Dadson Racing - 2010 Revival

[Whittie]

Dadson Racing – 2010 Rebuild

Introduction

Well, originally I wasn’t going to start a histogram on this build; I wanted to keep it to myself and just appear one day with a totally new car. But (there is always a but ) then things changed and what was once going to be a quick re-spray with fibreglass front and rear end has turned into so much more.

 

The History

The History: This car is an English delivered 260z that now resides in Australia. Back in the day rust-proof meant coating the entire car in grease and tar. The panels from the underneath of the car all have about 2-3mm of tar on them and the inside of the car was sprayed on the panels. 33 years has done its worst and now all that grease is pooled in nooks and crannies EVERYWHERE.

 

I’ve owned this car since I was 15 (2004), the day before my 16th birthday and I got my L-plates. The first time I drove it was on the race track. Since then I’ve never had enough money to do more than keep the old girl in good enough condition to enjoy her at the track. Now, a newly graduated uni student with no financial ties and a new job I want to tackle the project I have dreamed of since I first drove this car all those years ago, sideways in third =D

 

When I started this project my car weighed in a hefty 1180kg (2600 pounds for the slow Americans). This puts it in a territory heavier than some of the 2+2 cars I compete against. I did the sums and thought about a 3.1L motor. With 175rwhp on tap and an expected gain of 30rwhp (17%, 173.7hp/tonne) for probably not much change from 10k I thought about what else I could do to get some decent performance from the car. Keep in mind I already set the benchmark for the guys I compete with and consistently go undefeated in fastest times. Basically, I want a fun, street driveable race car without trying to totally blow away the competition. In the regularity events here in Perth, there is nobody in my class faster than the zed I could possibly catch in a zed without a turbo motor, so I want to stay in touch with the zeds without having people chapping too close at the bit.

 

Introduce bright thought number 2: Weight loss!

With weight loss I will not only gain straight line speed but also stop and turn faster. When 2km/h increase in speed around the local track is worth 1s I rekon I can take more than this out of the car with weight loss.

 

100kg (10%, 166.7 hp/tonne) less in the car will give me almost the same extra power to weight ratio of that 3.1L too! All things equal, 10% less weight to haul around the corners should give more than a 2kph (1.7%) corner and straight line speed increase. I could do the maths, but it’s late

 

The Goal

So, the goal: Take 100+ kg out of the car, make it a show stopper and track stomper, for not much more than a cheap stroker-motor build. 1050 is the target, but lower would always be nicer.

 

The Parts

To get 100kg out of the car should be fairly simple. With a literal metric ton of rust proofing sprayed on the car back at its birth in the UK the car is carrying a lot of tar and grease. I want to remove all the old fashioned tech rust proofing and apply more modern stuff. So, the parts to get me to 1050 or less kg:

Fiberglass bonnet

Fiberglass Hatch

Fiberglass mud guards

Fiberglass front and rear bumper bars

Acrylic rear window

Acrylic winding side windows

Acrylic quarter windows

Replace sunroof with a new roof skin

Headlight Covers

1†master cylinder

Fiberglass driver and passenger seats

PWR Aluminium radiator

Aluminium Radiator Air box

Fiberglass Cold air intake box

Aluminium front splitter

Full ground up bare metal rebuild

Front strut brace, braced across, to firewall and to front chassis rails

Delete rust

Delete old-school grease and tar

Metallic blue paint

High-tech sound deadener and rust-proofing under body coating

Powder coated suspension

Roll centre adjusters

On car adjustable rear suspension arms

Gearbox rebuild

Central Locking

Alcantara interior trim

 

The Deadline

This year over Easter I competed in the regularity trials held annually at Mount Panorama Bathurst. I did a 2:55.4, 5s faster than the last time I went there in 2008 and clocked a top speed of 240kph. Next year I want the car there and I want to do a 2:4X.XX (probably a 2:49.99 ) and 245+kph.

Initially I was going to hoard parts and then do the rebuild in one go, but things changed and I’ve decided I will do it gradually over the course of the year. December/January will be the final deadline.

 

Diary

This “Diary†will cover the entire build process, any changes of mind (expect many ) and all the heartache and pain along the way.

 

7 April 2010

Headlight Covers, new roof and 1†master cylinder purchased. The car is in Sydney in these pics and has a 3500km truck ride to get back home before work can start

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 April 2010

Roof sent to the panel beater for storage. New PWR Aluminium radiator ordered.

 

30 April 2010

I ordered Roll Centre Adjusters (RCA’s) and Rear Control Arms from Techno Toy Tuning. I already have their front torsion/compression (T/C) bars and LOVE the strength and over-engineering of their parts. I had a T/C snap at 200kph on full brake into an 80kph 90o right hander and don’t need another similar scare again.

Unfortunately the box was pretty tattered when it rocked up and one of the control arms had been damaged in transit

 

 

But, Gabriel (the great man he is!) covered the cost of the repairs and so I sent them to a shop. In the mean time I got stuck into fitting the RCA’s:

 

 

 

This pic shows a modified arm on the right of the pic and the ummodified arm on the left of the pic. You can see how the control arm points upwards on the left and down on the right. Down is better =D. Another quality TTT part!

 

 

The close fit with standard rims. In fact I had to remove the wheel weights on the front right hand wheel because they fouled on the steering knuckle

 

 

 

The new look front suspension with both of the RCA’s fitted

 

[MREDDLE]

I'm in for a good build and good luck mate.

[Whittie]

I'm in for a good build and good luck mate.

 

Cheers MREDDLE. I can't express how excited I am to be finally building this car!

 

UPDATE:

 

8 May 2010

Well the rear suspension and the gearbox were supposed to be in the car for an event today. Unfortunately the pin that holds the strut to the rear trailing arm had seized inside the strut and was impossible to get out. The workshop blew a hydraulic hose on a 50t press trying to get it out... Hopefully it’s out by Monday so the car isn’t stuck on the hoist in the workshop

 

Also, the local zed mechanic who I’ve been stirring up about weight loss and aero dynamics bought a 2+2 a few months ago and has it down to 1130kg. He did a time the same as my Dad’s PB, 0.1s slower than my own. It’s time to get a move on with this build!

 

10 May 2010

Suspension and rebuilt gearbox are back in the car. A car is stuck underneath the hoist with my car on it so no pictures of the suspension yet.

 

On a brighter note, the Alcantara sample card my Aunty sourced for me showed up today. This stuff is AWESOME!!

 

 

[Whittie]

11 May 2010

Got a call from my mate and my PWR Aluminium Radiator showed up at his shop today and is ready for me to collect. I’ll probably try and get it fitted over the weekend.

 

13 May 2010

Thanks to Osborne Park Service Centre the rebuilt gearbox is in the car. I’ve not yet had a chance to drive it but I’m told it’s still notchy... Better have a drive and see how it goes. A synchro and Bearing job should not be notchy changing gears even if the box has, allegedly, been run dry and had water in it. I’m still convinced the gearbox guy was having a go at me, especially when he wanted $900 for a new gear set. I could buy TWO gearboxes and a couple cartons of boutique beer for that money.

 

The rear suspension finally got fitted after all the trouble getting the struts off the rear trailing arms. The good guys at Wheels World also re-adjusted the suspension back to how it should be, plus a little more rear camber now that the rear allows it =D

 

 

 

I am very happy with the rear arms and having talked to Shane, the suspension guy, he’s convinced me to buy the TTT front arms as well. Not sure I want to spend more money on shipping though.

 

Dad also organised some longer Hex bolts and Nyloc nuts to replace the botls inside the CV shafts. Teach those suckers to come loose again!

