240Z resurrection

tyroguru

Club Member
I've decided to mix it up a bit and do some metal replacement. Obviously I'll see how this goes but the areas that I'm thinking of tackling to start with include floor pans and rails, battery tray area and some of the firewall, outer sills on both sides. As usual I'll maybe change plans slightly as I go along.

I've had the car on a rotiserrie doing various bit and bobs so I need to get it onto a jig of some sorts to do this work and I'd seen a jig design on classiczcars.com which had a whole bunch of measurements provided together with some nice pics which is perfect for me as it removes the need for original thought :) . Here's a photo of the original jig design which I've followed (all credits to user ConVerTT on classiczcars.com):

jig.jpg

I made the design from 50mmx3mm box section and 3mm right angle apart from the front ARB support which I did in 20mmx3mm section (according to the given design). Now I'm sure this may be a bit over engineered and I've no idea if this is the best way to make a jig for the 240Z but this appealed to me a lot because it would give me plenty of welding practice which I desperately need! The jig I've eventually made is pretty much identical to the above photo apart from a very slight change to the section that bolts into the transmission tunnel mount.

Anyhoo, the project gave me a chance to buy a new tool which is always a good thing. On account of the amount of metal needed cutting I got myself a new band saw - a Femi SN105 from Stakesys - and this is definitely now one of my favourite tools: I love it.

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Well, the car is now on the jig and it feels totally rock solid and I'm really pleased with it. We'll have to see if all my welds hold up over time as some of them were decidedly poor but it was a great learning experience for me with my welding. Note to self: always re-check the basics and don't go looking for more complex explanations when things aren't going well with the welds as apparently wire speed settings get mystically altered sometimes!

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tyroguru

Club Member
wow. They look excellent. Looks like you've found the new 'go to' for panels.

Yes, the products do seem to be very good and I'll definitely be getting more panels from them. They claim that they are the only people who make their panels for the 240Z using castings but I have no idea at all if that is true. They said this because the battery tray floor part is half cast and half hammer/dolly as they haven't got the full casting done yet. They did offer for me to wait until the full cast is ready but I took it as it is and it looks pretty good.

Another note is that they were very easy to deal with. Their online purchasing was simple and their follow up was very quick. The parts were shipped from Bogota (which is where they are made) and arrived 8-10 days later via DHL
 

Rushingphil

Club Member
I've decided to mix it up a bit and do some metal replacement. Obviously I'll see how this goes but the areas that I'm thinking of tackling to start with include floor pans and rails, battery tray area and some of the firewall, outer sills on both sides. As usual I'll maybe change plans slightly as I go along.

I've had the car on a rotiserrie doing various bit and bobs so I need to get it onto a jig of some sorts to do this work and I'd seen a jig design on classiczcars.com which had a whole bunch of measurements provided together with some nice pics which is perfect for me as it removes the need for original thought :) . Here's a photo of the original jig design which I've followed (all credits to user ConVerTT on classiczcars.com):

View attachment 41643

I made the design from 50mmx3mm box section and 3mm right angle apart from the front ARB support which I did in 20mmx3mm section (according to the given design). Now I'm sure this may be a bit over engineered and I've no idea if this is the best way to make a jig for the 240Z but this appealed to me a lot because it would give me plenty of welding practice which I desperately need! The jig I've eventually made is pretty much identical to the above photo apart from a very slight change to the section that bolts into the transmission tunnel mount.

Anyhoo, the project gave me a chance to buy a new tool which is always a good thing. On account of the amount of metal needed cutting I got myself a new band saw - a Femi SN105 from Stakesys - and this is definitely now one of my favourite tools: I love it.

View attachment 41644


Well, the car is now on the jig and it feels totally rock solid and I'm really pleased with it. We'll have to see if all my welds hold up over time as some of them were decidedly poor but it was a great learning experience for me with my welding. Note to self: always re-check the basics and don't go looking for more complex explanations when things aren't going well with the welds as apparently wire speed settings get mystically altered sometimes!

