Project Theseus

[Noll]

Been working on a lot of boring but necessary stuff the past week or two.


In no particular order:

- primed the fuel tank to more easily see pinholes (none spotted, still going to pressure-test it though)

- pulled the handbrake lever off to properly seal the hole where it goes into the trans tunnel

- adjusted the handbrake nuts way off to give the rear handbrake caliper levers a lot more usable throw

- glued closed-cell foam to the fuel tank straps as a replacement for the old rubber bits

- dropped the header off to get sandblasted/ ceramic coated, will get it back in a couple weeks.

- ordered and received a bunch of gaskets and tools for the engine work

- replaced a bunch of the fuel tank-related wiring and connectors, including soldering wires directly to the sender with a plug instead of the stock nailhead connectors

- made up a kinda ugly but totally functional J bolt for the fuel tank strap as I didn't feel like buying a repro one

- cleaned off the intake/exhaust gasket mating surface (with a nylon brush on a drill so as not to marr the surface)

- made a start at degreasing the front of the engine.












As soon as the new fuel sender o-ring shows up, I can test the tank and the paint it. Then just need to buy a bunch of hoses and I can slap it under the car for good.

[Noll]

As I've not pulled apart a L-series before, I figured I'd practice on my spare L28 first to make sure I didn't mess anything up with pulling the head, as it needs to be torn down anyway and I wanted to see how bad it was inside.

Lots of old powdery (coolant?) junk here, but the bores seem like all they need is a dingleball hone.




Same deal with the head, would be good to hot-tank it if I ever want to use it as those coolant passages are nasssty.






Testing out my new spring compressor, I stole a couple of intake valve out of the head and cleaned them up so they're ready to drop into the L26 head if its stuck valves end up being bent and not just rusty. I'm hoping I can just work them back and forth and break them free though, have to take the cam out to get at the springs with the compressor I have which is a bit of a pain with all the rocker arms etc.




Also stuffed a 5/8 T fitting into the filler neck port, as my car didn't have the stock plastic T like earlier cars and as I'm changing the venting/evap stuff a fair bit I needed some way to both vent to the filler neck, but also let pressure out when the gas cap is on - like the S1 cars It'll go up (for rollover protection) then down and out the floor to vent vapors out.
The black sealant here was probably unneeded, but I don't want any gas fumes sneaking past so no reason not to.




Also had some gold reflective tape I ordered show up, so put some on the re-painted fuel rail. +10hp lol
Jokes aside, it should help keep fuel temps down at least a little, although I'm sure having the exhaust header coated will do the bulk of any heat reduction.

[Noll]

More misc. stuff today. Due to the mishmash of 280z rockers, 240z seatbelt pockets, etc that my car is, the seatbelts didn't quite bolt up at the bottom. Die grinder to enlarge the holes(on the seatbelt bucket side) worked a treat:








The plumbing plugs I ordered last week came in, so I epoxied them into the now-unused vent holes in the tank.






Still waiting on the fuel-sender o-ring, so on to more misc. interior stuff and also removing the head from the engine next I suppose.

[zedfoot]

Maybe I missed it earlier, but why the brass fitting in the large vent? Are you blocking it or changing the type of hose?

[Noll]

Maybe I missed it earlier, but why the brass fitting in the large vent? Are you blocking it or changing the type of hose?

Do you mean on the tank or the T-fitting in the filler neck? The former is as I'm only using the large 17mm vent tube so the others are not needed (early JDM market cars didn't have the 2 vents I blocked up and the modification has been done a good few times now).

As far as the filler neck, that's because I'm running the vent line directly there, and it won't be able to vent with the filler cap on. The T lets it also go out the floor of the car so pressure can equalize as needed:

[zedfoot]

Sure simplifies things. Will you abandon the surge tank above the wheel well?

[Noll]

Sure simplifies things. Will you abandon the surge tank above the wheel well?

That's the hope! Yep, that will be eliminated too as it has no purpose with this setup, although I'll of course hang onto it for the future.

[Noll]

Started today planning to just get a few little things done but ended up progressing quite a lot.

Got out the Rust Bullet paint to do the seams inside the cowl where I'd burned the paint off when welding it back on, and came to the conclusion that there really wasn't any reason not to also paint the exterior cowl surface and the rest of the bits hidden under the fenders while I was at it.







Also made some cover panels for the rear strut tower pans so the vinyl doesn't have to go across any big voids.




