Father-Son '71 Resto/Mod

[Adam393]

Although the car has been done for close to two years now, i thought itd be fun to put up a build thread, i love following the ones on here and enjoy your guys's stories, so i thought id share mine. That and im bored on a thursday night

Being at college, i dont have the full set of photos from my home computer, so ill have to make due with the ones on facebook. Ill go back and add more to fill in the gaps, once i get my hands on them. So sit back, hope you enjoy my story, and feel free to post or PM with any questions or comments

 

Ok, so the story starts with me growing up in the whole Fast and the Furious era, i had the urge to modify a Japanese car. After years of doing minor things to the IS, in my senior (fall of '06) my dad decided it was time for me to really get my hands dirty, so we embarked on a father son bonding project, in the form of a restoration. While going over cars my dad didnt want anything that had fuel injection since he hates dealing with wires and computers, even though he has an electrical engineering degree . He had an old Alfa Romeo GTV in mind, but i of course wanted the ability to modify and upgrade the car. So with that said, we started to look at Japanese classics. I was thinking an old TE27 Corolla or a 510. After much convincing for the 510 (My dad hates boxy cars) we started looking for one. After about a week with no luck and my dad and i discussing the idea over dinner, my mom chimes in and said she always loved the old Z cars. So my dad being the whipped man that he is, said "We're getting a Z!"

Honestly, i wasnt too thrilled, i had my heart set on a 510, but not wanting to complain, i went along with it and after another week or two we found a Z in Columbus. It was on eBay, didnt hit reserve, my dad emailed the guy with an offer but he didnt get back to us. After about a week my dad received an email from the man, apparently he was out of town, so we took the friday off to go up and see the car. It was "restored" 8 years prior and had been sitting for 5 yrs. Had original color, original engine and tranny and an uncracked dash!!! After a short test drive, we were sold. A few days prior to this, i began to realize what a cool car the Z was. I didnt know much about them, but at this time i learned how truely special they are, and like most of you guys, i got Z fever quite badly. So, after what seemed like an eternity at the DMV we had our new plates and we were on our way back to Cincy (Again, apologies for none of the photos the day we got it, those are some that are home). On the drive back we began to discover the Z wasnt quite as good as he said it was. First off were the flat spot tires and the belts inside had blown, a gaping hole in the muffler, the suspension was shot, the brakes werent quite right (they kept locking up), the tranny was quite vauge and the engine was running on 3 cyl. That and the driver side window got stuck down (bear in mind it was about 40-50 deg and rainy that day) so my dad was miserable driving back and i had the nice and toasty Volvo hehe

So after doing prelim stuff, we were trying to diagnose the cylinder problem, after many attempts at finding the problem, turns out the rear carb was gunked up. After cleaning it, the car ran perfectly. Now it was time to clean the car up. We washed it for the first time in ages, really buffed the paint and cleaned the engine bay and interior. Now here are the pictures you have been waiting for, these were taken after we spent the weekend detailing the car:

 

E31 head

I guess somewhere in this time we popped in the blue xenon ebay lights. Blew up 5 days later

Ive learned my lession about cheap ebay parts

[Adam393]

So fast forward a few weeks, now that winter had arrived, my dad and i found a space in his friends garage where we would have access to lifts and more tools so it would make our lives much easier than attempting it at home. He allowed us to have a corner of the garage for us to work in. Again, i have a lack of pics up till then, so these start out with the engine yanked out (but i dont think we really did anything major up until this point)

Its cool to see a hint of that blue engine paint hidden under all the dirt and grime

 

Next we found what everyone fears, the dreaded rusty floorboards. Although the rust could have been much worse, and it could have been in a worse area, we thought we had a "rust free Z" which i began to understand is an oxymoron unless your in AZ or CA. Still, not as bad as Mulls "rust free Z"

 

A corner of the rad support also had to be cut out and redone due to a leaky radiator:

Everything else in there was purely surface rust thankfully, we just hit it with converter and sprayed the engine bay enamel stuff over it.

