'78 280Z Project "WPS30"

[M.Bonanni]

Hello everyone! I have been lurking around here and doing a few posts looking for parts since I got my 280Z just before Thanksgiving 2015 but I figured it's time I start trying to become an active part of this community that has already been a great help to me. Better late than never but I have been on a few really bad forums in the past that really turned me off on the whole idea of them for a long time, but this one seems to be different. What I hope for in posting my build publicly is not for praise or attention but instead for guidance. There's a lot I don't know about this car and what better way to learn than to expose myself and my build to a bunch of people who know much more than I do about it. So if you see anything wrong, missing, etc. with this build help me save me from myself!

 

An S30 chassis has long been at the top of my "cars I want to own" bucket list and in November 2015 my meager budget and an opportunity aligned and I ended up with a visibly rough 1978 280Z that is a fantastic base for a new project. In fact, in my eyes it was the best case scenario for what I was in the price range for. The car has no rust damage and only a few small spots of surface rust where bare metal is exposed after 38 years of never having a paint job, nothing damaging at all. It has no signs of any major accidents or accident repairs either. It has your door dings and small dents and things like that, but nothing even remotely close to being structural. Best of all, it seemed to be mechanically sound. The seller said it was his daily driver and I have no reason not to believe it. It fired right up, idled no problem, and it drove and sounded like there was nothing wrong with the engine, transmission, or differential. On the test drive, the only thing apparent to me was that all of the suspension bushings were shot, as to be expected in Las Vegas with our hot dry summers. The only negatives the seller expressed to me was that the A/C didn't work and that he thought the brakes and clutch would need replacing soon. Long story short, I drove it home that day and it immediately went up on jack stands for a closer look.

 

 

My first order of business was of course to learn as much about the car, make as good a guesses as I could about its history, and see exactly what I was working with. The only problem is that this is the first S30 chassis I have ever been close enough to touch so I don't know exactly what I am looking at or looking for and am learning as I go. My strategy though was to look for anything visibly damaged, signs of leaks, looking at bolt heads for tool marks, or anything else that looks like it may have been worked on or replaced in the last 38 years.  Long story short it looks like this car is almost all original and looks like the only things done to this car over its life were only things absolutely necessary to keep it running and maintained like hoses, spark plugs, thermostat, etc. Nothing seems in desperate need of repair under the hood which is good, and no surprise since it seems to be running just fine.

 

The worst part of this car mechanically is the suspension, more specifically all of the rubber bushings, boots, etc. are completely shot as I suspected on the test drive. Again, nothing shocking here due to the nature of living its whole life in hot, dry Las Vegas. So basically everything rubber is going to have to be replaced. The rest of the list I will go through here as I fix them.

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the fun stuff...what I plan on doing with the build. What I want to end up with is a car that invokes emotion and caters to the things I love most about the idea of owning a car like this. It is incredibly hard for me to take the mental image I have of the end result and put it into words but as hard and complex as it seems for me to explain it the build will be really quite simple. I don't have any desire to track the car, race the car, fully restore the car, or even have any desire to add a bunch of horsepower. I want to build as much of the car with my own hands as possible, I want to enjoy the process, and then I want to end up with a car that I can create some epic life experiences with. I am not building this car with any other specific purpose in mind. I want to stick with the L28 engine and stock 5-speed trans. I want don't want to add forced induction or anything like that as I feel all of that departs from what I want. We all have our own styles and I certainly have a ton of appreciation and respect for those that go different routes with their own cars but for me, I am more in love with this car for what it already is rather than what can be done with it. As you can see from the rendering below, the thing that will depart farthest from stock is the look of the exterior. Otherwise, the interior, suspension, engine, and drivetrain will remain largely stock.

 

 

Let the process begin!

 

[M.Bonanni]

Since the car already ran, drove, and was mechanically sound my original plan was to start by simply giving it a deep clean. I could still drive it if I wanted, and I could slowly and methodically start replacing everything with the car that was missing or broken. I started with the visibly dirtiest part of the car which was the interior. My first mistake was taking a look under the floor mats, my next mistake was to look at the floors behind the seats. I am a bit of a "neat freak" and I started questioning whether or not I would be okay with just surface cleaning what was in there. Next thing you know I was covered head to toe in clothing, gloves, safety glasses, and a dust mask in an effort to expose as little skin as possible. Within the hour I had a completely full garbage bin of 280Z interior parts and all of a sudden I was committed to a full interior restoration. It wasn't the way I wanted to go right off the bat as I don't have the budget to do the entire interior in any quick manner and there are still other parts of the car I should focus on first, but that's the way it went so it looks like my Z will stay in the garage a little longer than I had originally anticipated.