Edited May 13, 2010 by Whittie

[Whittie]

15 May 2010

Well, good day today =D I picked up my nice, new, VERY shiny PWR Aluminium Radiator. I don’t know how much a standard steel and copper radiator weighs but this thing is very light. Did I also Mention that is it HUGE? Because it is! I’ve put an order in for a couple of Davies Craig 10†thermo fans and a new Davies Craig thermo switch so I’ll have a crack at fitting the radiator when they come along, perhaps later in the week.

 

 

I even got to drive the zed to go and pick it up! The battery has finally died though and is no longer holding a charge. The little rebuilt original alternator just can’t keep up either so that new 60amp Bosch alternator looks to have catapulted up the To-Do list pretty quick. The new rear suspension was setup on Friday and feels fantastic. Combined with a rebuilt gearbox, the new diff mount PolyUrethane bushes I put in a few months ago and the CV shaft bolt mod that Dad did during the week, this car is finally a pleasure to drive with absolutely NO play in the driveline, you can drop the clutch and the drive train doesn’t make a peep. The body is so creaky though, I’ve never noticed it before.

 

I got some wheels from a friend probably going on a year ago now because he went up to an 8†rim width to fit even wider tyres. The rims I have on the car are only 6.5†with a 205 tyre so we did a little deal and I took these, 15x7â€, rims and tyres off him. Dad finally got around to giving them a quick spruce up and I’ll get the tyres fitted during the week before the next track day and see if I go any faster with an extra 20mm of rubber on a wheel that is designed for it. Fingers crossed! Even though I did spot the word “Performance†stamped into the face of the rim they are still heavier than the 3 piece aluminium rims on the car. I suspect the extra rubber will offset the un-sprung weight and rotating mass cost but time will tell. June 5th should be the next event.

 

Look how fantastic the wheels turned up, Thanks Dad!

 

 

[Stivva]

How much your radiator? I was thinking either pwr or a desert cooler

[Whittie]

How much your radiator? I was thinking either pwr or a desert cooler

 

You have PM.

 

I never looked into a desert cooler cause the PWR looks nice and is made specifically for the car so I knew it would fit.

[Whittie]

23 May 2010

Wow, 8 days between updates, that’s the shortest yet! Well, not much has happened I suppose. I tried to fit the new 1†master cylinder last weekend and in typical fashion of this Datsun (and me) I bench bled the new master cylinder, removed the old one and THEN realised that the new one doesn’t fit without some serious mods. That was a Good days work spent there =P So, I had to put the original back on and I now have a feeling that I will probably need a new booster from a 280zx to fit it easily. I also need to get some new brake lines made up to fit the new master cylinder as the front and rear ports are swapped compared to the 15/16th master cylinder. Brake lines should be sorted out by dad during the week with any luck and I’ll see what happens about fitting this thing.

 

Picked up the wheels I sent in earlier in the week (well, Dad did. And he delivered them... Not sure this is my build anymore... Thanks Dad!) and got them on the car today. I got a bit carried away with the photos, so I apologise in advance, but I LOVE these new rims!

 

 

 

 

 

So many wheels to choose from now though! I think I have a fetish for hoarding parts in three’s (3xgearbox’s, 3xdiff’s, 3xwheel sets). Too many to choose from!

 

 

I think I spot a common theme there with the wheels and something like black and silver, but it’s OH SO GOOD!

 

Typical of Perth, I ordered some parts from Melbourne and had them shipped with Australia Post and selected their ‘Next Day Delivery’ service. Turns out that ‘Next Day Delivery’ in the fine print means 3 days for Perth =(. The package finally arrived Friday and I then I got all happy again once I opened it: Davies Craig 10†Thermo Fans and Thermo Switch.

 

 

That is about it for this week. During the week I am looking forward to some new suspension bits from Techno Toy Tuning that should make the car faster. Then it’s new alternator and gel battery so that the car goes. Period... I’m also pondering the reason I’ve purchased so many things and have fitted so few, so I’ll have to get around to turning some spanners sometime soon and get things fitted. Keep posted.

[Whittie]

30 May 2010

Well, a productive weekend after a few cruisy weeks. I got home on Thursday to find these on my desk:

 

 

They are simply fantastic bits ok kit. Heavy as all hell, but just by looking at them you can tell they are simply indestructible! So, with nothing else to do this weekend (right...) I got stuck in to trying to fit them. In a typical story of a job on the Datsun supposed to take an hour or two it took me two DAYS to finish this one. Mid way through I took a moment to compare old vs new.

 

 

However, at 7:30pm on Sunday, 30 minutes before grand prix start, I got it finished. The result: Amazing!

 

 

Please excuse the oily engine; I have a leak at the rear of the tappet cover gasket and possibly a rear seal gone. Engine will be rebuilt sometime this year so at the moment it just means an oily drive way... Fine by me, but getting an ass kicking from dad!

 

Next event for the car is next Saturday. I’m looking forward to seeing how the car goes with new suspension, new wheels and re-adjusted geometry. Also, my sister will be driving the car for the first time so probably a good thing I got the gearbox rebuilt and hopefully the new synchro’s keep it from munching itself...

 

Over the next week I hope to get the new radiator fitted, finally. Keep posted!

Edited May 31, 2010 by Whittie

[Whittie]

27 June 2010

Well, I thought the last 8 day gap between updates was a long one, this one has been phenomenal. A few reasons for that, nothing less than enough setbacks to upset me enough that I couldn’t be bothered to work on the car at all for about 2 weeks. To inform you, the car has been sitting on blocks since just after the last update, about 3 weeks. I didn’t just miss the event that I was looking forward to, things REALLY hit the fan. Dad took the car to Wheels World in the morning after the front suspension was installed and in the afternoon I got the bad news, with the tie-rods wound all the way out the car has about 6 degrees of toe-in so I need new tie-rods... And standard replacement longer tie-rods don't exist... And nobody manufatures a ball joint with enough rotation that will work with standard suspensoin travel... Which means that I'm going to have to custom make something… And the front control arms don't clear the brakes properly and it's gouged a great big groove in the passenger side disc rotor.... That was brand new about 2 months ago... And then the car has had a bit of blow-by for a while and the mechanic rekons it needs a rebuild... And that the crank keyway is so badly destroyed from the harmonic balancer coming loose that I need a new crank..... Oh, and the harmonic balancer is out of round and is 'wobbling' so I need a new one of them, and the BMW solid gold super-dooper harmonic balancers are just super cheap.... And then this all means that I'm going to miss the next regularity round for the series. That I was winning... Right…. Fantastic….

 

Yup, good excuse for some time-off and a scotch or three in my opinion.

 

But then, after some time off (about 3 weeks, as I said) I finally got stuck into things last weekend. Firstly, it seems I’ve found the limit with the front tie-rods and need to find a solution. In the last week I have spent a bit of time trying to find a solution for the tie-rod and think I have something. I’ll have an answer on Monday about possibly a, VERY SIMPLE, solution to the custom tie-rod issue and I’ll let you know how it goes. If it turns out to be a winner, this could turn the whole custom tie-rod issue on its head.

 

Otherwise, on with other things, I got the radiator installed over the course of the last few weekends. It was a bit of a struggle trying to work out how to mount it, where to mount the fans and install all the wiring. Be prepared or an onslaught of pics, I got a bit carried away…

 

The old radiator:

 

 

weighing in at 11.5kg, it’s no light-weight. This is with the 16†fan mounted.

 

 

In another thread I asked about where the thermo fans should be mounted, high, low or in the middle of the radiator. I did a test fit of the radiator with the fans on the engine side of the radiator and this was the result:

 

Yup, don’t think that’s gonna work… I settled on installing the fans on the upstream side of the radiator. I think I fluked it and the fans miss fouling on the radiator mount by about 1cm, this was installed unmeasured, on all sides. I also forget about the mounting washers on the radiator that spread out the force of clamping the fans on. I tried to fit the second fan and the washers over-lapped. Thanks Murphy, now I get to pull the whole thing apart, modify all the mounts and try again.