Heres the painted bay, he had it done in black since it would go with whatever color we chose to paint the car later:

 

New patched in floor and a million coats of POR:

[Adam393]

Next, the rear suspension was dropped off, here are the crap-tastic rear shocks and springs:

And heres the rear diff:

 

My dads friend who was allowing us to use his garage, also had a sand blaster which he so graciously allowed us to use, and here are the rear brake and shock assembly about to get blasted:

We also decided to throw in a $20 valve cover i yanked off a 280ZX and put our air box in there too

Before:

After:

Airbox:

 

And here are the assemblies after the blaster:

 

Next up was me cleaning and respraying the block:

 

Here is the rear of the car after it was cleaned off and given two coats of POR (I also put 2 coats of truck bed liner on top of that, but i dont have pics of that):

 

Now for the newly blasted, and repainted rear suspension and diff (For everything minus the diff and shock/brake assemblies, i used x2 coats of acid etch primer, then x2 coats of black rustoleum then a final x2 coats of truckbed liner to keep the metal from rusting again. The diff we just POR'ed, and the shocks were acid etched and rustoleum'ed, but no liner):

Then all we had to do was put on the Energy Suspension Poly bushings (boy that was a fun day....) and bolt everything back up and now the car had an ebrake!:

 

Then we had the new Tokico shocks and springs, along with new Brembo finned drums and new shoes (For the LOVE OF GOD DONT USE TOKICO SPRINGS! The shocks are great, just not the springs):

This shot you can see the truckbed liner i sprayed underneath the car, gives it a nice texture and much better protection against the elements.

[Adam393]

To kick off the new year ('07) the rear of the car was done and we spun it around to work on the front:

And one of my best friends Drew, who helped us out quite a bit:

Now i get to return the favor as he now has a MKIII Supra Turbo with a blown motor that im helping him get fixed

 

But back to the story, heres the old crossmember about to come out:

And the front shock assembly, dont ask me why i decided to paint around the shocks instead of waiting for it to come out

 

The brakes, mmmm safe....

 

Then the crossmember and the shot tie rod:

 

Theres the dad:

 

Heres the completed front assembly, same setup as the rear, except with Pro Slot rotors and Toyota 4 piston calipers and brakets from Motorsport, they work great:

 

I think i have pics of how the front parts turned out after painting, but again, they are on my home comp, not my laptop, ill add at a later date

 

Heres some more of the front all buttoned up, MSA sway bar in there and beefed up frame rails:

[Adam393]

Now for the engine to go back in!

Prior to this, we had to replace all the brake and fuel lines as they were pretty much rusted out, the rear brake lines even exploded when my dad was in a parking lot! We redid the fuel lines for good measure since as mention in the first post, the clogged carb was the fault of a rusted out fuel tank.

Here it is after it was sent out and sprayed with some coating inside and out:

 

We got a 280Z(X?) 5 spd and we cleaned it all up and had new syncros swapped in, along with an Exedy stage 1 clutch and resurfaced flywheel.:

And heres the instructions on the box, i thought they were pretty funny

Clutch:

Pressure Plate:

 

And the trans bolted up and putting it all in:

 

Now the 6-1 MSA headers in and my dad polished up the carbs and balance tube. Although the 6-1 and aluminized exhaust are great, i really wish i had gone with the 3-2 and twice pipes. But this summer, im going to have a muffler shop replace the turbo muffler with a straight through design to try and at least replicate that twice pipe sound

 

We also decided to get some scarab vents:

 

Now its all ready to go out and get tuned up and suspension set up.... And clean up the back. Also in the shot, our eBay strut tower bar, looks and works great

[Adam393]

Off to Performance Alignment!