View attachment 41645 View attachment 41646 View attachment 41647 View attachment 41648

Looking really good Jon :)
 

tyroguru

Club Member
Well I bit the bullet and started on the floor replacement this weekend. The floor isn't terrible but the rails are shot and there are a number of holes peeking through so I going to do them both.

My general plan of attack was to start at the front and remove the floor rails from the chassis rails. It's such a fantastic joy removing those spot welds :) . I think I managed to go through several of the Sealey spot weld removal cutters pretty quickly so I moved on to a spot weld removal drill bit (one of the cheaper Sealey ones) and it's been doing OK but I find it pretty easy to punch through all the metal with that so I'll have a good few plug welds to do. I've seen a few people on here who are positive about 3 flute carbide spot weld drill bits so I've ordered one and I'll se how that works out.

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Once I'd managed to separate the floor rail and chassis rail I then proceeded to cut the floor out with an angle grinder. The replacement floor I got from KFVintageJDM seem to be a really good fit (dimensions and contour wise) so I've gone with the approach of taking the existing floor out completely to the sill on the side, the toe board at the front and the rear section (not sure what that is technically called) and just cut along the transmission tunnel. I basically followed what Chris Thorne laid out at http://zhome.com/Classic/240ZFloorboards/ChrisFloorboards.htm and what I like about this approach is that I just basically cut the floor to within a cm or so of the side and then peel it out much like you would a tin of sardines. This approach worked a treat for me as I was expecting a nightmare with all the spot welds but this way I could just peel the metal back which just leaves a bit of smoothing down of the spot weld that is left. Marvellous!

This is with the floor removed to just behind the front seat support (metal not removed to sill and toe board yet though).

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Everything seems to be fine apart from the toe board where it is rusted out in the area where the chassis rail and frame rail meet.

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I cut the chassis rail back slightly to get a bit of a better view up the back of the toe board and the rust seems to have spread a couple of inches up the toe board.

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The rest of the toe board seems to be very solid apart from that localised spread of rust so I'm hoping to just make a patch for that. I'm not quite sure at the minute about the order to do that in though as to get good access to the toe board it looks like I'd need to remove at least part of the chassis rail and that general area to get good access but I don't think I want to do that without the floor in... I wonder if I could put the floor in and replace that small section of the toe board when the floor is in? Advice very welcomed!
 

moggy240

Insurance Valuations Officer
Staff member
Club Member
I mainly just use a 10mm belt sander on the spot welds as I find it quicker as you still have to clean up after using spot weld cutters. You will get through a lot of belts as well.
 

tyroguru

Club Member
I mainly just use a 10mm belt sander on the spot welds as I find it quicker as you still have to clean up after using spot weld cutters. You will get through a lot of belts as well.

I do use a 10mm belt sander for some spot weld removal Mike - it's actually on the floor in one of the images. I bought this at your recommendation so thanks for that! I find that I go through belts like crazy though and wonder if it's just a bad technique on my part? If I can get very easy access I tend to try and drill them out but it can be such a pain of a job so I tend to go between them at the minute.
 

moggy240

Insurance Valuations Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Good quality belts will help, but they don't last long. I got some cheap ones and as soon as I touch the welds with it they would snap. Usually I can do about 3 spot welds with one belt.
Removing the old panel and cleaning it up and then fitting and cutting the new panel is always very time consuming.
 

tyroguru

Club Member
After the usual gap of a few weeks I've managed to get back into the garage to do some floor related work. As reported previously, I need top replace part of the toe board as some of it is rotted and while I thought I may have been able to get away with just replacing some of the lip (the bit the floor sits on), removal of the chassis rail that fixes to the firewall showed that more than that was needed. I saw that KFVintageJDM does toe boards so I ordered one as I needed some other bits anyway (battery tray, dog legs x 2 and a dogleg inner repair panel).

My initial plan was to cut apart the new part to replace only what I needed to but I quickly made a big mistake which I will take as a learning exercise as I decided to remove virtually all of the toe board to replace it with the new one. I pretty quickly saw the this was a big mistake and I could hear ringing in my ears advice that I've read lots of times - "only replace what you really need to"...