 

The final result, AMAZING. Weighing in at 6.5kg without fans, its also a fair sight lighter than the old radiator.

 

 

The new fans weigh in at 2.5kg

 

 

Give or take the accuracy of the scales and the extra volume (water weight) of the radiator and I would say that there is no weight saving in the new radiator, but with any luck it solves the over-heating.

 

Side-by-side from the top, you can see the extra width and length of the ally radiator.

 

 

And from the side you can see the extra height of the radiator, the extra size gives me confidence that the new radiator will keep the car cool for a change.

 

 

All installed the radiator looks something like this:

 

 

And from the front:

 

 

So, that’s the latest for now. I head offshore again on Tuesday so the car won’t progress much for the next 3 weeks or so but hopefully I hear back about a ball joint that fits the zed without modification so I can mount the tie-rods and get the wheels pointing straight again.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Whittie

[Whittie]

18 July 2010

Well I got back from work last week and flew out on holiday the next day, but I arrived last night and got stuck into the car today before flying out again this week. Wow, this is getting hectic!

 

Today I took a look at making up a bug/stone guard for the radiator as I talked about last update and also had a crack at the headlight covers I bought 4 months ago. I’m not slow at things, honest….

 

Here is the radiator guard, simply some aluminium fly screen wire to keep the soft aluminium of the radiator safe. Believe me, you need something like this with the ally radiators! I folded the top underneath the rubber that seals the bonnet and down the bottom I simply used some zip-ties. A nice and simple mod that should be very effective.

 

 

 

And then after 2 hours to fit the driver’s side, and 10 minutes to fit the passenger side, the new headlight covers in all their glory with the new bug guard making a cameo appearance:

 

 

And how it should all look when the front wheels are back on the ground:

 

 

Tomorrow the car gets the tie-rods fitted after being picked up from the electroplater’s and then she’ll be driving again =D =D =D

 

Keep posted for the tie-rod upgrade, I’ll shortly post plenty of pics and part numbers to replicate the mod. I can confirm now that the mod works with the standard 14†rims, even with roll centre adjusters, and doesn’t bind over the full range of motion of the standard suspension!!

[Whittie]

19 July 2010

Well, HUGE success with the tie-rods today! I made a new thread over here:

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/93632-custom-tie-rods-that-fit-standard-suspension/page__gopid__882965#entry882965

 

That details the whole procedure. In short, it works a treat and fits with standard suspension AND wheels, even with TTT Roll Center Adjusters. Here are a couple pics showing the final product.

 

Old vs new:

 

On the car:

 

Massive thanks to Dad for following this mod through after I had given up on it and was convinced it couldn’t be done!

[texis30O]

Looks good but Centre is mis-spelt....lol

[Whittie]

Looks good but Centre is mis-spelt....lol

 

Cheers Dude.

 

In my opinion though, you've misspelled center But then I suppose that depends on where you where abouts in the world you are.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Whittie

[Whittie]

31 July 2010

Well I'm offshore again and whilst this would normally mean no progress on a car build, Dad has been leading the charge!

 

Dad picked up a new battery and a 70amp 300zx alternator during the week to finally hit the stupid flattening battery on the head! Soo sick of batteries going flat on me!

 

The tacho stopped working and in typical fashion I get an email AFTER the dash has been pulled out telling me that the dash does NOT in fact have to come out to remove the alternator... I had a bit of a chuckle ;D Turns out there was nothing wrong with the tacho tho, I suppose that is a good thing, but a bit strange.

 

While the dash was out tho Dad thought it would be a good idea to finally fit the second stage rev limiter from the MSD as a launch controller. A bit of soul later, literally shoe sole, this was rigged:

 

 

The MSD takes a 12v signal, triggered from the brake light switch on the clutch pedal, and engages a second rev limiter. In this case it's 4000rpm and Launch control!!! This could save some serious times at hill climbs because it will mean that I won't have to worry about balancing revs and throttle as well as handbrake and the timing light, just have to literally sidestep the clutch at the green light and be off.

 

Just to make things sensible, it also has a kill switch mounted in an empty spot on the centre console so that it can be disabled for on the track so that it doesn't affect ability to double clutch down changes properly:

 

 

This amazing little contraption should also mean it's possible to flat change at the drags without risk of over-revving the engine! I'll have a crack when I get home next week but I'm told that the car sounds pretty awesome banging on the limiter at 4k, imagine that, Launch Control in a 33 year old car!!

 

It was also my birthday yesterday and because I’m stuck offshore feeling sorry for myself I indulged in some retail therapy. I have these two little baby’s on the way from the states ïŠ

 

 

 

I also ordered the Alcantara for the interior on Tuesday in solid black which is on its way from Germany as I type this so I’m hoping the suede steering wheel will tie the dash into the Alcantara trim that will be débuting in a zed for perhaps the first time in Australia! (Can anyone quantify that?!) I also got a lead on getting spray-on suede for the plastic panels in the hatch area. Still undecided on the dash, but I don’t want to over-do the whole suede thing so I’ll probably leave the dash and the centre console as they are, with maybe just a suede gear boot and gear lever cover.

 

Tomorrow is the first event since EASTER for the car, Dad is competing in the Regularity at Wanneroo Raceway in Perth. It's also the first event with the new suspension and radiator. Dad had a shakedown day yesterday at the track and the previous owner, who now has a 351 GT Falcon rekons the car is doing sub 70 second laps and given this guys experience at the track I have no reason to doubt him. Dad had nothing but amazing things to say about the new suspension setup right until he plowed it into the dirt at about 100kph…. He didn’t damage anything and I’m glad to hear that good sense and driving prevailed so he just went in in a straight line to avoid rolling the car after pushing too hard coming down the back straight into the last corner. I have heard from him that there is sand EVERYWHERE in the car tho and that it has taken most of the day just to clean it out.

 

So, I'm really hoping for good things during timed runs tomorrow at the event! Our current PB at the track is 71.7s, the same for the both of us. If we can take 2 seconds off just in suspension that would be mind blowing! I'll keep you all posted with the results, but if a little over $1500 can have a 2s reduction in lap times I would recommend the suspension mods to everyone.

Edited July 31, 2010 by Whittie

[Whittie]

9 August 2010

It’s been a while, but I’m back! Back in town that is, and no mucking around here!

 

To follow up on last week’s update, Dad made it to the track on the Sunday and got some times…. In the midst of all the excitement, a few things happened. In qualifying he was caught up in traffic and posted a 72.8s lap, very good. Following the event tho, Dad thought “Hmm 7k rev limit seems high, don’t think it’s supposed to be there…†and so adjusted it down to 6500rpm. Out for the second run and he thinks to himself “Hmm, rev cut seems early, oh well, keep goingâ€, he comes in and lo-and-behold, the rev limit has been set to 5500rpm, not 6500rpm, and yet he STILL did a 71.8s lap, equal to his PB!! Talk about good suspension upgrade. Unfortunately the day didn’t get any better and on run number 2, the second stage rev cut played up and the car wouldn’t rev at all above idle and so Dad missed the event and then on the last event of the day he hadn’t changed the tyre pressures and yet the track was 20 degrees hotter so say hello to marshmallow tyres! Following the rev cut mishap Dad circulated at 71.8’s all day. Either way, an equal PB lap with a 5500rpm rev cut instead of 7000rpm and a loss of around 30 useable horse power, bring on super quick laps when the rebuild is finished!

