Datsun280z
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Posts
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Everything posted by Datsun280z
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News years day looking good so time to drag the cars out for long overdue drive. Mean as day...
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Latest completely useless addition to the engine... Fitted a catch tank Managed to break this fitting in the process So drilled out, tapped and fitted this guy Made up hose and fitted up Catch can fittings All done
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Pushed it outside for a wash in the wicked weather... Need to drive it
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Also here's a couple of shots of my mates RB30 260. Now fully certed and ready to go... finally Now drive it Xray
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I wasn't that happy with the old fuel line on the carbs. One of the fittings on the back carb was the wrong type and didn't fit correctly so decided to start new. Probably completely over kill but anyway. Will look to get all the fittings anodized black in the new year. Carb lines Fuel pump side Completed loop Made up new mounting bracket for the fuel filter. it was previously cabled tied in place which wasn't ideal Also gave the wiring a tidy up and moved fuseable link wiring onto a new bracket. Surprisingly started first time with no leaks which was a bonus!
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Got the exhaust finished off, new single tip on Old crappy twin tip Single on Got a set of 50mm trumpets out of the UK Shaped up the back flange to match the carbs Gave the carbs a tidy up and fitted up the trumpets Carbs bolted back up. Fuel tines are the next thing needing some attention... Scored a MSD coil, the existing coil wiring was a bit of a mess Ripped out the crappy old coil and ballast resistor Along with a heap of redundant hacked up wiring New coil in and looking a bit neater
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Slight change of plans in the engine department means the L28 is staying in there for now. RB will more than likely get fitted later but I want the car running for summer not sitting in the shed getting an engine transplant. Goal now is to get the old L motor a looking a bit tidier. First on the list is to get rid of this awesome flowing stock exhaust manifold. Sorted a set of headers from my mate, in a bit of a tired state but something to work with. Cut off the rotten back end and welded on a new flange and 02 bung for wideband. Hit hard with the wire wheel and they tidied up pretty well. Painted with POR 15 high temp heat paint. No idea how long it will last but I haven't had much luck with the VHT stuff so thought would give it a go. Modified my existing exhaust to bolt up to the new headers. System is in really good condition which was a bonus. Painted it all to match the headers, prob waste of time but never mind. Threw it all back in the car. Last job was to cut off the rude twin tips that came with the car. They stuck out miles and looked crap. Replacing with very simple tip. Next step is to clean up the carbs. Have some velocity stacks on the way to replace the tired old filters.
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Got the front suspension tidy up finished also. Things didn't exactly go according to plan though. When trying to reassemble lower arms with new poly bushes I had real trouble trying to get one to fit into cross member. I decided to drop out the cross member and do some investigating. Once it was out and degreased I found a small "issue", the was a split in the cross member and I could visibly see that it was slightly bent. Here you can see the crack Obviously this isn't to cool but as luck would have it someone on TM was selling a 260z x member so quickly grabbed that as I knew it would be a lot easier that trying to fix the old bent one. Picked up the replacement and it looked mint. Gave it a tidy up before reassembly Cleaned up steering rack and threw that back on. Installed LCAs into new x member and mounted back in the car. Installed sway bar with new bushings, dropped car back on the ground and tightened everything up. Next thing I need to do is get some stiffer rated front springs, shorter shocks and then section the struts to give some more suspension travel. We are about to do this on my mates blue 260...
