Swiss two-become-one 240Z Ground up restauration / JDM mods

[Jboogsthethug]

Great job on the meticulous build! just read through the whole thing, can't wait to see it done mate!

[jdmjunkies.ch]

Got some stuff today which i found lately for sale online.
First a set of original Nissan Parts manual Microfiches from a German workshop liquidation. So it's the european Parts manual. Unfortunately one page (body) is missing, but since i have a digital copy already it's only for completeness sake. and the price was great too


 

You would usually need a microfilm / microfiche reader, but i think a scanner with a high resolution should be able to handle those too. I will give it a try. It just was a too cool piece of history to not buy them

 

Then i got a copy from an original German User manual for the 240Z:

 

The colours are wrong since the seller seems to sell a lot of copied manuals with all the same colour sheme for some reason, but still it's better than nothing and it was a lot cheaper than an original, old, brittly, used service manual that is currently for sale for 130 Bucks on ebay. So i decided a copy has to do it. Also i know the original colour sheme anyway, so i can  create my own copy with th e original colours whenever i want to:

 

It's good to finally know all the details:

 

And it got a wiring shematic too, which is great

 

More parts are on the way, so expect more by next week or so

[jdmjunkies.ch]

On 9/15/2018 at 5:40 AM, supernova_6969 said:

hey!

again,., awesome build... 

quick question.  while the panel beater is doing an amazing job, it`s going very slowly.  I was wondering if this is some kind of side project for him in between other jobs, or if he actively spends a significant portion of his day on this... 

thanks! 

 

seb

 

Hi @Supernova_6969 , sorry for the late reply. Yes it's a side project. This doesn't really bring him a lot of money so he does this whenever he his time between his daily small repairs, etc...

[jdmjunkies.ch]

Well, the workload on the house / Garage / Workshop project finally slows down a bit, so i have a bit of time and a few bucks here and there to spend on my other, car related projects again. I have found some missing parts which are currently on the way to me, which i will of course post once they're here. But first i got some parts today from my Buddy Stefan at Cagedude.


 

Ag ain he was responsible for recreating some damaged parts with his awesome fabrication skills. This time he built me set of 240Z vertical Grille finns, which hold the horizontal fins together. As you can see my original set (black) was totally bent and broken. Super happy and i will have to reassemble my grill soon i guess


 

[jdmjunkies.ch]

So since i have all my parts from the grille together now i thought it's time to puzzle them together. So here we got t he single pieces:

 

First test assembly (works nice with a cushion below). Looks a bit out of shape:

 

Realized that the double-fin on top still has a major dent at where one of the vertical pieces attach:

 

Tried my best hammering skills to get it sort-of straight again:

 

Second test-assembly. Starts to look nice.
Need to sand the edges a bit on the vertacal pieces and then will replace all the rivets, before i put it all back together with new bolts and nuts

[jdmjunkies.ch]

Today i got one of my ebay ad finds: The plastic radiator surrounding Panel / shroud. It's a bit rough around the edges, has a lot of black paint stains, but overall it's in great shape and the price was too good to not buy it. Another missing part of the puzzle in storage


And had to give it a clean immediately before i put it in storage


Much better already. Not sure if i will use it anyway, since i have the Koyo radiator. But it was only a few bucks and it's good to know i have all the OEM Pieces to put it together back in original condition if i ever want to. Better get those items now before prices rise further

[jdmjunkies.ch]

While strolling the webs for good parts deals i stumbled upon this:  A  Niles Cigarette lighter with a built-in Thermometer. It's so useless and so japanese in a way, i couldn't resist. It was only a few bucks and i found it in greece of all countries:

 

Btw: Niles is the company that made most of the electronic relays and switches in the 240Z and many other Datsuns / Nissans of that time. So while this item was never sold by Nissan, it somehow gives the whole thing a bit of a period correct OEM feel:

 

And to be honest, it's so weird and odd, i just had to have it.

[jdmjunkies.ch]

While browsing the web for a few nice deals, i stumbled upon something which finally arrived at my door today. A huge Datsun 240Z Banner / Flag with a nice Japanese theme, showing some Cherry blossoms and snowy montains along with japanese characters (still need to translate them). 


