240z.drago.com.au - Adventures of rebuilding a 1973 Datsun 240Z

Today, I took the Z down to Darren’s Muffler & Exhaust Centre to get the exhaust system installed. Dad had visited Darren the day before and got a converter made up so we could put in the old exhaust system just to get her down there without drawing too much attention to us.

But, before I took her down, I wanted to get the old seat belts back in; I just didn’t feel comfortable driving her with no seat belts. This only took a few minutes and I wanted to crank her over. And lucky I tried early. The battery was dead flat. Now, we were very puzzled at this as we had charged the battery before starting her the other day. I pulled the batter out of my daily driver and put it into the Z. I turned the key again and this time she cranked. And cranked. And cranked. And nothing. Not even a sputter. I played with the choke, then I put the accelerator to the floor and finally something. And was it rough. A few days ago, the engine hadn’t been started for over three years, and it started a lot easier than it did today. We finally got her idling okay, once she got a little warm.

I drove her out of the garage and followed Dad to the shop. She drove well all of the way and didn’t give me any troubles. We pulled into the shop and put her onto the hoist. Darren took one look at her and said “We’ll make it 2¼” all the way, put a small hotdog and a sports muffler. Then we’ll finish her off with a simple chrome tip”. Exactly what I was going to ask him to do.

A couple of hours later, I went to pick up the car. I started her up and a smile from ear to ear crept onto my face. Darren built the exhaust to produce the exact note that I wanted to hear. She sounded great. I gave the accelerator a tap and, man, beautiful. This time, I let Dad follow me, and not on the back roads. I wanted to take her onto the freeway to stretch her legs a little. I swept round the round-about nice and slow in second gear and once around, I planted the pedal. I think she had been waiting a long time for that, as she took her cue and tore out of the curve and got up to speed in no time. And the note! Nice and mild up to about 3,500 to 4,000 RPM and then she resonated beautifully. Music to my ears.

Once back, we started to look into a couple of the electrical problems. The first was why the battery was dead flat and the second was why the alternator was not charging the battery. We found that the battery had a 0.5 amp drain on it when the car was off. We found the circuit causing the problem, but not the problem itself. With the fuse pulled, the battery would not drain until we can fix the actual problem. The reason that the battery wasn’t being charged was a simple one. A fuseable link had come undone. Plugged it back in and hey presto, the battery is charging again.

This will be the last work on the girl for a while. Mum and Dad are moving house soon and everything has been packed. But it is great that she’s back on the road, even if the interior is not complete yet.

It’s been a long time between posts, and a lot of work has been done to the girl to get her ready for today. What is so special about today I hear you ask? Today was the day that after nearly 3 and a bit years, the tank was filled with petrol. the battery connected, and the key was turned.

After much cranking, petrol started to fill the petrol filter and finally made its way to the carbies. It was not long after this that she started to splutter into life again. Which was the point that I noticed that the petrol pump was leaking. We stopped the car, tightened the loose screws on the petrol pump and turned the key again. Half a flick and she came to life again. A couple of taps on the accelerator pedal and she was humming as if she had not been idle at all.

After a few more final touches were made to the car (plates and rego sticker), we put in the drivers seat and DROVE her out of the garage. A quick test of the brakes and everything was good to go. At first, just a gentle stroll down the road and back. Felt good. Next time out, a little more go, but still, only up and down the street. With the thumbs up from Dad, I took her around the block. She climbed up the hills with ease and glided back down them. But I think that I need to do a little more adjusting to the brakes (the auto-adjusters haven’t taken up all the slack yet).

The car is booked in to get the proper exhaust system installed on Friday morning. So she is nearly ready for a decent run again. It might take a little bit of time to get used to driving a 30 plus year old car. I haven’t driven one in about 3 years, 2 months and 13 days.

Once the heat abated a bit, Dad did some more work on the car. He mounted the front indicators and the headlights. The driver side nose cone needed a little adjusting so that he could get a screw driver to reach the adjuster screws, but apart from that, everything fell into place nicely.

He also painted the area behind the grill. I decided that I wanted to paint it black so as to hide everything behind the grill.

Dad said that she’s starting to really look like a car again. It’s getting closer and closer.

Tomorrow, we will try to get the radiator in and the springs for the bonnet hinges. Might try to also get the front bumper on, but need to work out what I am going to do with the rubbers for it first.

Dad did some more work on the lights today. He went and bought bulbs t replace all of the old ones along with the orange bulbs for the front indicators. He also bought the bulb holders to replace the ones for the front indicators.

Once home, he wired the new holders and plugs and replaced all of the bulbs. He hit a bit of a snag with the orange bulbs as the pins we not 180° offset. He was able to get the bulb in, but had a hell of a time getting it back out. Once he got the globe out, we decided to file off one of the pins, and rebuild it with solder. It worked a treat. He mentioned to me that the orange bulb is set quite deep in the lens and you cannot see the orange until it is lit up. Cannot wait to see it in action.

Today Dad and I focused on getting the lights ready to install back onto the car. Dad had already started on the headlight carrier and had painted it in kill rust before I got there. All of the lights needed a good clean and polish.

The plastic lenses on the taillights didn’t look the greatest. They had a lot of scratches and looked fairly dull. We used a little wet rubbing compound on them and the shine came back quite easily. A little glass cleaner and they look great. The chrome trim polished up really well and only the middle of the trim needs to be touched up with a little black/dark gray paint. We put the new rubber seals onto the taillights and applied some windshield sealant to make sure that the taillights do not allow any fumes to leak into the car. The lights installed easily and look great on the car. She’s really coming together well.

The front headlights cleaned up really nice and the stainless steel surround came up fantastic. I painted the lens adjuster with the Silver POR-15 paint and it looks fantastic. Much better than the rusty colour that it was 😉

One thing that I had wanted to improve on the car was the front parker/turn signal combo light. I was never happy that it was a shared bulb and that the turn signal was not orange. My Z does not have turn signals on the side of the car, so I wanted to try to improve the safety by making the turn signal orange. but to do this, I would have to move to using the 260Z parkers/turn signals. I did not want to sacrifice the aesthetics of the original 240Z with having the orange lens for the turn signal. So, I removed the orange lens and I intend to get orange bulbs. This would improve the safety, but also maintain the aesthetics.

The only thing left to do was to install the headlights and make up bulb holders and looms for the front parker/turn signal lights and then install them. Not to mention replacing all of the bulbs!