 

Getting in to the swing of things after returning home from work, I dropped the car off at Osborne Park Service Centre today for them to pull the motor and give it a freshen-up. I wasn’t going to touch the motor other than deglaze the bore and new rings and bearings, but Tus rekons with all the advance the car is currently running that it means some more compression HAS to be on the list, plus a few other things, he thinks a 30hp gain is not unbelievable, how can I argue with that…. So much for leaving the motor alone, but hey, who’s complaining =D

 

Also went to the panel beater today and it looks like the car will be in his workshop in 4 weeks or so. In that time I have to fully strip it, clean it and get it sand blasted. I know right, I said “clean†the car before sand blasting, well, check out ‘rust proofing’ a car in England in the 70’s:

 

 

 

 

That, if you haven’t worked it out yet, is grease… It’s not pretty and it’s going to be a prick to remove, but hey, no rust! If anyone has any ideas on getting rid of the grease behind the suspension towers there we’re I can’t get in to, please fire away!!

 

To top off a few weeks hard work researching I went out today and bought a few things after working out what will and won’t fit on a zed. I started with a trip to rare spares and picked up some vents for the new guards that are coming from Alfa Fibreglass (If anyone has experience with them, please PM me, I’d like to know how much work I’m up for with new fiberglass panels, bonnet and hatch). Here is a pic of the vents on the car I salvaged them from:

 

 

Well I didn’t salvage them from THIS car, but they are off a HK Holden. They are 4 vents and will fit perfectly on the guard on the zed and being period correct is nice. I was thinking about getting some VE HSV vents/indicators but at $1000 a pair I was a bit reluctant! Now, just to work out how to fix a steel plate to a fiberglass panel…. Again, if you have ideas, thoughts are more than welcome!

 

While trying to nut that one out I also worked out which seats will fit in the zed without fouling on the door, the roll cage and will sit central in the cockpit! They would be the Sparco Sprint V, unfortunately, they are as uncomfortable as hell so I picked these up instead:

 

 

They are the Sparco Ultra (Tec) and are discontinued, but I found a store with a couple in stock so picked them up. The issue with these is that you sit higher than the seat I have, about 2 inches, so a head with a helmet on won’t clear the roof and the roll cage unless it’s solid mounted, but I guess that’s the price to pay to fit a seat central to the steering wheel in a zed with a roll cage. I’m not sure on the weight of the standard seat but the Momo currently acting as the drivers seat weighs 6kg and the new seats weight 7kg each, likely around 10kg less than the standard seat, for a weight saving of about 9kg total. For reference here is a pic of the new seats next to the Momo Rookie that it is replacing.

 

 

That is it for today. The car comes back on a truck on Wednesday and then I have the daunting task of pulling it to bits, cleaning it and sending it to the sand-blasters to get the shell of the car blasted and the remaining body panels soda blasted. Keep posted.

[Whittie]

17 August 2010

Wow, a busy few days! I can now sympathise with people who do not update their blogs for weeks and months at a time, if you’re busy working on cars it makes it hard to keep updates coming, lucky for me I’ve got tonight off so I can write up a bit of a post for you guys. I think I should start with a disclaimer: This will be one LONG post and apologies in advance for the 10,000 photos ahead.

 

After picking up seats on Monday I had a couple days off before the car returned to me on Wednesday minus 1 motor and so on Thursday I got started on striping the car. Along the way I took around 180 photos of things so that I know how it all goes back together! Even with all the photos I think it is still going to be one daunting task that I’m not particularly looking forward to going through. It will be worth it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s going to be a long way from pleasant.

 

I mentioned last update about the grease in the car, well it turns out to be even more ‘everywhere’ than I previously suspected and I’ve decided I don’t really want to do it! I did the ring around and found a guy who is willing to steam clean the car and rekons he can do it in 3-4 hours, did I launch at that offer or what. Just to show you guys what he’s up for check out the grease in the rear quarter panels again:

 

 

 

That is all the way through EVERY panel in the car! Don’t believe me, have a little look, a good look, at these pics and the hidden gold in the background:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I told you all that 100kg would be a walk in the park! It was pretty amazing actually watching the car transform from a low, sleek race car to ‘tank spec’ during the time I worked on it. I reckon the car has risen about 4 inches since I started just due to pulling the weight out of the car, it was awesome to watch transform! The doors, bonnet and guards had the biggest impact of course, but everything adds up for sure.

 

After a stressful day on Thursday the day was coming to an end and I had to admire what I’d done and also found some time for a little art work:

 

 

None too shabby for just a screw and a point and shoot camera.

 

I had a couple of surprise deliveries on Friday: My 8m roll of Alcantara in black and my new Momo, Suede covered steering wheel, but by far the most exciting was 4 boxes from Otomoto in Sydney. I ordered them on Tuesday afternoon and they were in Perth, at my door, by lunch time Friday, talk about amazing service from TNT. Sorry Otomoto, but shipping anything by truck across the country in 48 hours is still more impressive than having them ready for delivery 1 hour after payment is made, if not by much. But enough suspense, the pics we’ve all been waiting for:

 

 

 

 

Awesome! Of course I had to take a couple of clearance shots whilst I was at it. The fronts clear by a significant amount to the struts, which was rather surprising. Please remember that I have the commodore brakes and the rotors have more negative offset than standard brakes (out from the centre of the car, or away from the suspension to make it clear), so these pics won’t be representative of standard discs even tho I am still running standard suspension. I suspect it will JUST clear with standard brakes otherwise you would likely need a 3-5mm spacer to get things to fit.

 

 

I did some jiggling around and measured 5 1/12th inches of backspace (12.91cm)from the mounting face of my rotors, so that would explain why the 8 inch rims fit so well (8†rims with a +4 offest = 10.56cm back space, but the outer edge of the rim sits a bit further in than the tyre mounting face), clearance is around 8-10mm to the strut and I’m not suspecting any surprises when I put some 225 tyres on the rims. The outside edge of the rim on the other hand, that will need some adjustment:

 

 

With the suspension at full droop on a jack you’re looking at a rim that sticks out about 15mm past the guard. Even tho the rim will come inwards as the suspension slack is taken up a good roll will be required to fit these under without rubbing. The guards don’t need flaring, but I suspect more than just a normal roll and more like a ‘buff’ of the guards will be required, however, it should still keep the good looking lines of the car without spoiling anything like a flare does in my opinion. I have a suspicion that the guard in this photo has actually been pushed IN at some stage of its life because the guard on the passenger side of the car has more clearance than it even tho I haven’t rolled anything on the car.

 

Of course, nothing like so much of an issue on the rear, the struts clear by miles

 

 

As well as not causing any issue with the suspension at all

 

 

Although perhaps that is not really all that surprising considering I still used to run standard 14†rims on the street. With 17 wheels for the car now however, it’s time to work out what to keep and what to sell and I think the standard rims will find a new home given all the options that I have. Perhaps someone rebuilding/owning an original 260 might be interested in them to complement their otherwise complete car. Whilst not completely correct, these would also go great with an original 240z.

 

I’m just looking back now and regretting now not getting a pic of the clearance to the guards on the back, but I suspect it’ll be a better fit than the front, which is rather good, so no need to worry.

 

All in all, stripping the car was a rather rewarding experience, I finally feel like I know something about these cars that I didn’t before, especially the fact of how simple these cars are! I swear, a 10mm socket, a medium blade and Philips screw driver will have 90% of the car apart!

