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

jdmjunkies.ch · October 26, 2017

Ah perfect, thanks. So there should be a second one somewhere in all those boxes. Already thought it belonged there, but wasn't sure. Thanks mate

jdmjunkies.ch · October 26, 2017

Spent some more time disassembling parts to get them ready for zinc-replating.
Thought while at it, i could take the brake-parts for a replating as well. So i started with the disassembly of my Sumitomo MK63 Solid disk type Ex-works type calipers:

First got the old pads and shims removed. still looking quite good to be honest:

Then spent an hour or so at the garage and disassembled the rest of the calipers. With the help of my trusty little air-compressor and some redneck-skills i managed to get 7/8 cylinders out of the calipers without any damage to me, tools or the calipers.
However the last sucker doesn't want to come out. Even brought it to a local garage and he used a torch to heat it up but wasn't able to remove it. we'll see how i can do that. Any inputs? Otherwise i'll try another two days having it soaked in WD40, and if that doesn't work i'll bring it to a machine shop or so...

Otherwise i was quite successfull, the brakes are in great condition and by the way even learned a lot about brakes (first time working on some brakes so that was quite some fun).
After that i took all the bits from the brakes plus some other i found in my garage and put them in the "re-plating box". Still need to clean all of this stuff for a few hours before i can send it there (they prefer old rust, grease, rubber-leftovers and paint to be removed.

Hope i find some time again soon..

jdmjunkies.ch · October 30, 2017

While i can't show you much, i've been busy lately completeing a lot of stuff i've started but never really finnished.
1) Thanks to the input of some readers i was finally able to remove the last cylinder from the brake caliper. The solution was easy. install the allready-removed cylinder again and fix it with a c-clamp. add some air-pressure again to the brake-fluid channels and it would pop out easily (It doesnt look like the cylinder is aligned properly but i fixed that)

Since sunday my Rattler / Vibrator / Tumbler / Spirator / Whatever you call it, has been working in full force to remove all the rust / Paint / Dirt and grease from all the parts i will send for re-plating. It's maybe not the fastest solution but it comes out quite handy and you don't have to do anything except of waiting

Guess it will take another week or so until all the parts are ready andsome of them even might need a bit of manual cleaning, but the first bunch of parts are allready looking shiny and have a super-smooth surface

Then i got some new (used) turn signal switches from my mate Patrick (Thanks for that!) to complete that job too.

That's it for now hope for more updates again soon

supernova_6969 · October 31, 2017

I have to say that all the work you are doing is incredible. I'm blow away by how much you are investing, both in terms of personal time and money wise.

That said, your car is going to be awesome. it's great to see how you're not cutting any corners, even for silly little things.

keep up the good work.

seb

jdmjunkies.ch · November 8, 2017

Was quite busy this week with the Z's small projects that have been going on. I've been cleaning and exchanging the partsi n my tumbler almost daily and today i finally had them completed:

Now all is packed up and ready for zinc re-plating and yellow passivating. Which means i have to wait for the parts for approximately one week before i can continue.
Pretty happy with the result by the way. The Tumbler was well invested money. just took me some years to figure out how to use it properly

During preparation process i also fixed some parts which where slightly worn out.
Like this one. Before:

Straightening it out in the little vice:

and After. Much better

Oh and then got some new parts, like the replacement repair-lamp bulb cover. I know it's not 100% the OEM colour, but it looks pretty good. still might try to clean the original one.

Oh and some new door switches by the original manufacturer:

And greased and packed all my brake-stuff to prevent them from rusting.

Oh and started disassembly and cleaning of the ignition switches:

Next step: Ordering some parts (will do that in a minute) and then complete some other bits next week.

jdmjunkies.ch · November 8, 2017

On 31.10.2017 at 12:47 PM, supernova_6969 said:

I have to say that all the work you are doing is incredible. I'm blow away by how much you are investing, both in terms of personal time and money wise.

That said, your car is going to be awesome. it's great to see how you're not cutting any corners, even for silly little things.

keep up the good work.

seb

Thanks mate, appreciate your kind words. I guess restoring is half the fun, right? It's a hobby after all

jkelly · November 8, 2017

Excellent work! I like following your build -- motivates me to work on mine more! Can I ask, what part number/vendor did you get those door switches from? On my '72 240z I think one of the door switches is only a one wire and the other is a two wire. MSA does't carry the one wire anymore. I could modify the two wire, but I'd rather have OEM.

grannyknot · November 8, 2017

Looks like you are taking apart the lock cylinder and tumblers, that is brave

jdmjunkies.ch · November 9, 2017

18 hours ago, grannyknot said:

Looks like you are taking apart the lock cylinder and tumblers, that is brave

I'm not going deeper than this, knowing that i would mess up more than i can handle Never touch a running system right? And i just removed the biggest bits to clean it a bit

22 hours ago, jkelly said:

Excellent work! I like following your build -- motivates me to work on mine more! Can I ask, what part number/vendor did you get those door switches from? On my '72 240z I think one of the door switches is only a one wire and the other is a two wire. MSA does't carry the one wire anymore. I could modify the two wire, but I'd rather have OEM.