A german dealer who sold it on ebay ads told me he bought it at an oldtimer swapmeet in the Netherlands. A bit of research revelealed that the graphics once were made for a 30 year celebration by an insurrance company called Carole Nash. The original wallpaper is still available for download on their website: https://www.carolenash.com/insideclassics/classic-car-news/carole-nash-celebrates-beauty-classic-design-global-classics/



 

Well. not sure how it ended up on a flag in netherlands. But i'm more than happy to have it decorating my soon-to-be-finnished Garage, where the 240Z will go

[jdmjunkies.ch]

Upon closer inspection of the grille, i realized the already some rust has appeared at the places where matal rubs on metal:

 

So i decided to better have all the non-aluminum pieces completely disassembled and zinc plated. That's why i remoced all the rivets



 

While doing so, i decided to redrill some of the rivet holes:

 

Will have to strip the primer, hammer a few small dents straight and then have it zinc plated with the next load of parts...

[supernova_6969]

hey!

one option, if you're not already done, could be to super clean them, (rust and all) and then clear coat them. that sould protect tehm and keep the natural finish.  and extra shine, depending on what clear coat you pick.

seb

[jdmjunkies.ch]

While having all the grille pieces disassembled, i thought i better take advantage of it and straighten all the pieces before i have them zinc-plated.
So i pulled out my best (nonexistant) panel-beater skills and hammered the parts as straight as i could. A few examples:

Before:

 

After:


Before:

 

After:

 

Before:

 

After:
.

[jdmjunkies.ch]

I randomly seem to stumble on nice stuff by accident. I always dreamed about triple Mikunis for my Z, but i always felt in the current situation with the house going on i save them for buying them later, even with rapidly rising prices. Then one day i accidently came accross these nice carbs for sale on an Austrian ads website. A bit of negotiation, a payment and they arrived here today:

 

They are genuine japan made Mikuni (Solex) PHH40 S5 (5-screw) carbs. You might wonder why PHH40? I don't plan to run any crazy numbers, so the PHH40 should be nice with my calculations. we'll see. i think i can swap them for PHH44 when i figure out that i was wrong in future. The deal was too god to say now. it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.


 

They have been beautifully restored. Probably will zinc plate all the bolts but not sure yet:

 

It even gets better: They're fully restored, and came with a free set of intake side gaskets and beautiful velocity stacks.

 

After all i'm very happy with my purchase and i think my engine setup comes along nicely with the FET Intake manifold and the Kakimoto valve cover. The whole engine side of things is still on a bit on hold, but when i find good parts like this, i just have to save them for the future

[SleeperZ]

Wow, congrats on the carbs, this is an incredibly cool restoration.  Once complete I hope to see lots more of these great photos.  Do you plan on entering any cars shows?

[jdmjunkies.ch]

I haven't got much to show you honestly. The House / Workshop / Garage build is coming along nicely and keeps me distracted from the car projects. And that for at least another 6 months. And the panelbeater is recovering from a broken nose and i'snt able to work at the moment.
However This saturday was a milestone in that: I went to check out some potential new garage lifts. The grey one is actually my favourite so far:

 

However i felt like i HAVE to do something for the cars every now and then. so i decided to take apart the FET intake manifold. so i can have the parts cleaned and replated with my next load. Before:

 

During

 

And after. It surely does look good in my opinion Will be even better once it's blasted, cleaned and all the parts are plated and back into position...

[jdmjunkies.ch]

On 1/18/2019 at 11:56 PM, SleeperZ said:

Wow, congrats on the carbs, this is an incredibly cool restoration.  Once complete I hope to see lots more of these great photos.  Do you plan on entering any cars shows?

thanks for your feedback. Well i think i will go to the annual japanese classic car shows in switzerland (so far two) and maybe an occasional general japanese car meet. Also if time allows i may opt for one or another heritage hillclimb race. we'll see what time brings and if petrol cars are still legal, once the car is finally restored

[jdmjunkies.ch]

