Jake's S30 Madness

[Xnke]

Yes, my friends, I too am a victim of "While I'm at it" disorder.

 

First, it was strip the exterior, remove the sunroof, repaint, and call it good till i got more money.

 

Then, it was pull the motor to strip the engine bay too.

 

Then, rebuild the motor to stock specs.

 

Then, I found HybridZ. Thanks guys, I really needed the "While I'm at it" bug.

 

Now, I've got the body half stripped, the roof welded on, but haven't filled the weld lines in yet, half a car of bodywork left to do, a gas tank with a rusted off pickup tube, junky floors to replace, an engine to rebuild, no interior to speak of, BUT the rest of the bodyshell is in pretty clean condition. Due to half of it being replaced after serious damage, but it's pretty clean, nonetheless.

 

So, what have I accomplished?

 

1. Learn bodywork. I'm not that terrible, but I started with a foundation in sword forging and armoring. Sheetmetal is a friend of mine.

 

2. Learn how to keep up with all the parts. You'd be suprised what i can still lay my hands on in the parts boxes...there is a very specific order to the chaos.

 

3. Learn how to drill out bolts. Learn thread repair techniques.

 

4. Learn how to lay down primer over filled surfaces, how to used spot putty, and how to wetsand. Front driver's fender finished.

 

5. Learn brake systems, (In progress) install Toyota 4-Piston upgrade. Plan to upgrade to vented front rotors after wheel upgrade. Solid rotors will do for now. (Brakes installed, need master.)

 

6. Strip, repair rusty spots with welder, and undercoat front driver's wheel well. (DONE)

 

7. Strip, repair rusty spots with welder, and undercoat front Passenger's wheel well. (In Progress)

 

8. Repair driver's side dogleg. (DONE)

 

9. Repair passenger's side dogleg. (PENDING)

 

10. Get engine bay stripped and sanded, rust repaired, and repainted. (NEXT ON LIST)

 

Durn, that's a long list.

 

Luckily, my pistons and bearings came in today, so the engine (treated as a separate project) can go to the machine shop tomorrow. The transmission is a separate project, I'm looking to do the 240SX transmission swap, so i need to find a shortened drive shaft. Yeah, I've got a long way to go.

[Xnke]

SO I spent some more hours out there today, and lo and behold I completely jacked the threads on the bottom side front fender mount, where there are threaded holes in the rocker panel. Great.

 

Looking through the junk box, I find a handful of M8-1.25 T-nuts, leftover from the pallets of rack cabinets at work. I save them and the bolts from them all the time. So, a quick drilling out of the rocker and some grinding off plating on the T-nuts, hammer the nut into the hole and weld it in place. BAM! Grind down the weld to your satisfaction, instant threaded hole. Worked so well, I went ahead and replaced the threads on both sides of the car.

 

Next point of work is finishing up the passenger's front fender, and stripping and undercoating the passenger's wheel well. Tomarrow should see the fender done, maybe. Depends on how much time with a hammer and dolly I have to spend. Stripping and re-undercoating shouldn't be too bad, though.

[Xnke]

Got the new ZX master today; immediately broke off a bleeder screw in it. Grocery store to the rescue, they have Alum.

 

add alum to hot water, keep it hot. Strip master cylinder down to just the aluminum casting, and any steel parts that i never want to see again. Immmerse casting in alum-water, wait.

 

It'll be ready to go by tomarrow! YAY!

[Xnke]

UPDATE

 

Got my ZX master mounted, then engine bay stripped, sanded, de-rusted, and painted, driver's floor cut out and halfway welded back in, going to the car wash today to scrub the front crossmember clean and paint it soon.

 

 

Just missed a set of new OEM engine mounts on that watery auction place, oh well.

 

Engine block, crank, pistons, rods have been cleaned, prepped, and assembled. 2.9L bottom end, with all ARP hardware. 9.32cc dish 88mm pistons, L24 rods, and L28 crank. Pistons prodrude 0.15 mm above the deck.

 

Going to the parts yard this weekend, hoping to find an S30 with a good hood and cowl, and an N42 or E88 cylinder head with no water jacket problems. Or an N47 to swipe valves out of. Maybe some other nifty parts, hopefully some interior parts. I don't have much of an interior...

[Xnke]

Switched to pure argon gas today, made a HUGE difference in the little toy welder. It actually works like a MIG welder is supposed to work now, with CO2 it would sputter and spit, very little penetration, always welding on max heat. Now, I'm in the middle of the range, and have plenty of heat to weld in my new underfloor frame rails and subframe additions, as well as my new hand-formed 18G sheet steel floors.

