seattlejester's 1971 240Z

[luseboy]

I've been thinking about welding my diff... Are you building this thing for drift? My car is gonna be a street car... Which makes me think I really shouldn't weld my diff. But I have yet to make up my mind. Anyways car is looking sweet! I will be at the point you're at in a couple months.

[seattlejester]

More of an autocross build, maybe I will dabble with drift but the lack of angle will probably keep me from being competative.

 

I'm thinking of forgoing the rear sway which means I will still have a bit of body roll in the back, the welded diff should keep me from loosing all my power when one wheel is in the air.

 

Oh and I have a few diffs, so I can swap them out if it's too much for the street, the 4.11 is most likely to see short course duty since daily driving with it will probably be a little irksome, I have to hit the rev limit in third to hit freeway speeds lol.

Edited April 24, 2012 by seattlejester

[seattlejester]

Finished up the diff today.

Had a little freak out when the diff wouldn't spin when turning the axles, from what I was able to put together, looks like the final clean I did cleared the last bit of oil from the bearings, making the axles seize. A little squirt of oil quickly remedied the situation. Ordered a gasket, used sealant and re-torqued all the bolts.

 

And a friend stopped by and helped get the rear struts into place, once again, clever use of a strap wrench helped keep the struts from turning, and using a jack while one person balanced the assembly and the other guided it in made the hole affair pretty quick.

Decided I didn't like the fact the LCA was just hanging there, so I buttoned up the rear mounts. Hopefully the diff and axles will fit without having to take it all apart again.

 

The street camber kit is giving me a bit of misgivings, as it seems like it was deformed just from the 15lbs of torque on the mounting nuts. Can't imagine how it will deform when actual weight is supplied. Hopefully I'm just over thinking things.

[Devil_S30]

You better drift it! So I can get a ride Did you figure out the sway bar issue?

[seattlejester]

Haha, let me drive it before i consider putting it into a wall!

 

So...looks like the msa front end links have a larger spacer to prevent the bar from hitting the tie rod ends. This unfortunately has the side effect of making the entire assembly longer. From what I can eyeball, looks like I will need a RCA to give the strut more room to clear the end links in addition to possibly trimming the top and bottom bushings.

 

So I'll be waiting till the cars on the ground to try putting it in, then try trimming the bushings, then go out and purchase the RCA.

[seattlejester]

So I've been finding out how expensive all the little things are. Every little piece I want to replace or can't find is really adding up. And apparently the clevis pins are pretty difficult to find, and it doesn't help that o'reiley never returned mine...

 

Onto pictures:

Shot of the rear almost assembled.

And had a little fun with the interior today. Figured I needed to mount my booster to start running my lines, and that would need the pedal box and one thing led to another .

Unfortunately a staged shot, missing the lock washer so I will have to go out and find one, the wheel was taken back off shortly after the shot was taken .

 

Back on the list of pondering things is the parking brake situation. The maxima calipers are so easy to run a parking brake it would seem a waste not to at least give it some consideration. Going to have the original setup sand blasted, and then take the line portion and see what I can come up with at the hardware store.

[OmakZ]

Dang, she's come a long way since I checked in last. Those rear brakes are money

 

If you haven't figured that rear swaybar out by the time I graduate, I'm coming over and helping you.

[Devil_S30]

Count me in for helping, that is if I can get there haha.

[seattlejester]

Actually wouldn't mind a little help sometime this weekend or next week, I'd like to get my diff in so I can see how wise/stupid I've been with my spacing for the fuel cell and sway bar, and I reaaaaaally think that it's a 2 person jobs to jack/balance/align the diff in, beer (for those of age) and food or we can tackle a little project of yours in return.

 

Well went into the garge today to find that the diff had rolled from it's perch (had it leaning against another diff) and had ended up with the vent pointing downward, spilling an unknown amount of oil. Which means I'll have to go out and buy another 13$ bottle of gear oil .

 

Started bending my brake lines. Before I started, I had one of those, now what are you getting into, moments, where I just stood in the garage for a bit, then like usual just bit the bullet. 2 more lines to bend for the front, and quite a few left to bend in the back.

 

Basic list of things left to do:

Finish routing brakes/bias controller/line lock

Install Diff/diff mount and axles

Install fuel box and cell

Route fuel lines/electric fuel pump/and fuel filter

Install Dash and start figuring out wiring

Install seats

Install exterior glass

Finish exterior panels

Finish and install rest of driveline

Install exterior panels

And trouble shoot.