 

It was a trying exercise but I managed to fully strip the car in 4 days, so I was impressed with that given the amount of time I spent doing other things. My camera went flat on Sunday but I took this photo on Saturday night and you can see the progress I made in 3 days

 

 

Of course the experience wasn’t without it’s trials, I have found more rust than I was suspecting, including some at the back of the passenger frame rails that looks like it’s been patched badly in the past and a HUGE amount of surface rust in the drivers floor due to 3 years of a leaking door I could never track down to a point source and still eludes me along with the rust in the rear hatch that I knew was there. The dash hasn’t had the carpet cover taken off in years and it has blistered and boiled in the sun, so that’ll need extra attention to. I had a great time along the way tho and ingenuity won out over common sense a few times. One in particular I couldn’t let go and so took photos. I present to you the almost longest ¼†ratchet drive extension I’ve ever seen:

 

 

Suprisingly, this extension was fully self-supporting and didn’t actually need supporting without falling apart! And the reason for its construction, the pedal box:

 

 

Thankfully I didn’t have to resort to including the uni joints as extra extension as things would have got REALLY interesting if I’d done that, I think I almost broke the ¼†drive as it was using the ¼†to ½†adapters that I made up from a ¼â€-3/8†and then a 3/8†to ½†adapter. It was effective tho, so that is something to say about the quality of the Sidchrome products I used!

 

Before I close out I would just like to say one thing: “Thank (Insert Deity name) for zip lock bags!†These have hopefully saved my existence when I have to put the car back together. I count around 50 bags all labelled for different parts of the car, all with identical looking bolts. Am I glad or WHAT that I decided it might be worth the effort. If there is anything I can recommend to future zed builders: capture and label all bolts, screws, washers etc so you know where they go again when you are done! The photos have also proved to be a life line in trying to work out what order those screws go in even tho I know what they belong to, just take photos of everything. If you think “Hmm, that could be interesting to put back together†take a photo, believe me I haven’t started putting the car back together yet and already I am very thankful for just a cheap point and shoot camera to keep a record of things.

 

Well, that’s it for now. This week I have to just do a few tidy up things, like scrape off all the tar from the cabin (YAY ) before the car gets steam cleaned next week. Then it’s fuel tank and brake lines out for sand blasting before going to the panel beater in around 4 weeks. Bring on the rebuild

[Whittie]

Well I've neglected this post for a long time, but I've been updating my own personal journal in the back ground. With that in mind, here is 18 months worth of updates in one VERY long post!

 

11 September 2010

Well I'm back away for work again but before I left I (Dad) dropped the wheels at Wheels World for them to put some old rubber on so I can get the panel beater to sort out the guard rolling. I got an email today with about 17 photos of the new wheels on the car and since I'm having withdrawals I figured that meant I had to post them all, so apologies, as usually, for the affront of pictures.

 

I must say, seeing new parts ON the car instead of just scattered around bedrooms in the house makes me want to get it fixed and going ASAP. 10 points to whoever can spot the most rust spots tho I have more pics on the camera at home but in summary it's:

- Sills – Minor

- Doors – Minor

- Battery Tray – Few pin holes, but looks like it’s lost a wheel at some stage and pressed the panel up, so that will get fixed

- Firewall on drivers side – Pin holes

- Chassis Rails (Minor on passenger side at the end of the floor rail)

- Drivers floor – Pin holes

- Rear Hatch – A fair bit, but that has been growing for about 6 years, so not too bad considering

- Rear floor – Pin holes again

 

So yeah, the steam cleaning didn’t work very well, I couldn't get all the grease out of it yet, the tar is killing me, it still rusted and I'm unlikely to make Bathurst at this rate!!!

 

But, PICS =D

 

Did I say I have some wheels to sell? Cause I get the feeling that 17 for 1 car is starting to push it a bit.....

 

I’m not decided yet but I think I’ll pass on the black 5 spoke race rims. Stockies and 3 piece Japanese rims will stay as roadies.

 

Stacked:

 

Rolling Radius. I love how the 225/45/16 is about the same height as the 205/55/15, no centre of gravity or rotational axis change in height!

 

On car:

 

 

 

 

 

And yes, that is my latest work area on the dirt that used to be our front lawn Dad tells me I'm not allowed to damage the new driveway whilst making a mess removing all the tar.

 

Well that is about it for the next few weeks, I'm stuck away for a while and I'll be busy when I get back. Come on the second half (rebuild) of the zed! The new goal is to make the regularity series and win it next year 8)

 

3 October 2010

Well there were multiple requests and PM’s so here they are: Pics of the clearance of the Rota’s with the guards, with tyres on this time. PLEASE NOTE: I have extended the track on the front by about 1.5-2 inch’s over standard and have adjustable suspension all around. The car is also rolling Commodore brakes (negative offset on the front rotors compared to standard) and R31/280zx rear discs. The tie-rods for instance didn’t fit and I had to custom make new ones with all the extra track I’ve given the front of the car!

 

Here are the pics tho, Wheels to front suspension:

 

 

Wheels to rear suspension:

 

 

As you can see, everything fits fine with commodore fronts and skyline rear brakes. These wheels look like they’ll fit on a standard brake’d zed without any issue to suspension!

 

My issue however, is the clearance to the guards. On the rear, from above (mind the feet, couldn’t get a decent shot without them in )

 

 

And to the front guards:

 

As you can see, I’m in need of zg flares to clear the front wheels, it is simply too much space to make up with rolling guards. Otomoto, have you got some carbon fibre flares in stock?

 

Here is the car as it is at the moment, new wheels and guards:

 

 

Please note that I have not yet properly fit the fiberglass fender, it needs some material cut away to sit flush at the front, so the fit is not representative of the actual product. These guards are from Alfa Fiberglass and I must say they are FANTASTIC. I haven’t yet properly tried to fit them, but with them sitting on the car, they look like they’ll be perfect. The gaps are all good and the finish on them is great, let alone the price of the pieces! I’ve had very bad experience with fiberglass stuff in the past and this has re-affirmed my love for it all over again. I’ll post back how much work they are to fit when I get to it, but I don’t expect they will require much work, they look like they’ll fit straight on!

 

Another issue I noted with the increased track on the front:

 

 

In case you missed it, the issue is going to be keeping stones from ruining my paint work with how far the wheels stick out past the guard. I got a quote at $1000 per litre for paint, so I don’t want to be re-spraying the doors in a couple months due to stone chips, that’s for sure! I’m going to have to get some rally style mud flaps I’m afraid. As much as I hate them I’d rather not stuff the paint in one track event ïŒ If anyone knows where to get rally style mud flaps for a zed then please shout out, I have no idea.

 

1 Feb 2010

Wowsers, 4 months between updates!!!

 

Well, the initial target of Christmas 2010 to be finished has been well and truly past, quite entirely due to the fact that I got pushed down the order by the panel beater and the car has literally been sitting idle with almost no progress since the last update back in October.

 

Well, not entirely true: since October I have finished stripping the interior, fuel tank and brake/fuel lines and removed the last of the tar from underneath the car (Effort!!). With the car now a complete bare shell with absolutely no attached parts I was able to assess the rust. Please bear with lots of photos, but honestly, for an English car there is almost no rust!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This next one is not very clear, it is the passenger side tool box, you can see there is some rust at the seam where it joins the floor. There are a couple of holes here, but nothing huge.

 

 

 

 

This is also not very clear, but it is the passenger side of the boot, looking towards the side of the car, a couple of pin-holes above where the exhaust is underneath the car:

 

 

 

The panel beater should be able to sort out most of that pretty easily. I have access to a good condition spare wheel well, depending on if the panel beater wants it and I also bought from the states a brand new replica rear hatch panel, so he can just cut out the old one and weld in a new one. $120 from MSA, an absolute steal!

 

Whilst I’ve been waiting I also ordered a few extra goodies. I always was sick of the crap headlights in the car and the shitty method of the headlight current traveling up and down the steering column, so I bought some 8000 Kelvin Xenon headlights with all the proper relays to re-route the current away from the steering column so that I can see at night I also finally got around to getting some plastic windows, fully formed, shaped, holes drilled and cut to size. The windows are all the same thickness as the standard glass (well, 4.5mm versus 4mm with the glass) and are moulded to the shape of each original window. $350 got me the rear hatch, door windows and quarter windows all done in acrylic with tint! Here is a quick pic of a rear quarter window with the tint:

 

 

So that should be winding plastic windows ticked off the list.

