My '72 240z project -- Rotisserie Restomod

[jkelly]

240z floors are really simple compared to that of a 280z. Much easier to put the new rails on, since the 280z baddog rails don't have a flange, which means you have to make one. Also easier to do custom seat mounts, again because the floors are flat. My floors aren't in great shape, so I figured I may as well.

 

 

Interesting! I never knew that. I'll have to take a look at my 280 and see what ya mean. Are you getting floors from a donor car or going with some pre-fabbed ones?

Edited July 27, 2016 by jkelly

[rturbo 930]

Prefab. Getting floors from a donor doesn't make sense to me. Either they are more than likely rotted out like the rest, or if they aren't, the car probably shouldn't be cut up. Seems like the prefab floors are actually pretty decent anyway. Speaking of, the prefab floors for a 280z don't look much like the original floors.

[jkelly]

Patched some slightly rotten areas on the passenger side floor pan after work this week.

 

Cut the corner from the Zedd Findings floor pan I had and used a piece of 16 gauge and a flat headed chisel to make a step on the end.

 

The holes I cutout in the floor pan. Not bad compared to the passenger side.

 

Ready to weld in the corner piece. Using Upol #2 weld thru primer for the laps.

 

Welded in. Not perfect, but I'm seam sealing and everything will be covered with carpet, so I'm not too concerned with it being perfect. I'll have plenty of time to be OCD on things I will actually see every time I get in the car!

 

Other piece welded in.

 

Shout out to 559240z for hooking me up with this sweet battery box! I'm really excited about trimming this and getting it welded in.

 

Next step will be to bend up the under-floor 16 gauge frame rails on the brake, weld those in, and weld in the Bad Dog frame extenders. After that I'm thinking maybe the battery box. Then inspection of the dog legs and a few little rust spots on the door threshold areas. Still have to drop the rear suspension, sand blast, paint, install bushings, bearings, etc. and install bushings/bearings on the front suspension, too. Lots of stuff to do.

 

 

 

[jkelly]

Hey guys, I haven't posted in a while but I've been working a lot on this project. I've made significant progress since my last post, so I'll try to catch up on the updates here.

 

I fabricated and welded in new frame rails and bad dog subframe connectors. First I cut out the old frame rails.

 

I went ahead and replaced the driver side floor pan since I had it on hand and it was going to be easy compared to the passenger side I did. I also welded in seat mounts for driver and passenger. I set the seats in and positioned the mounts and tacked them in, removed the seats, then did stitch welds. Sorry for the crappy picture of this. I need to take some better ones of the floors.

Back to frame rails. I POR 15 coat what is covered by the new rail.

Some rigging with jacks and I press the new rail firmly to the new floor pan in preparation for welding.

Welded in the subframe connectors, too.

At about this point I had to pack up my stuff because I was moving locations. It was interesting moving a 240z without suspension.

 

Once I got to my new place I soon built a rotisserie and mounted the car in preparation for sand blasting the bottom, epoxy priming the bottom, and undercoating the bottom. Since these pictures were taken I connected the two stands along the bottom with a steel beam.

Did some premature seam sealing before I had a clear plan, but here's a view of the bottom on the rotisserie. The red casters/frames were for rolling the car around the shop before I decided to put it on a rotisserie.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by jkelly

[jkelly]

Sent out some parts to get zinc plated and yellow cad plated. I measured and wrote down the dimensions of every single fastener and part that was going to get plated. I then took a picture of that with the part. That's how I was going to track where everything went. To clean most of these parts I set up a muriatic acid bath, a water rinse, a baking soda neutralizing rinse, and another water rinse. Most parts went through that and then were coated with ATF. Some parts were just sand blasted.

Edited November 1, 2017 by jkelly

[jkelly]

I welded in a almost rust free battery box I got from a previously mentioned guy from here at HybridZ. Thanks again!

 

Mine was bad.

The new.

For the sake of before/after effect I'm skipping ahead in time on the next battery box pics. Here it is finished and primed.

 

Bought a big tent from Harbor freight and turned it into a sandblasting booth and rolled straight out of the garage into the tent and got the bottom and engine bay sand blasted. But before I used it as a sandblasting booth I used it to hang and paint suspension parts.

I also welded in sway bar reenforcements.

 

After sand blasting I did seam sealer and shot the bottom with PPG DPLV epoxy primer and a truck bed liner. I shot the first underside coats of epoxy really heavy because of bad gun settings and just generally not knowing what the hell I was doing, so I had to do a lot of sanding. Not fun sanding epoxy primer.

My tent met it's end when a wind storm came through. Perfect timing, because I needed to move, again.

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by jkelly

[jkelly]

At this point I was in a big rush to get this thing on wheels and move it to my new house, the new house that I didn't even have yet, so finding a new place was on the agenda as well.

I first assembled the front cross member and LCAs with new bushings and new cadmium plated parts.

I did pressed in new wheel bearings for the front and rear. I installed new Eibach springs and Tokico Illuminas.

