Jboogsthethug

Haha the sad truth! I just want to get this dang build done. 5 years in July that I've been working on it! Freaking ready to drive!

Yeah that sounds like a solid plan! Those bushings will help a lot I'm sure! I still haven't done those myself! On the to do list for sure.

dang this thing is so sick! It's been a while since I've read through it, looking forward to see it come together! I would like to do the tube chassis front end one day, but it will not be for a while ha.

Welcome to HybridZ! She looks to be in good shape from what I can tell! I don;t know how much body work you plan on having done, but if it's a lot I'd suggest doing all your mechanical work done beforehand. Then, when you get that body in pristine shape there is a lot less chance of ruining all your hard work (or the money you paid for it)! I have learned that the hard way ha.

I myself had my Z dustless blasted. It worked well for the most part, but the hood and hatch were both wavy afterwards from him blasting straight on which was a huge bummer. Then, I had the enormous job of cleaning the sand off. The problem with dustless is they mix water with the sand to stop "dust". It works great for that but becomes a muddy mess and dries that way, meaning you then need to brush/wipe it off afterwards. It was terrible getting out of the interior crevices, I still have sand fall out of the cracks ha.

Yeah I can tell ha. What do you have planned for it?

haha smoking deal! I paid $2700 for mine. Cheapest I could find, it was rotting in a field. Rust everywhere, literal rats nests in the AC, interior was trashed, etc. Your Z is in dang good condition!

Ah smart! I will have to do something similar, I like that idea a lot!

So after transplanting the new heart into the Z, I realized I didn't plan on using the stock hood/latch and would want to have something lighter eventually, as well as it kept bumping the RB during the install. I cut that crap right out of there! As more times goes on, I regret painting my car earlier as I keep scratching it and giving myself more spots that are unpainted ha. Lesson learned, too late now! I'll fix it eventually after I get to a place of contentment. Also, I never mentioned this but I picked up these eagle alloy wheels for like $400 or something? I'll need new tires eventually but it made my Z look sick! Look are important I also bought these off a member on HybridZ who was selling all their parts stash. I figured they'd come in handy when I was ready to upgrade suspension! I also got around to cleaning up my garage a bit. Picked up a mini stack tool chest for like $60, great deal! That is the last part of my house remodel and I have big plans, but for now this will do! One thing I realized is my brake MC decided to stop working while it sat. I took it apart to try and clean it out but I couldn't get it working again. So then I bought a kit to rebuild it, but it turned out I had the wrong MC for the job. Only some of the MCs are rebuildable, I had the wrong one ha. So, sent the kit back and looked at my other options! To buy a new stock MC it was just as expensive as buying 3 used aftermarket cylinders from Tilton/Wilwood. I always wanted to eventually do a dual brake MC setup, so I figured what better time than now?? I picked all three up for like $140 on ebay. They came in this evidence bag, which I thought was pretty funny ha. I decided on a 1" for the front and 3/4" on the rear. I may regret the size but if I do I'll pick up a 1/2" and swap them around. There was also a 1" clutch MC that I figured I'd swap in sometime later, all remote reservoirs! My plan is to mount those inside the cowl to save space! Anyway, I got to work! I read up a bunch and this thread helped a ton with info, especially when it comes to figuring out the pedal ratio: The only problem is the freaking pictures from photobucket no longer appear. Screw you PB, ruining all my favorite threads! So here are my pictures of the process, pretty similr to what they talked about! I'll also try to be detailed to help give some info to anyone looking this up in the future. I bought the Tilton 600 series balance bar assembly https://tiltonracing.com/product/600-series-balance-bar-assembly/ First things first, I needed to measure and come up with the correct stroke and figure out how much room I had to play with to drill the bore hole. By my professional chalk on cement measurements show, my brake pedal was 5.25" from the pivot point. I have 5.75" of pedal travel at the outer diameter before hitting the firewall. My original MC Plunger point gave me 3.25" of stroke. In order to get the correct leverage I needed to move the plunger attach point up about .5". That would make it easier to compress without the brake booster. (The measurements were pretty much on point to the thread above.) My initial drill point, I think I moved it very slightly. Once I got it dialed in, I used that point with my hole bore and got to drilling! I had a slight gap due to the slightly bigger bore diameter (I couldn't find the exact size). No worries, close enough! I then got to welding! I measured the center point and basically just did my best to hold it exactly parallel. After tacking, I double checked center and made sure it was exactly perpendicular to the pedal, then welded it in! I have little bursts of good welds ha, I wish I was better at welding. Slowly getting better but plenty of room to grow! Well son of a gun, I realized I warped the bore ever so slightly! I Could no longer get the bearing to fit through. Calling around to machine shops provided me with some expensive options that I could not afford. Hundreds of dollars for this little hole ha. So I thought about it, took my drill, fit the biggest bit I could into the hole and put sticky, 2000 grit sandpaper on it and just drilled it. As it would loosen up, I'd add another strip of sandpaper. I did this for about 10-15 minutes and voila! Perfect once again! I was pleasantly surprised at this one ha. Slid easily through now, no catching at all! At the same time, I worked on the framing a bit. First, I just used the hole and marked around it to make a template. Cut it out with an angle grinder and then welded it in! I also added some bracing to the side to help with flexing, these welds I was pretty happy about! All smoothed out! I then made marks on each end of the pedal box so then I could use that to create a center point for the holes I then needed to drill for the MC mounts. I transcribed from that point. Then I created a center point of tape and made marks with the brake pedal completely open and completely compressed to find the centerline for where the plunger needed to be. Then, after making those lines, I measured the 1.25" both ways for the center points and test fit it with the balance bar. Lines up well! Pilot holes drilled. Then the bigger holes and other holes were drilled out. Then I put the bolts through, welded on the back end so they won't turn and spray painted with some primer and black gloss! Installing into the brake assembly. I also made a plate on the other side to basically sandwich the firewall and give more strength. I painted that as well. Here they are installed!! I also bent the brake lines later on whcih you can see here, I'll create a post to document that later! Until next time!