 

Really not looking forward to installing the windshield and figuring out all the things that are problematic with a Z's wiring .

[seattlejester]

So for anyone that's curious, the clevis clips from grainger are too short >.<, the distance from the end of the threading to the hole is 32mm, factory looks more like 50mm. I only have one of the factory ones, which the brake system has to use (the brake pedal hole is much further than 32mm).

 

So in order to try and make use of the 30$ I spent on the clips (20+10$ shipping ) I'm going to try seeing how much of an effect it has on the clutch. Looks like it shortens the clutch pedal 10mm or so, but the clutch shouldn't require the full throw of the pedal right? I'm loosing the bottom 10mm.

 

Sigh, the little things that keep popping up.

[seattlejester]

A little bit of work to share:

79ZX 15/16th master cylinder mated to a rebuilt 240z booster, checked for the loose reaction disc.

Clutch master seemed to have been replaced recently so I'll leave that for now.

 

Front brakes routed, waiting till I'm 100% happy with the routing and making sure it won't interfere with anything before drilling the mounting holes. Not very happy with how the rear is starting to take shape, it looks a bit out of place but we'll see after everything is together.

 

And found out where to mount my line lock/rear proportioning valve. I'll have to cut out a bit of the center console and a bit of the choke plate.

 

Doors were painted over the weekend, but the paint started spider webbing, so I think I'll try sanding it then using a different paint. Paint is definitely not my favorite, nor my strong point, nor my friend.

Should have the diff and rear axles installed this weekend along with the front diff mount and rear brake lines.

Next six or seven things on the list should be pretty fast, then I just have to build the engine, and find some wheels .

[seattlejester]

Started dicking around with the differential and ran into a few problems .

 

Only one side of the mustache bar wanted to seat correctly, hopefully some more jostling will get it to seat, right now, the passenger side still needs ~1/2 an inch and it won't budge, even with the full weight of the car on it. I'm thinking we'll have to undo the other side, lower it, than try to raise it perfectly evenly.

 

The front diff mount is posing a problem. I bought a RT style diff mount from technoversions, but it seems like the mount itself is not going into the correct place, like the mount gets caught on the lip where the old straps used to go.

 

Any insight/tricks will be appreciated, I'm looking up every thread and article I can find.

 

Edit: found out that on an early 240z, you need to grind the tabs off to ensure the RT mount will fit, and grinding the ES transmission mount will allow one to reuse the stock lateral mount without any modification.

 

Also started finishing up the brakes, thought I finished, when I noticed the lines supplied in the Las Vegas Rear disc conversion aren't long enough, with suspension travel it looked like it would surely snap. And seeing as how I don't have a banjo fitting at the moment...will have to look into that as well.

Edited May 14, 2012 by seattlejester

[seattlejester]

Finally got the diff in. But for some reason the RT mount didn't want to hold the front. I ended up having to add a little tab in the front, or run the mount with only 2 bolts.

I'm sure it's due to the combination of a 200sx turbo diff or the mustache bar from a 2+2 or something that's messing with where the differential is suppose to sit.

 

Sigh, came up to my first real hurdle in putting the car back together, the brakes don't work. I started bleeding the system, started with the rears than worked my way forward with a vacuum bleeder. After I saw a good volume flowing from each corner of the car, stepped on the brakes, and absolutely nothing. Just straight to the floor, no matter if I go slow or fast. Bled it 3 more, and the master cylinder itself 2 times all around, still no firm pedal. Although it is showing a little movement on the front brake caliper that I can see from the drivers seat.

 

If anyone can help me with this I'd be greatly appreciated.

Problem: pedal goes to floor.

Parts: rebuilt toyota s12+8 calipers, solid 240z rotors, maxima rear calipers, 300zx rear rotors turned down to fit, 15/16th rebuilt brake master cylinder, rebuilt 240z booster, tilton resevoirs, new hard lines, 2 brass T's to split the lines, wilwood proportioning valve and jamar line lock enroute to the rear brakes.

Attempts: bled 3 times with bleeder, fluid flows to all 4 corners, master cylinder bled at the master bleed ports.

[seattlejester]

So went to autozone to pick up a master cylinder bleeding kit thinking that I had air in my cylinder somewhere, and talked with the nice folks.