Some rear suspension work. I cut my own gaskets for the rear differential since I was in such a hurry and had the material on hand.

 

Cleaned up...kind of:

DIY gaskets

 

Cleaned up cover

Painted and assembled. I ended up stripping one of the side flange center bolts and had to get a replacement. Thankfully only the bolt was stripped and not the female threads.

I could heard some rubbing/grinding noise when I would turn the diff. Ended up I had the metal gasket installed upside down. Whoops

Ready to remove the car from the rotisserie! This was a fun job to do solo.

On jacks!

 

Getting ready to install front suspension:

I ordered new T3 rear LCAs and installed them.

I got the front and rear on wheels, loaded it on a trailer and moved it to my new house!

 

[jkelly]

Got it to the new place and started doing some brake work. I decided to do a rear disc conversion using a Maxima kit I bought.

Sent in my core front calipers to MSA and got new fronts.

I painted the calipers in Cyber Grey.

I decided I was going to make my own steel braided brake lines so I bought some PTFE Speed Seal line and fittings from https://www.anplumbing.com/ They have a lot of nice stuff. Just be sure you understand the differences between the fittings. The fittings on the car are M10x1 inverted flare. 

I think I've decided to run the front steel braided lines with a right angle coming out of the front calipers. Something like this:

But using a right angle fitting shown below. I also ordered a -3 to -8 pressure test kit from JEGS to pressure test the hoses I make. P/N 100286 http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/100286/10002/-1 Some of those fittings are shown below too.

I also bought a stainless steel fuel and brake hard line kit from http://www.classictube.com/ and https://zcardepot.com/ I ordered two fuel feed lines. I'll use one for feed and one for return since the stock return is only 4mm (~3/16") and I'm doing an EFI conversion. The new feed lines should be about 8mm (~5/16"). 

Since I'm doing a rear disc conversion and want to avoid a brake pressure bias from front to rear, I gutted the original brake proportioning valve so it acts as a passthrough now. I'll run an adjustable brake proportioning valve either in the engine bay or somewhere else.

Speaking of the fuel system earlier, I bought this nice bulkhead mount swirl pot/surge tank from a company in the UK.  I have a plan to run this swirl pot, a Walbro GSL392 feed pump, a Carter P4070 low pressure lift pump, and the stock 240z gas tank. More on the fuel system later.

 

[jkelly]

So, I'm heavily considering doing a color change on this Z. It was originally 904 white. I was initially going to go to a Cyber Grey with the stock red interior. But now I'm thinking of going with the '70 - '71 920 Safari Gold with a black interior. This color looks amazing and still has the classic Z look.

What do you guys think?

Edited November 2, 2017 by jkelly

[jkelly]

Did some more body panel work. I stripped all of the panels using aircraft stripper and then had a friend clean them up using his sandblaster. Despite reading in several places that YOU SHOULD NEVER SANDBLAST BODY PANELS! I did anyway and boy should I have listened. The panels aren't ruined but the hatch was warped about a 1/4" on the bottom section and oil canned on both sides. I used a stud welder and hammer and dolly to shrink the panels back close to factory (within about an 1/8 inch). It was tricky to repair because when sandblasting the metal one side gets stretched (tension) and the other side is in compression. This is why the metal will raise up towards you on the side you're blasting.

The hatch is about 1/4" warped

After much shrinking

After some epoxy primer, a lot of Rage Extreme plastic filler, and sanding. Also started work on the lower valance center piece smoothing it out.

Welded some rust holes and prepped the fenders for epoxy too.

Started work on the hood. Repairing some dents in the front edge. I didn't get keep back perfect, but they're probably within a 1/4". I'm just going to accept that this car is going to have some plastic filler. Oh well. At this point at least I'm using quality plastic filler (Rage). When running a straight edge across it the hood also seems to have some low spots, maybe due to sandblasting, maybe not. I've used the stud welder to shrink a little on them, but unfortunately they'll require some plastic filler.

Got a couple ounces of Safari Gold in PPG DBC and sprayed it on the tool compartment covers. I obviously need some more practice spraying paint before attempting the entire car! Nasty orange peel/dry spray texture. I like the color though -- I think I'm going to stick with it.

I also started disassembling the steering column. It took a while to figure out how this thing came apart, but I finally got it. I'm just going to clean it up, re-grease the shaft and bearings, paint it, and re-assemble. I'm also planning to refinish the steering wheel. Cleaned it with dish detergent and  a scotch brite pad. It should look nice after some wood stain and new black paint.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by jkelly

[northwoodz]

I am rookie with the spray gun too, but for orange peel the old guys said turn the air pressure up and it works! 

[jkelly]

3 minutes ago, northwoodz said:

I am rookie with the spray gun too, but for orange peel the old guys said turn the air pressure up and it works! 