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Another boring yet painful job finished. My car had no working heater and when you turned the fan on it would blow but air didn't seem to want to come out of any vent. On top of this looking under dash I could see the heater valves were looking in really bad shape (rust) so decided to bite the bullet and rip out the dash. Getting it out wasn't as big of a nightmare as I thought it would be. I am glad I did as it was a bit of a mess under there.. My car had the factory aircon built in which has long been retired but the core was still in the dash. As a part of that system all the air vent flaps are controlled by vacuum valves. The reason none of the vents would work was because the vacuum line to the engine was not connected. I also discovered non of the air vent tubes were connected (some were missing) and all of the foam seals had long turned to dust.. An example of the state of the foam seals, not doing much sealing anymore. Heater box in as bad shape. Note the vacuum activated valves on the right hand side. Replaced all the old foam with new stuff This was the state of the heater valves. I suspect it has been leaking for a very long time and was the cause for the small patch of the rust in the floor that I had to repair. Fortunately the valve that was leaking is part of the aircon system and is no longer required. Thankfully there is a second manual valve (crazy ass system) that is in good condition so I was able to re plumb things without to many issues. All the old heater hoses and clamps were replaced as they were looking super dodgy. Next thing was rip out the aircon core. This thing is a beast but in excellent condition if anyone wants it? Replaced the air vent ducting as the old stuff was crap and tidied up some wiring then reassembled everything and put dash back in. To my surprise everything actually works which is a bonus. I now have working window defogger which is mint. Fingers crossed I don't have to venture back in there any time soon.
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Slowly getting rid of the awesome blue that haunts my dreams..... Driver side suspension parts removed. Many smurfs gave up their lives for these parts to be painted... It is everywhere Stripped and painted ready for install. New LCA bushings going in too.
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Some more work done. Needed to install bump stops in the front struts as the old ones had turned to dust at some stage in the past and fit new bushings to sway bar. While I had the suspension apart though might as well tidy things up a bit. This is how things were looking under there, pretty rough.... Stripped down cleaned and painted strut, LCA and traction rod. Sadly no coil over conversion at this stage but hopefully down the track. Strut ready to go back in. Cleaned up and put some fresh under seal on wheel well. Strut back in. Half way there, still have to finish right hand side and refit sway bar.
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Thought I would throw up a few pics of my mates build as he is too useless to do it himself. Car is a 260 and in awesome condition. He has done everything right on this build, ZG kit, genuine Watanabes, RB30DET conversion etc. It is such a sweet car. It is currently going through the cert process and having some changes made to the fuel system. I will post up changes to it as they happen for anyone that is interested... Few shots Engine setup. Rb30/Rb25 head. Latest addition is similar wing to on my car. Finishes the kit off.
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After test drive last weekend I was getting some nasty "clunking" sounds coming from the diff on deceleration or gear changes. I knew the rear diff mount bushes were in pretty bad shape so guessed this was probably the cause. So ordered a complete poly bush kit from the states. Will slowly replace all bushes on the car over time. Started with diff, old bushes were destroyed, looked to be made of dust... RIP OEM bushes Bushes inside the moustache bar were both torn right through also. After some burning, cutting, scraping and bashing got them out. Gave the bar a quick tidy up while it was out. No more awesome blue.. Fitted back in with new poly bushes installed. You can feel more driveline vibration in the car now and the uni-joints still make a bit of noise but big improvement as the bad "clunk" is now gone. Also reached a bit of a milestone, got one of these so I can actually drive it! Represent..
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Needed a break from putting interior back together so thought I would tackle front of the car. Both indicators were in pretty rough shape with one being cracked and I am not confident it will pass warrant like that. Car was also missing some plastic trim that goes around the indicators (judging from the old pics of the car looks like it has never had them). I ordered a new set of reproduction indicator lenses and some uses trim covers from eBizzle. Pulled out the indicators and disassembled. Thankfully the rubber seals were still in OK condition. Gave parts a quick clean. Here you can see how crap the old lens is vs. the repro one. Quick clean up, ready to reassemble One ready Tidied up the indicator covers All fitted back up. Also repainted grill satin black to match bumpers.
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So ordered a f/g front splitter from down in the Tron via TM. Only problem is it is for the 240/260s which have the indicators below the bumper. Being a 280 mine has them in the front grill. Trying to find reasonably priced 240 indicators is like trying to find golden unicorn turds so decided to modify what I had and see how it goes. Started by cutting away unwanted f/g, fitting to car and making cardboard templates to get correct shape. Then glassed up the holes and added some tabs to allow for some extra support brackets. Then some filler and lots of shaping and came out with something looking kind of Ok. Primed and test fitted. Once happy it looked half decent I painted it up satin black to match all the other parts. Then fitted up. Made some brackets to hold from body to the glassed on tabs for some extra strength. Pushed car outside to see how it looks. Getting there slowly...