Cleaned and painted the seatbelt assemblies, and some other misc stuff:




One of the things painted was the metal 'gasket clamp' pieces on the filler neck. The filler neck itself is in good shape (replaced whenever the car was rear-ended if I had to guess), but the gasket has seen better days. Anyone know if if's possible for me to buy just the gasket somewhere? If not I'll get some rubber sheet and have a go making my own, no sense spending ~200$ on a complete filler neck assembly in this case.




From there, put a first coat of paint on the tank as I'm impatient. If there ends up being some leaks when the o-ring finally arrives for me to pressure test it, I'll just clean up that area and repaint after. Not like it's a perfectly smooth finish anyway (although I'll be using some bedliner to smooth things out a bit as the final coat(s)).

[Noll]

Finally got around to finishing up the interior vinyl today. I'm got going to claim to be a master installer by any means, but it will do the job nicely and looks a hell of a lot better than the house carpet that was in there when I got the car. Hard to believe the 2nd pic was 4 years ago now.





Once I'm sure it's all cured the tape will come off and I'll go over everything with some mineral spirits to clean up splatter/residue. I'm also going to 3d-print some strut tower covers that work with the camber plates.

[KeithZed]

That is some ugliness you still have to deal with there. The work is looking good, and I'm sure you'll get it done, but it is a bunch of work.
About the heat, yes that get's tough. My dream garage would have AC as well as heat!
Keith

[Noll]

That is some ugliness you still have to deal with there. The work is looking good, and I'm sure you'll get it done, but it is a bunch of work.
About the heat, yes that get's tough. My dream garage would have AC as well as heat!
Keith

Possible the forum directed you to an earlier page? I vaguely remember mentioning garage heating last year, happily the welding on the shell is all complete now, all rust eradicated . A/C would be nice, that's for sure, a difficult balance with letting welding fumes etc out though.

------------------------------------

No major progress since last post, I did get the header back from coating though, looking pretty snazzy now. There are still some visual imperfections as it's an old header, but fine by me.



Also got a 2nd coat of bedliner on the tank so it's 100% ready to go in when the o-ring finally gets here (long story, apparently there was a computer error and it was returned-to-sender, so it's been sent to me again, hopefully successfully this time).

[Noll]

Back to welding today, got the rest of the metalwork done on the hood.

Underside needed cleaning up to start:




Much better.




front P/S corner needed a little work, so got that patched up:






Deleted the emblem holes too; not sure if I want to run one and if I do I can just use some 3M double-sided tape to mount.




On to the final repair from last time. Tacked in:




And welded up/cleaned up:




Next up will be the fenders (which don't need too much work), and then the doors, although someone I know locally might have a lead on a non-rusty set for me - just need to scrounge up the funds if so, that would save me a lot of work.

[Noll]

More fuel tank stuff today. Drilled and tapped the drain plug for the 3/8 fitting (super high-tech tap handle lol, but it worked):






And fitting in place. Stuffed some 5/16 hose slightly on to roughly show how closely it will hug the bottom of the tank:






Closed-cell foam attached in the dampening pad locations. Not the prettiest, but will work.




The o-ring also finally showed up (thanks Canada Post) so I got the sender installed, and bought all the remaining hoses/clamps I should need to put the tank in the car this weekend.




Only thing I don't have is rubber gaskets for the filler neck (body connection and where it passes through the floor), but I'll get some rubber sheet and can install that part of things later (area behind the fuel door needs to be painted anyway before the filler neck can go in).

[Noll]

Tank is in and plumbed!








Vent hose is obnoxiously red (only fuel-safe 5/8 hose they had at my local Napa), but it'll all be hidden behind trim panels. The filler neck isn't fully in place - need to paint the fuel filler pocket on the outside before I squeeze the neck of the tube through and bolt it up for good. Also need to make a rubber gasket for where the metal ring on the filler neck bolts to the body halfway up, seal the vent lines where they go in/out of the car, and 3d-print a plug for the hole on the other side of the trunk floor that would have been for the now-unused other vent line.

Have some rubber sheet on the way to use to make all that.




Also cleaned up around the car in preparation for getting it off the jackstands. I have an appointment to get my other 2 tires/wheels mounted and balanced on tuesday, so if nothing else come up after that I should have the car on the ground the same day.

[zedfoot]

I tried installing my tank yesterday and couldn't find this 2" piece of hose.
Too bad you're so far away, it drop by and bum a scrap of your red hose.