Buttoning Up the Little Stuff on my Project Car - L24 1973 240Z

[Novice Petrol Head]

My photo album for the build is located here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/FEXaWgYEMedA2FJv9

 

My first project car is a 1973 Datsun 240Z. Like many cars, it was mostly stock with a lot of rust when I bought it around 5 years ago. I taught myself to weld and did all the rust repair. I replaced floorboards, frame rails, and many small patches in the fender wells. Then, I rebuilt the braking system and replaced numerous broken or rusted-out parts. Next, I re-gasketed the engine, drained the fuel tank, and cleaned the fuel system. I took the car down to bare metal and tried a DIY paint job. After that, I drove the car for about 3,000 miles around town and on a couple of road trips. I had my fair share of trouble. I had to replace a fuel pump, the alternator only puts out about 12.5 volts, and the wiring harness is starting to show its age, and the previous owners that created a rat's nest. 

 

Recently, I purchased another project car that came with a lot of parts and swapped them on. I added TTT coilovers all the way around, Arizona Z Car lower control arms front and rear, Arizona Z Car tie rods, upgraded front sway bar, new front valance, fender flares, and trimmed fenders for clearance, Watanabe wheels, and Toyo R888s (215 front and 235 rear.) I also cleaned up the interior a lot with new door cards and interior trim pieces. Recently, I replaced the billet diff mount with a new polyurethane one, fixed a lot of my early welding, did a full engine service, got the door handles working promptly, and modified the exhaust because it hung about four inches too low. After this, I put about another 2,000 miles on the car. All this work has the car in pretty good condition, but there are still a few things left to have a true daily driver quality car: 

 

1.) Fix the exhaust. I got it tucked up nicely, but between my poor welding and previous owners, there are several leaks, and it sounds terrible. 

 

2.) Rewire the car. I have the brake, reverse, and running lights working. However, I have never been able to get the turn signals to work, and the gauges work very seldomly. I have purchased a 21-circuit harness from EZ Wiring and will rewire the whole car in the next month or two. https://www.ezwiring.com/product-page/ez-wiring-21-standard-wiring-harness

 

3.) New gauges. EZ Wiring sells new gauage kits. I'm not sure if the 50-year-old gauges are broken or if the wiring harness is bad. So, I think I'm just going to replace the gauges with a set I know will work with the new harness. https://www.ezwiring.com/product-page/shark-mechanical-gauges

 

4.) Re-attach the skid plate. I had cut the plate off because the bolts were rusted and stuck in the car. I fixed the plate by welding some washers on the bolt holes, but I need to drill out all the old bolts and tap for new ones. I don't have the car lowered that much, so I'm not too concerned about it, but it would be a nice piece of mind. 

 

5.) Alternator. Ever since I have owned the car, the alternator has not worked properly. Recently, I had the alternator rebuilt with quality parts and bench tested. I know it works, but the car is only putting out 12.5 volts when running. I have played with the wiring and got the alternator to put out 14 volts, but then you can smell the wires burning from too much juice. Like I said, there is a rat's nest from the previous owners. I am at least the fourth owner, but I don't have a full history of the car. I have an FSM, but the wiring guide no longer matches because of all the other owner's work. This is why I plan to replace the whole harness. I'm hoping the new harness with better relays with fix my charging issue. 

 

6.) Alignment. After I put the new suspension on, I did a garage alignment, and it is pretty good, but I would like a professional to take a look. I have that scheduled for next week. 

 

7.) New Dashboard. My current dashboard is pretty rough. It has several cracks and looks pretty bad. I have a newer, crackless dashboard. When I rewire the car, I'm hoping to swap the new one in and put some sound deadening behind the dash while I'm at it. 

 

I'll post my progress if anyone is interested, and I'm sure I will have a couple of questions. I know the last finishing touches take the most amount of time. I'll also answer any questions anyone has, but I'll warn you that I'm a hobbyist. My full-time job is as a lawyer, and I'm by no means the best mechanic in the world. My welding has also gotten a lot better, but it surely isn't that good. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

[calZ]

Please do post updates! It's always great to have another project thread on the site

[FastFloridian]

12 hours ago, calZ said:

Please do post updates! It's always great to have another project thread on the site

Second that

[Novice Petrol Head]

This week, I feel like I didn't get nearly as much done is I wanted. I went to a local shop and got an alignment done. I built some low profile ramps to make jacking up the car easier, and it is 100% better. I also gave the car a wash because it was filthy from sitting in the garage for so long. 