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Ordered myself and a mate a rear wing from down in Christchurch after a recommendation from Pedey. Turned up pretty quickly and quality was all good so time to jam it on. Test fit Painted and bolted on..
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So when I got the car the bumpers were in a pretty bad way. The rear bumper looked like it had been painted with chrome in a can and the front was a shocker. It was too wide for the car somehow and had been bent and bashed into shape to make sort of fit. The brackets had been bashed to death also. I really have no idea how they got it on to be honest. I am trying to track down a replacement front bumper but in the mean time thought I would have a crack at tidying it up. First I had to make some new brackets that actually allowed the bumper to fit on ok. The ones it came with had the bumper sitting miles out in front. Once done I had to cut the bumper in two and remove some metal to make it fit then re-weld. I really have no idea what the bumper was off originally.. Test fit, bit better Once happy with it I welded up all the holes in it smoothed it out as best I could and painted I also stripped back the rear bumper, welded up some holes and painted Painted both up satin black and fitted. I will still try and find another bumper but looks better than it did. Front on Rear on
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Bit more progress
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One flare finished. Cut metal treated and painted. Flare painted and rubber welting installed. (Para Rubber FTW)
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I wanted to put ZG style flares on the car so ordered a f/g set from the states. Quality was pretty good for the price. They come in a gloss black gell coat finish Trial fit - 14inch Enkies looking pretty small Next came the rough bit, hacking up some mint guards. Measure up then hack away. This part kind of hurt... Fold lower edge to meet, weld and trim. Drill some holes and install some rivnuts. Repeat on other side matching heights Now measure fronts and cut. Easy as compared to the rears. All for corners done. Pushed car outside to make sure everything lines ok. Looks Ok. We also swapped out the rear shock top isolators with some front versions which are around 30mm shorter to bring the rear ride height down a bit and remove some of the rake the car had. Flares still need to be painted, all welding and cuts treated and painted and rubber welting fitted.
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When the car was originally painted the owner decided to paint the door window frames and rear quarter windows body colour. I didn't really like that look and the car came with a set of chrome quarter windows extra. I am on the lookout for some stainless door window frames (or may attempt to strip the paint from these ones eventually) but as a temp step I have painted the trims satin black. Flares, Wing, Splitter etc will all be black so should sort of match. Before - note door frame is body colour and rear quarter is chrome. I did not paint the chrome quarter windows but the spare body coloured one that came with the car. After - slight improvement
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I am changing the look of the car (ZG flares etc) so needed new wheels. Sadly budget doesn't stretch to Watanabe's or Works so went with Rota RBs as they look ok, have pretty good offsets and fitted my weak budget. 17 x 9 +19 Fronts and 17 x 9.5 +13 Rears Fitted Falken 225/45 to Fronts and 245/40 to Rears Test fit
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First thing needing attention was some small pockets of rust. Firstly in each front lower tower corner. The drivers side was the worse of the two but both needed work. Before - rust is awesome After - patched and painted. (Stink phone pictures) Next were the rails, neither was really bad but they have been crushed over time and started to open along the edge in a few spots. Before - rust is awesome After - patched, treated internally, painted and under sealed.
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Um discuss here?
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This is my build thread from another site. Picked up a 280 that was pretty tidy but had been off the road for quite a few years. Discussion thread here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/43595-datsun280zs-280-of-slowness/ Few pics of the car from back in the day (2006) I stole from the NZ Z club website. Tracked down the old owner too, is a real good cat, told me history of the car which was cool. Sadly the black front bumper is long gone and in its place a pretty bent mess but should be able to sort something. Engine is still running the triple Mikuni carbs and does run but just not all that well.. An RB25 conversion is planned for the not to distant future. I am starting to make some progress with the car so with throw up a few pics for anyone that is interested. Car straight of the transporter, mission to get off as brakes were seized on, cool..