 

I then got a phone call from the mechanic: Engine is out of the car and what do I want to do? Well, got plenty of time, but here is a new API Racing Harmonic Balancer. 3 Piece Ally construction with a new crank adapter, good for warranty with 1200 HP But then came the bad news, engine builder got on to stripping the motor: Pistons are all scored (ie, air filters are f’d), couple of bent rods and the big end bearings about to seize. Just think, Dad set a PB at the last event before the motor was pulled. Bring on the rebuild! So, currently trying to get new pistons @ 87.5mm, new rods, new rings, bearings, stud kits, and some head work for more compression cause at 240psi the motor was still screaming for more advance with the dizzy wound off the dial.

 

The best news of all of this though: On Australia Day I got a call from the panel beater and the car is due to go in to his workshop in 10 days!! Aside from the fact that he did 2 joba ahead of me, I’m just excited that the car is finally progressing again! Now I just need to purchase the last few bits and pieces to get the car sorted. I finally got the paint code so I can purchase the paint, I ordered new Redline Filters. I wouldn’t normally think enough of filters to post pics, but I got these from the states, with 3 replacement filters for $200, where the EXACT same with K&N stamped on them would have been more like $500 locally . Here are the pics of these blatant knock-off, yet same quality products:

 

 

The final thing to do was to get new nuts and bolts. About a month ago now I took my box of sorted and labelled bolts to some friends of mine who trade as the “Metric Men†who are also datto nuts and sell nuts and bolts for a living. I walked in, dropped the box on their desk and told them I need new of EVERYTHING in the box, brand new nuts, bolts, washers, grommets, the works. I’ve not been back since, but I’m sure they are working on it. This is shaping up to be one NICE build, despite the budget blowouts….

 

Well, that’s it for now. This weekend I need to remove the last tar from the wheel wells before the car is trucked to the panel beater where he will soda blast the car, replace the roof, fix the rust and repaint it. Be sure, plenty of pics will be coming your way in the next couple of weeks/months as I keep track of the panel beaters progress

 

PS, Oh, one last thing, first round of the local regularity series isn’t until June now, looks like that’s the new deadline to be finished and have the car complete, together, shaken down and ready to race.

[Whittie]

21 Feb 2011

Well, still waiting on the panel beater. I put that at 6 months now….

 

Well, to be on with it: I realised the other day that whilst the car is still doing nothing that it would be a convenient time to measure up the suspension to work out how much needs to be taken out of the struts when it goes back together. The car was bottoming out on the front suspension REALLY badly over big pot-holes, so I pulled the suspension out of the car and found that it had no bump stops… Well, that’ll do it!! The rear suspension had bump stops tho, so I dunno what the previous owner was doing to the car, but that seems a bit weird…

 

Either way, I purchased new urethane bump-stops from MSA as part of the rubber kit I purchased and so I have 4 of them to go on all corners. However, if I’m adding bump-stops to the front I need to allow that I have lost the thickness of the bump stop in free travel, so I need to shorten the struts to the point that the chassis hits the ground, plus the uncompressible thickness of the new bump stops. Working out that bit will be a bit of black magic, but for now, PICS

 

The first thing I did was jack up the rear suspension to check the clearance of the new rims to the guards:

 

 

 

The tyre JUST hits the inner lip of the guard at what is a ridiculous suspension travel length, but not bottomed out. So, roll the guards nice and simple and the rear wheels will fit a treat, just like expected

 

Whilst I was taking the springs out to measure the max suspension travel, notice the difference between front and rear springs, front on the right, rear on the left:

 

 

Rear definitely needs to be stiffened up! However, for now I’m not expecting rear binding issues, so that is good

 

An idea of how close the engine cross-member comes to the ground, I think this will bottom out first:

 

 

The clearance of the front tyre to the chassis of the car with the suspension fully compressed: also notice the rusty brake disc from lack of use

 

 

And a few happy snaps of the car sitting on its ****:

 

 

 

And an idea of how small these cars are when dumped, this is a photo I took standing upright with the camera held above my head, perhaps just over 2m above the ground:

 

 

So, I haven’t measured anything before I ran out of light, but I’m thinking 50mm section on the struts is required, This is a guestimate of 30mm travel till the chassis rails hit the ground and 20mm uncompressible thickness of the bump-stops. I have thin strut-tops for the rear, so that is the 20-30mm till it hits the ground and so I need to take only 20-30mm out of the rear struts. So, 50mm out of the front struts and 20-30mm out of the rear plus the proper strut inserts and I should have the suspension sorted I’ll put the car back together and see how the rear springs go, if the car is under-steering, then I’ll get some stiffer springs made up, but for now it was a pretty well sorted car.

 

 

 

 

 

Got camber…

 

 

26 May 2011

Another 3 months between updates… This is getting to be a habit these long breaks… Well, for my sanity’s sake I really hope it doesn’t continue!

 

On a positive, my car goes to the panel beater this Saturday 28 May!! I have booked the tow truck, mounted the rotisserie, adjusted it to find the center of gravity of the car and am all ready to go! Let me just stop you for a minute tho and say that things have actually still been moving slowly in the background and so I apologise in advance for the flood of pictures I have taken in the past 3 months. You have been warned

 

Rotisserie? Yep, that’s what I said. I put up a post a few months ago looking for a rotisserie to buy/borrow and a VERY generous boyblunda offered to purchase a rotisserie and let me use it! The catch? I had to fit it to the car and I’ll have to demonstrate to him how to use it… What could I say but yes! Another big thanks to boyblunda, this generosity has really made my project for me. I’ll be happy to catch up any time now the car is on the rotisserie and demonstrate how to use it.

 

The rotisserie is an Ebay unit, which from my understanding is built in Australia. You can pick them up for about $1000 delivered to your local courier depot and they are amazing value! You get a fully functional, constructed, hydraulically jacked rotisserie with almost infinite adjustment. Rated to 1000kg they are more than capable of holding on to a zed shell without a worry. The small amount of work I had to finalise on the car was made MUCH easier with the aid of the rotisserie and for such good value I couldn’t recommend them enough to anybody thinking of doing even mildly serious under-body work.

 

Here are a few pics of the rotisserie when I got it:

 

 

And what is inside this wonderous black box:

 

 

Several hours of trying to work out what goes where, why I was short on a few nuts (I wasn’t, I just lost them on the ground for a while ) and I present: The ultimate blue twister!

 

 

 

 

A couple of days later and the ever faithful hand, I mean Dad , had managed to construct a set of mounts and had them plated. The front mounts bolt to the front of the chassis rail, where the horns mount and the rear mounts bolt to the rear bumper mounting points, which are attached to the chassis rails. Unfortunately, I only managed to find 1 picture of the mounts, but I will get more I promise!

 

 

Unfortunately this turned out to be less than ideal on the first trial lift. Check out the deflection of the rotisserie on the front of the car in this pic!

 

 

Indeed, that is not a normal angle!

 

So, it turns out that even tho that is frame rail there at the front, the captured nuts are actually only welded to some 1mm plate steel and this plate just bent something chronic when any load was put on it. Needless to say, some more work was required. So, it was back to the drawing board and the man that is came up with another idea: The same mount, but this time with an horizontal plate that bolts vertically to the chassis rail itself and some more bracing on the mount to minimise sheer forces on the welding holding the vertical plate. Just imagine the same mount in the pic above with a horizontal plate butting up to the radiator mount and a bolt through the chassis rail holding it against the top of the chassis rail. Unfortunately it requires drilling the chassis rail, but that’s an easy fix with a welder later compared to some of the rust on this car… I didn’t grab a pic of the new mount, but I will on the weekend after the mounts have been re-plated. Regardless, the new modified mounts work a treat and it wasn’t long before Dad and I had the rotisserie sorted and were spinning the car like a game wheel.

