Coilover kit, shocks, guard, dash and paint

So just another pointless update to keep in the diary.

I’ve returned from Tassie, this time, I’ve taken off 7 days to get the car ready for paint which is booked in for this coming weekend at DT Panels. After much umm-ing and ahh-ing, I’ve realised the deal Vu has given me is too good to turn down and I can’t risk my health by spraying 2 pack paint in my dusty garage.

So since my return, I have taken delivery of my Ground Control Coilover Kit and the Koni shocks which I also purchased from them!

10″ springs with 225lb/in springs in the front and 250lb/in springs in the rear.

And four Koni 8610-1437RACE shocks all round.

So my plane landed in Melbourne last Thursday arvo and I straight away headed to Ballarat to pick up a replacement guard.

My current/previous driver side guard had been hit previously and bog repaired. I tried hammering and dollying the thing straight again but it would’ve required too much filler for my liking so I had to pick this up.

This replacement was straight, had a heap more rust than my previous guard and an indicator hole, but that didn’t concern me.

An entire day was spent stripping the paint off and welding up the 3 or so rust holes and an indicator hole.

It was then quickly sprayed in epoxy primer before I applied filler in the repair areas to get the guard straight. I’m currently still working on it.

While I was doing all of this, my mate Trung came around to help respray/repair my dash.

Front on, it looks very fresh with the new coat of paint, the top wasn’t as pretty as we had hoped with the crack repairs. I will have to find another method of repair or worse case, just get a dash mat.

Also have in my possession, a spare pair of front and rear 240z struts! All so I can weld up the coilovers on the side and have a spare set for RWC/defects and whatnot.

Other than that, I’m stillllllll prepping the car for paint.

Block sanded it a few times, was gonna leave her how she was before and ‘she’ll be right’, but since I have until this weekend (5 days), I thought I’d fix all of the imperfections I can get my hands on until then.

I’m so sick and tired of sanding things down. I just want it done!

And you’re pretty much up to date with the progress of this car. She’s booked in for paint at DT Panels this weekend, she’s going to be painted Datsun 637, eggshell/ivory white.

She’s nearly there.. The next time you see a post from me, hopefully it’ll be with photos from the booth!

RS Watanabe R-Type

After much research and thought about wheels for the Z, I settled on the Watanabes.

I was tossing up between the 15×10 and 15×9.5 combo or the 15×9.5 and 15×9.0. The 10/9.5 setup would have suited a more ‘hardparked’ look, stretched tyre, slammed. The 9.5/9.0 allowed more tyre to fit under ZG flares and since I wanted more tyre, that setup was chosen.

15×9.5 -19 and 15×9.0 -13.

The next dilemma was whether to go through Streeter from Japan for the wheels or purchase them locally. ~$1700, 4 months for the wheels to be produced plus the wait for shipping which could have totaled over 7 months! OR.. Purchase them from a Watanabe distributor, Otomoto, for $2250 delivered and receive them the following working day!

If you’re reading this, I have obviously bought the wheels and received them so you can guess which route I took. If I waited 4 months for the wheels to arrive at Streeter’s, I would’ve paid for EMS which would have pushed my total over what I paid so that is why I took this path.

So I got this little surprise while working on my car this morning.

I couldn’t wait to open them up.

I was surprised at how much dish they had! I miss having small wheels from the KE days..

I’ve lost count of how many wheels I’ve owned over the years, but this is the first set of brand spanking new wheels I have ever bought. Think it’s also the most expensive lol

And now some gay shots I just had to take!

Front wheels.

Now the rears,

And that’s it for now.

I fly back out tomorrow, but when I get back, the Z will get another lick of primer before it should be ready for PAINT!

Prep, prep, prep

Again, I’m back in Tassie and bored so thought I’d make another update.

I did a little more prepping over the 4 days I was home. Not as much as I’d like with other higher priority events, but something’s better than nothing.

Sorry for the above angle/shot! I know it looks like I’m using the same image but there’s actually progress in these photos

The above shots were actually before I did the final prep work on the car, but the car’s basically now ready for high fill primer to be laid once I get back home.

Having lost a little motivation, I thought I’d slap on the tail lights for a kick in motivation and luckily I did, I spotted a gap besides the tail light! I have no idea how it came about but it was like this when I purchased the car.

Tail lights in!

Left side looks pretty normal..

Right side, umm..?

If you look closely at the above image (taken on the day of inspection/pickup), there’s that gap!

No stress, nothing a little filler can’t fix.

So that’s pretty much what I did during my weekend home. Managed to fix little imperfections I spotted after the second coat of epoxy went on. I have since sprayed another layer of epoxy over the above fill areas to seal them up. I haven’t had a chance to look for any other imperfections I’ve missed.

If all is well, the next weekend I’m home, I should be able to apply the first coat of high fill primer and have it blocked down and ready for the colour coat! Exciting times ahead..