 

 

Removing the carpet revealed a ton of carpet glue residue and gross, rock hard areas of "substance" I can only imagine the contents of. I tried my hardest to clean the floors and transmission tunnel with every type of off-the-shelf chemical cleaner possible to no avail. If I couldn't clean it I had to remove as much of it as possible and the easiest way to do that was to remove the sound deadening that covered most of the floor. It was a hell of a job but underneath it was clean, disease free metal. Other good news...no rust! Perks of living in the desert. I also found an old business card to "Waterbed City" with a Las Vegas address that looked straight out of the late '70s; a hint that this 280Z has also spent at least most of its life in the dry, rust-free desert of Las Vegas.

 

 

After as much time and effort as I was willing to put into it, I couldn't get the floorboards completely cleaned up, but cleaned up enough to throw a quick coat of spray paint on it to cover all of the exposed bare metal from and protect from surface rust and proceeded to lay down some new sound deadening material. Now I have an interior I am at least not afraid to be around. I still don't like touching the seats but they had to go back in the car so I could re-gain some floor space in the garage.

 

 

While the interior is out I am also taking the opportunity to fix some things that are much more accessible at this point like rebuilding the shift lever. The shifter pin bushings were completely missing resulting in a very sloppy feeling shift lever so those, along with the shift lever end bushing were replaced with new. The transmission boot was also gone so I put a new one of those on and a new inner shift boot to replace the haggard original one that was in there as well. I also had to get rid of the chrome skull shift knob that came with the car and for $23 I couldn't pass up this wood knob from Motorsport Auto.

 

 

The only aftermarket "upgrade" that I can tell with the car so far is the stereo, which was not done well at all. It has a cheap Aiwa head unit that gets the job done for now but I eventually want to replace with one that has Bluetooth capabilities and looks a bit more updated. The stock speakers were also replaced with some 5.5" BOSE speakers that were pretty nice, but didn't fit the stock location so the previous owner simply had them hanging there with one bolt and since they didn't fit in the hole made for a 4" speaker they didn't recess all the way and stuck out meaning the interior panels that are supposed to cover them didn't fit properly. Fortunately 4" speakers are really inexpensive and I found some with good reviews for under $30 brand new and they fit perfectly in the stock location. When I was replacing them I found that the PO had simply twisted the wires together and electrical taped them without making any hard or secure connection at all. So I ended up redoing the connections on all of the wiring associated with the stereo.

 

 

One of the things that needed to be replaced were the seat belts, well, just the driver's side really. The PO told a story of the owner before him being a very large bodied gentleman who decided to completely remove the lap belt portion of the driver's side seat belt in order to fit more comfortably. Having just a shoulder belt is pretty much useless so this absolutely needed to be replaced before I could drive it again. The passenger belt still worked just fine and was in decent condition but it was brown and I want to change most of the interior to black so the search was on for a complete replacement pair. Realizing there aren't any NOS replacements I searched for some good used belts for about a month before I came across these on eBay. They were harder to find than I anticipated but I got a complete replacement pair at a good price in black just like I wanted. They came with every part, bolt, and interior piece I needed and are in great mechanical working order. The belt webbing is tolerable for the time being but I will eventually get them re-webbed.

 

 

This is the other parts battle I am going through; the driver's side window regulator is missing a handful of teeth so it came out and I am on the hunt for a replacement. The above photo isn't my actual part but it illustrates what the problem is with the one I have and was easier to just post it than clean up and photograph the one that came out of the car. So if any of you have one with teeth in good condition you would be willing to get rid of let me know!

 

 

So here's the interior as it will likely sit for a while while I recoup from the money I have already spent on the getting the car itself and the few things I have already bought for it. I have also already bought a vinyl replacement kit for the rear shock towers/wheel wells from Motorsport Auto thinking I could do that myself, but it doesn't fit as easily as I was hoping so I will probably just hold onto it and have an upholstery shop do it along with the seats, headliner, and visors. As much as I want to do as much of this build myself as I can, this would be my first attempt at upholstery and it would constantly annoy me if I didn't do a perfect job with it. I also just ordered a set of new replacement door panels which I am super excited about as that's a big visual part of the car. There are plenty of other things I probably should have spent that money on first but I came across a deal on a set that I couldn't pass up.

