Tebirkesueth

3 years later... took ages to find a good painter willing to take on the project. These days insurance jobs with small panel fixes seem to be more profitable. Luckily I found someone willing to do it in the summer months of this year while the insurance workload is reduced. Prepping... Overall quite happy with the result. Couldn't contain myself and started puzzling together the undercarriage the first chance I got. Pulled lines in the trans tunnel and assembled the suspension component. On the wheel first the first time since 2017!

It has been a while... no real excuses more than waiting for the body to be completed. The car was recently taken off the table and put into the lift to fix the remaining structural items. This is mainly the rear of the floor and the floor supports with extensions back to the rear axle. Rockers + inner / outer wheel wells replaced + rear beaver panel (think that is what it is called). Same exercise on the right hand side. Rust had found its way into the quarters at the hatch close area (both sides). This was cut out and replaced. Floors have also been replaced extending up a bit on the foot well firewall - there were small rust damages, almost like Morse code, along the transition edge. I decided to replace the frame rails (completely shot) and the radiator support. Floor supports remain to be installed together with the frame rail reinforcements. The car had a or some front ding(s) at some point in its life - evident by the massaged areas on both right and left side shown earlier in the thread (sand blasting section). The right side was worse though, but decided to get the package to replace it all at once. In terms of body repairs and improvements the list is slowly coming to an end and the expectation is that the car is back in my garage early this summer. In the meantime I worked a bit on the engine and gearbox situation. I have two five speed gearboxes that came with the car. One has been in storage for a very long time and has damage at the end seal area towards the drive shaft. The one that was installed in the car cannot keep 5th gear and pops out under load (allegedly). Through some research I'm inclined to believe the bolt that holds the 5th gear in place has come loose (if someone has another idea let me know). Anyway, my plan is to install a 240SX gearbox in the car to get a bit more up to date equipment in this respect. I managed to source a used rather low mileage FS5W71C gearbox from a salvage yard - from my car I have 2 old FS5C/W71B gearboxes from which I can use the bell housing. I intend to follow the instruction posted by Steve Heimsoth on zhome.com. I also need to source a new early 240z driveshaft - anyone have a spare one laying around or know someone that does? Should be the early FS5C/W71A style driveshaft which is about 5cm shorter than the later FS5C/W71B gearboxes. FS5W71C as it arrived. After a bit of soda blasting. The 71B bell housing which will be machined to fit the 71C gearbox. That's it for now - it has been a dormant period now for quite some years. I'm hoping that I can pick up the pace as the car returns home.

Hey guys, long time since my last activity (about a year in fact). The car body is still waiting for the needed weld repairs.. but things are slowly moving so hopefully it will be finished and ready for paint by summer. In the meantime I have worked on the undercarriage. In November 2017 I prepped the parts for sand-blasting and (at that time) powder coating. In the end the paint was changed to another type that was easier to arrange. Unfortunately I don't have a consolidated picture of the parts coming back, but you can get the idea from the assembled components. For those with eagle eyes the bump stops are indeed missing. Also the upper spring seats are unpainted as I forgot to send them with the rest of the things Oh well, guess a second batch was to be expected. Hopefully next update won't be in a year... ^^

Thanks for the input NewZed, the FS5C71B has a combined bell housing and front gear case as well (courtesy JDM junkies). I have to confess that I'm not 100% certain I have an FS5C71B gearbox, but it makes the most sense as my car is the right year and market to have one...The value of a restored original gearbox is a good point. I actually have two gearboxes with the same housing (at very similar).. so I plan to keep one original and restore it for future use. After looking around in my picture archive this is the best comparison I can find in terms of the housings; FS5W71B housing from http://zhome.com/ZCMnL/tech/240SX5spd/transmission3.htm My gearbox as taken out of the car... looks promising at least. I might pick-up the FS5W71C gearbox anyway as I can get my hands on it quite cheap. Thanks for the input!

Hello all, I'm pondering doing a gearbox upgrade as I have everything out of the car for my restomod and my 5-speed gearbox is "missing" 5th gear. The car is a 73 240z Europe edition and I believe I have the FS5C71B gearbox mounted in the car. Searching around I found recommendations of the FS5W71C swap from the 180SX, 200SX, and 240SX. I can find plenty of rather low mileage FS5W71C gearboxes for sale so that is not a problem. I read the following guide http://zhome.com/ZCMnL/tech/240SX5spd/transmission.htm and it is highlighted that you need the FS5W71B bell housing. Question is -> Has anyone had any experience using the FS5C71B bell housing for this swap rather than the FS5W71B? Cheers, Erik

I have been looking at the Kemppi MinarcMig 200. Have heard good things about Kemppi in general, perhaps that suits your needs? https://www.premierwelding.com/kemppi-minarcmig-evo-200-package?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0-LntoPs1gIV1RobCh1GzgIBEAQYAiABEgJ-G_D_BwE

Thanks guys, I think I'll have a go at welding it once it comes back. In the meantime I have been looking at replacement panels and I found a number of sources. Question number 1; Quality - I managed to find some threads about TABCO and their pieces and the quality seems to be comme si comme ca requiring a bit of massaging (granted it seems expected). Up to now I didn't find any threads about ZCD's panels, anyone have experience with them? I found some panels there which are reasonably priced. Question number 2; As many have seen the blasting revealed quite some rust and bad patches from my Z's previous life. There is some rust in the inner rear wheel wells and I would like to try and source these new. When looking at the car it seems it consists of one inner and one outer part (see picture). From TABCO I can source the outer wheel well housing (at least named to be); https://tabcoparts.com/cars/datsun/240z-260z-280z-1970-1978/16753.html From ZCD I can source the inner wheel well housing (at least named to be); https://zcardepot.com/exterior/sheet-metal/rear-wheel-well-inner-fender-sheetmetal-right-240z-280z.html Anyone got experience if these two are indeed the two separate pieces or just different naming of the same part? Cheers, Erik