 

But enough ramble, time for some more pictures! (I did warn you…)

 

The underneath:

 

 

The rear:

 

 

Super human strength! Also about the best reason for having a sunroof

 

 

So, the car was up in the air and everything was going great, well, until I realised that now I had much better access to the underneath of the car and all the tar that still remained on it. Back to my favourite game of all time; Heat Gun & Spatula vs tar (no, not anywhere near as exciting as it sounds!):

 

 

Bald spot!!!

 

…

 

I’m just gonna go and huddle in the corner now, don’t mind me….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m back! Not to worry tho, Ashley & Martin didn’t get any of my zed fund And the greatest achievement of last weekend: NO MORE SUNROOF!!!

 

 

The hole is also not too bad. The roof is a little warped, which will probably require some of our best friend ‘bog’ to get perfect, but the new roof is in fantastic condition so it is certainly salvageable. I’m honestly surprised how little rust there is given how dodgy the install was considering the sunroof installer couldn’t cut more than 5cm at a time in a straight line! On a side note, I have a perfectly functional, reasonable condition LE VAN Sport T Top twin window sunroof for sale if anybody is interested, just drop me a PM and I can send through some more pics.

 

So, that brings me (and you too of course) up to date with what honestly seemed like a neglected rebuild thread. I’ll be dropping in on the panel-beater weekly to keep the pressure on so expect PLENTY of photos over the coming months as the car is transformed from a rust-bucket to what I envision to be a real show stopper. After the panel beater and paid labour, the fun starts all over again with the reconstruction of the car. I managed to bag and label every screw into small sections such as “fuel filler cap†or “pedal box†and take over 500 photos of the car as I stripped it, but somehow I still think that won’t be enough when it comes time to find where all those screws go after so long since taking them out! However, that’s a story for another day. For now, Tom out.

 

PS, to anyone who has followed this whole thread to date, Congratulations! You have just cracked 10,000 words (10,412) , or 35 pages, lovingly typed by yours truly Hopefully you enjoyed all of them! (10,429).

[Whittie]

4 June 2011

9 days until the next update, that sounds more like a project getting back on track! I like where this is going My new goal is to have the car ready by Christmas. Aside from certain religious and social implications of that time of year it also happens to be the latest that I can enter into motorvation, Perth’s biggest import and aussie car show. I entered several years ago after I had the motor rebuilt however this time will be slightly more significant and so I would really like to make the end of the year!

 

So, since the last update the car has indeed been delivered to panel beater! Success! Hooray! Happy Dance! And so on and so forth

 

You read that right ladies and gentlemen, after 6 months in an idle state in a driveway collecting dust, the car is now sitting in a panel shop, idle collecting dust…

 

Not to worry, despite the panel beater being busy this last week, I haven’t had that luxury and work is progressing.

 

Not to get ahead of myself tho, we will return to the scene of the crime 7 days ago: I got some pictures off of dad that he took of the car on its final day in silver and so I figured it would be a good idea to post them up for sentimental reasons. Silver was never my favourite colour; however it worked well, was individual in regards to colour choice’s in Perth and was remarkably cheap to buy in a spray can for touch-up jobs….

 

Here is the ‘ole zed on its final journey to the panel beater. Goodbye old girl, bring on the rebirth!

 

 

On arrival at the delivery location, dad and I… well… dad, worked hard to get the car mounted on the rotisserie. Whilst one of us was working hard, I broke out the camera and managed to grab a couple of pics:

 

 

Go you good thing! … That was all well and good, however on close inspection of the under body by a foul mouthed, disrespectful panel beater Silver Bullet was left heartbroken at the diagnosis: “It’s a pig. You need more than you want to spend, it is FAR too rough to get finished on that budget†… :,(

 

 

 

 

None the less, we continued on the inspection, with Will giving me a real no-holds-barred inspection of the body. Here he is in full swing:

 

 

Despite many negative words, it didn’t go unnoticed by the onlookers that Will was excited at the prospect of having a rotisserie to work on again after so long working with jack stands. I will apologise in advance to boyblunda tho, the rotisserie may come back with patches of odd-coloured paint itself. This body needs a good blasting and avoiding the rotisserie is hard. None the less, the rotisserie is simply a tool and what a fantastic one at that. With the car positioned as it is I was more than able to rotate the car myself with no assistance and no bias towards top or bottom heavy, talk about infinite adjustability working to an advantage!

 

So, today I got up at 630 to get an early start on the car. About 3 and a half hours after convincing myself that it was actually a good idea to get out of bed (it really wasn’t!) and cycle 23k’s to the shop, I finally arrived! Hoorah! … It might not seem like much, but that was probably the hardest part of the day those few hours getting ready, making lunch and cycling in what felt like sub zero temperatures. Don’t worry, I checked the Bureau Of Meteorology website and it was actually more like 10 degrees. But that’s beside the point; it was just damn freaking cold alright!

 

12 hours after getting up I finally arrived home again, but I have to say, I had a pretty big win today. Will had some super-dooper paint stripper made of all sorts of extra-ordinarily environmentally harmful chemicals that worked an absolute treat on the car. Will himself exclaimed that it shouldn’t have worked so well and he was stumped at what crap quality the paint was…

 

Again with the bad words to the poor girl!

 

None-the-less, 7 hours later and I had the entire engine bay stripped of paint, back to bare metal. Will passed his experienced eye over the metal and the job I’d done… The words used are not possible to spell, so I’ll just summarise as “needs plenty of attentionâ€

 

Now is the point where I would happily show off the hard work I’d done all day, however, I couldn’t fit my camera in my bag. Honest. nothing to do with forgetting it despite charging it the night before or anything like that!

 

So, no photo’s, however, rest assured that the car is coming along well and that the engine bay is ready for some new metal, welding, grinding and painting to make it look ship-shape again

 

Wow, all this makeover work makes me I feel like I’m in the middle of a nip-tuck episode Almost as expensive too…

 

I’ll be spending next Saturday at the shop too and this time I’ll get photos to update on how things are going. I suspect Will will have done little-to-naught on the car by then, however, I’ll keep going with paint stripping and with any luck I’ll get most of the rest of the car back to bare-metal in another day’s work.

 

As a present to all those following this thread, as I promised in the last update, here are some pics of the rotisserie mounts. A massive thanks again to dad for manufacturing the mounts and even going to the effort of getting them plated so that they won’t rust. Without his help, this project simply would never have left the phase of ‘pipe-dream’!

 

The front mount:

 

 

 

Here you can clearly see how the horn mounting points are utilised and also the vertical bolt that has been installed in the front of the frame rail to hold the weight. The bolt holds the mount to the car and the horn mounting bit basically keeps the square tube from deflecting from vertical. It works an absolute treat and although some temporary modification of the chassis rails is required, I would highly recommend this mounting procedure.

 

The rear mount:

 

 

 

The rear mounts are very basic, using the rear bumper mounting points. These points are bolted to the chassis rails from factory so they are super strong and amazingly simple to produce brackets for mounting.

 

Hopefully these pics are helpful to others who are looking to build rotisserie mounts. With the car connected at these points and with the center of rotation about 4 inches’ or so above the mounts the car is perfectly balanced. This is with a cage tho, so a standard zed might be a little bottom heavy. None-the-less this is a VERY simple way to mount the car out of all of the methods I came across when trying to build blue-prints for this car.