[M.Bonanni]

While I am not allowed to spend any more money on this car for a little while in order to save my marriage I turned my attention away from getting the interior back together and turned it toward some other parts of the car that don't immediately cost money. First step was to get rid of the big ugly 280Z bumpers. Underneath isn't a picture of beauty just yet. The front grille is almost completely gone, the lower front valance is pretty beat up, scratched, and bent as well. The rear though looks pretty good. Of course this isn't the final end result of what I have in mind for the front and rear of the car but nothing at all looks better to me than those big 5mph bumpers that weren't in great shape visually anyway. And it was free!

 

 

Of course, I also had to slightly relocate the horns that normally mount to the front bumper bracket but all I had to do was drill the mounting bracket hole slightly bigger, rotate the horn a bit to position the electrical connection differently so the wire would reach, and they mounted right up to one of the old bumper bracket holes. I still plan on relocating them completely at a later date, but I haven't decided exactly what I want to do there yet so for now this is where they'll rest instead of just removing them. I am not even sure if they work, well I know the horn doesn't work, but I am not sure if it's the horns themselves, or something to do with the aftermarket steering wheel that's in there. I am guessing its the latter.

 

 

Next on my list was to try and figure out what was missing here:

 

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Turns out there's two things (that I know of) that are wrong and/or missing here. One is the absence of the FICD Master Valve which is basically a vacuum regulator that adjusts idle speed while the air conditioning is going so the car doesn't stall. At first I thought that this may be the reason the A/C doesn't work in my car as everything else appears to be there and hooked up but nope, from what I understand the A/C should still work with this system removed. Although I eventually want to replace that part and the vacuum tank that is also missing, I still have to figure out why the A/C isn't working. I haven't spent too much time diving into the rest of the system yet as I figured if part of it was missing, that would be the first place I check. the only other part that is missing or disconnected are the two hoses that come through the firewall on the passenger side. Hard to tell from the above photo but they are simply connected to each other with a "U" shaped hose. I haven't yet spent any time figuring out where they are supposed to connect and what they are for. My uneducated guess is they pipe hot water from the engine through the heater core behind the dash. Why they would be disconnected I have no clue.

 

The other thing wrong with that area of the engine bay is the absence of the fusible links that are supposed to be there. They're completely gone and the wires that went into them have simply been hardwired together without any type of fuse whatsoever. Figuring out a fix for this has moved to the top of my list as it has the potential to do some major damage in it's current configuration, thankfully as far as I can tell it has not damaged anything thus far but I definitely want to get some fuses back on them. Unfortunately stock replacement parts for this are also very hard to find so I am more and more coming to the conclusion that I want to do an aftermarket solution of a new fuse box for and some fuses for them, but there's a lot I have to learn about electrical before I feel confident starting to order parts. Has anyone done this already? From my research I found that it's not an uncommon problem for the stock ones to go bad, but I haven't found a DIY or even a parts list from someone who has done an aftermarket fix yet.

 

So that's where I am at currently with this still new project. Items atop my list are the aftermarket fix for the missing fusible links (See edit below), finding a driver's side window regulator with all its teeth in-tact, and further diagnosing the A/C not working.

 

EDIT: I have found the fusible links themselves for sale on Motorsport Auto, but seeing as I am missing the entire blocks anyway I am leaning more toward a maxi fuse conversion instead for a cleaner overall look and ease of replacement should a fuse blow later on. Just sorting through information and sourcing parts now!

Edited January 11, 2016 by M.Bonanni

[M.Bonanni]

Now onto the fusible link situation in detail...

 

 

Upon my initial inspection of the car I noticed this wiring in the engine bay that was suspect looking as they were held together using those plastic twist-caps you would use for a ceiling install in your house, but are not my first choice for automotive wiring. Everything still ran and drove perfect so I wasn't too concerned with what was missing that those wires used to connect to. It was something I wanted to check into at a later date but since everything appeared to be working fine I just proceeded to fix the connections by getting rid of the twist-caps and soldering them together thinking I was making the situation better. Now I know that was not necessarily a good thing to do after figuring out what these wires are supposed to go to in the first place. Fortunately for me nothing was ever damaged as a result of not having these fusible links in the car. I am not sure how long the previous owner ran without them but it looked like it was done quite a while ago. Fortunately for him, and ultimately me nothing caught fire or was damaged as a result. Needless to say though I wont even be starting the car until this is fixed properly.