It seems like currently nice parts are looking for me, rather then i'm looking for them 🙂
But lets start at the beginning. The garage-build is coming along nicely, with temporary lighting now installed:

 

With the House-build as a first priority now, i don't look for parts atm. But then (as with the mikuni's i bought lately) something popped up for a great price which has been on my shopping list for quite a while: A NOS splash under guard panel, which arrived today:

 

I think now i have officially all the body panels together, including the "optional" parts, or parts that are, say, more functional than visible. This will prevent the engine bay from getting too dirty and wet. Since these panels are prone to stone chips, most of them are quite dented and rusty, or completely missing (as it was on both of my cars), so it's rare to come along a nice piece like this one. And for a reasonable price that too..

 

The seller in Hungary was also nice enough to add a free set of what i assume are reproduction Datsun / Nissan colour code stickers. I need to investigate further on these. Paint is still far away in my project so i haven't spent too much time investigating on all those small details like stickers. But i absolutely love them. Thanks a lot for those!

[miky360]

Your build is the only reason why I even come back to the forums. Great work man! I love the details you take things and hopefully if you ever decide to sell the car, I just hope I have the funds to be the lucky buyer. :D

[jdmjunkies.ch]

On 3/10/2019 at 5:35 PM, miky360 said:

Your build is the only reason why I even come back to the forums. Great work man! I love the details you take things and hopefully if you ever decide to sell the car, I just hope I have the funds to be the lucky buyer.

Thanks for the kind words. unfortunately the progress is slow at the moment. and honestly i think nobody can ever pay what the build is worth to me, i'm afraid

This all started with a friend who was asking for my help to import some strut tower braces for an MX-5 for one of his friends. So i made an offer. Then he decided to add some small pieces for himself for his Kenmeri Skyline build. And when i realized i had to order bits and pieces from shops like rubber-soul, M-Speed, RS-Start and Revive Jalopy, i decided it couldn't be wrong to add a few bits and pieces for my own 240Z project. That's when another friend of ours stepped in and was asking for some Parts for his Hakosuka build. So today i finally got the big order of small bits and pieces from Japan.
These were the parts for me:
Rubber soul / NGK blue spark plug wires, that will fit my colour theme perfectly:

Some rubber trunk lid / hatch stoppers

 

a Factory R160 / R180 / R200 Differential Service manual

 

 

Window wiper boots:

 

Windscreen washer nozzles:

 

rear drum cylinder rubbers:

 

And a free rubber soul calendar

 

And some free catalogues:

 

And then the KGC10 Hakosuka Skyline GT parts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then some Kenmeri / Yonmeri Skyline GC110 parts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by jdmjunkies.ch

[jdmjunkies.ch]

Nothing big, but finally something car related again I recently got contacted by a nice guy in Czechia who just made sets of OEM reproduction stickers for all those inspection and small supplier stickers which will need replacement when the car is done for the people who know. Got them today. From the first sight they seem pretty nice with those glossy finnish, etc. But will compare them at another point. Nevertheless. something to keep the project alive. Also bought some more stuff which should arrive here by next week or so.

On 3/10/2019 at 5:35 PM, miky360 said:

[jdmjunkies.ch]

Well my bodyshop is an excellent guy, but he surely takes his time to get all the details right. I love that, but i want my car back before i retire. That's why i always search for the best possible solution to make life as easy as possible for  him. Lately i often saw those yellow panels from UK popping up on various sites. One of the "problematic" areas is stil the Rear lower valance. I got one from MSA so far and it's ok for most of the "american" restaurations i guess, but not for me... The main problem beeing that the Curvature from the original lower valance is missing. I thought i'd give it a try and got it today:

 

I'm surprised about how different it is and how great it looks. Also got confirmed that it's the original sheet metal thickness as the cars came with. You can clearly see the "curvature" in this picture.

The main difference aside from that is the "lip" at the bottom end (see first picture) and the more accurate shape at the exhaust area.

Here's panel from MSA, see the differences? All a bout the details..

I really can recommand the yellow one above. They don't have a website but i often see these (and many other 240Z parts from them) pop up on ebay and various facebook pages. Price is also nice if you ask me

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by jdmjunkies.ch