tyroguru
Club Member
I've had my 240Z since April so I thought I'd start a "rebuild" thread to give people a laugh at the ups-and-downs of a rookie restorer! As I said in my initial intro (https://zclub.net/community/index.php?threads/konnichiwa-from-a-new-240z-owner.25555/) this is our first foray into the world of car restoration so we're learning as we go - all input and corrections are more then welcome .
The term "resurrection" in the subject is slightly overkill as the car isn't completely dead but it's certainly far from life! I believe Chris (Vega) was going to put some life into this before he sold it but I saw it early on in this process and it was exactly what we wanted so we had it as-is. When imported it was an automatic and the box had just been swapped for a 4 speed manual (literally just I think!) - it still had the automatic brake pedal shovel and no clutch pedal, no master/slave cylinder fitted (Chris provided those though which was great along with other bits including a starter motor and an ignition barrel + keys as it had no keys).
A photo I used in my intro post which shows the engine gives a hint of the fun ahead for us:
Apart from the dog legs the body seems to be in very good shape. There is some minor blistering in a few places so I guess we'll see what reveals itself over time. This was a California import and the last license tag on the plate was from 2005 so it's been laid up for roughly 15 years.
The first thing we did was to strip the carpets and seats out as this had obviously been a fabulous residence for Mickey Mouse, Secret Squirrel and whichever rodent needed a home! There was masses of rodent faesces to clear out of everywhere; the glove box was obviously a choice latrine as it was deep in dung: the dirty pigs!
Regarding the engine, as you can see from the photo, quite a lot of things are absent and things I didn't want are present. This is a '73 HLS30 so it had the smog installation and AC (which have been duly removed). It was/is also missing a bunch of things which include the radiator, half an air box, brake reservoir caps, some accelerator linkage (main torsion bar), oil filler cap, rocker cover bolts, engine mount bolts, quite a few transmission bolts, starter motor bolts, exhaust manifold studs - in fact lots and lots of bolts! I suspect what has happened is that this engine has never ran in this car and the old one has just been taken out and this just placed in the engine bay. That's all good though as it's forcing us to understand a lot about the car as we go along.
Over the last couple of months we've done a bunch of jobs which I won't go through but they're all working toward "Mission Ignition" - getting this baby started!! We're not there yet but last night we did manage to turn the engine over on the starter motor for the first time! Yay! This has taken way more effort than you might think as we have a bunch of electrical issues to work through because those rodents just love cables to sharpen their teeth on!
The petrol tank is currently off and this weekend I'm trying to clean that out and re-line it myself: I'm part way through cleaning it out but I'll document how that ends up.
The term "resurrection" in the subject is slightly overkill as the car isn't completely dead but it's certainly far from life! I believe Chris (Vega) was going to put some life into this before he sold it but I saw it early on in this process and it was exactly what we wanted so we had it as-is. When imported it was an automatic and the box had just been swapped for a 4 speed manual (literally just I think!) - it still had the automatic brake pedal shovel and no clutch pedal, no master/slave cylinder fitted (Chris provided those though which was great along with other bits including a starter motor and an ignition barrel + keys as it had no keys).
A photo I used in my intro post which shows the engine gives a hint of the fun ahead for us:
Apart from the dog legs the body seems to be in very good shape. There is some minor blistering in a few places so I guess we'll see what reveals itself over time. This was a California import and the last license tag on the plate was from 2005 so it's been laid up for roughly 15 years.
The first thing we did was to strip the carpets and seats out as this had obviously been a fabulous residence for Mickey Mouse, Secret Squirrel and whichever rodent needed a home! There was masses of rodent faesces to clear out of everywhere; the glove box was obviously a choice latrine as it was deep in dung: the dirty pigs!
Regarding the engine, as you can see from the photo, quite a lot of things are absent and things I didn't want are present. This is a '73 HLS30 so it had the smog installation and AC (which have been duly removed). It was/is also missing a bunch of things which include the radiator, half an air box, brake reservoir caps, some accelerator linkage (main torsion bar), oil filler cap, rocker cover bolts, engine mount bolts, quite a few transmission bolts, starter motor bolts, exhaust manifold studs - in fact lots and lots of bolts! I suspect what has happened is that this engine has never ran in this car and the old one has just been taken out and this just placed in the engine bay. That's all good though as it's forcing us to understand a lot about the car as we go along.
Over the last couple of months we've done a bunch of jobs which I won't go through but they're all working toward "Mission Ignition" - getting this baby started!! We're not there yet but last night we did manage to turn the engine over on the starter motor for the first time! Yay! This has taken way more effort than you might think as we have a bunch of electrical issues to work through because those rodents just love cables to sharpen their teeth on!
The petrol tank is currently off and this weekend I'm trying to clean that out and re-line it myself: I'm part way through cleaning it out but I'll document how that ends up.