all the needed stuff from digikey or something. There's even a couple of threads on Hybridz on how to hook the painless stuff up to the OEM switches and such.

I still have a new 1" Master Cylinder, proportioning valve, and front brakes sitting around to go in. I can't do the front brakes until I get wheels. They're for another day, though. The new front calipers/disks are pretty big and OEM from a 90's 4-runner. Hybridz-I bought the silvermane motors kit instead of piecing stuff together. Next project is probably going to be pulling the dash to clean up the wiring/add relays and make better mounts for the speedo/tach along with rig something up for the turn signal/high beam indicator lights.

Assembly. All the parts (minus brakes) going into the car: The first thing I did was assemble my new shocks. Koni adjustable shocks and 250lb/in springs. The strut tubes are part of the kit and custom made to work with everything else in the swap. This little spacer goes inside the tube, so the inside is the correct length for the Koni damper. It's contoured to matched the shape at the bottom of the Koni: Everything else is simple to assembly and I forgot pictures. The lower spring perch is adjustable for ride height. The tube is filled with a small amount of oil, the logic behind it is so the cartridge can better transfer heat to the tube itself. It also stops the cartridge from corroding itself into the tube. The tops are two of the 5 pieces re-used with this swap. Control arms ready to assemble: In goes the new subframe dropdown and mustache bar. While the old mustache bar was very much a leaf spring, this one is solid aluminum and not made to give a whole lot. This is where I started to be really amazed by the kit. Parts are very close, but, don't touch. Now, I could have fought with the driver's side bolt for the diff, but, I chose not to and just drilled a hole in the spare tire will that I'll get a plug for. Eventually(maybe even this winter) I'm putting a fuel cell in the car so all that sheet metal will be cut out anyway. Next to prep the diff I replaced the pinion and axle seals. I know the pinion seal was bad and I realized it would be dumb to not replace the axles seals as well while I had it out of the car: I forgot to take a picture of putting in the front diff mount. I had to grind down some spot welds and knock off a tab that was used as an exhaust hanger. This is apparently only present here on the 260z and not the 240z or 280z. I had help wrestling the much bigger Ford 8.8" into the car. A transmission jack(which I don't have) would have made this much, much easier. The factory rear part of the subframe is re-used which holds the rear of the control arms. I had to massage it some with a hammer so it would clear the drain plug on the diff. But, only by 1/4" or so. I could have assembled as-is, but, didn't want it to touch. Everything from here-on was so easy and quick I forgot to take pictures. After the diff was in, I only had an hour and a half into putting everything else back together. New upright/axles: New struts and brakes: Stainless brake lines now run from the hardline to the caliper. And that was that, I threw on a pair of old DSM spares(since the rear bolt pattern is now 5x114.3) I got for cheap from Brownman so I could set the car back on the ground and push it back to the side of the garage on the car dollies.

Teardown. There is surprisingly few fasteners that hold everything for the rear end together. It all came apart without needing to be clever, to my amazement. Presumably the last time all this came apart is when the car was first assembled in Japan. Old stuff, it turned out I didn't need to take the drum off, but, it made for a better before/after picture anyway: Brake line on both sides, I did have to use a vice grip on the Driver's side as even with a proper flare fitting wrench it rounded off: Parking brake cable. The car will no longer have a parking brake, which is sort of unfortunate, but, it will always be an auto anyway: Exhaust came out partially by sawzall. Whether I get to an LS swap this winter or not, the exhaust was going to be changed either way. The quality of what was in there is a bit lacking(to put it lightly): Yes, that is RTV and some of the most booger'd welds I've seen. At this point I had two jacks holding up the subframe+diff. One of these on either side holds the mustache bar/diff up into the car at the rear: These two bolts on either side hold what I will call the rear of the sub-frame up into the car: These on both sides hold the front of the subframe/front diff mount: Now the only thing still attached to the car are the struts. I used some 4' zipties to hold the struts to the control arms so that they wouldn't flop out when they dropped free of the car; Out of the car it came: I honestly expected it to be a hassle to get the driveshaft off of the diff, so I just let it drop out of the trans onto a cardboard box. I need to get a new driveshaft made somewhere anyway. There was 4 more bolts that secured the control arms to the rear part of the subframe that I forgot to take pictures of. The control arms, rear of the subframe, and strut tops are the only pieces re-used. The control arms are held to the upright with a big pin. This pin is notoriously difficult to remove as it is not greased and pinned to not move in the upright, so it seizes together. I probably could have got it free, but, since I'm not reusing the upright nor the pins I just cut them apart with a porta-band. The strut tops need to be slightly modified. OEM they're made to key onto the top of the damper cartridge and the hole needs to be made round for the Koni ones:

Well, pretend progress. I have all the parts for the rear end, rear suspension, rear brakes, front brakes, new 1" master cylinder and a proportioning valve. Custom parts for the rear swap: Most of the store-bought parts: I'm done with school for 3 weeks so I thought I would spend my first day off getting things prepped to actually swap the rear. I went through the motions, which turned out to be a COMPLETE ******* WASTE OF TIME. More on that later. F150 axles, these need to be cut apart to disassemble the outer CV, which is used along with the new 930 axle shaft and a 930CV as the inner joint. The shaft needs to be cut off so you can spin the star far enough for the ball bearings to come out so that you can take it apart: Good thing a pipe vise is in the garage, it made this part fairly easy: I spun the axle around the other way before I actually cut it, this just made for a better picture: Done with a cutoff wheel, care taken to not ding the CV joint itself: Now you can spin the star far enough to get the balls out, which means you can get the whole thing apart: Star and balls: CV Joint separated and cleaned, shaft still needs to be pressed out of the star: Outer stub fits into the Dodge Intrepid hub like it should: New 930 shaft in what will be the inboard 930 CV joint: Everything was good until this point. Until I had re-assembled the CV joint and went to slide the 930 axle in. OH RIGHT THEY DON'T ******* FIT: Despite the F150 axles being for the correct year truck, and correct model, these ones are different internally than how Ford designed them. The Ford design uses less/bigger splines than the shit I bought. So I wasted $150 and 5 hours today on this. Tomorrow I'm going to try and see if I can source some re-man Ford shafts from an autoparts store. Otherwise I can order ones I now know will work with the 930 shafts from summit and have them on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Another change. I sat in the car with a helmet on, and my head was very close/touching the inside of the car. The one of the previous owners raised the seats up with some kind of janky spacers, and I had left it because I still fit. Well, yesterday I took them out which lowered the seat about an inch and gives me much more room. Old: Stuff taken out: How the seat sits now:

Managed to spend most of another day in the garage, though, I only maybe had 3 actual hours of work into it. I had the nuts on the front hubs a bit too tight, when I got back from Brainerd yesterday they were hot. So today, I pulled them apart, re-packed the wheel bearings and put it back together. I replaced the distributor<-> intake manifold gasket that was leaking. The nut that holds the clamp wasn't very tight again(I tightened it once before) so I added a lock washer. Happily, it fired right back up after having the distributor out and back in. I guess the pointers I made for where the housing/rotor needed to sit were good. I did not yet go for a drive to see if it's better. That requires a first stop at the car wash to spray everything clean first anyway. I figured I would replace the spark plugs while I was at it, since I had never pulled them nor had any idea when they were from. Now this part was interesting. The casting marks and numbers on the block are easy enough to see and read. The block itself is from 1979 and I assumed the heads were as well. On a reference chart, the block was in a "passenger car". Interestingly, the plugs that were in it, physically do not fit anything that came from GM in 1979. They do not have a tapered seat and instead use a washer to seal. From what I've found looking, GM switched to using heads with a tapered seat in 1971. Maybe the motor is more than I thought. Makes me wonder what cam/lifters/springs etc are actually in it. Or if the shortblock is even stock. Also the 70's era Edelbrock intake manifold. Anyway, all 8 plugs looked like the should. With the exception of half the insulators on all of them had black spraypaint from whenever the block was painted to get put in the car.

I saw a cheap catch can on Amazon the other day and ordered it. It does actually have a couple baffles inside. The breathers I got about a week ago are made to hook to an EGR and have media in them that is supposed to separate oil out, too. There was an old hole from something when it had the L26, so I just had to make that one slightly larger and drill one more.

I really hadn't been maintaining this here and instead on a local forum. I'm catching this up by copy and pasting posts. So there's a chance things might not make sense until I go back through what I end up here and clean it up.

When cutting the pins apart to do the 8.8" swap I couldn't come up with a good reason that they were designed that way in the first place. Stock Car, you can have the rear up rights/strut tubes I took out of my car for free if you come pick them up from Fridley. Though I'm not sure if/how the 280 ones differ from what was in my early 260z. They're yours if you want them as a spares should something not work out sectioning yours.

FWIW, I used one of these helping my Dad with adding some mud flaps to his Raptor. The tool that looks like a regular rivet gun is doable with 1/4-20 sized steel pieces. With aluminum ones it is very easy. We had an issue with one of the aluminum inserts(out of 20) and had to remove it. Once installed somehow the bolt ended up cross threaded and ruined it.

