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

Whoa! Did you check out the date on the previous post! I’ve not updated the site for a looong time. Most of the reason for this is me being lazy and the other is that we have a new addition to the family, and I don’t mean another car. Our first Son, Sebastian, arrived in August and he is a lot of fun and a big distraction.

But, this does not mean that work on the car has come to a grinding halt. Work has continued on and the car is now painted and being put back together. As well as the car being painted, I have finished work on the heater core and the blower unit. I have also had the seats reupholstered and they have come up fantastic.

The dash has been put back together again, only required new globes for all the instruments as after thirty years, the original globes have darkened quite a bit. The electrical loom has had a lot of work done to it as well. We removed all of the patch work that previous owners have done. We found that most things that were done (i.e. hazard light switch and A/C circuit) could have been done in the original loom. So, we removed all of the tack ons and wired the new things in to the appropriate places in the loom. We also add relays to the head light circuit so as to remove the high current from the stalk switch. The only part of the loom that is to be done now is the A/C and radio.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally received some goodies from the US. I ordered a vinyl kit and rubber seal kit from Black Dragon Auto. Apart from some delivery issues with UPS SCS, everything arrived in great condition. But remember one thing, when ordering a vinyl kit from the states, they are Left Hand Drive. This means that the hole for the hand break is on the wrong side of the tunnel vinyl. I will have to get my upholsterer to cut a new hole one the right side (literally) and mack a patch for the hole on the left side. Oh well, it will still be better than the originals.

Last week and this week we have been focusing on getting the doors back together. So far we have got the lock mechanisms in, windows and frame and driver side mirror on. We have taken the rear quarter windows apart and cleaned them up ready for new rubbers. They need a little repair work, so they have stalled a little.

The plan from here is to get the heater and vents back together, some of the vinyls and then the dash back in. It’s all starting to com together nicely. Hopefully, she’ll be back on the road soon.

Once again, I have been very slack in updating the blog. Since my last post, a lot of work has been done on the body of the car and it is just one gentle sand with 600 grit paper away from being undercoated and ready for final painting. The car looks absolutely fantastic and will be everything that we want it to be once the final paint is applied. We now have to find someone that will be able to spray it for us. I think that Dad wants to spray it, but I don’t think spraying the car in 2-pak in the garage is a good health choice 😉

I’ve also done a little work on some interior bits’n’pieces. I took the seats down to an upholsterer in Dromana and he said (and they looked it too) that they need to be completely rebuilt. On both seats, the back and the base had tears and there were different types of vinyl all over the place (indicating that the seats had been worked on before).

He took the seats completely apart for me and allowed me to clean up the runners and get the back, springs and hinges powder coated. I took the hinges completely apart, except for the piece with the heavy duty spring. I had everything powdercoated in satin black. I should have been a little careful with getting everything powdercoated though. Well, I couldn’t put things back together due to the thickness of the coating. I had to sand/file off the coating on the parts that needed to be seated into each other. After a bit of work, I was able to get the mechanisms all back together and they are ready to be taken back to the upholsterer. The next issue will be sourcing the vinyls, as I am trying to keep the car as close to original as my bank balance will allow.

I have also done some work on the heater box. I have taken it all apart and given it a good sand down and treated the bare metal with Metal Ready. I then painted the box, inside and out, with POR-15. That should hopefully keep the rust at bay from any leaking coolant.

Today we continued to work on the body. Dad focused on finishing off the repairs to the rear passenger side wheel arch while I started to rub back the high fill on the roof. Dad finished off the wheel arch and we were both very happy with the result. The curve looks like we want it to now.

The roof came up looking really good too. A few high spots come out, but nothing too drastic. We rubbed back the rest of the rear of the car and masked it up ready for being high filled. After lunch, Dad mixed up a brew of high fill and gave the rear of the car a nice thick coat. He also touched up the few high spots on the roof.

Given that we got where we wanted to pretty quickly, I rubbed the front guards back a bit, getting rid of a little over spray from when we sprayed the engine bay. Next weekend, the doors come of and the rest of the car will be high filled and that will just leave the doors, bonnet and tail gate to go.

Today I went back to The Dashboard Doctor and picked up my dash and center console. I must say that they have done a fantastic job and highly recommend anyone needing this type of work to go to them.

They re-skinned my dash and took two center consoles that I had (which were both broken in half) and made a whole one. The console pieces were also missing sections that they had to fabricate. They also reinforced the weaker sections of the console.

Now I just need a safe place to keep them until the car is ready for them to go back in.

Dad used a nifty site called Parts Locator to source the Carrier for the Air conditioner pump (hope that’s what it is called). Within a few hours, Simon from Japwreck recycling emailed Dad to let him know that they had one, with the idler arm pulley as well.

I had a half-day at work today, and on the way home I dropped in and picked it up. The pulley bearing was a bit rough, so, with a bit of haggling, Simon through in another pulley, but from a different setup. I haven’t got the tools to take things apart at my place, so I’ll have to wait until the weekend to see if the spare pulley will be able to be used to replace the old one.