 

Engine bay is all but ready, and the EDIS conversion parts have been acquired, mounts made, and installed on the engine. Just gotta mount the coil pack, and the EDIS module.

[Xnke]

Picked up an N42 head, and a 77-78 hood with vents at the PaP the other day. Got a 87 CA20E transmission, gonna get that swapped over soon. (maybe this evening.) Gotta fix the welder, ruptured the gas line in the welding lead.

 

Lots of work started, nothing really finished. Started on the rear disk conversion as well, so lots of work there.

[Xnke]

Finished up the driver's floor pan replacement today, just got a little undercoat left to go and it's done. Same story on the passenger side, a little more welding to fix a rust spot I missed, and then POR-15 all over plus undercoating on the outside. Next on the rust repair list was the battery tray area, ZERO rust visible, until the spot welds were separated and a little rusty seam showed its face. Wire wheel, ospho, reweld, and POR-15.

 

Re-undercoated the fender wells, finished the install of all new suspension bushings in the front end, just waiting on motor mounts. Shortblock is almost finished, just waiting on the head to be ready to put in the timing chain, everything else is done. Oil pan is bolted on, but not torqued, waiting on the timing chain. Susprisingly, the list of repairs is growing shorter, while the list of mods keeps getting longer.

[Xnke]

Finished all the welding I missed in the floor pans, just need to finish dressing the welds down in some spots for the seat mounts, and get the seat mounts sandblasted. sprayed some more undercoating, the floor and front frame rails now have two full coats.

 

Cleaned the brake lines and distribution block up, got the distribution block remounted, FR brake line installed, MC brake lines installed, and started cleaning the R brake line going back to the rear. Need to remove that extra evap line from the engine bay, and get some new fuel line isolators made up. Probably going back out for a little bit this evening to mark out some firewall gaskets, and get them cut out. (brake booster, clutch master, steering column.) Might even get industrious and scuff sand the interior firewall to prep for paint and sound deadening.

 

Up next on the list of things to repair is the so far neglected cowl area. It's rusty, but the cancerous section has been removed and replaced, so Ospho and POR-15 will again be used to seal everything up. The passenger side rocker area needs to be ospho'd and POR-15'd as well, been waiting for more area before opening another can of POR. That stuff ain't cheap.

 

Still working on the cylinder head, chamber and valve prep. Haven't even started the port matching yet. Looked at the transmission crossmember, and figured out that if i flip the transmission mount rubber around 180*, and then re-drill the mounting point holes as far forward as they will go, I can then weld up the old holes and install mounting reinforcements, and don't have to cut and reweld the trans crossmember like the later model cars. ('72's have a two piece trans crossmember)

[Xnke]

Passenger side seat mounts are welded in and POR'ed, and got all the front half brake lines cleaned and remounted. Got the trans bushings in (what a nightmare!) and redrilled the mounting holes, just need to weld up the old holes now. Really need to get new engine and trans mounts ordered, but just don't have the money at the moment.

 

Still need to finish up the dang cylinder head, just need to finish the porting and get new valve springs, and probably a new set of intake valves. $$$ issues again...

 

Got the C box trans all reassembled, just gotta get some gear oil in it and a new shifter boot, and finish mounting it up. Then I can measure for my driveshaft and get it sized up right. Then, on to the back half of the car...and more bodywork.

[Xnke]

Ok, So I have the floors, seat mounts, and a lot of the sound deadening down. I figure i'll fix that rusty dogleg now, and get it out of the way.

 

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee. (drilling out spot welds)

 

CRREEEEEEAKK. (peeling back metal.)

 

OH MY. (oh my.)

 

There is not much left under the outer skin. Lots of custom fab gonna be happening here.

[Xnke]

After re-watching some of Mull's videos, I saw how the shop he used repaired this area, as mine was in similar condition to his. After spending some time with the welder, hammer, snips, and angle grinder, it's coming along nicely, and will turn out just fine, I believe.

 

Still have to remake those dumb rear-disk brackets...Aluminum worked fine, I just made four passenger side brackets. Now I'm out of material.

 

I'll use steel this time...easier to heat and bend, and it is easier to move holes over with a welder...

[Xnke]

Still more work to do. Got some new intake valves, new valve guides, getting the head finished up, then new exhausts, new seats cut, ect. THEN CC'ed down to 40cc's, for a 9.6:1 compression ratio.