In my last update I talked about getting a new fuel pump, I forgot I also swapped out the starter. But not before trying to fix it! haha I took it apart and realized it was pretty well rusted out on the inside, but after cleaning it up it didn't look too bad. Unfortunately, I realized the little prong things that connect to the motor that basically convert the power from the battery to spin it were so old and worn the wires had been rubbed through. It was only an hour or so of wasted work so I wasn't too sad. I figured for some people wanting to restore it this pics may be helpful! After realizing it was trashed, I didn't want to go through the work of wiring new contacts in so I said screw it and picked up one new from the auto parts store! Another thing I did before starting it is wire this in. As promised, I wanted to revisit what I found out (as much as I can remember anyway). The idea was that I'd flip the main red switch and the first blue switch and that would give me the power to the button and also act as like a theft deterrent step. Simple, but later I wanted to expound on a series of switches that had to be switched in a certain sequence for it to work. Just an idea! I initially followed the instructions that came with the kit and when I'd try to start it I would get power to the first switch and the push start, and they would light up. This was all like the opposite of what I wanted. So, back to the drawing board! Eventually I got that all figured out (I forgot, it is all covered in this thread so no need to re write it! Yeah boi!! Anyway, went through all that just to find out the tranny was jacked and after the struggles I already covered in the last update (and this thread: Here are some pics they sent me of it! So, out with the old.... Sold to a fellow Utah Z owner. And in with the new! That ranger was in it's most precious form that day! Big thanks to my awesome wife for letting me buy the new engine! Here she is going into the engine bay! I don't think this is what my insurance agent would call "blanket coverage" but ti worked well to protect the paint. Ha, dumb dad joke. I decided to build my own brackets so I wanted it as far back as I could get, but leaving a little wiggle room in case of shifting during driving or flex or whatever. This looked good to me! Here are a few threads I started when I was leveling it out and figuring that all out: RB25 engine resting angle. : Working through how people have built their mounts: It's to the side here, but I was able to center it pretty well when I built the mounts. I also picked up a new exhaust for the L24 before I sold it, much bigger and better than the stock exhaust. I kept that and will connect it to my RB! Here are some pictures of building the mounts! I cut the 240sx mounts up and reused the same pieces. I plan on reinforcing this some more later for sure though. Resting in place. Got the shifter centered up nicely! Ghetto solutions over here (Using a block of wood to strap the transmission into place) but it worked! This hose was right in the way, so I loosened it up and just rotated it down. I'll put a different hose in later and route around it. Sufficient clearance right here! Then, using a string I took measurements for the brackets. I just held it corner to corner at the length, then measured afterwards. Corner to corner, measure, repeat. What I ended up with: My beautiful welds haha. I'm going to clean those bad boys up too. And she's in! More to come later!

Dang welding the nuts in is a great idea! I've thought of welding some bolts in (the opposite of your idea) but your idea would probaly even work better! Was that a pain to get it lined up? I still haven't quite figured out the logistics. I will probably do 1x1 to keep it low! I actually was checking that out! The only problem is I would for sure be hitting my head with my helmet on during events! Even with my seat sitting on the mounts just flat on the floorpan I am close to the ceiling. I wouldn't even consider myself super tall ha.

Yeah I'll cross my fingers for that! Technically it is again back off the road, but I'm hopeful to have it back on again soon! I don't think I really need to spend any more money on it other than a few things here and there to have it driving at least! We shall see ha. I actually just asked her what that was about and she explained it was because it's a "roll" cage haha, bread roll. That one went over my head ha. It is behind still, I'll continue to update but there's some cool things in the works! Amen to that, it really was terrible. Did you mount the bolts straight through and have them sticking out the bottom?

I agree with LLave, no need to break the bank if you are DDing it.

That looks awesome, well made considering it was not the intended application! A lot of awesome little details throughout your thread, you definitely take time for each little thing.

Looking forward to seeing this one play out, props to you for taking it on!