 

I also drilled out the rusted bolts from the skid plate. I removed the skid plate a couple years ago to fix an oil leak. All the bolts were rusted, so I cut the heads off the bolts just to get the skid plate off. I regret that now, because it was a pain in the butt to drill out all the bolts. Now, I need to go back and tap the holes for some new hardware. 

 

I also found some more rust. Both sides of the frame rails where the sway bar attach are pretty bad. I don't remember them being this bad when I first did rust repair. I upgraded to a beefier sway bar about 1,000 miles ago. I also have driven the car pretty hard through corners and turn since upgrading the suspension. I wonder if the new bar and hard driving could have brought some rust I missed to the fore front. 

 

I'm not an amazing welder, but I'm also not awful. If I was doing this correctly, I should have removed the sway bar to get more access, but I feel like it's good enough for my standards. 

 

I also started soaking the exhaust bolts/nuts in PB blaster because that has to come off next so I can fix the leak. The goal this week is to: finish the exhaust, install the skid plate, more rust repair, and adjust the front suspension to sit better (it is a little high for me right now.)

 

Edited October 12 by Novice Petrol Head

[Novice Petrol Head]

I just got a new job and will be moving, so I haven't made a ton of progress. But before I pack up all the tools for the move, I worked on getting the new gauges in a better looking dash that will be installed with the new EZ wiring harness.  

 

I started with a dash pulled from the parts car. The gauges weren't fully working and the previous owner wired in a sound system and some other "upgrades" in a way I didn't like. 

 

So I gutted the dash of all the stock and aftermarket wiring from the previous owner. This car won't have a sound system and I have a new harness so I didn't need any of the old stuff. 

 

Next, I busted the new Amazon cheapo gauges and started mocking them up to see if they would fit in the stock dash. They were quite a bit different, so I had to rip the old gauges apart and combine their guts with the new gauges to get them mounted in the dash. 

 

I tore apart the old gauges. I removed the old gauge mechanism, but kept the small and larger housings. I'm not sure what they are actually called. I cut out small circles from some sheet metal that had with an i.d. for the new gauges to screw and tightened onto, but also an o.d. that would matches the inner housing on the old gauges. Then I screwed the inner housing into the larger one. I did this for both the Tach and Speedo. 

 

 

Next, I mounted the gauges into the dash. The old gauges were much larger and held in by screws and bolts. I mounted both as best I could with zip ties. I'll think about a better permanent mounting solution in the future. They are obviously smaller than the stock ones, but for less than $200, I'm happy with how they turned out. 

 

 

The smaller gauges were both easier and harder. I tore the old ones apart and threw away the gauge guts just like the big ones. However, there was an inner metal ring that was perfect to screw the new gauges onto after I trimmed them a tiny bit into a circular shape. It saved a lot of time, but the original gauges had like plastic rivet, type things holding it together. They were easy to drill out, but I had no way to easily reassemble with the new gauges. So, I glued them, clamped them, and let them sit for a couple days while I packed my house up. 

 

After I got everything glued up, I installed the gauges and they are obviously smaller than the stock ones. But I don't think they look that bad. For $160 and a couple evenings of modifications, I think they turned out really nice. I had to modify the old mounting system on two of the smaller gauges to keep them in place and had to use some bolts for the third because it's old gauge was set up differently. 

 

 

I got all five gauges in the dash and they turned out better than I expected. I have a set of the Speed Hunters adapters for their gauges, but the adapter set costs just as much as I paid for all these gauges. This kit also came with the sensors needed and a voltage meter that I won't be using because I have a voltage meter/ phone charger in the car right now that I really like. It was another cheapo Amazon purchase. I installed it on the hole for the old cigarette lighter in my current dash, and that's what I'll do again. 

 

There won't be any progress for a while, because I'm moving back to Ohio and starting house shopping so I won't have to move again any time soon. 

 

But the next thing on my list is making a plate to go on the hole where the climate controls and radio used to be and mounting a phone holder there. I have that in the car now and it's really useful. Then I'll be installing the new dash and EZ wiring harness. Assing I can do that, the gauges all work, the alternator puts out more than 13 volts, and the car still runs and drives that'll be the last major thing done to this car for a while. After that, I think I'm gonna get started on the "parts car project." 

 

Please let me know if you've seen any silly mistakes I've made or anything that would make my install easier or better. Thanks!