 

After alignment and whatnot, had the new wheels and tires put on. The wheels are Hosino Impul Pro Mesh. Authentic JDM vintage wheels, i got from some guy in Dayton for like $300, the wheels lips were pretty rough, but overall it was in good shape considering its age. After a weekend of polishing and cleaning they turned out great. The tires are Yokohama, and note we also had to put the MSA spacers in the suspension to keep correct geometry as we are dropped and using 15" wheels. Also note the bumperettes are off, rubber stripping and foglights are also gone:

Rear bumpers were also done the same, although i left the strips on since the bumper was rusting underneath, and the muffler wasnt hung correctly at the time:

 

Then the redone steering wheel and new shift knob. My mom refinished and stained the wood on the wheel for me, so it is now a family project car! I repainted the center metal spoke things, the knob was a simple blank wood one from ebay and a glued on 5spd pattern.:

 

Now onto my fav thing in the engine bay, the ubiquitous polished cover, BUT with the two stripes going down the center:

It was gotten off ebay like this, but it was warped and the cleaner the machinist used took off the paint. So i repainted it and it now looks the same, but at least i can now claim the paint job as mine

 

And now for the whoring out part:

 

And we now have the Bullet Mirrors on, and i now have a passenger side mirror! Albeit its completely useless since the mirrors are too small to be seen out of haha:

 

The stereo was also shot so we added the JVC headunit with iPod integration and two new Kenwood speakers in the rear, you can also see the shift knob better in this shot:

 

 

And as a graduation present to myself i bought a urethane front spoiler. In my opinion the Z profile looks weird without one, looking at one from the side the front spoiler begins way too high, and i think the new spoiler really helps make the cars "look" or profile look, well, complete:

 

To me, it kinda looks like an RC car in this shot since its such a small car and i forgot to put down the antenna:

 

 

 

Heres one from my phone camera, i just like the angle and lighting, but the pic overall isnt very good quality

 

Then heres me and the pops, i had this taken to give the photo to him for Fathers Day, awww:

[Adam393]

And one day i was bored and submitted the car to Super Street, I ended up winning the Ride of the Month haha:

I never did get those magazines they said i won , but oh well, still cool to be in the mag at least.

So this concludes my story i guess. After going to the Midwest Z Heritage show, i began to truely love the Safari Gold on the Z. Its very unique, its a period color, its the orginal color for the car and since its far from a perfect paint job, i dont have to worry about the paint as much, not to mention we'll be saving quite a bit of cash by not changing the color like originally planned. But the half a year my dad and i (and Drew) spent on the car we some of the best memories of my life and i love and cherish those memories and incredibly grateful for my father to have given me the opportunity to do this with him. So any of you dads reading this, this is a great thing to do with your kids, although you will constantly be fighting with them and want to kill each other (like my dad and i did), you will come out stronger and closer than ever before . And theres nothing quite as satisfying as tearing apart and rebuilding your car and have the satisfaction knowing you didt most, if not all the work. So thanks for reading my story, hope you enjoyed it

 

I now have a much better camera so when spring rolls around, ill go out and take fresh pics of the Z and continue to whore out in this thread. Nothing much else has been done to the car, other than we've changed to ST springs (theres a whole sticky about that in the suspension section of the forum) and the car now has a fully chromed and solid rear bumper.

 

Heres some shots of the ST Springs:

[Adam393]

Here are the pics I promised, it was cold as hell so I didnt spend a ton of time on it, ill take some more shots this summer, enjoy:

 

Sorry about my legs being in the pic, im 6'5" so it hard for me to get them out of the shot, haha, but heres a good look at the new rear bumper:

[Adam393]

Minor update:

Got an air horn so people now hear me when im honking, unfortunately it doesnt play Dixie or La Cooka Rocha...

 

Here are some better pics of the engine bay:

 

Turns out there is still a slight amount of oil seeping through between the valve cover. My dad and I are going to take it off again and this time use only a liquid gasket instead of the cork gasket + liquid gasket. Hopefully the head isnt warped....

[Adam393]

The car oddly is now having bad vapor lock issues this summer, when the previous two years it ran like a champ.

I made a thread about the ongoing problem and what my dad and I have done so far to help remedy it if anyone is interested (feel free to post any suggestions we might have overlooked):

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?p=1043277#post1043277

 

After I get the fuel lines wrapped in heat reflective tape, im going to get the carbs readjusted to try and finally get rid of the stumbling problems mentioned in that thread, hopefully the things i mentioned in the thread coupled with these two is the cure, after this im not sure what else there is to do...