Following on from the previous post about modifications, I have ordered the Ground Control coilover kit with 225 and 250lb/in springs and the Koni shocks, I have found a supplier for the spare rear pair of struts for me to cut and weld up also which is good..

I went to order the Watanabes but it turns out there will be a 4 month wait for the wheels to become available and another 3+ months for them to be delivered. That’s 7 months minimum for the wheels, a little too long for me so I will be looking for 2nd hand wheels in the mean time.

Slow Going – A lot of text

I’ve mentioned it many times before, I’m based in Tasmania for work (10 days on, 4 days off cycle) and working on the Z has become really difficult. So progress has been really slow.

Since the last update though, I have since filled up areas which had imperfections such as dents, rust repair sections and deep scratches.

As you can see in the above picture, most of my time was spent on the right rear quarter where it has had a hit in the past. Little dents everywhere in that area.

I have since resprayed the epoxy primer to cover the body fill areas and have it in one colour again (sorry, no photos). I still need to work on that rear right quarter, I haven’t ‘covered’ all the dents yet.

In other news, while I’ve been here in Tassie, I’ve had time to research suspension and wheels that I’m after for the Z.

Wheels, after hours and hours of research on sizes, tyre availability, fitment etc, I have decided to go with 15×9 -13 and 15×9.5 -19 Watanabe R-Type wheels which will be wrapped in 205/50 and 225/50 R-Compound tyres of some sort. Either A050, A048 or R888. R888 only because they’re cheap.

It should look something like below,

Now to achieve that look, I’m obviously going to have to lower the Z which leads me to suspension research.

With track days planned for this car (not only a show pony), I have decided to go with a cut and shut weld in coilover sleeve setup. This will allow a wider choice of spring rates, shock options, etc.

I have decided to settle on the Ground Control setup (not yet purchased btw), which comes with Eibach springs.

Springs rates I have decided to go with are 225lb/in front and 250lb/in rear (approx 4 and 4.5kg/mm). Why the heavier rear? Well 240zs don’t come with rear sway bars from factory.

Now onto shock absorbers to control those springs, again, after hours of research, I have decided to go with Koni shocks (Koni 8610-1437). They’re more suited to track racing and can handle heavier springs than the popular Tokico Illuminas. Konis are a little more expensive than the Tokicos but I only want to do this once!

I have already purchased a spare pair of front struts to cut up and weld the coilover sleeves onto. If all goes well, it should look something like below (front and rear).

And when I get the wheels and suspension together, my car painted, it will hopefully look something like the below

That is all for now.

Epoxy Primed

So after running into issues after issues yesterday, the car was finally covered in epoxy primer. Only bare metal areas of the car were sprayed to prevent them from further rust. The last panel was completed at 10pm last night!

Anyway here’s the spray gun I used with the dodgy looking pressure regulator. An issue I had was finding the right fittings to connect the gun to my compressor..

After pouring paint all over the floor while trying to mix it and spraying paint everywhere trying to tune the pressure, fluid flow etc, I did my first panel! The bonnet.

It originally turned out shocking with runs. Either the gun settings or my technique was off or both, but I adjusted and things seemed to have worked out well.

Next up were the guards.

And then the rest of the car, working backwards.

Here’s a shot from this morning with my hatch (just placed there if you didn’t notice).

I’m quite happy with how the primer went on. The rear section has some thin cover because I ran out of paint in the gun but overall, quite happy. I’m surprised how well I can spot the imperfections now too!

Above is where there was HEAPS of bog.

Today’s plan is to use a bit of filler and fix up the obvious trouble areas.

Special thanks goes out to my girlfriend for her labour leading up to this point And of course my dad but he won’t ever read this lol

The big day.. and hole.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been working interstate so progress has been slow. Since the last update, I came back from America with a suit case load of what included the weather seal kit, rotors, handbrake and gear boot, badges, universal joints, and I’ve forgotten what else lol If all goes to plan though, it should be everything I need to get the car back on the road.

After being away from the car for so long, it has finally given me motivation to get off my ass and purchase the gear required to paint my car. Purchased the gun and epoxy primer.

Got started on preparing the car for the primer, took off the passenger side door, antenna, you know, all the interesting stuff. And then I decided to get rid of the remaining paint and ran into this.

Oh, bog.. let’s sand it down some more..

LOL oh ooops!

The area was full of bog and well, it was hiding a rusty hole. It looked perfectly fine before I started stripping the paint off the area unlike the other side which had bubbles (rust has already been repaired). Anyway..

I was thinking earlier that it’s been a while since I had used my welder and wasn’t too shattered to have found that hole. I gave my fabricating skills a test and managed to turn the above into this,

And then of course this where the last hole was patched up.

The plan was to prepare the car for primer tomorrow but I ran into that hole which unfortunately set me back. So the plan now is to get as much prepping done tomorrow morning (shouldn’t be much, sanding down surface rust) and then covering the garage, interior etc up and priming! It should be interesting.