 

Seeing as direct stock replacement parts are not readily available, and unless someone has a reason to talk me out of it, I will be doing a maxi fuse conversion instead. After researching all last night and most of today I have come to the conclusion that there are no downsides to doing this conversion and it seems like I can do it easier, cheaper, and with better results than sourcing and hunting down the stock replacement parts. The result will be something like this although I haven't fully committed to this particular mounting location...

 

[M.Bonanni]

Got to spend the majority of the day in the garage today which is rare! First task was to get all of the wiring and everything prepped for the Maxi fuse conversion while I am waiting on parts to arrive. The stock configuration has a white power wire that mounts to the starter and then splits into 4 to go into the factory fusible links and they exit the fusible links as white/red wires and go their various places. The new setup uses a power distribution block which splits the power internally so there's only a need for one large input and has the 4 outputs I need for the white/red wires. So first step was to cut back the wiring harness tape and remove the white wire from the starter that is no longer needed. I replaced it with a 4 gauge battery cable as that's the size of the inlet on the distribution block and seems to be the size most people run for this conversion. I taped the harness back up, disconnected the old hard-wired links, and now all the wiring is ready to be hooked up once the block arrives. For now, I am just going to mount the block to the same spot on the relay housing that the factory fusible links were just for easy of install, but later I may move it when I get to the point where I am focusing on cleaning up the engine bay. So next step was to remove the relay housing and get it prepped for the new fuse block. While I was in there I also noticed a plug connection that went to nowhere so I consulted the wiring diagram and figured out that I am missing my air conditioner relay completely, which is another missing part of the A/C I can replace to rule out that possibility as to why it doesn't work. I cleaned up and painted the housing while it was out and soaked all the nasty bolts in apple cider vinegar to get them clean again. For now I will leave it all out so I can mount the new fuse block and also try and find a replacement relay. Fortunately once I find the relay it should just plug right back in. I also tried out some plastic paint on one of the old brown interior panels to change it to black and it worked great! Saves me a bunch of money on my interior color change.

 

Next, I started preparing to put the missing components of the A/C back in while I am still looking for parts for that as well. I am missing the F.I.C.D. unit which controls vacuum for the air conditioning and I am missing the vacuum tank as well. I happened to still have an aftermarket vacuum tank from an old project in my garage that I think looks much better so I started trying to figure out a place to mount it as I don't much like the factory mounting location either aesthetically.

 

I also still had an Odyssey PC-680 lightweight battery and mount from my old 370Z project so I came up with a solution that I am very happy with. Using the factory battery tray I can mount the new battery in a spot where the terminals are still accessible from the inspection door, and I still had room to mount the new vacuum canister as well for what I think is a much cleaner look. The battery that was in there was also missing all of the mounting hardware and held in by a bungee cord so this new solution saves me from having to buy all new battery hold down hardware!

 

 

And while I was working, UPS showed up with my new reproduction door panels so I just had to hang them real quick! There's still work I need to do inside the doors so they won't go on for good just yet, but I still had to see.

 

 

Aside from that, just took care of a few other small odds and ends and before I knew it the day was over. The rest of the parts for the Maxi fuse conversion are supposed to show up tomorrow!

[M.Bonanni]

Today's progress...

 

Got the power distribution block in the mail today but I am still waiting on the fuses to complete the Maxi fuse conversion. Mounted it to the "stock" location for now and in all likelihood will leave it there for a while until I get to the point where I am focusing on engine bay beautification.

 

 

Only other thing I got to today was changing out the steering coupler to an Energy Suspension polyeurethane one. It didn't need it too badly which is surprising since every other bit of rubber on this car is toast, but I changed it anyway since it came with the master bushing kit I got as soon as I purchased the car.

 

Stock on the left vs. new on the right.

 

Installed

 

Only other thing I did was adjust the door handles so they were back to working like new while the door panels are still off.

[88dangerdan]

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