So... Another session of holiday and car tinkering is almost over.. Oh well, I tried to be productive. I've been trying to sort out someone willing to do the body metal repair work, but the availability in South of Sweden seems to be very scarce! Best offer I got so far is to start working on the car earliest this Autumn. Worst case I'll have to extend the search a bit farther, but I'd like to keep it close buy and with people known in the area. Luckily I can spend the time sorting out other stuff not directly related to the body. To be productive I decided to work a bit on the seating solution. In the end I have chosen to keep the Cobra seats (Paddy Hopkirk) that came with the car rather than buying new seats. Probably I would come off a bit cheaper buying new ones, but I really like the idea of having them specially made buy the local guy in Town. He has pretty free reins but will take inspiration from the original seats. Quite excited to see what he comes up with! In addition I worked on collecting and prepping all items that I want going to blasting and powder coat. I've broken down all of it to its basic Components and sealed off any sensitive areas like e.g. the bearing housings in the struts. Hopefully it can go out to the shop within a few weeks. This is the latest Picture I have, but since this was taken everything has been further stripped down. Found the front differential mount is cracked in the one of the plates.. Not sure if it was hit somehow because it looks like it has got a dent close to the source of the crack. Is this weld repair worthy, or a must scrap and replace? I was pondering whether to send the complete differential for blasting and powder coat as well. In the end I decided against it due to risk of sand entering the seals. I'm also not keen on breaking the diff into pieces and I'd rather have it assembled as I don't think there is any issues with it. Instead I went at it with a wire Wheel and a can of paint. With the car I got two differentials, one R180 installed and a loose R200. I had no idea what the ratios were so Before choosing which diff to use in the car I opened them up. - R180 - R200 - R180 - 3.9 - R200 - 3.54 Plan is to go with the R200 as I like the aspect of reducing crusing rpm slightly. Previous owner stated the RPM at 90 km/h is 3000 which he thought was a bit too high (I have a euro spec 5 speed) and I tend to agree with him. After a few hours of wire wheel work it went from this to this After first coat of paint (hammerite). Until next time.

Part 2 To ease the pain of looking at those Swiss cheese frame rails I finally got to unwrap the following: Last time I was home I also worked a lot on stripping all of the suspension and drive train pieces. I didn't like the idea of installing worn items and instead did some more shopping for seals, U-joints etc.. The major Components such as struts, driveshafts, axels will go the same sand blaster for cleaning and powder coat. Question - since I'm having a lot of metal replaced I was thinking that it might be a good idea to seam weld the chassi. Searching around I have seen a lot of mixed opinions on this topics so I'm unsure if it is worth it. Anyone have any good advice? Edit; Digging around in my files I found a video of the first "first" start after some general maintenance and tinkering. I uploaded it to youtube for those interested. https://youtu.be/p7s3ohS-cfM Cheers! Erik

Hello guys, it is about time I make an update. Now that I'm finally home for the Easter holidays I can document and work a bit on the car. First off - good news! I inspected the mustache bar bolts and it turns out the iphone camera was phony and produced heavily distorted pictures, i.e. they are both straight. After going over the car my conclusion is that the sand blaster did a thorough job. Some major rust areas which were already shown above, but loads of small ones have popped up. To do this properly I will target to have it all fixed. Warning for heavy post.

Koenigsegg is developing through their sister company Freevalve a camless engine. Find out the benefits found in a small turbo 4 in the video linked. To test reliability they have a Saab running the system since a few years to mature the concept. https://youtu.be/S3cFfM3r510 How about this on an L6?

They didnt spray the metal of any large open surfaces. Because the lining of the roof is glued i opted to leave it installed and i think it got damaged while sanding the a-pillars. It was supposed to be wrapped but either i forgot to tell them or they missed it. The bolt is being checked more in detail though. Those are sturdy and very difficult to bend. The bolt could be replaced (albeit annoying), but my biggest fear is that they bent/collapsed the mounting point inside the car.

Thanks for all the input guys! I have decided that I will replace the frame rails completely. I also received some more pictures of what the sand blasting revealed. I unfortunately forgot to tape over the inner roof or express the need to protect it. It therefore has blast damage and it is covered in primer. In addition one of the mounting bolts for the mustache bar has been bent. It looks like the floors have been replaced once upon a time. Some other interesting spots that need repair have also appeared. Next step is to arrange for a body shop to initiate the repairs.

Yeah, agreed. Looks like the left wheel well together with part of the frame rail has a patch welded in as well. Unfortunately my dad has not had time yet to properly document the car. Hopefully he has some spare time this week to take some more photos of the underside and the rest of the frame rails. Already before blasting I had the feeling the floors were swapped, mainly because there was no under-seal applied on those parts and you could see some welding seams looking suspiciously non-standard. Thanks for the heads up! I´ll take a closer look when I have access to the car. In the meantime I have been looking at some possible sources for frame rails.. Does any of you have experience with the following sources. Bad Dog Parts? Zedd Findings? My thought is to source new front rails (firewall to radiator mount from Zedd Findings) and new rails from firewall to rear frame (i.e. Bad Dog Parts Front and Rear frame rails).

Minor update; The car body and frame is finish at the sand blaster. Since I'm not personally picking up the car I only have 3 pictures to show for at the moment. I have to trust my dear dad about the actual condition until he manages to fully document everything. Some small surprises were revealed so you never know what you'll find once all the dirt, paint and rust comes off. Better get it all off so that a proper repair job can be done before starting to put it together again. I'll post some more photos as they drop in. On the basis of what can be seen in the photos, are these the normal problem areas? /Erik