Say Hello

Im 27 now and im from switzerland and have a love for JDM cars. i allready own two other japanese cars (later models) but with this particular one i kind of fulfilled a dream i had for quite a few years now.

i was looking for a Japanese car that has a little scene and has a lot of parts avialeble, because it's my first restoration project.. i searched quite long and after i saw a few Z's a the steckborn classic hillclimb i decided it should be a ZED.

after long searching and looking over several years i made a garagefind and found another garage-find who was for sale on the internet.. the red one (my garage-find) was completely stock but hadn't been used for about 10 years. it had replaced fenders (a few years ago) and was repainted in greed. both engines didnt work... also it was a bit expensive as the first owner still owned it and kind of lost is heart to this car but wasn't able to restore it...

The second one was a good price, it was allready painted in white (sadly in a really not-fitting flashy pearl-white) lik i wanted it to.
the car was rebuilt a few years ago but the prevous owner never completed it and due to standing around for a long time it had severall small damages and surface-rust. but the complete big rust spots have allready been repaired and the complete car has been repained. all the rubber parts and bushings have been replaced a few years ago, as well as the suspension struts. all footwork has been sanded and powdercoated. the exhaust mainfold has been metal-plated so it won't rust agian. and the engine has been rebuilt.. also it hasn't got a sunroof as most cars in switzerland (done afterwards..) and the dash isn't cracked. also complete exhaust system has been replaced a few years ago. good things

but well the bad things:
front and rear has a dent (well i get new bumpers with the car ), carbs are missing. interieur is horrible selfmade-thing. (Kind of shoe-shop carpet, with blue plush headliner and camouflage decoration... horrible

well and of course a lot of parts are missing. but i think it's still a very good base for a restoration.

car comes with a 260Z intercooler (very good shape), with a OEM shiftknob (at the monemt an alfa-romeo item is mounted...), a new front lower bracket, a new rear bumper, a rear wing and rear window cover, a set of almost new period-correct könig reclinging racing seats with rails and a set of new mesh-wheels with new tires - great

i managed also to get all the documents an papers from the previous owner. great

i thought i make a new post for adding the pictures, but due to i'm new i need two other pots to post picters.
this is the second one..

here it is.. in a few weeks i will pick it up and bring it home into my garage













the plan is to rebuild it within a few years with period-correct parts. i'd like to make it a bit sportier than it is so maybe the engine and exterior will get a little sport-treatment, but we'll see..

first i'll have to get the car towed homewards, next i will try to strip it down at home then i think a chassis / Paint-guy will need to check what needs to be done and after that is done i think i will need to assabmle the car to my dream car... we'll see how it turns out and how much time i'll need

I'll keep you updated..

otherwise my blog should be daily updated:
http://s30zproject.wordpress.com/

oh damn. the pictures are quite big in here, I'll try to fix that soonn..

yes, little bit smaller size pictures would be nice

are maybe an auto picture resize tool in het forumsoftware..

_________________
Japanseklassiekers!

1970 C30 Laurel
1972 240Z
1973 610 Wagon
1977 260Z
1995 Micra
1999 200SX

here we go - pictures have been resized

here we go, i added a few more pictures, so you can see all th e small damages...

Damaged front lower bumper thing


Pulley seem to be a bit rusted




Paint chipped on the headlight surrounding


Mesh wheels (new) that will come with the car...


the könig reclining seats


rear damage (new bumper will come with the car)


tank lock


front suspension


trunk inside (see the blue plush... sucks!!)


ignition wires and more parts missing. paint on the valve cover
sucks too....


new exhaust in the back


front damage close-up


more from the horrible interieur-job....


the almost new s60Z radiator that i will get with the car too

nice find! the carpet job is horrible indeed

_________________
Japanseklassiekers!

1970 C30 Laurel
1972 240Z
1973 610 Wagon
1977 260Z
1995 Micra
1999 200SX

You should send that carpet Stateside, to the infamous Yuta...nothing goes with Sharpie'd fenders like some '80s carpet.

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

good find, you have your work cut out for you though. The red and gold underneath the car is interesting. Are there many parts locally for your build, or will you have to find most off the net?

thanks guys

@ gts-retro: Well the Z has worldwide a lot of fans so i believe there should be a lot of parts avialeble. also a few z-specialized garages in switzerland still race with the Z so i believe they may have a few spareparts and sparepart-donator-cars in stock.
but i have good connections to japan so i try to get some hard-to-find aftermarket parts (all period-correct) for my car and of course i think i will need to order a lot of small parts from the big z-shops and ebay, but im pretty sure i'll be able to source all of the parts i need somewhere

hey, the world is so small with internet

I'm also in Switzerland (Neuchatel) and own a 240z.