I've heard that too. I've been spraying my epoxy around 25psi with a 1.3mm tip (but with a really cheap gun) and over reducing it too. It's laying down better than it was before, but still not a smooth finish. I'll see if I can turn the pressure up even more. It looks like this right now:

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by jkelly

[jkelly]

Also just ordered the MS3 system for the car. I'm excited about getting to the engine work once I wrap up body work this winter. I'm planning to go DIS and use D585 COP coils and drive them directly from the MS3.

[jkelly]

Well I sprayed some more epoxy last night after my friend showed me how he mixes and sprays paint. It went on A LOT smoother.

Northwoodz, like you said, he turned the pressure up even higher than I was spraying with (about 40 psi with a half trigger pull and maybe around 25psi with a full trigger pull -- I really don't know what these two measurements are called. I've heard the terms "at the cup" or "at the tip" -- maybe that's the two?) We also used a slower reducer at a higher ratio and used a little less hardener than recommended. Unfortunately my prep work was lacking and there was a surprising amount dirt, rag lint, highs and lows, bondo edges, etc. in the primer. Ugh. A lot more work to do before I even go to high build primer, not to mention basecoat!

 

 

[jkelly]

I've been spending most of my time doing body work on the hood, fenders, and deck lid. It's hard work getting a panel straight.  I've been using a stud welder to shrink parts of the hood and decklid to reverse the damage done by the sandblaster. It's a long process of shrinking with the stud welder, hammering flat with the hammer/dolly, and then deciding where to shrink gain. 

 

 

I've done some other stuff on the side, like the steering wheel, engine bay inspection light, turn signal switch, and headlight switch/controls.

 

Before:

 

 

After. I used a Red Walnut wood stain for the wheel and SEM Landau Black for the metal.

 

Before:

 

After. The cadmium plating didn't come out great on this particular part, but It's not bad. It is real cadmium plating, not zinc.

 

Started cleaning up the turn signal and headight switches/controls. I used electrical contact cleaner (aerosol), rust converter gel (for corrosion on metal parts), and scrubbed everything down. I lubed moving parts in the turn signal mechanism with a PTFE dry lubricant .

 

 

Oh and what's this!? My DIY Megasquirt 3 with MS3x and JimStim boards came in! Woohoo! I'm looking forward to getting these wired up and doing some custom electrical work which is kind of my forte. I've done some printed circuit board layout in the past so I'm thinking about designing my own printed circuit board for fuses, relays, additional datalogging from the MS3, etc.

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by jkelly

[madkaw]

Nice work

[jkelly]

I haven't posted in a while, but I've doing a lot of work on the Z.

 

I stripped the entire shell and all panels down to bare metal and shot epoxy primer on everything. I then sprayed a high build primer.

 

Bare metal shell with some seam sealer masking.

 

All in epoxy

 

Interior in in a light coat of the base color. I sprayed this over epoxy in the recoat window.

 

The body panels getting extra coats of high build.

 

Some things still needed metal work. I replaced part of the passenger side door jamb, welded in new dog legs, and welded in a new tailgate panel.

 

 

 

 

 

The front fender bottom fastener nuts that are welded inside the frame broke loose. I ended up cutting them out and welding new sheet metal and nuts in their place.

 

 

 

 

 

I previously cut out the fresh air duct to repair a lot of the rust around it. This is re-installing it. I bonded it in instead of trying to weld it.

 

 

 

[grannyknot]

That's excellent work you are doing, it's a pleasure to go through your thread.

[jkelly]

I've been doing a lot of miscellaneous stuff when I get the chance.

 

I purchased a relay box from ebay that I think I'm going to use instead of the OEM relays.

 

 

Also purchased all new Vintage Connectors and an EZ Wiring harness.

 

 

I went ahead and mounted the bullet mirrors.

 

 

One of the fresh air duct vents was completely destroyed so I used the good one as a tool to make a fiberglass one. I laid up the glass on a teflon tape wrapped vent and it came out pretty nice, but was a little flimsy, so I did another lay up with one ply of carbon fiber.

 

 

I dynamatted the inside of the car.

 

 

 

[jkelly]

I ordered all new badges from a variety of different places.

 

I ended up completely disassembling the steering column and refreshing the top and bottom bearings with new balls. I also added a couple extra balls to the bearing to tighten up the steering a bit, hopefully. Also, a new glove box badge. I was also able to find a replacement for the needle bearing in the bottom of the column.

 

 

 

I ordered new leather upholstery kit from Interior Innovations, including seat covers and new foam.

 

 

 

 

The cardboard glove box was beginning to deteriorate so I did a 1-ply carbon fiber lay up all the way around it to reinforce it. It's not pretty, but no one will ever see it! And it should last much longer now.

 

 

I reassembled the car, aligned all the panels, shot new primer, and then brought it to a body shop to finish it up. I just couldn't bring myself to risk screwing up the paint on it after putting so much time and effort into it. Here it is at the body shop getting the primer blocked down and getting new primer in preparation for wet sanding.

 

 

 

I ordered a new dash from Vintage Dashes. It ended up being pretty nice. I'm currently in the process of installing all new Speedhut gauges and re-wiring the dash.

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by jkelly