Okay sorry for all the text, I will hopefully update again tomorrow with a primed car *fingers crossed*.

Dash – Out

So progress on the Z has been a little slow with work interstate but with my only free day before I fly out once again (this time to the States!), I managed to pull my dash out. Wouldn’t have had enough time to do any body work.

It was quite surprising how heavy the dash is. There’s a part of which wants to strip the entire car and only install the BARE essentials and then there’s a part of me which is telling me to be sensible because I do need to register this car after all.

Which means the above heater box will need to stay

The heater core seems to be in fairly good condition, hopefully it doesn’t start leaking after a few months!

And here’s a picture of the dash out, looks better in photos unfortunately.

It’s out for crack repairs and paint.

On another note, I picked up a G nose for my car. I really don’t know whether to keep it non G or G..

Here’s a shot of it on my car, I just placed it on the car without removing anything first lol

I will be off to America tomorrow morning to holiday and buy some Z parts! I’ve had a look around the car and have an idea of what she needs so it’ll be interesting to see what I can pickup while I’m over there.

It’ll be back to business with body work, prepping it for paint, etc when I get back though.

Stripped – Almost Time for Paint!

My Z has finally been stripped of its ugly green!

The paint’s been stripped pretty much everywhere besides the little areas on the hatch and the two doors (door in above photo won’t be used). There aren’t any plans to remove the paint in the doors either because of bog issues.

For anyone who’s used paint stripper before on their car and hit a patch of bog will know why. I hit a patch of bog in the driver side rear quarter but managed to scrape most of it away.

The passenger side of the car looks a little better!

The rear end was a bit of pain to work with, full of bog also. Can barely even tell where I did the rust repairs if it wasn’t for grind marks

Bonnet also cleared up!

Roof..

And while I was working around the front windscreen, I got it removed.

Quite happy to have no visible rust areas forming around the windscreen.

And here’s a before and after shot of my passenger side guard.

So I’m at the stage where I need to think about paint and colour. Whether to paint it myself or get a pro to do it, and what colour to settle on (currently thinking white). Before any paint is laid on the shell though, I will need to go over the body and see which area needs filler (hatch for one) and lay the high fill primer.

Huge thanks goes out to my girlfriend!

In the mean time, finish up work in Tassie and go to the States to buy some parts for the Z!

Hatching – Part 2

I had finished the hatch repairs a while ago but never got around to seeing how well it fit, until now.

I was quite impressed with how it turned out to be completely honest. It was a big job which I had tackled with little fabrication experience.

Sure it’s not perfect but it shouldn’t require much work to get it sitting right now.

And here’s a close up of the corner of the hatch and body. Please note that the hatch was originally overhanging a few millimeters but I have made the issue worse grinding away paint, filler, etc while repairing the rust on the body.

Above and below looks worse than it actually is.

So there you have it, I will be stripping the paint off the car before I use filler to fix the above issues. On another note, here’s a picture of my replacement seats. Factory seats which have been retrimmed.

I have also got a complete suspension bushings kit ready to go in along with tie rod ends, ball joints, heater hoses, brake master cylinder and a few different little pieces to help getting rego easier.

Stick around and I will show you my Z stripped of its paint. I have almost completed the car, only have half of the rear quarter to go then it’s paint time!

Rust Repairs Complete… For The Moment

So the car is basically finished in terms of rust repair for the moment. What remains is surface rust which will be taken care of when I sand the car down for paint.

After the rear end rust repair, I got around to doing the little patch on the roof, dog legs and doors.

First off, roof section. I struggled to remove the gutter chrome strip so I only pulled it back as much as I could and started the repair.

I’m really curious to know how it rusts in that area.. Anyway, doglegs.. Both sides had holes in the wheel well area, but only one side had a hole in the exterior.

Welded the two holes up good, no after shots for the moment.

And all patched up So that was the last of the major rust and holes on the shell. The only areas which remain are on the doors. Dreaded this repair but it’s finally done. Here are some pictures of the drive side door.

Nasty stuff.

I ended up cutting most of that crap out and replacing it with new steel. It was a really rough job but I have no plans to keep this door for long. I can’t find a replacement but as soon as one pops up, this door will be gone.

Lets just say a lot of bog will be going onto this door Passenger side was 95% rust free, all it requires is a new coat of paint and it’s done.

So, here are some photos of how the car stands! I tried paint stripper on a few panels (the ugly ones) and it proved more difficult than first thought. I don’t know whether I will continue this process or just give the car a sand before paint. The stripper has really caused more issues now.

Anyway..

Here’s the passenger door.

And driver’s door, half stripped paint.

So that’s it for now. I’ve purchased a few new goodies for the car which I will make a new post for at a later date.

The next time I work on the car, I will hopefully begin the preparation stage to spraying. Colour is the big question now.