Project Theseus

[zedfoot]

I did exactly the same thing with one of my Bosch. Now if you look closely, one says motorcycle in the lens.

[Noll]

I did exactly the same thing with one of my Bosch. Now if you look closely, one says motorcycle in the lens.

Glad to hear I'm not alone haha. I figured that keeping the Bosch housing would be the important thing for light output/dispersion/etc, and this was free, just took some time. The 'new' lens is a tad different cosmetically but nothing major, and is marked as being made in England so I'd assume is pretty good quality. I'm still annoyed at myself for dropping it to begin with, but oh well.

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adhesive/sealant all dry, and pretty happy with the result of the headlight repair:




And made the relay harness. It looks deceptively simple here but took a couple hours to make; laying out all the wires where they should go, lots and lost of soldering, adding plugs, making the sub-harnesses from the buckets, etc. Nothing overly complicated, just a lot of time spent to make it be built right.




And on the car. Can't really see much difference here, but that's kinda the point after all, fits/blends in nicely.

[Noll]

Been pushing forward with a lot of kinda boring but necessary stuff.

New alternator and belt in. Had to file the mount ears a bit as they were too thick to fit over the stock lower mount for some reason (new casting? idk). only had to take a tiny bit off though. Plugged the alt back in and yay, no dead short when the battery is hooked up.




Hatch latch/lock all in and working (and locking with key!)




designed/printed some covers for the factory unused holes near the throttle rod (RHD heater box maybe?), and put the re-plated metal cover over them.




Took the current throttle linkage return spring brackets off, will be making some that are a lot nicer and about 10mm longer to keep more tension on the linkage.




Re-routed the carb vent lines, as without the stock airbox they just would dump onto the hot exhaust. Turned out decently clean IMO, teed them together and ran a line over to the pass. side so if they do dump fuel it shouldn't be somewhere where it'll combust.






Getting there! lots more misc to do as well as bigger stuff such as precisely setting camber/rideheight/toe, making sure the engine runs nicely, clutch/brake bleeding, etc.

[Noll]

Still working on the misc. stuff - interior assembly, small engine work, etc etc. Some of the highlights include:

welded some scrap into a cupholder:






Decided where I wanted to drill holes for the side mirrors and got them mounted:




And reworked the rear section of the exhaust so it wasn't like 1/4" off the ground. This was a bit of a pain to do in-situe (removed the rear section to cut/section/weld but left the front 3/4 of the exhaust bolted up), but got it done.

Before:




And after. The car is rather low so there's obviously never going to be tons of clearance but way happier compared to before.

[zedfoot]

I like that cup holder solution.
That's going to be some loud exhaust.

[Noll]

I like that cup holder solution.
That's going to be some loud exhaust.

Thanks! It's pretty basic but should do the job nicely.

And yeah, it's not going to be a whisper that's for sure. there is a 'cherry-bomb' muffler in the transmission tunnel acting as a resonator and a bit of extra quietening, so between the two it shouldn't be too crazy. If it ends up bugging me I can always replace the rear muffler without TOO much hassle.

[zedfoot]

My answer to tame the drone on the highway. Wing nuts let me pop it off when I get there. 20210906_150209.jpg

[vvise]

love the cup holder, I still need to figure something out in my car, might steal this idea... no power steering and a drink in your hand = literally not possible to get out of the drive through haha...

[Noll]

My answer to tame the drone on the highway. Wing nuts let me pop it off when I get there.

Smart! Hopefully mine doesn't require that, but always good to have the option.

love the cup holder, I still need to figure something out in my car, might steal this idea... no power steering and a drink in your hand = literally not possible to get out of the drive through haha...

Thanks! It's nothing fancy, but should do the job nicely. Yeah, lack of power steering will make that fun for sure haha.


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Got the suspension mostly set up today - didn't do toe yet, but each corner's ride height and camber. The old accident damage definitely was rearing it's head here, the adjustment required side-to-side in the rear was quite different. Got the camber within 1/3 of a degree though, so well within in factory tolerances. Will probably eventually get T3 or Apex adjustable LCAs to be able to play around with more stuff.

Rolled it outside and grabbed some pics.