I went to see your car in february this year with a friend who was looking for a Z. I remember the car was partially restored (like the powder coated frame part, new floor panels) which is good but you still have a lot of things to do on it. If I remember well, the inner part of the rear fender was not repaired properly where it joins to the fender.

Was the seller still proud of what he called sperm white color paint?

In Geneva the Nissan garage Promocar is very capable to order 240z parts. I can tell you who to ask. Most other Nissan garage don't bother looking for parts for such an old car or even don't have the parts list.

You can contact me if you want advices.
Keep us updated with the restauration of this Z, I'm interested.
Good luck

_________________
1973 euro 240Z

HI MItX,

haha, how small the world is

im from schaffhausen but currently in montreux for a few days

THanks for the input. As the car is currently still at the current owner i hadn't have the chance to check it in detail, but im sure it was a good car for a good price, but also was shure that it will need some repair, repaint and a lot of work done. but that was exactly what i was looking for.. not too much bodywork to do, but not an expensive car that was restored in a way i don't like it

well the seller of course wanted me to know that the colour was more expensive than any standard colour but well i didn't really like the colour and at least he didn't call it sperm white to me

of course i'll keep you updated. in about 1-2 weeks i'll get the car home and then i start.. currently im searching the internet for good parts sources and manufacturesrs and already found a lot of interresting things.. we'll see

A few days ago i ordered a little magazine from Japan like i usually do for my project cars. it's called G-works magazine.

It's a magazine by the Sun-A group (Same company that also makes the option magazines) And usually features a lot of cool japanese cars, parts, projects and information. I ordered this particular magazine because this issue was dedicated to the famous Office tomitaku S30Z.
And also these magazines usually feature a lot of Ad's from japanese tuners, restoration companies and shops where to get good and cool parts from. and so it was

I also ordered a How-to book here in europe but it hasn't arrived yet. On the weekend the project will continue

So - here we go. the project finally begins
today i was out to get the car towed home. and that was exactly what we did. after about 2hours of driving we arrived at the place the car was stored.

look how innocent she looks unter the central-swiss morning sun :


we loaded the car onto a trailer and went directly to the owners place where he stored a lot of other nice (european and american) classics and builds-in-progress..


there we picked up the seats and some box-new mesh wheels he had mounted on his other crazy widebody-S30. I found out those are MSW wheels and are designed and manufactured by OZ wheels. and was suprised how light those wheels where. anyway. i'll get something more JDM for her once other things have been done..


Finally we arrived at home after another 2hours of driving and unloaded the car in front of my garage. on the picture below you arleady can se the "new" MSW
Wheels mounted on the rear. looks pretty good i think and makes the car straight cooler istead of those rusty steelies


Seats, wing, wheels, spare-rearbumper and radiator also unloaded and placed in front of the garage..


because i haven't managed to clean up my garage and get the space for this Z and the parts i decided to keep it outside for a few days. but im pretty sure there will fall a few raindrops so i decided to close the missing windows and holes with a bit tape and trashbags


A Friend of mine showed up and he works at the local car-registration center, so he knows a lot about rust and oldtimers and checked the car. he told me there must be a lot of filler underneath the wheel housings and things, but otherwise it's in really good shape and has no bigger rust spots. exactly what i expected to hear. great car hope to get some things done this weekend, but im not sure


Next big tasks will be to change the two front wheels to the newer onces, so i can throw those badass steelies. then i will begin to clean out the car on the inside with a load of nitro and sticker-ex then i think the car is much mor accessible and we'll see whats up next

Today i decided to get some things done so the project can start safely

Bought myself a bit more lighting for the garage and a mechanic-suit (Yes, these are my feet )


then i thought the lady could need a little bath, so i took a bit soapy water and a sponge and cleaned the surface from years of dust...


wonder where these red spots on the hood come from. they weren't removable with a sponge sadly, but no problem. the car will be repainted anyway..


Looked way better after a little bath


Next pont on the 2do-List was actually change the frontwheels to the ASW ones. This is how the suspension looked underneath. quite good i think, but there's a bit of rust lurking in the wheel housing..


and that's how she looked with the new wheels on - i like..


Next task was cleaning out the car from all the crap inside and see which parts came with the car...
Pulled out the horrible blue plush roof covering first..


Second was the ugly custom carpets in the trunk:


These parts came with the car:
Used, but complete black rear bumper:


A Pair of cool oldschool könig reclinig seats:


with matching seatrails as well


crazy aftermarket wing (Won't mount that on my Z - so if anyone's interrested - let me know )


got some doorhandles also


and of course a 260Z radiator with piping


Now last part for today was cleaning out the garage so i can work inside in the upcoming cold winterdays and of course prevent the lady from snow and rain


I'll try to find some time tomorrow to get the hatch open (wasn't able to open the hatch today) so a bit more cleaning and vacuuming on the inside can begin...

