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I've been to Vegas before to visit my estranged grandfather, while I lived in SoCal. Poking around Nellis trying to see interesting aircraft was probably the highlight of the trip. I never knew about the race track, sounds interesting.

I love the air-shows Nellis puts on. Ive a buddy who was in the chair force (Hes now a civilian contractor on-base doing the exact same job for more money) and gets us into them for free. It made my day when they brought out the f22- It was the pilots last day to fly in an f22, needless to say he put on one -hell- of a show.

Did they have CFR drive over and douse him with a fire hose as he exited the cockpit? That's what we did to our outbound pilots, lol.

A lot has been happening with the car recently, but mostly boring stuff. Frankly, this is probably the worst time I've ever had working on the Z. So much prep work, rust killing, and finding I need additional parts to "do it right". It's maddening. Add to the fact that my income has been cut short until later this summer, so my budget is wearing thin (as well as my patience). Luckily, I have "most" of what I need to get things done to a point. weather has been a limiting factor to what I can paint and reinstall.

Adjustable coilovers have been pushed back to the beginning of next summer, at the soonest. I just want to get this on the road before the snows come again, if only just to break the engine in.


The 240sx transmission is essentially finished and ready for installation. I decided to get a new front cover assembly, since the stock aluminium version had a nasty groove worn into it from the throwout bearing sleeve. Apparently Nissan upgraded the part, and the new one I received is now made from steel. Much better.


Next on the agenda is running the new fuel and brake lines. That's been put on hold until I get my new 1/2" tubing bender, since apparently the cheap $8 I got with the tubing is a piece of shit (go figure). I had to remove the diff to run the lines the way I want, and since it's been leaking like a sieve out of the pinion seal since the day I bought the car, I figured it was a good time for a rebuild.


... clearances dictated that I remove the diff from the front of the car, and removing it gave me a lot less trouble than the first time, when I had nothing but a small hydraulic jack mounted on a skateboard instead of the trolley jack I have now. Still, I think I might make a bracket for the jack when I put it back in, since it will make things much easier.


Cracking the diff open I was pleasantly surprised. The oil is incredibly dirty, but there's a respectable amount left. I expected it to be nearly bone-dry. Gears look in excellent shape, though there was a very large sliver of metal tacked on to the magnetic drain plug. You can still see the writing that Nissan made in paint marker on the ring gear.


And this is some of the awful rust I'm dealing with. This spot just around the steering column mounts is the absolute worst. I tried to fix it years ago with some phosphoric acid solution, but it's gotten worse. This time I got a small POR-15 kit to completely seal it in. I wish I could access the panel on the other side and drill out the spot welds, but it's inside the cowl in a very tight place. We'll see.

Until I get the last of my supplies, I'll continue to refinish the interior and get is squared away. I hate painting.

This post has been edited by Oddmanout84 on Jun 29 2011, 08:00 AM

Coming together... eventually...


[ Post merged on Jul 27 2011, 11:08 AM ]
I guess I could post pics of the new cooling setup too.




After about 2 months of waiting, it finally came in the mail. We'll see if it performs better than my old setup (which I suspect it will).

The progress is looking really good man!

It's slow. I never want to run hard fuel line again!!!

Yeah, running hardlines is a b*tch....
I had to do it on my 240z a few years back for the whole brake system front to back. I'm probably going to have to run hardlines for the brakes and entire fuel system on my roommates 280 shell as well :/

It's in.

w00t! effen awesome man! Moar pictures.

Most of the stuff I'm doing now is pretty boring... but I'll oblige in a bit.

Just don't expect any amazing new performance parts or new shinys for at least a couple months.

I know how that feels bro D=

didnt die on us did ya?

Not dead yet.

I wish I were still a mod just so I could delete that post and penalize you for getting my hopes up that this thread had a juicy update.

I don't have any -juicy- updates to post, I just figured I'd drop in and post a symbol of "hope" that the project isn't dead after all... just progressing veeerry slowly.

The orange Zed doesn't sleep... she waits.



Alright, I'm tired of your disingenuous assertions. Larger update dump coming soon. Provided I'm not killed in the meantime.

So... not much has happened over the last year, and not much has been posted. There were a lot of reasons; money, life, Mass Effect 3, engagement... but mostly loss of interest. I got frustrated with how slowly things were progressing, how much extra was needed to get the car to go in the direction that I wanted. Because I can't sit still, I started a ton of new projects around the car while the engine was out/cold. These projects took a longer time than expected, and eventually overran the time that was allotted for the engine. I overwhelmed myself, and it all became too much. I still had no intention to sell it all away, but I needed to step back and take a break.

So after this year of shit and driving my wheezy little putt-putt (Mazda 3), I'm back. I'm dividing my time a little more strictly now, but because of what was going on last year, I still have a lot of projects to finish besides the engine.


The rear fenders still need the final stitching up, the gas tank still needs to get finished, the dash and interior still need fixing. And jesus christ, that f**king engine.


The dash is shaping up nicely. It was covered in 40 years worth of dirt and mouse shit, and cracked to hell.


I separated the metal frame from the foam and vinyl and got to work. First, the mounting for my Z is slightly different so I had to cut and weld in a new angled plate for the steering column area. Test fitting after test fitting ensued. A lot of it.


Gauges temp installed and look ok.


Glassed up the back of the vinyl to close up and hopefully prevent more cracks from forming. Then I foamed it up. Great stuff is awesome, but I still hate it.



Also made some better provisions for the three center gauges. They will now mount directly to the dash itself rather than in modded Z gauge housings.


Maybe something devious here.


The seat got a test fit too. I swapped in various thicknesses and angles of wooden boards laying around the garage to get a fit that was both comfortable and didn't prevent the door from closing. Still need to fab those rails up out of metal.




Also went through the b*tch and a half job of getting these somewhat hard to find Momo's onto my pedals. It should have been simple, but it wasn't. Beyond the brake and clutch, the dead pedal needed a better backing plate so I had to fab one up and weld it to the old one in the tightest spot ever. The accelerator pedal has an angle to it that DOES NOT LIKE to work with aftermarket pedals. Drilling holes in it was a b*tch, because I also needed to account for the angle and position of the pedal f**king with the floor and carpet. In the end, I still had to remove a ton of that obnoxious ass "joot" padding under the carpet so the pedal wouldn't bind up.





That stupid little gas cap still needs to get welded in, but not before I fix the weird angle of the spout running to the tank and get it at least close to the stock angle.



Still need to find a f**king fan and shroud that will fit this tight ass sandwich mess, while still pushing enough air.




The engine is just about 100% plumbed, but it still needs an exhaust downpipe and intake tubing completed for it to breathe. Still trying to decide what route to take with that.




Oil cooler is tapped in with a ridiculous amount of braided line to get the angles to work.



Stupid gas tank. It's a spare, but it's going to be my main once I weld the sump on and line it with POR-15. For now, I'm still just trying to clean out decades of varnish and gasoline residue just so it doesn't explode in my face when I weld.

And that leaves us with supersecret project Dirtf**k. I have this lovely little can of carb cleaner. Used parts from the 70's go into it, then they come out practically looking like they've never been used. But that's not really supersecret, is it?




Pistons go in two by two...






Maybe some day the truth will be revealed.

Keep it up. Everything takes time when you don't have an army helping you... That's why I have an army... wait..

Total waste of my time. Fun though.

Can't hurt...

Cricket cricket

did you CNC'd the head?and reaaaalllyyy waiting for this to be finished...can't wait to see how awesum that Z is going to be....

i see what you did there with head coooling ports.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l276/meat164colgs/330.jpg


stealing that idea^^^