The bits from KFVintageJDM really do look great but whether it's me or my car (or both) it didn't seem to be a great fit at the sill side. The photo below only partially shows the problem really as I'd worked the flanged a bit by this time but look how the line the firewall edge goes away from the straight line of the toe board which created quite a gap where the board met the firewall.

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This looked horrendous from underneath the car. I sulked for a few hours and berated myself for being stupid beyond belief for removing that much metal when there was no need! However, what's done was done so I came up with a cunning plan to add a triangular piece metal on to the side of the toe board which would mean cutting off the flange and forming a piece that was curved appropriately with a suitable flange - obviously this could will exceed my skill level!

As I've said many times I'm a sap for buying tools and a while ago I got a bead roller and a shrinker/stretcher so what a great opportunity for some roller+shrinker action! I stuck a tipping die on the roller for the flange and did some shrinking and came up with something that looked OK and fitted quite well - see the the images below. This was actually a practise piece but I figured it was good enough so I just went ahead and used it. There was no need for the small cut that was welded up but I just wanted to practise cutting/bending/welding in such a piece and if I had figured earlier that it would be good enough to use then I would have probably just shrank it a bit more!

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Seems to fit reasonably well although I wished I'd made it slightly wider at the top. I've now blasted the sill area, drilled the plug weld holes in the flange and have everything fitted up ready to weld and I'll hopefully try and squeeze that in this week somehow. Probably be next weekend then!
 

Turn & Burn

Club Member
After the usual gap of a few weeks I've managed to get back into the garage to do some floor related work. As reported previously, I need top replace part of the toe board as some of it is rotted and while I thought I may have been able to get away with just replacing some of the lip (the bit the floor sits on), removal of the chassis rail that fixes to the firewall showed that more than that was needed. I saw that KFVintageJDM does toe boards so I ordered one as I needed some other bits anyway (battery tray, dog legs x 2 and a dogleg inner repair panel).

My initial plan was to cut apart the new part to replace only what I needed to but I quickly made a big mistake which I will take as a learning exercise as I decided to remove virtually all of the toe board to replace it with the new one. I pretty quickly saw the this was a big mistake and I could hear ringing in my ears advice that I've read lots of times - "only replace what you really need to"...

The bits from KFVintageJDM really do look great but whether it's me or my car (or both) it didn't seem to be a great fit at the sill side. The photo below only partially shows the problem really as I'd worked the flanged a bit by this time but look how the line the firewall edge goes away from the straight line of the toe board which created quite a gap where the board met the firewall.

View attachment 42546

This looked horrendous from underneath the car. I sulked for a few hours and berated myself for being stupid beyond belief for removing that much metal when there was no need! However, what's done was done so I came up with a cunning plan to add a triangular piece metal on to the side of the toe board which would mean cutting off the flange and forming a piece that was curved appropriately with a suitable flange - obviously this could will exceed my skill level!

As I've said many times I'm a sap for buying tools and a while ago I got a bead roller and a shrinker/stretcher so what a great opportunity for some roller+shrinker action! I stuck a tipping die on the roller for the flange and did some shrinking and came up with something that looked OK and fitted quite well - see the the images below. This was actually a practise piece but I figured it was good enough so I just went ahead and used it. There was no need for the small cut that was welded up but I just wanted to practise cutting/bending/welding in such a piece and if I had figured earlier that it would be good enough to use then I would have probably just shrank it a bit more!

View attachment 42547 View attachment 42548 View attachment 42549
Seems to fit reasonably well although I wished I'd made it slightly wider at the top. I've now blasted the sill area, drilled the plug weld holes in the flange and have everything fitted up ready to weld and I'll hopefully try and squeeze that in this week somehow. Probably be next weekend then!
Some great work going on here, Stick at it!
 

tyroguru

Club Member
As expected, it's taken me longer than I thought to make progress with the floor replacement but I'm off work for 2 weeks with not too much to do so I'm OK to spend as much time as I can tolerate in the garage.