 

After I tried to buy the kit, the guy said he didn't think it was the right thing for my symptoms. Instead he sent me to home depot to buy some tubing (2$ in tubing instead of 9$ for the kit)! We went over a bunch of possibilities, a customer suggested the submerged fluid method for bleeding alone, and right before leaving, one of the guys asked "are there were any check valves in my Tee's". When I replied "no" he suggested bleeding both sides simultaneously.

 

Went home, and low and behold when I cracked both and used the submerged method, the driver side would pump fluid, but the passenger side wouldn't pump fluid! After the driver side had finished, locked it and pumped again and the passenger filled right up. From what I can gather, when I was bleeding individually using the vacuum pump, I was actually sucking the fluid out of one set of lines and into the other, since the fluid from the other pipe was easier to pull, than trying to pull all the way from the master cylinder.

 

In summary, a vacuum bleeder works pretty well, if you have 4 lines going to the master. When they are split and not going through the stock splitting manifold, best to just use the old fashioned method!

 

I even got the chance to test my line lock, and it didn't really instill a lot of confidence. When the button is down the rears are solidly locked, but during one of my 3 tests, I heard a pop, and the button had popped back up while I was out of the car! I don't think I got a 100% good bleed, so hopefully it's combined with that and the rear proportioning vavlve not being set, but I think I may be looking into making the parking brake work .

 

Also finished both doors. My biggest biggest biggest advise is when you try to get the window on the regulator, do so at half height with the window pushed towards the front. Figuring that part out alone took a friend and I an hour or so, I did the second door myself in 20 minutes. One of the problems I think I will run into is that the door handle sits where front roll bar brace will be heading. Won't know 100% until the door is actually mounted, but found a possible solution from speedhunters:

 

After 2 days and 10 hours, back on track .

[seattlejester]

Since the booster isn't on (no engine) it really is unfair to dismiss the line lock, but at the same time, redundancy never really hurt.

 

Brakes are fully bled, so moved onto solving the parking brake dilemma.

 

So went down to the hardware store for the correct thickness lines hardware and springs.

Then looked at the brackets the lines mount to. The one that came with the caliper has the correct bolt and nub combo, while the factory one has the correct hole diameter and thickness.

So combine the best of both...

Voila.

 

Since the diff was in, I really didn't feel like removing it, possibly more than once after the line stretches, so I decided to invert the parking brake mounts.

First brought the lines into the car and drilled holes through the little divider.

Then mounted the modified parking linkage in the cabin, followed by the modified parking handle assembly.

Voila! Getting pretty good movement, the linkage isn't bothered by the passenger seat, fully adjustable and accessible from the top, what more could I ask for .

 

Friend also started helping me mount the brake line holding clips, just a few more to go, then I can figure out the rear sway bar/mounting routing fuel/and look into a rear tow hook possibility, how DO people get towed with a shaved rear bumper?

 

Really hope I will have the car mostly done by the end of the month, less than 2 weeks!

[OmakZ]

Holy cow! I'm still reading but it looks like you're doin' work.

[OmakZ]

Have you thought about running a hydro parking/rear brake? You could put the line locker in after it.

I would run a rear bumper if I were you. Too many dumb drivers and parkers in Seattle to be worth risking it...

[seattlejester]

Your car looks great, really digging the rims!

 

I considered that for a bit, and actually it's still on the table, a forum member is fabricating a piece I'm very interested in. But immediately, that would require an extra caliper, a different brake bracket, and a hydro e brake setup, all money. Reusing the stock mechanism just took a bit of welding, so very very cheap.

 

Currently repainting part of the engine bay, brake fluid ate right through 6 layers of paint and all the way down to the metal.

 

Parking brake lines are mounted, just have to finish making the passenger side end and adjust for slack.

 

Have to make my rounds of the lock smiths to see about having my locks re-keyed. Only thing holding me up on the doors.

 

Currently trying to add weight to the front to offset all the weight added to the rear.

[OmakZ]

Thanks man! I love them because they're kind of retro and but still very sleek and race-car-esque.

 

The hydro brake would be run in-line just before your line lock. Brake fluid sucks. I've definitely painted a brake booster very carefully only to find that they master cylinder leaked and the paint is all bubbled off. Hang in there!

[WEBEZEEed]

Think synthetic...... it's paint friendly.