Whoop, another update yesterday i decided to get a little things done on the interior. Or maybe i'd rather say getting the crap out of the car

First problem straight at the start - i wasn't able to open the trunk. tried all the keys, but that damn lock didn't open. i decided to go the other way and removed the lock carrier on the back


here we go - open sesame As you can see someone already have begun to take off the plush-crap on the right side and the floor carpet on the driver side. all i've done yet was removing the wood cover on the sparewheel.


asd you can see there are a lot of small glass bits who once may have been the drivers side window :/


then i took a closer look on the roof and discovered that there must have been a sunroof before, even if the previous owner told me this is the version without sunroof.. needs a bit rework there, but at least it looks good from the outside. we'll see how it looks underneath the paintjob...


Same with the dashboard. as i wasn't able to take a clooser look on the dash, the previous owner wos proud of the fact that the dashboard wasn't cracked.. may have happened on the way home or something but the dashboard needs definitly a replacement.. not a big problem but im lucky about every usable bit in the car


after that i began to remove interior parts.. started with the center console who was in a good shape. i also removed the sunroof (who were covered in that plush too, but underneath still in usable quality) as well as the inner mirror.


looked like this then:


after that i decided to get away with all this shitty plush and pulled it all out. as you can see it was kind of taped in with that yellow tape-mat. will need alot of time to remove all these yellow stuff..


also removed a big amount (filled a complete big garbage-bag) with carpet-parts from the front part and those black tar-mats (think those are for sound and heat isolation). those brown spots in the front are luckily no rust spots. those are just the glue from the black tar mats.. i will need a little more time to get things done on the interior..


also downloaded all the service and user manuals from: http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html
so i can see how different parts are mounted and what's missing

Also did some smaller stuff like vacuum-cleaned the car and removed those brown tape-spots on the outside and a reflector-thingy that was placed on the front bumper..

Next steps will be to remove more interior, the dooor-steps, bumpers, and than clean it out all.. hope i get some time to work on it soon again...

Another update coming in here

decided to get some work done. the plan was to get the dash out and some other things done, but after i tried to get those tar-mats out i felt like i should continue doing this. i ended up creating a big mess in three hours of work most of those mats came out pretty good. im not sure if th is a OEM thing or if they've done this during the restoration, but the complete cabin and trunk is filled out with this shitty mats on the floor. they even have been painted. anyway, got out big pieces, but still a lot to do.. the good thing: There is bare metal under t hose mats, no paint. and the metal looks really good. almost no rust. great
think i will try to get the dash out on the weekend. oh well and i almost forgot. prepared the seatrails.. ehrm means i cut away the old BMW mounts because the old owner wantned them back and we werent' able to get the screws off. lucky the screw remains on thepart that he will get back and my seatrails are ready now for som Z mounts that came with the car - great..

Here some pictures of today's progress:

Tools in heavy use..


Big bits coming off the center console..


Mess in the front after a lot is removed..


Mess in the hatch after i started work there..

Hmm - i know - the plan was to get out the dashboard today. but after it was so much fun to bang those isolation-mats out i continued with that today. after two hours i got the complete trunk mats out and was pretty happy with the result


After that i decided to work on the dashboard removal. had a old service manual, but im not sure if i have the right year, because it seems my car is slightly different and i havent' an idea wich year my car has, because im still waiting for the documents...
I started to remove a few things: Old Alfa-romeo shiftknob that was fitted and really wasn't nice...


The Fusebox:


an old crappy equalizer that was mounted under the glove box:


and the dashboard top cover..


after that i removed a few wire-harnesses and things and unbolted the steering column mount. but than i wasn't somhow able to find the other screws where the dashboard was mounted..

i got out all the green things and screws but wasn't sure if the orange ones where right and didn't find the red ones at all, because there where so many wires and brackets...


So after a few hours i got really tired and because today was one of those maybe last nice fall days i decided to get my other beauty out for a ride before snow starts to fall. It always makes my heart jump when i hear this spoon intake combined with a toda exhaust mainfold and a tanabe catback system rev up to 9k rpm up those hills.... aaah and of course i had my camera with me:


now i'll have to study those service manuals a bit more so hopefully i'm able to remove the dashboard, or at least a bit more next time

Decided to work a bit more on the dashboard today and somehow i managed to find and get out all the screws. the dashboard is still in but i can move it now. need to disconnect a few connectors and things but im lucky with today's results. didn't make a lot pictures. but thought this one was cool