The toe board went in pretty much OK except for some dogs dinner welding against the sill side. I found it incredibly difficult to get in at that edge and I figured I'd rather go for unsightly but fixed in well than pretty but end up doing a Fred Flinstone at some point!

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I know that doesn't look too pretty but I think I've got pretty good penetration and it seems to be pretty solid. I could grind it down to get it looking prettier but I'd lost the will by then and nobody will see it anyway.

Onto the floor pan itself. The inner sill is in pretty good shape so I gave it a blast to clean it up and sprayed it with zinc primer.

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I'm not sure what you call the section that the rear of the floor fits onto but blasting revealed it was a bit pitted although I don't think bad enough to replace. The formed section that accommodates the strengthening hump in the floor needed a minor bit of hammer and dolly action to knock it back into shape but after that a a couple of coats of zinc primer I think it looks good enough to put a floor on.

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With the toe board as a lesson I figured I'd try and remove as little of the transmission tunnel as possible and therefore cut the new floor accordingly. It took me ages to get it to fit OK with so much going in and out of the car to file more here and there. What would I do without Cleco's though! The people who invented them should surely have two the Nobel prize! Amazing things. As you can see form the pics I only had 10 to start with but I've since get a load more as I can see they'll be invaluable.

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Welding that in has gone OK'ish (I think...). To be honest the plug welds are a complete mare for me probably owing to lack of ability but also to do with access. The ones at the front and rear aren't too bad although they still haven't come out great but the ones on the inner sill are awful for me as to access I am looking back at the weld fr0m the outside of the car with my head looking downwards (I hope that makes sense). This means that my glasses fall downwards (sometimes gravity is a real menace) and I can't see much. Actually my eyesight is a proving to be a real problem with a welding helmet when combined with varying light conditions. The curse of age!

Anyway, warts and all, here is how things stand at the end of today:

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I haven't finished the plug welds on the inner sill yet. My cunning plan is that now I've got this floor basically in I can cut a section out of the other floor (which I'm replacing anyway) and get "better" access from there. Hopefully tomorrow.
 

richiep

Club Member
I find plug welding can be very hit or miss. It can be affected so much by access, work angle, how good the contact is between the two metal pieces, whether you are welding new to old material etc. I’ve got some right pigs here and there to sort out on Dixie’s floors on the sill side tbh. I’m also planning to reinforce the attachment of the floors to the inner sills with stitch welds when I flip the car over on the rotisserie (hopefully in the next week or so).
 

tyroguru

Club Member
I find plug welding can be very hit or miss. It can be affected so much by access, work angle, how good the contact is between the two metal pieces, whether you are welding new to old material etc. I’ve got some right pigs here and there to sort out on Dixie’s floors on the sill side tbh. I’m also planning to reinforce the attachment of the floors to the inner sills with stitch welds when I flip the car over on the rotisserie (hopefully in the next week or so).

Good to hear it's not just me! Practice on a bench with clean, well clamped metal in a nice welding position is a whole different ball game than the live scenario for the reasons you state Richie. Interesting that you say about the Rotisserie because I was thinking about not doing all the plug welds until I get it back on a Rotisserie where it will be *so* much easier to get access. I'm worried that I may cause issues in the meantime if the floor isn't totally fixed in. Input very welcome!

I think the stitch welding idea sounds great.
 

richiep

Club Member
One thing you can do is reattach the seat mounts; those will add strength to the floor and between the inner sills and tunnel. I also fitted the gearbox crossmember, another item to keep things where they should be.
 

moggy240

Insurance Valuations Officer
Staff member
Club Member
One thing you can do is reattach the seat mounts; those will add strength to the floor and between the inner sills and tunnel. I also fitted the gearbox crossmember, another item to keep things where they should be.
That's is some good advice.Good idea with the gearbox mount.
 

richiep

Club Member
That's is some good advice.Good idea with the gearbox mount.

A key risk when removing rotted floors and replacing them is that when one is out, the sheet metal of the tunnel contracts, pulling away from where it was. If you fit your new floors with the tunnel side in this position, without any tension on it, when you come to fit the crossmember further down the line, you could find that it won’t fit, causing proper problems...
 
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