The volvo really shows off how small it is:




I tried to bleed the clutch too but had zero luck getting any pedal at all from a gravity bleed. Apparently there is a one-way valve in the master cyl that could be stuck and letting fluid bypass? I might just buy a new MC as it's like 30 bucks and I think mine is the original 48-year old OEM one.

[Noll]

On to one of the last welding jobs on the Z. I may have a lead on a pair of better doors, but in the event that doesn't pan out I want to have already started on fixing these ones.

Started by welding up all the old mirror mount holes in the driver's door:






Cut some strips off my 2nd hacked-up hood to use to fix the door bottoms:




Today's goal was to make up the exterior skin panels, shape them to the rockers and tack them on in place - I'll butt weld them in properly then pull the doors off to do all the structural repairs etc.

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Both door skins aren't really attached at the leading edge which is why they're bowing out in the pics. I assure you that the gaps are actually even haha.

Need to decide just how proper I want to do the repairs, would like to get better doors eventually so might just do the bare minimum to make them not have holes etc. We'll see.

[Noll]

Continued on with door repair today. Got all the panels that I had made welded on properly and cleaned up. The new sections are bit wavy (the p/s especially) as they're just a single layer of metal at the moment, once the doors are off the car I'll obviously be welding a flange on the back and connecting them to the bottom face of the doors etc.

[Noll]

Been madly trying to get everything done, so haven't posted much.

Some highlights of recent work include:

Notched the strut tower bar only to find that when I reinstalled it it suddenly had more clearance than before, like it should? Idk what the cause was, but hey, not a bad thing.




All painted and on the car:




Replaced the clutch master and got the clutch bled (all seems well with the clutch as far as I can tell, feels decent). Replaced the booster too as the pedal was locked solid pretty much and I narrowed it down to the booster - not sure of the cause, but got a brand new reman booster from a friend for 50CAD so can't complain. Wasn't too bad to swap it out even with the dash etc in there now.




Got the whole front end properly on (well mostly, bumper/grille will be later). Lot of tweaking to get stuff to sit right, but I'm happy with it for now - panel gaps aren't amazing but acceptable, just need to adjust the inspection panel lids a bit more and should be good to go. I even got the hood latch aligned perfectly the first try which was pretty nice.

[Noll]

On to door repair. To say that the drivers side is rough is beyond an understatement. There was one heck of a bondo job hiding all this. Some examples:












I'm sure I COULD fix everything back to looking factory, but I don't think it's worth the effort vs sourcing a new door. I still need a door for now that at least opens/shuts/doesn't break in half, so on to some really half-assed welding to just give it some amount of structural integrity.

Turns out you can get a lot done quickly when precision, looks, and 'doing things the right way' aren't factors. Behold some REALLY hackjob work that will do the job long enough for me to get a new door.









Will get the bottom done tomorrow - need to add the U bend for where the door seal sits so the door will actually shut properly then build down from there. The front area will get bondo'd to hell, I welded in some bits to make sure it doesn't flex so the goal is just to fill in the holes to keep water out. Taking a lot of very bad practice shortcuts here obviously but as mentioned this door is only really worth that, I just need to have a driver's door in SOME condition for now.

Happily I may have a lead on a nice passenger-side door - would be a probably 8 hour round trip to go get it but honestly I'd be spending that much time if not more to do that door properly (it's bad but not AS bad as the driver's side), so just getting a known-good door I can just bolt on and be done with would be nice.

[Noll]

Ok, hackery on the door is complete. As before, precision and final finish weren't really big priorities given that the door is not really worth it, just made sure it was strong enough to use till I find a better door. pretty much all 16ga steel, so probably overbuilt, but that's what I had lying around so ah well.






Will stick it on the car tomorrow when stuff has dried, then need to add the window stuff, door latch mechanism stuff, and suchlike.

[Noll]

Door on, and front end all adjusted, plus bumper, sidemarkers, grille, etc all on. Got the driver's door opening and locking perfectly, latches/sits nicely enough.





I managed to source a clean passenger door, so tomorrow I get to drive 6 or 7 hours roundtrip to go get that. I also need to get some 240z window regulators (a driver's side at least), as the 260z ones are apparently different and the window hits the crash bar. I have a friend looking through his parts for a pair he should have, and if not I know someone with a parts horde that likely has one and another person that definitely has a pair but is 8-9h round trip in the other direction from this door I'm going to get so would like to source some closer ones if possible.