Found them on Ebay of all things

DuffyMahoney · November 10, 2017

On 10/1/2017 at 8:19 AM, Derek said:

That looks normal to me for glass beading. Raw castings are usually shot blasted then machined. I found that putting parts in a vibratory finisher after blasting restores some of the luster.

I can fit my DOHC valve cover in my finisher. If you look closely you can see the difference. V3 is in the foreground and it has been shot blasted and then run in my vibratory finisher with burnishing media and liquid. V2 in the middle has only beed shot blasted. You can see a slight luster on V3.

Here are two parts I glass beaded.

And here they are after vibratory finishing.

There are many types of finishing media. Burnishing media is what gives the parts the luster.

Derek

You should vapor blast these parts:)

jdmjunkies.ch · November 11, 2017

This week has been the most busy one car-wise in a while Well. I guess that's good?!
Thist itme i've cleaned the ignition switches again thoroughly and assembled them back. Tried to keep the original patina but clean it. And made sure all the contacts are fine.

Then installed one of them directly to the previously finnished steering column:

Really fun to start putting completed parts together to even bigger completed parts
Had the covering ring cleaned, since the old paint wasn't nice anymore:

Resprayed it with some rattle-can car-paint in flat black and had it drying under the lamp for a day:

And then put it back to the switch:

And then got a package from Poland. Have to Thank Jakub Nurzaj a lot for his support and digging in some old stock to find me this US-Spec Corner valance with the factory cutout for the american turn signals. Cheers mate for the great service!

Also thanks for the free datsun europe stickers!

So now i have another shipment ready to get rust and paint removed at the alcohol dipping company. Body-parts are now officially complete. Hope i can push my bodyshop to hurry up a bit with the chassis... Progress is awfully slow at the moment...

supernova_6969 · November 11, 2017

you know... I'm getting sad. a while ago, progress was slow and you were starting a lot of things.

now, progress is getting faster and faster, and you're finishing stuff up (really really well, I might add). that makes me sad, that means that in a few months, you'll be dont with the car. now that's all very good and fine for you, but what build blog am I going to follow then! very few do as good work as you and post details like you do.

thanks for sharing all of that. it's really appreciated.

seb

jdmjunkies.ch · November 19, 2017

Since i have all of my body panels together, i wanted to have a look at the last possible "unknown" area.
The front grille. I never had a close look at it and wanted to make sure it's OK. Well it's not (of course :D).
Started like this. It seems like there are various versions of the grille around, but it apepars that this is a fulyl original one. the middle finis shorter, which also seems to be original.

Everything is just plugged together and then secured with four long and thin bolts on the back of the horizontal fins:

Onfortunately it's all just made out of cheap and thin sheet metal, so quite prone to bending:

Luckily the most delicate parts (the fins) are ok, and the rest is quite easy to fix or make on my own (i guess). the rest of the parts are just riveted together, so i probably give it a try and make my own grill.
Need to think about it and see if i'm able to find the horizontal U-shaped fins in the correct size.. guess i will send the available parts for rust and paint-stripping and then see what i can do seems to be a fun DIY project

jdmjunkies.ch · November 19, 2017

On 11.11.2017 at 4:28 PM, supernova_6969 said:

you know... I'm getting sad. a while ago, progress was slow and you were starting a lot of things.

now, progress is getting faster and faster, and you're finishing stuff up (really really well, I might add). that makes me sad, that means that in a few months, you'll be dont with the car. now that's all very good and fine for you, but what build blog am I going to follow then! very few do as good work as you and post details like you do.

thanks for sharing all of that. it's really appreciated.

seb

Hi Seb. Don't be sad. there is still sooooo much to do, i'm definitely not going to be finnished in a few months i guess it will take another 3-5 years to have it "completed". Nice to have a long time reader. Appreciate the kind words

jdmjunkies.ch · November 23, 2017

So yesterday i got the box with parts back from the plating company. Everything got cleaned, zinc plated and yellow passivated. The colour is slightly different then last time (more redish). Probably due to the changed regulations for the mix of chemicals used for this procedure.