 

31 August 2011

Well, I think it’s the 31st at the moment. According to my laptop it’s 12:56am on the 31st and according to the little screen in the back of the seat in front of me it’s 5:56pm on the 30th… These 32 hour days are just bizarre and hopefully you’re all as suitably confused as my body is at the moment. Not to worry, I have 3 hours left in this forsaken seat so I figured that was enough time to finally sort out the next update so that’s good news for everyone who has been waiting for the next update. At least, I hope people have been waiting eagerly for an update, it would certainly be a shot in the motivation if nobody was…. Either way (please be the former!) Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Rebuild!

 

It’s been the better part of 3 months since the last update and work has finally started on the car, 200+ hours of it in fact. The panel beater has been hard at work and the new car is starting to really take shape. I will apologise in advance for the onslaught of photos, but I really feel this rebuild deserves it. Or is it that the wallet demands it for justification? I’ve sorted through the photos I’ve taken on multiple trips to the shop and I feel the best way to present them is in chronological order, so that’s how I’m going to tell this story. Without further ado:

 

2 July 2011

This was a painful day. Almost exactly one month since dropping the car off for work to start and we’ve hardly started. I spent a weekend working in the shop with Will and a bucket of ammonia based paint stripper (I really advise you don’t play with this stuff, it’s REALLY nasty, however amazingly well it works it’s SUPER nasty!) and came away with the engine bay and roof back to bare metal:

 

 

 

 

23 July 2011

Roof!

 

 

That’s right folks, a new roof! I will finally be able to enjoy a drive in the rain with the rain staying on the OUTSIDE of the car! Also, did I say that the car now has a roof?!

 

 

A roof!

 

 

It’s even made of metal! A metal roof, who would have thought that I would be putting metal into this car considering all the plastic coming it’s way. Perhaps I should have used carbon. Hmm, that’s an idea… Actually, that’s a ridiculous idea, this is a 70’s classic and it deserves METAL:

 

 

Roof aside, Will has been busy with a sandblaster and taken the rest of the body back to bare metal so that we can get the work really going. By going back to bare metal Will can fully assess the shape of the car and get down and dirty with it. You’d be surprised at how bent the car is too

 

Here is the car as I found it in the shop on the 23rd:

 

 

How the engine bay turned out: You can quite clearly see the work that Will did on the car 5-odd years ago when he replaced the entire length of chassis rails from the firewall forward, note the different colour of the metal. Surprisingly, not too much rust in this part of the car which is fantastic to see, a couple of holes that need patching, but nothing too major.

 

 

Cowel:

 

 

Door:

 

 

 

Other door: Note how some dodgy bugger has ‘repaired’ previous accident damage:

 

 

Sand

 

 

Dog leg rust: Did these cars come with rust as standard?!

 

 

 

Quarter window:

 

 

More previous accident ‘repair’ at passenger side lower edge of windscreen:

 

 

So, what was a month ago now, the car was back to bare metal and the roof was in (METAL!). In talking to Will and assessing the work to be done in the future I got motivated and ordered some Bad Dog frame rails for the car. There are a LOT of bent things under the car, such as all the sway bar mounts and the chassis rails are collapsed due to be used as jacking points so there will be a heap of work required under the car as well as the body. The Bad Dog frame rails are awesome and will be several kilo’s very well spent on the car. They are 2-3x thicker than the standard rails and should be fairly simple to install due to the way that they weld in onto the current rails. You sort-of take an angle grinder or similar to the current rails and leave perhaps 1-2cm of frame rail protruding from the chassis which you then use as ‘tabs’ for the Bad Dog rails to fit over and weld to. It’s a very simple concept really and for something like $250 delivered from the states is also great value.

 

7 August 2011

What do Rust, bog and dodgy rebuilds have in common? They’ve all occurred in the last few weeks on this car! Read on:

Another trip to the panel beater and another clue to the history of this car has been uncovered: It’s been back to bare metal before! I don’t know who did the work, but for the whole time I have owned this car, going 8 years now, it was NEVER apparent that this car had had any decent work done to it. I can guarantee the previous owner of 10-odd years didn’t do it either; however I do know he did a dodgy respray a few years before I bought the car. Well, I suppose decent work isn’t really the word to use here anyways, seeing as the fool who did the work used acrylic primer, which I’m told is porous and hence the car continued to rust and as Will tells me, it looks like the apprentice worked on the car: Good intentions, but massive short-cuts seem to be taken. Here is a great example of what I mean by that. I present exhibit a: Rear drivers side quarter panel. When it was painted, nothing could be seen, however without paint there is a pretty suspicious spot of bog:

 

 

Will knows what’s hidden here, despite my ignorance and so grabs the sander to prove his point:

 

 

 

The same story is repeated along the doors and the rest of the rear end of the car. It will take Will a week to go around and clean and PROPERLY repair the dodgies that have been done to this car. But hey, it’s all part of the fun of restoring these old cars and it’s good to know that when I’m done this will be one of the nicest zeds I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing.

 

The roof is coming along with every visit:

 

 

 

And every visit this car is slightly more and more rust free, but there is still a long ways to go yet. You can see here the rust that was cut out of the passenger side quarter window:

 

 

How it looks done properly:

 

 

The driver’s side was not quite so bad, but this is a great shot to see Wills work process: Sand Blast, acid wash, cut, repair, reshape. It’s a whole lot more work to get it done right than I thought it would be but the result is fantastic

 

 

 

Acid killed rust around the passenger door frame:

 

 

You can see in this photo how Will is allowing the body to oxidise after he’s cleaned all the paint off. He assures me this is all part of the process despite it being backwards to me! Allegedly it’s a fantastic trick to show up any blemishes in the metal work and you can see here what the bare steel looks like under that light coat of rust:

 

 

More dodgy repairs: Here it looks like the ‘apprentice’ has tried to braze the split panels back together instead of properly shaping and welding them back together, hence why they split again. This seems to be the result of someone backing the car into a curb, under the big patch of bog on the right of the picture is a big, dead straight, buckle.

 

 

20 August 2011

Rust gone!

That’s right folks, 2 weeks since the last visit and the majority of the rust in the ‘body’ of the car has been removed. Lots of pics:

 

Fixed rear panel, done right this time:

 

 

 

 

The rest of these pics are pretty self-explanatory and probably don’t need any more explanation than the 1000 words inherent to each of them:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sum of the parts:

 

 

 

Bring it on baby, yeah!

 

27 August 2011

Body smoothing.

This week seems to have been all about finalising the contours of the body following all the good work that’s been done on the rust. First point of call tho has got to be the newly rolled rear guards to clear the new wheels with the extra track that I plan on giving the car:

 

 

Body straightened back up after will gave it the ‘ultimate’ fender roll. Allegedly he’s given it around an inch of clearance under the guard and that any more without splitting the quarter panel will bend the body panels too much and ruin the body of the car.

 

 

You’d never know anything had been done here if I hadn’t told you, would you?!

 

 

That Buick in the background is a car that Will has been building for a customer for the better part of 5 years now. It’s been a full custom build because the entire original chassis in it was falling to pieces when the owner brought it in to Will for his expert care.

 

Rear Panel:

 

 

The straightest roof I’ve seen in a long time:

 

 

 

Will tells me that despite things looking pretty bog covered at the moment that by the time he has finished shaping the panels with a hammer, touching them up with bog and then sanding it all back to a final product that the car will have less than half a tin of bog ON it in its entirety. That’s less than 1kg of bog over the entire car… Sounds like a deal to me!

 

Well folks, that’s been one hell of a long update and it’s time for this plane to land (quite literally) so hopefully that’s been enough to tie you all over for the next 5 weeks before I get back to town and can go see the car again. With any luck the body will be in primer, the chassis rails on the car, the fiberglass parts fitted and the entire car ready for paining. Time itself alone will tell, but here’s to hoping!