Edited the teardown and assembly posts. I didn't get finished today, but, I will tomorrow. Perhaps budgeting two days to do this whole swap was a bit over ambitious. I probably could get it done tonight still, but, it's cocktail hour somewhere I'm sure. Edit: Job finished, assembly post edited.

Early 74 260. It has a SBC/TH350 in it now. I'm hopefully going to throw in a 4.8/5.3(keeping the TH350) later this winter and leave it N/A for the coming summer. Next winter will be turbo and either a TH400 or glide. I'm in the middle of the 8.8 IRS swap right now. That along with wheels/tires, front brakes, and flares are my priorities for this winter.

Assembly. The exploder diff had a bad pinion seal: It's super easy to replace. The only step that wouldn't have been immediately obvious was to take a paint marker and make a line on the shaft, nut, and flange. When you re-assemble tighten the nut to just past where it started. I went by this: http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=326205 I decided it would have been dumb to replace only the pinion seal. Today I went and grabbed the two axles seals and replaced them as well, they cost a whopping $10 each and take only a few minutes to replace. Intrepid hubs bolted up to the provided uprights: (mostly)Everything laid out for tomorrow: I'll edit this after everything is back together. Putting the dandy new coilovers together: This spacer goes inside the tube, it's contoured to match the bottom of the Koni shock: I'm not adding camber plates, so I re-use the factory tops. I had to round out the hole, it's otherwise "D" shaped to hold the threads on OEM type struts: vs I didn't take pictures of any other step for the coilovers. Will provides two washers which go between the top spring perch and the factory top so that everything seats properly: Dropdown and mustache bar in place: Instead of fighting with the driver's side bolt I just drilled a hole in the spare tire well that I'll get a rubber plug for: Eventually I'm going to put in a fuel cell so the spare tire well is going to get cut out at some point anyway. Diff mounted, this took some effort and help. A transmission jack would have made this much easier: I had to clearance the part that goes behind the diff that the control arms bolt to, it just slightly hit the diff. Unfortunately I never took any picture of it. A couple wacks with a ball-peen made room. Admittedly, I did a crap job of taking pictures today while assembling since it only took me about an hour and a half to finish. Everything goes together really easy after you get the diff wrestled up into place. Arm, axle, and upright together: Just throw in the strut and brakes. I had help with the struts as it was easier to have someone else start the nuts while I just held the thing in place. Once the three nuts were started I did the two bolts to Will's upright: Which is also the complete setup. I didn't take a picture of it on the ground, since until I get wheels it's sitting on a pair of leftover DSM space saver wheels.

I pulled my car apart today. Except for the fitting on the driver side brake line everything came apart very easy. Perk I guess of buying a car that had mostly just sat in a garage since 1990 and apparently never saw salt or much rain in it's life. I had to fight with installing the front diff mount a bit, due to what I assume to be a difference between the 260 and 240. There was a tab that an exhaust hanger went to on the driver's side which was in the way, and isn't in pictures of the other installs. I had to grind down some spot welds to get it out. It was just above the bolt holes on the driver's side. Stuff to undo to drop the subframe/diff: Brake lines: Parking brake cable: Since I don't have a transmission jack, I had the diff+subframe supported with two jacks and a 2x6. I'm sure there's a better way, but, it's what I had and I was working alone. The order for the rest didnt seem to matter much, I did use some 4' zip ties I had in the garage to hold the struts to the rest of it so they wouldn't flop out when they dropped free. I did undo the struts last. Which left me with this on the floor: The zip ties holding the struts was super helpful. I had a jackstand under the driveshaft which I completely forgot to disconnect ahead of time. You need to get the arms free from the stock uprights as they are re-used, which means spindle pins. ...only you don't actually need any of that so I used a tool to make a 10 minute job per side: Dad's porta-band made short work of the pins. One of the pins I probably could have gotten out, it moved when I hit it with a hammer, but, cutting it was just easier. What's left of the pins: Hopefully I will have everything together tomorrow. Off topic but amusing, check out the quality craftsmanship of the exhaust from when my car was swapped in 1990:

This thread is quite amusing to read as we're basically doing the same thing, though I wont start on the LS swap probably until later this winter and it will stay NA for the coming summer. Including flying from the twin cities across the country in June to buy our cars and chancing the drive home. Though, I flew out to east coast. There's this local FB group if you're not in it. https://www.facebook.com/groups/ZoomZcar/