Still quite happy with the result. Took me a while to sort through all the parts, but mostly figoured it out by now

Started with the re-assembly of some parts. From this...

To this (Hose brackets)

From this...

To this (hood closing mechanism..)

This (the other part of the hood closing mechanism... (x2)

And then finally got all the parts ready to re-assemble the shifter with the new bushings and some bushing grease. Before...

After.

And because fun, i decided to test-fit the Kameari Z-Shift knob as well. Thiss will be a perfect match once it's in the car

Still have some parts to sort through and a lot to assemble. but need some pre-work on some parts first...

jdmjunkies.ch · December 13, 2017

I've been super busy with dozens of small 240Z projects, but unfortunately it's two steps forward and one back at the moment so i haven't really completed anything noteworthy to post here. Nevertheless i left some parts at the paint-stripping company today and should be able to pick them up early next year. And then suddenly i got a picture from my Panelbeater with a small update: The outer radius on the Tabco rear quarter panel has been corrected to give it the factory-like sharp edges (the tabco is a bit too soft) and the welds have been cleaned. Hope to have more updates soon. really working on a few ends at the moment

jdmjunkies.ch · December 20, 2017

Today i was finally able to complete a little project on which i've been working over the past few weeks. I completely reworked the Inspection Lamp.
Remember a few weeks ago when i posted this pic? This is how it all started. Rusty, Painted over a few times, and in bad shape. didn't even work:

Of course started to disassembly everything first

Then had the housing tubmlered to remove old paint, dirt and rust (picture has other parts included as well, which don't belong to the inspection lamp):

And got it zinc-replated and yellow passivated to get back the origina look. Then started to source the missing parts.

Even if i'm in the business i failed to find an original green twin-wire with the original thickness. but since the original wire was still in good shape i decided to just clean and keep it.

The bulb was a bit of a headscratcher too. but after i figured out the Keyword was "BA9s" (9mm bajonett-socket with single base connector) it was easy to find a fitting bulb, 12V, 8W as the manual states. Nowadays you even could replace it with a lot of less-power consuming LED bulbs, but i decided to keep it oldschool in this case

The switch was the most tricky part. the original was toasted (see left). It could be saved and restored but then you still have a completely brittly 40 year old piece of plastic in an outdated electronic design, so i decided to replace it with a newer style switch. The first generation of inspection lamps had a metal switch too, so it's not a completey wrong look.

The switch needs a 12mm thread, but must be small enough to fit inside the housing (most 12mm threaded switches are too big) and it should have the little notch in the thread to secure it properly in correct position. After trying various options i figoured out this one would fit perfectly (Available at farnell)
http://www.atakel.com/urun/apem-5000-series-miniature-toggle-switches/EN/

While the original one is an ON-OFF switch, this one is an ON-ON switch, but if you remove one of the outer pins you have an ON-OFF function again:

First the little nipple has to minimized by 0.5mm or so to fit the slightly smaller notch in the new switch:

Then prepared all the cables. Cleaned them first with a rough side of a dish cleaning sponge, cut off the ends, removed insulation ca 1mm at each end with a special tool and then pre-soldered the ends to make it easier to solder it later.

It probably helps if you have a full high-end soldering workstation like i have at my office and 20+ years of daily soldering routine skills

All parts ready? Here we go. The fun part begins - assembly (got a new replica lens and rubber insulator from ebay, plus additionally a piece of black heat-shrinking tube and some red electronic wrapping tape).

First i installed a new rubber insulator grommet on the bottom of the back housing. the original one was falling apart by just looking at it. New ones can be found easy in any electronis speciality shop.

The removed the old wire-end from the connecting plate and cleaned it.

resoldered the new wire-end to it and cleaned it with flux remover (removes flux from the soldering, which may decrease the electric connectivity! see bottle in the back)

Soldered the other wire back to the hook and attached some black heat-shrinking tube like it was in the factory setup:

Next was soldering the wires to the switch and protect the solderings with some black heat-shrinking tube:

Also added the red electrical tape as it was in my factory setup (it goes inside where the clamp is to protect wires):

Soldered the wire back to the little Clamp

And installed the clamp back to the bottom and secured the cables inside with it. Done

Apply 12V DC to it (ground to the housing, plus to the red wire, switch on - YAY!

assembled it to gether and still everything works as it should:

So here's the result. Quite the difference when compared to the first pictures, which was the same item!

Spent quite a few hours sourcing parts and getting everything cleaned and so on, but honestly it was totally worth the work